I have to wonder, HOW exactly did people in Pegan nations get the notion that their prized carvings were anything more than sculptures? Not to put down sculptures, but compared the expansiveness of Yahweh, what could a collection of art really accomplish?
It's of course due to note that in these days, God doesn't **seem** to be doing anything all that special. But, really, He's never stopped holding up this planet by the corner of His shoulder bone (figuratively speaking). Tragedy strikes, of course, stuff happens that we'd really rather not think about, but, IMO, God's intention is for us, collectively, to work so that we love each other as much as we possibly can, in Jesus' name. We should not have home invasions, school shootings, children hooked on drugs and whored out, we should have peace and prosperity, not material blessings necessarily, but prosperity of soul. We should be glad to be alive, glad to have neighbors, glad for family and friends, welcoming strangers, giving generously to those who ask for help. Yes, we should rebuke each other when we know of another's sin. We should challenge and encourage one another toward good works, not set people's lawns on fire for their sin or call out curses. People who don't know God, what do you expect them to do? And believe me, there are A LOT of people, not just "in this day and age", but through the 20th century, who do not/did not know God. Sure, churches were more prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, but were they churches that did anything to pass the faith on to the next generation? Obviously not. In some instances, said apostacy wasn't even challenged. In others, it was met with nothing more than bigotry. And of course, others still bear their own guilt entirely, being aware of the truth, having had it articulated as well as it possibly can be, knowing the beauty of it and still turning away from it. There's nothing that any mere mortal can do about such cases. But for churches who teach The Gospel weekly and weakly, there's some blame to be had not only on those who declined to accept The Invitation to the wedding, but on the entirety of some of these churches that have popped up over the years, despite the fact that there may have been some genuine believers in those churches.
I don't know much about the various denominations. But I know a lot of people have become disenchanted with government solely because of a pesky thing called bureaucracy.
From Wikipedia: The term bureaucracy (/bjʊəˈrɒkrəsi/) refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group
In other words, if God hasn't told you to say something, just SHUT UP! If you want to chit chat or blog (heh), cool, fine, shoot the breeze, yak at each other, yak at yourself, whatever. But sermons that consist of political propaganda, theoretical stuff that isn't even discussed in The Bible or inserted in the mouth of a modern day prophet, then what use is it if not to be a stumbling block to the weak minded?
I myself have learned to lean less on my pastor and more on God. It's not really a **Huge** deal to me that not everything preached at church is directly from The Bible. It probably bothers me more than it should. People talk about how God created the world just by His word. God doesn't say how He created the world in His book. He does say that He created the world and was satisfied with what He created. It does say "God said..." "and it was so", etc., but it doesn't say that "it was so" as a direct result merely of Him saying anything. It also says later in Genesis that God "withdrew" from Abraham. How does a God who is everywhere all the time withdraw from someone? First of all, I'm not even sure The Bible says that God is literally everywhere all the time. It does describe Him as being omniscient and available when/if needed and it seems logical to think His presence would fill all space, and on second thought, I think I do remember reading something along that verbiage in The Bible somewhere, but let's just say, flat out, The Bible says He's omnipresent. How, then, is it possible for Him to withdraw? Obviously, there's varying degrees of presence. Just like there's varying degrees of intent. God wants the world destroyed and forgotten. But does He want that as badly as He wants redemption for as many people as can be reached by The Word? Probably not. When God says "Let there be light", the only definitive takeaway from that is God wanted there to be light and He made light. It doesn't say that Adam & Eve were formed instantaneously like a magic wand just whipped some dust up and viola, His masterpiece! It doesn't say that all the animals that exist today existed back then. People assume way too much. And it's understandable to a degree. People tend to fill in the blanks when reading. For instance, Mary & Joseph couldn't find room to birth The Messiah. It doesn't say they tried going to an inn for that purpose. But people assume that's where they sought space to go about the birth process because just reading it without that information implied in one's head just sounds a little odd. Were they going around knocking on door to door? Probably not. Maybe they sought shelter from a friend? Or a relative? It's not really relevant but it's kind of like reading a sentence and missing a couple of the words. You can figure out what it means, but, really, the words aren't acutally there, so how do you know?? Truth is, you don't. There's all kinds of possibilities most of the time when a sentence is missing even just one word. A somewhat imaginative person like myself can maybe come up with 2 or 3 examples of what the person might be trying to say in that blank space, but that's likely not encompassing all the possibilities. It really annoys me when people try to post stuff on the internet and don't seem to care that their post is missing some fine detail. Why take up someone's bandwidth if you care that little?
Anyway...
The God of all creation is not a concept that I find is genuinely up for competition. There is only one book that has had the longevity of The Holy Bible that makes the claims that it does. Buddha did not create the world, not make any such claims. The deceased loved ones of Hinduism hold no power over anybody except what you give them, which in itself is limited because there's only so much you can give to someone else. Reincarnation is a joke. Anyone remember being here before? I sure as hell don't. I guess Islam makes some of the same claims about God, and that religion has gained a lot of traction, but I honestly believe it's because it's close enough to the real thing to feel authentic but it's also detached just enough to feel right to fallen man. I don't know a lot about Islam. I do know there's a lot of people who are "Muslim" who are not fully practicing their faith. Of course, people say that about Christians, that we're supposed to stone people to death etc but we don't. A nation that is entirely subjected to God is free to carry out God's laws in full. There is no such nation. There NEVER HAS BEEN such a nation! Israeli law was never upheld in full. If it was, it wasn't done so for any significant amount of time. People grew weary and selfish and just did whatever they felt like doing. God will deal with those who are responsible for said things, but we, in everyday life, are not called to overthrow our government so that we can stone people freely. We each have our own blind spots and weaknesses and we need to be the best we can be, each of us, and we need to help each other out on that.
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