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It seems so obvious that a lot of what is written in the Bible is nothing but attempts to control people through fearmongering with threats of an eternal hell. To me those threats are the words of men and NOT of God. People say that the Bible is God's words but forget all the revisions and translations of the Bible and that several chapters were left out of the King James that were in previous revisions. These chapters were left out due to the politics of the time. Does THAT sound like Gods work ??? The perfect answer to some religious ~~idiots~~ ~~fanatics~~ ok ... zealots query ... "do you believe the Bible" is to ask ... which version and which translation. To me ... it is obvious that it is so filled with middle ages threads of "eternal hell" if you don't do exactly what I say and believe in me without question claptrap that most of it loses any credibility. If someone asks ... do you believe in God ... I don't want to have to say ... "Yes I do ... because I HAVE to". To me ... A God that has to use force and threats to secure followers (like Allah) is not the true God but the great deceiver in disquise.

Well said. Actually, many of the things " because it's written in the Bible" are not in the Bible at all but come from Dante's Inferno, as you know an epic poem about the whole Heaven/Hell God/Devil thing. I am not anti-Christian, quite the contrary, but Christianity loses by teaching superficial dogma rather than exploring the immense richness and beauty that is UNIQUE to Christianity. In exploring this richness that leads to a satisfying and unshakeable faith, one must be conversant in philosophy, 'evolution' , ancient history, the fact that Christianity would not even exist ( nor would Judaism be anything but a rare and obscure Arab cult) without that Rome that is cited by both as the arch enemy, and of course the Irish connection and the Middle Ages. Actually the Imperial Roman Christians morphed into the Roman Catholic Church, the Irish Christians actually morphed into Protestants and the Byzantine Christians morphed into the Greek and Yugoslavian Orthodox Church, which is probably the most pious and gentle of the three groups ( and we bombed them). Mohammedism came half a millenniun later as marching orders for the slaughtering Arab armies and copied what was convenient from these two and took it's own particular brutality and tribalism as the core message. Christianity is so very very deep and rich and fulfilling if one pushes aside the dogma from the Benny Hin soapbox and looks at the religion for the unique and fulfilling religion that it is. By the way, why isn't Benny Hin in jail by now for fraud ? I think he is a Muslim who saw a way to make hundreds of millions of dollars. That's what I have been told. All replies appreciated.