Now is the time to terminate war and military aggression and only the Christian church can do it as our obligation to the founder of our religion, Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah of Israel and the Son of the Living God.

Peace Church Challenge is a ministry dedicated to return Christianity back to its Apostolic roots by turning churches and denominations toward religious objection to war and military aggression. Visit the website:
http://www.peacehost.net/peacechurch
For a free copy of the book Conflict of Ages, email your name and address to peacechurch@jps.net

visit:

http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/religiousmenu.htm

Hmmm, is that the same religion that worships a little demented supernatural entity that they had killed and who is now going to come back and burn the whole planet and give everyone diseases etc? The one that abuses small children and then gets more worried about covering it up so there won't be a scandal than trying to crack down on the infestation of pedophiles in its ranks?

The one whose holy book is chock full of cruelty and violence:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty.html
???

Thanks, ???????? !
"And Joshua did unto them as the LORD bade him: he houghed their horses." Joshua 11:9
Please don’t tell me what this means.
or
David vows to kill "any that pisseth against the wall."
1 Samuel 25:22, 34
and
"So we boiled my son, and did eat him."
2 Kings 6:28-29
I find it too funny somtimes. Thanks again.

interesting how "lefties" and "righties" (Bush Admirer no less) are united here in their disdain for religion.

capitalism as religion / anti-capitalism as religion. or polar ends of a single religion.

mimicking the worst aspects that have arisen from religions like Christianity--namely, dismissing any and all other religious/spiritual ideas outside your own.

yeah the resulting religions are jacked and people twist them up to do all kinds of bad shit with them, but if you can't recognize the real transcendant wisdom put forth by cats like jesus and the buddha before other people got hold of it--regardless of how you ultimately decide to frame your understanding of how the universe works--then I have a feeling you'll always be a slave, whether you live in a nice house on a lake, or succeed in overturning the state with revolution.

recognizing wisdon (which I'll agree with you on) and deification are worlds apart...

yourself.

that's the wisdom these guys were reminding us of, in my understanding anyway.

of course, over time, everybody takes it to mean deify ONLY jesus, or whoever gives the message. and those who get the "real" original message (what I think the original poster might have meant when referring to "apostolic," though maybe not) get swept under the tide of institution, persecuted, forgotten. to get a good idea of the real message of a lot of religions, especially those that can seem particularly screwed up, it might help to check out their "mystic" branches--sufis/muslims, gnostics/christians, etc.

deification itself is not necessarily the problem. maybe it's WHO you deify, and, logically, who you therefore DON'T deify. the fact that there is a division at all between the two may be the fundamental error that keeps plaguing us and the religions we construct (the fact that we keep "constructing" religions at all may be even more fundamental and the source of the next error of making divisions). maybe it's inclusive vs. exclusive deification that keeps getting us into trouble. people come around every so often and remind us that we're all the same life or god or universe force or whatever you want to call it, and that therefore to be deifying any one being or person or thing or idea over any other or over ourselves is a mistake; to do so is a meaningless, absurd proposition. religion itself is an absurd proposition. instead, they deify everything and everyone. they say stuff like, "I'm god," meaning, "and so are you--so is everyone and everything so stop separating it all out into the little compartments and divisions of 'Religion.'" but then people take this to mean only the speaker is god (or they're convinced of this by others with different agendas who twist the message around), and deify them in the name of religion, and then all hell breaks loose and everything gets all screwed up again in the name of Religion.

until we stop thinking in divisions (left/right; saved/damned; good/evil; deified/non-deified), it seems like we'll just continue on being slaves to those divisions. that's why I think there's a lot of creative potential to be found in religious and spiritual exploration and ideas, especially in times like these when everything is so apparently divided and grim. to dismiss this potential, no matter what your poliical stance, may be a very big mistake.

this is not some corny "Turn to Jesus in these dark times brother!" statement; yeah it is corny, but it's more like, do what jesus did (and many others besides him through all history and societies) and look at yourself in the mirror and realize no one, no idea, and no thing, should be deified above you.

I'm the farthest thing from a christian, but I think it's pretty fucking cool that jesus did shit like going in and rousting the money lenders. trying to keep afloat in a society that worships and deifies the dollar bill, I can dig on what he was really trying to say.