The rotten core of society is represented neatly by religion and all it stands

[Guest guest]

" The average person in religious matters takes many things for

granted. He finds religious groups practicing something and he

decides what the majority does must be right and acceptable to God.

The Bible says the majority of people are going to be eternally lost.

Jesus says in Matthew 7:l3-14, " Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is

the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there

are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is

the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. " So we

don't want to depend on the majority to determine what is right

for us and follow them. If we do we will also end up being lost in

the eternal fires of Hell.

 

Many people never stop to ask, is it scriptural and is this what God

wants? They believe that just any kind of worship they give will be

acceptable to God. The main reason for all the religious division

that we see in the world today is man will not accept God's word

as final authority. Man is going to do it his own way. "

 

Worshipping God In Truth, www.bible.ca

 

 

 

" I used to be a practising Catholic. Having seen all the atrocities

caused by religion to normal people, I've decided to cut out the

middle man. If I want to talk to God, I'll do it. I don't need a man

in a dress to tell me how. "

 

Peter Connolly, England

 

 

 

" The rotten core of society is represented neatly by religion and all

it stands for. It just disgusts me. "

 

AC, Australia/UK

 

 

 

" I see god as benign. My own view is that I look around at everybody

including the vicar and the priest, and the rabbi and the Muslim, and

I suddenly realize they're human beings exactly like me ... I threw

them all out of the window at a very early age. "

 

Michael Cain, Actor

 

 

 

" In the world of 3001 Clarke envisions for the story, the writer of

the piece, John F. Burns, says: " Perhaps most controversially,

religions of all kinds have fallen under a strict taboo, with the

citizenry looking back on the religious beliefs and practices of

earlier ages as products of ignorance that caused untold strife and

bloodshed. But the concept of a God, known by the Latin word Deus,

survives, a legacy of man's continuing wonder at the universe.

 

" In this, Clarke is giving vent to one of the few things that seem to

ruffle his equable nature. 'Religion is a byproduct of fear,' he

says. 'For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil,

but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the

name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?' "

 

Arthur C. Clark, Author

 

 

 

" I don't relate to anyone who is a professional religionist...who has

the ego to tell us that they know God's will, and can tell us what

God thinks and what God likes and what God is, and how God feels

about integration, South Africa, and AIDS. Everybody's got a

different idea what God thinks; the crazy guy on the corner knows

about as much as the guy in St. Patrick's Cathedral -- none of them

know anything. "

 

People say, 'Reverend Moon -- what a crook!' and I say, 'But what

about the Pope?' It's all the same, anybody who starts telling you

what God thinks should be locked up immediately. "

 

Larry Cohen, Director/Screenwriter

 

 

 

" I would have to be considered an agnostic -- at best. In my own

life, I haven't found a need for organized religion. With all the

hostile messages coming at me, including from the emissaries of

various faiths, it's more urgent to believe in myself. Ultimately, we

all have a responsibility to remind ourselves of our ability to be

compassionate, respectful, and generous. I would rather rely on the

nonviolent philosophies of the more open-minded Eastern religions for

my moral guidance than the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament. "

 

Candace Gingrich, Gay Rights Activist

 

 

 

" I'm glad some people have that faith. I don't have that faith. If

there is a God, a caring God, then we have to figure he's done an

extraordinary job of making a very cruel world. "

 

Dave Matthews, Recording Artist

 

 

 

" I never accepted religion so I had nothing to reject as such. The

history of 'Christiansanity' (my own coinage of which I am proud!) is

so brutal of mind, emotions, freedom, progress, science, and all that

I hold precious, that by any standards of justice its leaders in

almost any given period would be incarcerated for life, or worse! "

 

Madison Arnold, Actor

 

 

 

" One of the many burdens of the person professing Christianity has

always been the odium likely to be heaped upon him by fellow

Christians quick to smell out, denounce and punish fraud, hypocrisy

and general unworthiness among those who assert the faith. In ruder

days, disputes about what constituted a fully qualified Christian

often led to sordid quarrels in which the disputants tortured, burned

and hanged each other in the conviction that torture, burning and

hanging were Christian things to do... "

 

The New York Times, December 1988, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000