You bring up a very important significant point.

Momentous discoveries in the past hundred years, coupled with translation improvements...and the discoveries of scores of important ancient documents ...indicate clearly that there were great differences (as their still are)
in the understanding of Christianity.

...how wayward some Christians have become
in their beliefs.

Always divisions, heresies:

Puzzling to me as a boy, intriguing as an adult an object of study in old age...

All the variances, in my humble opinion, as 'all things work together for good...'


Have you read the 'Gospel of Thomas'? They fairly well authenticated it's
age to be current with the fashioning of the four Gospels...(And closely
allied with 'Q'...) You can see why the Bishops under Constantine would not have any part of it while determining the cannon...

survey in which 70 percent of Americans said that they believed

religions

other than theirs could lead to eternal life.

I say 'an equal chance at 'cognitive continuance' :-)
...but yeah...I think it a good thing that God speaks several languages...

last week.) Sixty-five percent of respondents said - again - that other religions could lead to eternal life. But this time, to clear up any confusion, Pew asked them to specify which religions. The respondents essentially said all of them.

You know what? There are actually groups who practice what they preach!
Every member of MY church does.

And they didn't stop there. Nearly half also thought that atheists could

go to

heaven . . . and most thought that people with no religious faith also

could

go.

Ah, how many mansions in the heavenlies?

With the advance of understanding with regard to quantum mechanics; 11 dimensions (!), space-time, M-theory, parallel universes... et cetera... Theology too and human perception of reality, grows, and with its growing,
the acceptation of such a small slice human brains are capable of...ah, but looking inward; there is the Kingdom of God...You would know this, Jeff:
How many times has that been pointed out in the Bible?

. . . According to Pew's August survey, only 39 percent of Christians

believe

that the Bible is the literal word of God, and 18 percent think that

it's just

a book written by men and not the word of God at all.

73% said "Bible". Uh...is that a book by Hemmingway?


In fact, on the question

in the Pew survey about what it would take to achieve eternal life, only

1

percent of Christians said living life in accordance with the Bible.

Love your neighbor, dont judge other than by the frutage, look at life differently, enjoy it more abundently, stop and look at the lillies...Yeah! Scarey stuff. 1%? That seems high...

----- End Quotes -----

Now, is that amazing, or just plain sad?

Neither. With the Yammering of TV Evangelists and scandals aplenty,
inherent spiritualism in greater or lesser degree is expressed in other
ways,
I know a Pagan group that 'goes about, doing good'. A reputation that a
friend of your had as I recall...:-)

Milton had a good shot at it but heaven is pretty much individually defined (When thought about at all) ...fun to do but I seriously doubt the
persistance of consciousness. There's a unity with the universe, though, experienced to various degrees, highly, I think by Jesus.

Other opinions before Im asked to leave :-)
I think Hell is a ridiculous concept foisted on the ignorant by early
church. There is no "evil" in the universe. That, too is an invention: The
only good is knowledge, the only 'evil' is ignorance.
My opinion...also held by Socrates...

endtimeprophecy

#45,862
:-)

-- Guam, Mariana Islands

Are you awash with Marines yet? I understand they are going to better/ruin everything...

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