Christine,
Ypu have certainly put a lot of time into some research. One of your links featured an article which I also have on my web site (profile).
<<< I am not sure why anyone would believe that
Jesus was the last spiritual leader who walked the earth, and that anyone who
appears now is a fake.>>>
I guess the thing we are tripping over is our perspectives are so different. If you could imagine for a moment this: God created the universe with man who has free will: man is enticed by another of God's creations to disobey God thereby losing their immortality and fellowship with their creator. God came to earth in the form of a man named Jesus, not just a man but the actual creator of the universe. Anyone before or after Him would be an imposter if they claimed to be on the same level as Jesus because He and Him alone created everything, everything else is His creation. That is why any other Christ is a fake, because Jesus is The One True God. But you do not accept that as being true. But we have to believe that is true in order to regain what man started with. Those that don't are "lost".
On your other points about the good and evil of certain organizations, just consider. IF Jesus is the only way to regain our immortality and fellowship with the creator and that is "good", then any organizations that opposes that or hinders that is not good "evil". It is what is at stake that makes it all so important, it's our immortality. But if you don't accept any of that then what you believe is as good as anything out there.
What does an animal believe. Consider a Lion who will kill the male cubs of another Lion as a matter of dominance and survival of his own line. We call it murder, but in their world it is natural and normal. The animal world is a moral vacuum. So if we are just animals which we must be if what you say is true why do we think of killing each other as murder? It is just survival and natural. Why would I be locked up for keeping a group of women for my own by force and killing all my rivals? Where did the thought come from that killing was murder and should be prevented. That thought should not have occurred if we are just animals. Imagine a world where human animals are crawling out of caves trying to survive in an animal, natural world. There would be no example of anything different to go by, no concept of "good" to change man's thinking. Just the natural law of survival. So where did the "good" and "evil" concept come from? It had to come from outside of man's "experience" because man's experience would have prevented the thought from ever occurring just as the Lions have never evolved a "higher" morality. The if we are not animals and we are created by a God who's character is all good and we are created in His image then that explains where the concept comes from. Adam and Eve were created by a good Creator. When they ate from the forbidden tree they acquired the knowledge of good and evil and those two forces have been in conflict ever since as men choose to live by one or the other. Adam and Eve were driven from the garden to prevent them from also eating from the tree that would make them like God and live forever. But we have the opportunity to eat from that tree when we are born again by God, having renounced the evil that has stalked man since the beginning. We are being made into the righteousness (or goodness) of God so that we can be given eternal life. The eternal life that was denied Adam and Eve in the garden.
Bob |
