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Well, I would like to point something out. First of all, the reason they threw out so called "gospels" was not because they had an agenda. What happened was that people were writing stuff that utterly contradicted the original manuscripts, known to have been written by eye witnesss and such, and giving it names like "the gospel of so-and-so" to get people to read it. it was a bunch of scams, most of which began after all witnesses were dead, so no one could say "Hey! That's not tru!" they looked at the evidence, prayed, scrutinized every detail, and finally concluded that a certin number of books were true. There are certin things that are uniqe to what I believe are divinly inspired writings, or if you like, "real" books of the bible: they constantly refer back to the old testament scriptures,
they agree with the teachings of Christ, as recorded in the known to be reliable eye witness acounts in the gospels,
they don't try to hide anything about themselves (notice that, if most people were to begin a religion, they'd try to portray themselves as perfect, instead, they are human, real, falible, and, frankly, honest)
and, though each has an extrordinairy level of quality, they all retain their own personalities:
Mathew, a tax colector, catogorized everything, and emphasized those teachings appealing to Jews, like himself
Mark, a Roman, always using strong verbs, emphasizing action and power, that apealed to Romans like himself.
Luke, a doctor, always threw in bits about medical conditions, detailing it from his own, scientific (yes, even before "science", they used such scientific techniques like observation and testing to discover things) point of view,
and John, who seems to speak to all of us together, and brings to the stage many things that are not revealed in the others.

Altogether, the Bible has been assembled in the way we have it now for good reasons. try really looking into it before you judge.

Tell you what, why don't you try to prove your dropped gospels, and disprove the accepted ones?

and remember, be honest. What you find may not be comfortable, but, as C.S. Lewis said,
"You can't get to the comfort withouth first going through the dismay. If you look for the truth, you'll find dismay, but beyond it there may be comfort, but if you look for comfort, all you'll get is fluff, and ultimitly, dispair."

P.S.

I'm a Christian, being brought up as one, drifted severly, but somehow, I got back. All I can say is that I know there is a God, and because of this, I can say that all religions contain truth, but I know that Christ is true. He lived, died, and rose. We are created. Even if we can't "prove" creation and the flood, we can't prove evolution either. Science can only look at how things are now. It is only retrospective to a point, but whatever you believe, Creation, evolution, athiesim, panthiesim, dualism, or the idea that matter is an illusion, it is all faith.

Think of this: there are rules. Who made the rules?
If you believe there is no God, then you must disbelieve in "Good", for how can there be good without some standard of what is good?

read "Mere Christianity". it's easy. it's thought provoking. and, you just might enjouy it.

What religion are you? i am a Mennonite.
we are like Amish with cars and computers.
w are like Catholics because we value good works above mere words
and like protestants because we have a simple worship style
and little hierarchy

How long have you been in this religion?
since i was 15 or so
we were encouraged to try all kinds of religion before choosing one, so i went to worship with jews and muslims, orthodix christians of different nationalities, pentecostals, baptists, everybody.

Why do you believe in this faith? it keeps a central focus on Jesus and his teaching, so it does not emphasize violence or judgmentalism but forgiveness and kindness.

What do you hate about other religions?
nothing, really.
just so they don't torment or kill us
(as has been done by presybyterians, catholics, episcopalians, and lutherans)

If you are agnostic/atheist please tell us why?
i still consider myself a seeker but do profess a faith in Jesus-as-God so i don't qualify for this question.

im a christian cause i had no choice as a kid.im half way in the whole there is/isnt a god thing

What religion are you?
I'm an atheist

How long have you been in this religion?
Well, I have not had religion for about 4 years.

Why do you believe in this faith?
I don't "believe" in "faith." I'd rather know or admit that I don't know something than invent solutions arbitrarily. Faith is a crappy word because it implies something which you accept with no evidence.

What do you hate about other religions?
I only hate individuals who trample upon my right to exist and my right to have no religion. I don't like the idea of hating vague concepts. That's when you get to things like a "war on terror," but that's another forum. redface
If you are agnostic/atheist please tell us why?
Well I used to be christian thanks to my aunt and uncle's scare tactics. My parents were both atheist, but they allowed me to learn from my own experiences with religion. What basically changed my mind was actually reading the bible. I was doing research for a paper in my freshman english class in college and the bible was one of my references. (I was using it as a reference trying to connect stories from the bible with historical events) It took me a while, but I finally came to the conclusion that this book was written by a comittee of bloodthirsty primitive human tribes.

In the bible are stories of mighty bloodbaths, rape, and incest. Formal confessions of horrific crimes from men who were probably dying when they wrote them. All these things attributed to god's influence. The story of Job alone is enough to send one in tears. Read about the good and just Lot and his daughters. Doesn't that story make you sick? How could an omnibenevolent god inspire people to commit such acts in his name? That's not even to mention the inconsistencies. There could be whole threads dedicated to biblical inaccuracies. There are three different descriptions of the creation event. Did god create man and woman at the same time out of sand, or did he create man out of sand and woman out of his rib? Did he create animals before or after man?

After reading more from secular sources I went from agnostic to atheist. A good read - The atheist debator's handbook. It explains a lot of the philosophical argument for atheism.

I am an Atheist and have been since I was about 11, though I briefly converted to Wicca during my Emo years in HS razz
I dont hate other religions, though I hate Fundimentalists as a general rule.
I became an Athiest after I realized that God cannot be defined or quantitized, and therefore has no place in our physical Universe. Though I realise now the weakness of that argument and have much better ones prepared for debates biggrin .

I am not seeking, in writing this, to place myself at the same level as Christianity's God. I simply am explaining the path of logic which their Bible itself even states, as I myself have come to understand. My writings are a combination of explaining the puzzle which I saw, which led to my leaving the religion.


I seek answers to questions which I ask. At times, and I already know this as being often, I continue to bother people beyond the time in which they had given an answer. I do this because I wish to (or am fascinated by?) discover why, of their choises, they had gone out of their way to pick the (presumeably) wrong one. Does not God do the same thing?

He creates Satan, the first being ever with free will, or, apparently, one of, since he is not the only angel. Satan is the only one which had ever turned against God, and if not, then he was the first, and the rest who did as well simply have faded from mention. God tries again, creating us humans, within a perfect world, free of corruption. Since it is free of corruption, then Satan had yet to have ever had any contact with it at all. Because we are given free will as the angels had been, then God must allow this choice to be presented to us somehow, and therefore would have to seed corruption within this perfect world of his creation. If this is so, and we follow the words written within the scriptures, he told us how we may err, and left us to make that choice.

To provide a test of our devotion and resolve, he allowed in Satan. Eve was the first to be tested, and chose to follow the path which God had spoken against. Adam was bothered by this when he had found Eve, but since God was absent, and left him to make the same choice, he also chose to follow the path that Eve had passed down. Having chosen other than his preference, God had thrown them away from himself, with little more than the clothes on their backs, the final provisions directly given unto them from him within his presence.

Sound anything like the story of the prodigal son yet? Unlike that story, though, they are shunned by him, and pushed away. The only means by which they could return into his graces would require that they die, that they may never err about him again. Why must death be required of us, that our 'father' might ever even consider truely forgiving us of our mistakes, which he gave to us in the first place to make?

Did God do these things out of curiosity? Testing their answers, even beyond their given 'yes' or 'no'? I do such things all of the time, and the results are negative the majority of the time. The few times in which I am answered in a manner which is satisfactory unto myself, even then, I can't help but be curious as to farther things, and to other answers they may give unto any questions I may present them with at a later time. Is God then a being of great curiosity as well? He is considered to know the answer automatically, and yet he still asks.


I cannot help but then think, that the question which he presents us with, is not 'good' or 'bad', but simply, 'yes' or 'no'. Such paintings of opinion are constructions of our own. mrgreen

Huh, kind of a trend here. Most people seem to be atheist. I can kind of see why though. I am atheist, but that's just because my family isn't religeous. I wish I knew more about religions, they are so fascinating! I am really interested in that Satanism that was mentioned earlier... have to find what that's all about.
Anyway, we (humans) just invented gods and religions because we felt alone in the world (IMO). And notice how personified gods are? We make them like us. Even aliens too we personify.
Haha, does anyone know who Bill Maher is? Well, he is a kind of political comedian... he said something like, "I think the Bible started out as a mad libs game... 'and He made..woman..from a..rib...'" It does sound like one too.

i am a christian and i believe in god, however i dont like christianity as a whole (what ppl have made of it, not the religion itself) ppl have gotten the opinion that christians are stuck-up and are often either too strict or too lenient, and rightly so. many christians are, however, i believe that the religion of christianity is correct