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Imagine this. -- You are God. Would you use your power to instigate suffering after life? If so, … for what? You who are all mighty,…you the creator of all things,….why would you want to create a hell for people to burn in forever? Why would you, almighty God, even need it?

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Hannelore, I can't even begin to imagine the mind of God. For all I know, we may all just be an experiment in the mind of God. What I DO know is that He can and will do whatever He wants. We are His creation and this was originally His world.

Not the earth is ruled by Satan. God intervenes in the hearts and minds of the people He created, but God, as Father and Creator loves and doesn't want to be loved by force. He wants us to freely choose to love and obey and serve and worship Him. He is Holy and all who worship Him must do it in Spirit and in Truth.

I don't think we have to attend a church to have an intimate relationship with Christ. I think it helps US to be connected and interact with other believers.

My dad is and was a pastor all his life. He didn't need the church to support his family of 7. He was bi-vocational. I've never known a more sincere and loving and devoted and sharing and giving man in my entire life. His church wasn't about money. It was about sharing what we had, about lifting up our church family members in prayer, about visiting them in the hospital, about baby showers and weddings and funerals. My dad has brought more children into the world, dedicated them and buried them of old age than many of us can imagine.

I know a multitude of good men who pastor churches and their families go without food and clothing that the other families have. Many times we had no money, but people brought us produce and a chicken or a goose or a rabbit.

One Christmas my dad didn't have any money so he and mom put IOU's on the CHirstmas tree. After he got his check from the railroad, they made the iou's good.

Let me ask you a question. Did you just let your kids run around the neighborhood stealing, raping, sleeping with the same sex, pillaging, lieing, cheating on their tests and taking drugs? Well, why would a loving Father do that anyway? Just as a loving father corrects his children for their own good and so they will feel loved and taken care of and like "somebody's" in charge, so God corrects and chastized his own children.

Hell was created for Satan and his demons, not for people. Because we have free will and free choice, we can decide for ourselves (1) who we will serve and (2) where we will spend eternity. It breaks the heart of God for a person (not necessarily His own) to opt for service to Satan.

Thank you for the pearl box, but Hannelore, I'm happy and at peace. I WASN'T for a lot of years. I was depressed and had anxiety issues, but now I know what it's like to feel at peace and to have my future on solid ground.

I don't have to waver with every wind of doctrine that blows. My feet and mind are on a solid foundation and there is a lot of peace and contentment in that. God gave me grandchildren and my youngest daughter back. He supplied 30,000 from the sale of a house I'd given back to the bank so that I could buy this one and have a place for my family to live. He brought me back from the dead and has given me such liberty to grow and mature in Him. He's given me His own wisdom and His ability to love.

Why would I need a box. Look at the trouble a box got Pandora. Christianity is rock solid and has been since....well, let's see, from Christ, maybe?? lol

Jesus IS Lord to the glory of God the Father. Mohammed's bones are petrified. The bodies of all the prophets can be found and identified. The body of the risen Christ, will never be found because it was glorified and He sits at the right hand of the Father to make intercession for us, and believe me, we need it.

He's a cheap lawyer, go figure..? My husband and I are polar in our differences and beliefs, but he tells me he respects me more than he ever has any woman in his life. I love him with the love of CHrist and he tells me he's never been loved that way before. You should try it. Its all good.

Casey, in my flavor of Christianity, women are evangelists and preachers. I personally don't believe in women pastors any more than I would like to be ruled by a female president, but I think there are some wonderful, intelligent and passionate women in places of great authority and I'm proud of them and admire them.

I pray for my husband every day that God will give him a new heart and will change him from the inside out. I pray that even though he isn't a believer that God will give him wisdom and courage for leadership and headship over me.

I see my husband as God must see him and grieve for him as God must grieve for him. I take care of him and try to treat him with respect and unconditional love even though often times he doesn't show the same to me.

At the same time, I'm being a true daughter of my Father and being as wise as a fox, I have my own home, my own car, a job and am fully supportive of myself with God's help.

I'm sorry my words offend you. It's not easy being an unbeliever. The Bible says the ways of the trangressor are hard. Life will never be easy for anyone unless and until they completely surrender their will to Christ and give him the reigns of control.

I truly DO care with all my heart. I'm sorry you feel the way you do about me, but I'm only doing and saying things that need to be said.

My beliefs are in the hearts of religions/beliefs which are very similar, not in the doctrine.END CADSYS QUOTE...

got it it took a few times of re reading it with the answere you gave.....But basiclie what you are saying is from your extensife studie you have found a lot of similarities in the belifes at the hart of any religion but religions doctrines is what devides and seperates the religions. So not the core belifes... couse their similare but the doctinasion (rules and culture of the religion)is what creates the diffrence between people ways of worship and wrights and wrongs.....

CASEY IS MY UNDERSTANDING OK RE THE ABOVE AND WHAT YOU MENT

I might be misebntrepriting what your saying to my way of thinking..it as its something similare to what i belive and have said heer (or one other of the threads)

Also i wasent sure if it was within your hart, your religions hart or all religons harts that you weer first refairing to...but at the hart of the religons is what you ment

Its not something i have officalie studied as you have but informal studie and my own research showed me the same thing. Is your studie for ministrie a gateway to becoming a minister of such....

I would love to see the basic principles of all religions upheld or in some form unified.....into some cohesive whole, based on the love/respect of god, the love of man/woman, the love of earth..etc. something that would unite people and not devide them.....

a new religion for those that would want it taken from all the great texts core belifes about the world and afterlife, more as a guidline for living as a moral productive respectfull life....

I like the new age movement and their a lot of similarities between diffrent philosiphes ....but its a bit fragmented...yea it makes the indivduel search hard to find or make sence of it all but it lacks communite and a commonalitie of teaching...

You are all free thinkers and open minded, sane, rational and logical. That's a very admirable quality. I deeply respect your input.

Because you are open minded and possess the ability to reason, imagine for a moment that what I'm telling you is the truth. Not just one of many "truths" but THE truth.

Imagine that I'm right in what I'm saying to you about life, about the afterlife, about living your life today and tomorrow, in your interactions with your children, your husbands, and your families.

What if I'm right? Is being politically correct worth it? Is it?

NEWLAF..i wouldnt let lucien rape, pilage, etc....but i would let him do somethings in your "not to do list"....as he wouldn't be harming anyone... wearas rape dose certinlie harm someone (the victum more)and also both parties involved..

even if he did chose to rape....i would forgive him...hopwever i could and most certinly not turn my back on him. Nurture and love him back to a place of understanding that what he did was wrong, in harming another why that hurt is wrong, what he took or how he made that person feel......not simplie place him in a place (hell) and turn my back on him for eternitie....

is that not more of what a corrective parent would do? to use your parent anoligy

no thank you i don't need to go pasty old ground in my immaginings........and itsnot about political correctness, thats an all too handie cover all for you...

So can i aske you the same question in reverse.....HAVE you for one minete considered in the last fortnight that you may be WRONG...not wrong for us but wrong in the ultimate way of being wrong...and you weer trying to lead us from our pathway of love, into a darker scarrier place....

directing the question to all parties including yourself...in the last few weeks....how open minded have you been?.... NL quote.(WE ARE)...all free thinkers and open minded, sane, rational and logical.end QUOTE

Have you been any of the above...while telling the rest of us that we are doomed to a life of hell in the afterlife.....and the emphasis heer is TELLING THE REST OF US OUR FATE..

the other thing is this is a descusion not a place for you to give sermones or for you to dame anyone.....your preaching and trying to convert....

not the spirit of this thread.....as in the first page....

BUT MORE IMPORTNATLY NOT THE RULES OF THE FORUM ---RE-READ THEM PLEASE

Wow, what conversation. Very interesting to read how everyone is searching and finding ways to express their faith and beliefs. Please, just remember these words that everyone in here agreed to while registering:

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Carry on with all of this in mind.

New Leaf, I am not offended. I understand what you are saying, but I don't agree with you. Nor do I choose to pick up the label of "transgressor" that you tossed my way. You can keep that. :-))

How do I feel about you? I love you with the spirit in my heart and soul. In my belief you are part of me, just having a different experience. I respect you for what you have done and accomplished. And I honor and respect your belief system, which you regard as true. I just don't own it as mine. Perhaps we can just agree to disagree on that point? You feel you are right and I feel you are right for you, but not me?

And those are my feelings for all the people on this thread. I can't say my feelings are that way for all people on earth (LOL!). I'm working on it -- but not there, yet! :-))

My study is to gain greater understanding of the Christian religion in all its denominations. It also gives me a chance to access the wisdom in the Bible -- and there is some there for me, even though I don't believe every word. I also find as I move on in life, that the words I read in my 20s and 30s don't resonate the same in my 50s. It's the result of life lived, I guess.

We all bring our own perspective to our lives. I haven't lived the life of anyone else on this thread, so I don't bring the same life to my understanding of God. That's why I love talking and listening about other people's understanding of God and how spirituality in all its forms changes our lives (or not).

God's presence in my life, when I am open to listening to her, gives me light and life and more capacity to love my life and the world around me than I could ever have imagined possible.

yea and you also get great ahaaa moments when someone else explanes something or cites an example and its just the right one for you at that particulare minet.

its great that the bible still inspires you and you find its wisdom in new ways or interpritasions from what you previouslie thought...It be nice to have the chance to studie and find the common ground within all the christion denominasions....in some sence their has to be loads becouse are they not all veriasions of the same basic storie, just diffrent slants. I got the shock of my life the first time i became aware that all christions fought when all belive the same god and basic storie...