Is Christianity threatened by abortion rights

God Versus Religion God Versus Religion ...

What's the difference between the basis philosophy of a religion and its social structure?

The difference is like going to a restaurant and comparing a meal with the menu; the meal being the essence and the menu being the social structure. You can easily have a meal without the menu, but the menu is certainly not the meal.

In Christianity, for example, the teachings of Jesus represent the meal. His teachings are the basis of Christianity. The Christian Bible came about in antiquity as a menu about Jesus, about who he was, about what he taught.

Since that time, several hierarchies of men ( the leaders that dominate the various factions of the Christian religion) have set up social institutions based on the Christian Bible and have written a church doctrine. What they have actually written is a menu about what somebody else wrote about what someone else told them about what still somebody else told them*^[1] about the teaching of Jesus. Then they attempt to control the followers by telling the followers what the menu means and what God wants them (the followers) to do. (To use the restaurant analogy, the leaders are saying, "If you want to be nourished and healthy (go to heaven) , you must eat the food from our menu. All the other groups are selling only junk food.)

There are several interpretations of the Bible and thousands of social groups, each with its own version of "the truth."*^[2] In keeping with normal human nature, some of those in charge of the social structures have lost track of the philosophy's essence in their desire and need to be in charge. The most outspoken groups fight with each other for dominance and control, and some even endorse murder and mayhem to support their beliefs.

If you look at the behavior of the men leading these groups, you will notice some common characteristics.°

If you came from another planet and someone handed you a copy of the Christian Bible and said, "Your job here on Earth is to set up a religion base on this book," what would that religion look like? (See the next section below.)

*^[1]The Bible as presently constituted was not put together
until about 300 a.d.

*^[2] Christianity has over 2,000 denominations. Some say the
number is over 3,000.

Interpretation Interpretation ...

Interpretation Is All There Is

Your New Job: Pretend for a minute that you were sent here from another planet, and your job, here on Earth, was to set up a religion. Because you had never even heard of this planet before you arrived, you had no knowledge of already existing human religions. Someone handed you a copy of the Christian Bible and said, "Here's your guidebook. Use this to create your new religion." What would that religion look like?

How would you relate to what we call God? Can you know with absolute certainty anything about whatever it is we call God? If you can know, how do you know for sure that you really do know? How do you know that what you know is real and not just a belief about reality?

If you can't know with absolute certainty the nature of God, and if you don't know with absolute certainty what a human being actually is, then what is your religion going to be based upon? It's based upon beliefs about God.

If it's based on beliefs, then what is your religion really about? Is it about "God" or is it about you?°

What Would You Include in Your Religion? Would God's Conception magic act° be in your religion? Would you claim to be your physical body? Would you deny the possibility that you are an eternal divine being? Remember now, all you have to go on is your inner sense of right and wrong and the Christian Bible.

Would you look at the book with questions or simply accept it as the literal truth? Would you use it to declare war on every other religious belief? Would you use your religion to justify committing crimes such as vandalism, arson and murder? Would you send your "true-believers" out to convert, control, dominate, manipulate, intimidate, or kill those who believe in a different religion?

Would you preach forgiveness and then declare that everyone was inherently evil because a long-dead ancestor ate an apple from a particular tree? Would you tell your followers that God murdered his son to prove he loves you. Would you tell your followers that the all-wise all- powerful God murdered his son to save you for being condemned to hell because He [God] made you inherently evil?

Would you tell your followers that God makes a brand new human being every time a human egg and sperm unite and then He destroys, condemns to limbo, or otherwise disposes of over half of his newly created human beings simply because they didn't grow into a physical body?

Would you tell all your follower that they are condemned to hell forever unless they get watered on and blessed by one of your holy men? Would you tell your followers that you have exclusive access to God?

Would you declare sex to be evil? Would you declare homosexuality to be "an abominable and detestable crime against nature" and then cover up the fact than hundreds of your agents were homosexually molesting young innocent boys?

Would you create a multi-billion dollar empire and declare you self infallible? Would you build temples to God and let people starve to death next door?

Would you spend millions of dollars fighting for egg rights and ignore the 40,000 children who starve to death every day or die from curable diseases?

Religion Versus Science

Lets look, for a moment, at the historical relationship between religion and science. When Christianity first began, science was all but non existent. There were simply no answers to very puzzling questions such as:

What are we?

Where did we come from?

How did we get here?

How were we created?

By whom or what were we created?

What is this place called Earth?

How do we relate to Earth?

What caused diseases?

What causes natural disasters?

Why are we here?

What happens after death? etc.

In the absence of answers to questions like these, the church leaders made up stories that represented their best guesses about reality at that time.

These beliefs stood unchallenged for centuries. Theocracies came dominate life on Earth and these stories grew into official church doctrines. The Church leaders used these stories to collect money and to control the lives of the masses.

Problems for the churches began to show up when scientific experimentation started offering answers to these previously unanswerable questions. Because the scientific answers often contradicted the church doctrine, church elders saw this, not as a blessing, but rather, as a threat. So instead of welcoming what the evidence had to offer, the church elders condemned it and persecuted anybody who dared to express an opinion contrary to the centuries-old official doctrine.

The most famous example of this is the Copernicus discovery and the Galileo proof and announcement that the Earth was round and revolved around the sun. For their contribution to the advancement of knowledge, Copernicus was burned at the stake and Galileo was imprisoned for life.

You might note that their discovery did not solve the mystery of God. It merely expanded the context in which to ask these same questions. The war between science and religion is still going on today. Today the main battle grounds are evolution, abortion, human cloning, and capital punishment.

Reference: http://www.choice101.com/373-evolution.html#TheirLogic

Christ Threat Christ Threat ...

Is Christianity Being Threatened

Many fundamentalist Christians claim that Christianity is being threatened by the science of evolution, by abortion rights, by open attitudes about sex, and numerous other things. How do we respond to that?

Before we answer that, you need to sure you understand the distinction between the religion and the social structure° that dominates that religion.

Christianity is Complete Safe: The energy underlying Christianity is so powerful that Christianity is not threatened in the slightest by anything or anybody or by any contrary belief. It's so powerful that it's not even threatened by what the leaders of the Christian social structures have done for the past 2,000 years under the guise of being Christian.

For example, was Christianity damaged when Nicholas Copernicus discovered the Earth was round? NO! But what did the fear-and-self-doubt-peddlers offer him in exchange for his major contribution to humanity. The Roman Catholic hierarchy burned him at the stake.

Was Christianity damaged when William Tyndale** translated the very first copy of the Christian Bible from Latin to English? NO! But what did the fear- and- self- doubt- peddlers offer him for his major contribution to humanity. The Roman Catholic hierarchy burned every copy of his translation they could find. They chased him all over Europe, and when they captured him, they imprisoned him for a while then tortured him and when he was half dead, they burned him at the stake.

** http://www.fbinstitute.com/engbible/7.html°

Contrary to what is commonly taught by church leaders, new ideas and new scientific evidence do not in any way threaten one's belief in God; they simply expands the scope of the mystery. What does the truth do? It challenges false beliefs and religious fairytales. And that threatens the status quo of those who use religious fairytales to extract money from the masses.

And while we are on this topic, someone else's path to God is not a threat to belief in God, either. The overwhelming circumstantial evidence supports thetheory that trying to stick God into a single religion is like trying to fit the universe into a shoe box.

Then What's All the Fuss About? The Christ Consciousness is secure and safe, but what is being seriously threatened are the archaic social structures that presently dominate Christianity. Their power, their control, and their opulent wealth is at stake. And the threat to their power comes about as a result of the public becoming aware of the truth about the fairytale stories they've been peddling for centuries. They have backed themselves into a dead-end alley and are running scared. To this day, they continue to manipulate their followers into believing things that simply make no sense at all to the thinking mind.

The core of their problem revolves around the absolutely impossible-to-believe declaration that the Pope is infallible^° and the other absolutely impossible to believe stories like God's conception-magic act^° and "Original Sin." Between the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and the hard-core fundamentalist Christians, they've made so many ridiculous claims that many Christians are ashamed to admit that they are Christians, and millions of others have simply abandoned Christianity in favor of what, for lack of a better term, we are calling Universal Spirituality.^°

Manipulate Manipulate ...

In the interest of amassing and preserving their power and control, those who have controlled the various Christian hierarchies have gone out of their way to destroy the self image and repress the sexual activity of their follower so that they could replace that self image with guilt, fear, self-doubt and a dependency on the Christian church.

By their mastery at manipulation and guilt-peddling and with stories like original sin, the hierarchy has done an excellent job of destroying the self-image of it's followers. Traditionally, the followers turned their lives over to "The Church." This pattern of a dysfunctional relationship has lasted for centuries. But now the truth is beginning to be common knowledge. Some of the antiquated stories are just not believable any more. Many followers no longer trust their church leaders. Crisis is at hand. Even members of the church hierarchy are starting to question their leaders or they are simply leaving the church, all together.

We Screwed Up ...

Sorry Folks, We Screwed Up: The church leaders could; however, easily climb out of their hole by simply saying:

"Sorry folks, we screwed up. We've got a few of the details wrong. The Pope really isn't infallible.° We just wish he was, and some of our ancient brothers got a bit carried away with that idea. So we take it back. And one of other thing. We really don't know, with certainty, what the absolute truth is. Here are some of the things that the currently available evidence tells us are most likely the truth."

"We are not separate from God; we are each eternal aspect of God; reincarnation is most probably true; and God's conception magic act is simply a story that was made up by our ancient brothers to explain the unexplainable.

And this anti-sex business; sorry, we screwed up there, too. Saint Augustine wrote his personal sexual hang-ups into church theology and because, at the time, it was good for business we let it stay in there. We need to do some serious re-thinking on this issue. We'll get back to you later on this topic."

So let's get together now and bring as much love, freedom, and joy to each other as we can. And let's talk about what Jesus taught us.

The chances of the Church actually moving our of it's self-imposed prison is somewhere between nil and none for two main reasons: First, current beliefs are too thoroughly entrenched and second, the church thrives on controversy. Controversy Sells! And it's a multi-billion dollar business.^°

Unfortunately for the church leaders, they have trapped themselves in an incredibly destructive, and extremely limiting belief boxes.^° Instead of admitting past errors, they compound them by adding new lies to cover up for old lies. They are defending the undefendable. Here are some examples:

u Is the Pope really infallible, or is that simply a way to stifle dissent?

u Is God's conception magic Act^° really true?

u Are human being really inherently evil (original sin)

u How do you know that only Catholics go to heaven?
(Numerous protestant religions make the same claim)

u Where did you buy exclusive access to God.

u Which version of the Christian Bible is the literal word of God?

u Reincarnation was almost certainly edited out of the Bible.^° How do you deal with the latest scientific evidence that overwhelmingly supports the belief that human beings are not their physical bodies?^°

u Clerical celibacy is archaic and dysfunctional.

u Suppression and subjugation of women is archaic and dysfunctional.

u Homosexual abuses have created untold damage to the church's image.

u Sex for procreation only is not only archaic and dysfunctional, it is countered by significant evidence that shows sex to have far greater values.^° Adolescent celibacy is in defiance of human nature which God created within each of us.

u Regarding what life is and when it begins, why don't believers in reincarnation don't have a right to practice their own religion

And several more equally unprovable positions that don't come to mind at the moment. Readers are invited to the page titled: A Christian Wakeup Call.^°

The anti-abortion war is a self-survival struggle:

The concept of reincarnation could easily be put back into Christianity;° however, the belief in reincarnation represents a serious threat to the hierarchies that have dominated Christianity for centuries. Why?

1) Because to acknowledging reincarnation as a possible truth would throw the entire anti-abortion campaign out the window;

2) Because no longer having the anti-abortion war to use as a political tool would be a seriously loss to those leading the ultra-conservative Christians campaign to dominate the Republican Party and create a Christian theocracy° in America.

3) Because acknowledging reincarnation would,

a) Expose the Pope's infallibility fairytale° for what it is;

b) Acknowledge the Christian Bible as presently written
is different from the original text;°

c) Acknowledge that there is more than one way to interpret
the Christian Bible;

d) Remove the exclusive-access-to-God aspect of Christianity;

e) Acknowledge that Christianity is just one path to God
among many;

f) Question the authority and believability of those presently
dominating Christianity; and

g) Cause them to lose billions of dollars in annual revenues.
(That's billions with a "B")

When we get to the bottom line, we find: "The anti-abortion war is a ego-level, self-survival struggle on the part of the men dominating and controlling the Christian Hierarchies." They are interested primarily in themselves. The truth and in the future of their respective churches seems to be taking a distant back seat. And judging by their behavior, they don't appear to be interested in getting into heaven, either.