Sunday, December 28, 2008

from a yahoo answers site

I'm looking for a christian answer to a religious conflict I am having, please help....?

I was raised catholic, I tried nondenominational, and baptist. Through out some point I disagree with all of them. Once I started studying psychology and learned about the laws of the mind. It made more since to me than most of my religious beliefs. Which teaches the same thing. About Positive vs Negative attitudes, Conscious vs Subconscious minds, which is basically the same teachings taught by Jesus, Buddha, and Confucius.I was raised to believe that Jesus walking the earth and dying for our sins was the only way to make it into heaven. If that is true, how do you explain all the different religions all over the world with other practices and beliefs that don't include Jesus Christ. Do they all go to hell just for believing differently?My best friend is a baptist preacher, I asked him that question and he said that people can't be judged on what they don't know, but if you know the truth you will be judged on it. I didn't tell him but, that makes absolutely no since. Was that the best answer a baptist minster could give me? I am deeply concerned about my after life but I can't help but disagree with some of the things I read in the bible, like for instance fear, is a tactic used by the devil, but it is also used by God. If we don't do what god teaches in the bible, we have a fear of not making in into heaven. He used fear alot in the old testament to get his point across. He would kill the inocent(lot's family to prove a point to lot), send locus down to destroy crops for not paying tieds to God, made a whale swallow Jonah so that he would do God's work, etc. I guess I'm just confused and I feel bad cause I don't go to church anymore, but everytime I go to church, I get upset cause I feel they are brain washing people into following them and not teaching people how to live with peace of mind here on earth. I'm looking for a christan's point of view please help me?

Thursday, December 25, 2008

we'll triumph over the neo-paganism of modern Antichrists

The apostle John writes, "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world" (1 John 4:2-3). It is at the manger that the spirit of Antichrist is discerned and judged. It won't be by the suppression of "feasting and fellowship" that we'll triumph over the neo-paganism of modern Antichrists, but by joyously heralding the Lord Jesus Christ. Bringing the family together to pray, to read the Infancy narratives from the Gospels, and to attend church during Advent--these are our best spiritual weapons against this present darkness.

It was the Incarnation which gave our spiritual forefathers the confidence with which they defied the darkness of the first centuries. So it will be again for us. If we confront the world with the scandal of the manger, unbelievers who have walked in darkness will see a great light, and Christians will have the ruins of modern, secular deities to add to those of Sol Invictus as pagan ornaments for Christmases yet to come.