Fundamenten van het Geloof 12 Verzoening met God door het offer van Christus

Posted on 2020/12/08 by Christadelphians

Gelooft u het getuigenis van God, zijn Zoon en zijn dienaren?

God openbaart Zich als de Heilige, die de zonden niet kan verdragen en deze veroordeelt.
De meeste mensen vrezen God echter niet. Hun denken en doen is gericht op het voldoen aan hun begeerten. Door deze aardse, vleselijke gezindheid is de mens onheilig en een vijand van God geworden:

“… de weg van de vrede kennen zij niet; de vreze (voor) God staat hun niet voor ogen.” (Romeinen 3:17-18)“

… weet u niet, dat de vriendschap met de wereld vijandschap tegen God is? Wie dus een vriend van de wereld wil zijn, wordt metterdaad een vijand vanGod.” (Jacobus 4:4)

“Daarom dat de gezindheid van het vlees vijandschap is tegen God; want het onderwerpt zich niet aan de wet van God … zij, die in het vlees zijn, kunnen God niet behagen.” (Romeinen 8:7-8)

Wanneer God een Israëliet zijn zegen onthield of in zijn toorn strafte om diens zonde, dan voelde dit alsof God hem tot een vijand was geworden (zieJ ob 13:24; 19:11). Maar God beloofde niet voor altijd te zullen toornen (Ps. 103:9; Jer. 3:12). Hij maakte Zich bekend als barmhartig en vergevend God, die weet dat het vlees zwak is (Ex. 34:6-7; Ps. 78:38-39). Zijn werk is daarom gericht op het beëindigen van de vijandschap tussen Hem en mensen en het maken van vrede met wie van goede wil is:

“Eer aan God in de hoogste (hemelen), en vrede op aarde bij mensen (van) goede wil.” (Lucas 2:14)

“Verdrukking en benauwdheid (zal komen) over ieder levend mens, die het kwade bewerkt …; maar heerlijkheid, eer en vrede over ieder, die het goede werkt …” (Romeinen 2:9-10)

“Uw geloof heeft u behouden, ga heen in vrede.” (Lucas 7:50; 8:48)

God bewerkt deze vrede door de mens met Zich te verzoenen. Verzoening is de manier waarop Hij ons van zonde verlost. Moesten onder het Oude Verbond dierenoffers voor Israël verzoening bewerken, onder het Nieuwe Verbond stelt God het offer van Jezus Christus voor als zoenmiddel:

“Want allen hebben gezondigd en derven de heerlijkheid van God, en worden om niet gerechtvaardigd door de verlossing in Christus Jezus. Hem heeft God voorgesteld als zoenmiddel door het geloof, in zijn bloed …” (Rom. 3:23-25)

“Hierin is de liefde, niet dat wij God liefgehad hebben, maar dat Hij ons heeft liefgehad en zijn Zoon gezonden heeft als een verzoening voor onze zonden.” (1 Johannes 4:10)

“Want als wij, toen wij vijanden waren, met God verzoend zijn door de dood van zijn Zoon, zullen wij veel meer, nu wij verzoend zijn, behouden worden, door dat Hij leeft.” (Romeinen 5:10)

Deze verzoening tot vrede met God is niet alleen bedoeld voor het afgedwaalde volk Israël, maar voor alle mensen, tot welk volk zij ook behoren, en in welke tijd zij ook leven. Gods liefde is universeel:

“Maar onder elk volk is wie Hem vereert en gerechtigheid werkt, Hem welgevallig, naar het woord dat Hij heeft doen brengen aan de kinderen van Israël om vrede te verkondigen door Jezus Christus.” (Handelingen 10:35-36)

“… Jezus Christus, de rechtvaardige; en Hij is een verzoening voor onze zonden en niet alleen voor de onze, maar ook voor die van de gehele wereld.”(1 Johannes 2:1-2)

Omdat God tot de komst van Christus, in zijn trouw aan zijn verbond met Abraham, Isaak en Jakob, alleen sprak tot Israël, was de prediking van het evangelie door de apostelen een openbaring voor velen in de heiden wereld. Het offer van Jezus reinigt van zonden en maakt niet alleen een einde aan de vijandschap van zondaars met God, maar ook aan de scheiding tussen Jood en niet-Jood.

“Want het heeft de ganse volheid (God) behaagd in Hem (Christus) woning te maken, en door Hem, vrede gemaakt hebbende door het kruisbloed, alle dingen weer met zich te verzoenen, door Hem, hetzij wat op de aarde, hetzij wat in de hemelen is. Ook u, die eertijds vervreemd en vijandig gezind was blijkens uw boze werken, heeft Hij thans weer verzoend, in zijn lichaam van vlees, door de dood, om u heilig en onbesmet en onberispelijk voor Zich te stellen.” (Kolossenzen 1:19-22)

“Want Hij (Christus) is onze vrede, die de twee één heeft gemaakt en de tussenmuur, die scheiding maakte, de vijandschap, weggebroken heeft, doordat Hij in zijn vlees de wet van de geboden, in inzettingen bestaande,buiten werking gesteld heeft, om in Zichzelf, vrede makende, de twee tot één nieuwe mens te scheppen, en de twee, tot één lichaam verbonden, weer met God te verzoenen door het kruis, waaraan Hij de vijandschap gedood heeft.En bij zijn komst heeft Hij vrede verkondigd aan u, die veraf was, en vrede aan hen, die dichtbij waren; want door Hem hebben wij beiden in één Geest de toegang tot de Vader.” (Efeziërs 2:14-16; zie ook 6:15)

De wet maakt onderscheid tussen Joden en heidenen, het geloof in Christus Jezus verbindt hen. De wet leert wat zonde en onreinheid is, zodat de mens Gods heiligheid beseft en Hem vreest. Christus Jezus is het volmaakte voorbeeld van heiligheid, dat de gelovigen voor ogen kunnen houden en navolgen. In hem hebben allen deel aan Gods genade, waarin hij hen met zich verzoent en zijn vrede schenkt:

“Wij dan, gerechtvaardigd uit het geloof, hebben vrede met God door onze Here Jezus Christus, door wie wij ook de toegang hebben verkregen tot deze genade, waarin wij staan.” (Romeinen 5:1)

De toestand van vijandschap tussen God en mensen, die ontstond door de zonde van de eerste mens, is in Christus tot een einde gekomen. Hiermee werd niet alleen de situatie in de hof van vóór de zonde hersteld, maar ook het doel, dat God voor ogen had, bereikt: een volmaakt en eeuwig levend wezen maken naar zijn beeld en als zijn gelijkenis, geschikt om Zijn schepping te besturen en te bewaren:

“Zo is dan wie in Christus is een nieuwe schepping; het oude is voorbijgegaan, zie, het nieuwe is gekomen. En dit alles is uit God, die door Christus ons met Zich verzoend heeft en ons de bediening van de verzoening gegeven heeft, welk immers hierin bestaat, dat God in Christus de wereld met Zichzelf verzoenende was, door hun hun overtredingen niet toe te rekenen …” (2 Korintiërs 5:17-19)

Vraag ter overdenking:
Wat staat er in de brief aan de Filippenzen tegenover de gezindheid van het vlees?

Grote verzoendag

Voor de gelovige Israëliet was Verzoendag de grootste dag van het jaar. De Hogepriester ging met het bloed van een offerdier tot de Verbondsark in het heiligste vertrek van de Tempel om mensen en voorwerpen te reinigen. God beloofde daarbij dat Hij alle zonden en ongerechtigheid, die voor Hem werden beleden, voorgoed zou wegdoen (Lev. 16; 23:23-32; Hebr. 9:6-7; 18-22). Daarna kwam de Hogepriester naar buiten met een zegen voor het volk (Num. 6:22-27). Dit is een afbeelding van Gods heilswerk in Christus. Hij is de Hogepriester die eeuwige verzoening heeft bewerkt (Hebr. 9:8-10; 10:1). Hij heeft zichzelf één maal geofferd en is met zijn eigen bloed de hemel binnengaan. Daaruit verwachten zijn volgelingen hem met de zegen van eeuwig leven (9:11-15). Zijn offer is volmaakt en door God aanvaard om de zonden van alle mensen uit alle tijden, die hem als hun Verlosser verwachten, werkelijk en voorgoed weg te nemen (9:24-26; 10:11-14). Dierenoffers konden dat niet.

Voorgaand

Fundamenten van het Geloof 11 Christus, de door God gezonden Verlosser

Love-Hate Relationship

Posted on 2019/03/15 by Guestspeaker

I am probably exaggerating things a little, but only a little, when I say that there is a love-hate relationship developing between society at large and the church.

Whereas once the church helped society establish and find meaning in a Christian approach to morality we are now in a situation where increasingly society at large rejects Christian morality. Whereas thy church teaches love for our neighbour and endeavours, to the best of its ability, to model this, society is increasingly becoming ‘me’ centred
The church continues to put God at the centre of being but all too often society gives God no place in their life or decision making. As this antipathy to the church and its beliefs and values grows we in the church need to respond with a growing love for all people. The more we are rejected the more we love in response and reach out help in every way that we can. To paraphrase Scripture ‘they will know us by our love.’

When Jesus was attacked He responded with love, costly, sacrificial love. We can do no other. Those who malign us, misuse us, criticise our church and our faith are people for whom Jesus died and whom He loves. Let them encounter that sacrificial, caring love in us.

~ Alan Hermann

Christian fundamentalists feeding Into the Toxic Partisanship and driving countries into the Dark Ages… #1

Posted on 2018/02/08 by Guestspeaker

At The Mendocino Humanist – Cheerfully Contrary there is an article which required our attention but can not reblogged, like the original article at Church and State from 2013 by Dakota O’Leary , which on its turn a review of the article by Katherine Stewart in the Guardian entitled “How Christian Fundamentalism Feeds Into the Toxic Partisanship of US Politics,”

Dakota O’Leary agrees that America has an infection. We would even say a serious problem, which did not become a lesser problem with the new president. Though that 45th president of the U.S.A. may have Jewish family, he has a racist tendency on some strange and dangerous facets, which seemed to be very much liked by neo-Nazis and extreme right Christian fundamentalists.

From certain reactions on our writings and on what we came to see in certain articles talking about Christian faith and Muslim faith we only can come to the conclusion that there are many extreme conservative and right-wing Christians blogging. A big problem with them is that they do not seem to want to listen or to accept certain things, like matters of language. For example not willing to come to understand that “Allah” is a word which is used in many languages to denote “God“. As such there are many Catholic and protestant Bibles with that word in their printed editions, but those Americans refusing to see that and to see that “Allah” is not a false god but the God of Abraham and the God of many Christians, Jews and Muslims.

That refusal to understand or to know that the English word “God” means “Allah” in many other languages gets such articles as “Muslims bow and worship allah / satan Everyday!!” or often repeated and reblogged (a.o.) Muslims bow and worship allah / satan Everyday!!, , Blasphemy!! Florida City Council Meeting Opens with a satanic prayer to satan and allah!!, Ungodly!! House of Representatives allows the sworn enemy of America to pray to allah-satan Baal on the House floor!!, with people not listening to others who dare to react to such stupid indications. They forget that such articles not only set bad blood by Muslims but also by devout Christians and by Jews who dare to speak out a tittle, because “God” or “Allah” is a title and not a name. But many American writings in the ‘Bloggosphere’ have authors who even do not seem to know the difference between a name and a tittle.

Some American writers see in that attitude of their compatriots the lack of their education and give the impression we should feel sorry for them. But than you could wonder why they not adjust their thinking when others do not mind to spend time to react to their wrong ideas and want to give them more correct information. Dakota O’Leary thinks such conservative Christians are infected with the consequence of anti-intellectualism, a steadfast refusal to acknowledge that one’s worldview is mutable, a worldview in which facts are only facts if they fit that worldview, and that anyone who disagrees with a Christian fundamentalist worldview is an “enemy” of God.

The infection has taken hold in conservative politics, where it has spread to a significant portion of the American population, and even into a significant amount of the Canadian population. Though the Religious Right lost some ground in 2000 and in 2008 the Time Magazine dared to declare “The Religious Right’s Era Is Over,” having the Republican party platform containing only two references to God and reaffirming its past positions on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and gays in the military but not expanding on them. Four years later the party’s platform contained again more references to God (10) and 19 references to faith, but also the first reference to a “war on religion.”Because at that time it really seemed that certain American citizens had declared a war on religion. The first and worst victim of that war were the Muslims and the second victim the true followers of Jesus, who do not worship their Trinity. Clearly we in Europe saw their battle against president Obama, some even claiming he would be a Muslim, and their battle against anything which had a social flavour, loathing it as ‘communist’. Normally one would expect from a good Christian that he is willing to share with others and to help those in need, but the American Christians with a big mouth are not at all prepared to share anything from their wealth with the needy or to contribute to a healthcare system when they are in good health.

Citing what it calls the Obama administration’s

“attempt to compel faith-related institutions, as well as believing individuals, to contravene their deeply held religious, moral, or ethical beliefs regarding health services, traditional marriage, or abortion,”

the platform accused “liberal elites” of trying to

“drive religious beliefs — and religious believers — out of the public square.”

From many writings on several blogs we in Europe could only conclude that several Tea-party members and extreme conservative Christians, mostly Creationists, wanted to gag the more liberal or freethinking Christian authors.

In Katherine Stewart’s article in the Guardian entitled “How Christian Fundamentalism Feeds Into the Toxic Partisanship of US Politics,” Stewart notes:

I don’t believe for a moment that this hysterical voice [Christian fundamentalism] that screeches in America’s political sphere is the authentic voice of religion in America. Most religious Americans want to mix it up at lunch! They want to make friends across party lines, and they want to help people who are less fortunate. A survey by the Public Religious Research Institute, released on 24 October, reveals that 60% of Catholics believe the Church should place a greater emphasis on social justice issues and their obligation to the poor, even if that means focusing less on culture war issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Earlier this year, in response to the Ryan budget, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops joined other Christian leaders in insisting that a “circle of protection” be drawn around “essential programs that serve poor and vulnerable people”.

So why is it that the so-called “values voters” are urged to vote against the politician who supports choice, not the politician who wants to shred that “circle of protection” for the poor and vulnerable? Why is it that when politicians want to demonstrate just how religiously righteous they are, they talk about banning same-sex marriage and making contraceptives hard to get, instead of showing what they have done to protect the weak?

There is an obvious answer, and it is, in a sense, staring you in the face every time you watch a political debate or read about the latest antics of Focus on the Family and the AFA. The kind of religion that succeeds in politics tends to focus on the divisive element of religion. If you want to use religion to advance a partisan political agenda, the main objective you use it for is to divide people between us and them, between the in-group and the out-group, the believers and the infidels.

The result is a reduction of religion to a small handful of wedge issues. According to the religious leaders and policy organizations urging Americans to vote with their “Biblical values”, to be Christian now means to support one or, at most, a small handful of policy positions. And it means voting for the Republican party.

Dakota O’Leary says

Christian fundamentalists are not to be confused with mainstream evangelical Christians.

and he might be right because it seems to apply mainly on principally North American evangelicals. But we must be aware their language or their voice is spreading as a virus, and could come to infect several European, African and Asiatic evangelical and Pentecostal churches, coming to brew mischief between all the denominations who have people who in their language have “Allah” for the English word “God”. They also stir up trouble in regions where there are many Muslims who than find a stick to throw at the Christians. It gives than reason for Muslims to get on the wrong side because it makes it clear that Christians would prefer to worship an other God than the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus and his disciples. In Christendom and in Christianity there is already the problem that those words gets mixed up and that the majority of people who call themselves Christian worship three gods instead of the One God, like real Christians worship the God of Abraham, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah Who is Only One. But those real Christians also come into problems by those extremist Christians who claim they are worshipping Satan or Baal, and as such give every Muslim reason to believe so.

One good thing about is is that several trinitarian Christians are noticing to Whom Jesus prayed (“Allah” Jehovah God) and that they are seeing that the doctrine of the Trinity is a false human doctrine. Bad thing or a regrettable matter caused by those North American writers is that they are pushing away many Christians in the hands of Muslims teachers so that they become Islamic converts, instead of coming to non-trinitarian Christian groups which there is choice enough here in our regions. We encountered already many previous Catholics who now became Muslim and to whom we try to show that Jesus is the way to God and that real Christianity is the following of Jesus as the son of God and not as a god son.

Not only on the level of loosing Catholic and protestant believers to the Muslim Faith because of those Christian fundamentalists we also see that the position of our teachers and preachers gets undermined. The symptoms of the infection of anti-intellectualism brings an erosion on education, not only in the States but also in the Old World. Escalating attacks on teachers as bad citizens, teachers’ unions as greedy “takers”, the evolution vs. creationism debate, resistance to stem cell research (or any kind of scientific research that conflicts with their Biblical worldview), fundamentalist emphasis on voucher system to create taxpayer funded fundamentalist schools, fear of a changing, increasingly pluralistic society (the current face of which is the extraordinary power fundamentalists give to the LGBT community as the force eroding American morality and bringing down the entire nation), and a negative economy which is generating public support by those who consider themselves members of the Religious Right by demonizing public education as a “liberal conspiracy” to take their children away from God. Many who see how those extremist want to have their will also on educational matters, prohibiting children to learn about the normal evolution in this world and coming to accept that dinosaurs really existed and that our world still evolves, makes many now wanting to be part of a religion that prohibits to see the reality of our world.

Calling anything that disagrees with a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible a product of Satanic manipulation makes many religious people to doubt their faith and to abandon it.

Today we also might find an oversimplification by the idea that there is a clear right and wrong (based on Biblical laws, or cherry-picked verses), the universe is either moral or immoral, and that so-called “assaults” on religious “freedom” of fundamentalists signify an invisible war between the forces of God (or “good”) and the forces of Satan (or “evil”).

American essayist and Federalist politician of the 1790s who was an archopponent of Jeffersonian democracy Fisher Ames.

According to the North American extremists there may not be such thing as Religious Freedom or Freedom of belief, because every one all over the world has to come to speak English and using their words and terms on all levels and should come to believe that what they believe. Lots of Americans do forget many of their ancestors just left the Old Word to get more freedom. They also seem to have forgotten that the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was signed January 16, 1786, and is commemorated each year on National Religious Freedom Day. Thomas Jefferson’s landmark statute became the basis for Congressman Fisher Ames’ establishment clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Consitution.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Today the majority of North Americans seem to want against that idea and do not want to leave other people enter their nation and want to make sure no person shall have an other faith than they.

Those who want prayers being said in class should remember that all religious people should be respected and in such instance should have prayers according to their faith too. If they want certain specific prayers being said they should do that in their own private schools, like Catholic Schools, Anglican Schools, Presbyterian, Evangelical etc religious schools, like there should also to be the freedom to have a Muslim or a Hindu school. But the State School should be open to everybody, allowing people to wear their own religious symbols, be it a little cross, a fish, a Davidstar, a yarmulka or other head covering. Each government all over the world should take care that every person can feel himself or herself happy in an environment where there is no discrimination for skin-colour or religious affection.

Some Americans do forget that they want to limit freedom of speech and freedom of religion by demanding to have only their religion presented in public schools.

Breitbart News’s Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour goes so far to say taht

“The symbols and celebration of Christmas have shaped our history [and] Western Civilization,

having so called christians to think that she noted Christianity’s “transformative” impact on the old pagan world and the culture of Germanic barbarian warrior tribes, forgetting Christmas is totally a presentation of all the pagan elements, and is even an abomination in the eyes of God.

Christianity and broader Judeo-Christian values, suggested both Bannon and Mansour, reinforce Western Civilization’s sense of purpose in the face of internal and external threats.

The migration of tens of millions of Muslims to Europe in recent decades, said Bannon, is an existential threat to Europe and modern iteration of aforementioned civilization conflict between Western and Islamic societies: “The entire situation with this mass migration and refugee situation, which is really, there is no doubt, is starting to destroy Europe.” {Judeo-Christian Values essential to Victory of Western Civilization vs. Islamic Invasion of Europe}

Preceding

American Christianity no longer resembles its Founder

Governments need to be more proactive to ensure racism is kept in check

Added commentary to the posting A Progressive Call to Arms

You are what you wear

Allowing dress code according liberty of religion

Meditating Muslimah on “hijab to be a religious obligation”

A British judge rules that mother can’t indoctrinate son with religion

Additional reading

Further related

God isn’t dead though for many He is not relevant

Posted on 2017/05/12 by Christadelphians

In the 1960ies we often heard it said that God was dead.

Friedrich Nietzsche and his mother. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, was appointed pastor at Röcken by order of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, after whom Friedrich Nietzsche was named. Before Friedrich Nietzsche’s fifth birthday his father died in 1849. He was left to live in a household consisting of five women: his mother, Franziska, his younger sister, Elisabeth, his maternal grandmother, and two aunts.

Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl (1806–1876) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After attending a private preparatory school, the Domgymnasium, he was admitted to Schulpforta, Germany’s leading Protestant boarding school. Having graduated in 1864, he went to the University of Bonn to study theology and classical philology. Influenced by the textual criticism of the English and German classicists Richard Bentley and Gottfried Hermann, F.W. Ritschl, in full Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl became a classical scholar remembered for his work on Plautus and as the founder of the Bonn school of classical scholarship. It was under the tutelage of Ritschl in Leipzig that he further developed and became the only student ever to publish in Ritschl’s journal, Rheinisches Museum (“Rhenish Museum”). Ritschl assured the University of Basel that he had never seen anyone like Nietzsche in 40 years of teaching and that his talents were limitless and as such would be the best candidate to receive a professorship in classical philology that fell vacant in 1869 in Basel, Switzerland.

English: Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882; One of five photographies by photographer Gustav Schultze, Naumburg, taken early September 1882. Public domain due to age of photography. Scan processed by Anton (2005) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In his mature writings Nietzsche was preoccupied by the origin and function of values in human life.With his protestant background one can wonder if his expression “God is dead” was not misinterpreted.

Many people seem to assume that this implies God was once a living creature, and he has since passed away. But this is a misconception. Nietzsche was an atheist, and thus never believed that a God existed in any form except as a figment of the human imagination. {Nietzsche: God is Dead (Part 1)}

Though we do find this man writing a lot about God and looking at the Judeo-Christian tradition, which according to him made suffering tolerable by interpreting it as God’s intention and as an occasion for atonement. For him this clinging to a flattering doctrine of personal immortality, could also seen as man having created its god to feel safe and sure, but those who did not believe in a god or God also tried to cling to an other “true” world, also offering symptoms of a declining life, or life in distress.

But for Nietzsche when there is no god man also has not need of a god and man did not have to create a “slave” and “master” world, but should be himself the master. Facing the gut (“good”), schlecht (“bad”), and böse (“evil”) was something we made up ourselves as a nonmoral reference to those who were privileged, the masters, as opposed to those who were base, the slaves. For him his generation had come in a timespan where religious and philosophical absolutes had dissolved in the emergence of 19th-century positivism.

With the collapse of metaphysical and theological foundations and sanctions for traditional morality only a pervasive sense of purposelessness and meaninglessness would remain. And the triumph of meaninglessness is the triumph of nihilism: “God is dead.” Nietzsche thought, however, that most people could not accept the eclipse of the ascetic ideal and the intrinsic meaninglessness of existence but would seek supplanting absolutes to invest life with meaning.{Bernd Magnus on Friedrich Nietzsche in the Encyclopaedia Britannica}

Many do forget that as a thinker it might well be that Nietzsche also had come into conflict with the trinitarian thought and the sayings in the Scripture that there is only One true God Who is One and an eternal Spirit, not having bones, flesh or blood, whilst so many people around him worshipped a god with flesh, bones and blood who was born and who died. All such contradictions with what is written in the Old and the New Testament could have muddled his mind.

haukipesukone writes about the thought around that god man had created himself

Eventually the faithful get so worried about the well-being of God, that they build an armour to protect him. {What did Nietzsche mean by God is dead?}

When Nietzsche like others would have thought of that in such saying, he also could see the first sign that people were losing faith in God, also noticing around him how many people had lost faith in Him and did not trust God to take care of himself and able to endanger their safety.

The wannabe-philosopher of Finnish origin continues

Still at first, God is safe inside the armour and people continue to worship him. Over time though, God gets pissed off at the whole situation and leaves, or simply suffocates, leaving the armour for people to worship. People keep worshipping the hollow armour, and religion becomes a meaningless ritual with no substance to it. This is what “God is dead, and we have killed him” means. {What did Nietzsche mean by God is dead?}

An “Autobiographical” philosopher also looks at the German philosopher, extremely critical of Christianity, but sees, like us, that we may not just take it as a sort of atheist statement which would be the “ultimate truth”. For Gabriel J. Mitchell

“God is Dead” simply means “The Christian god is becoming increasingly irrelevant to philosophy and culture”. {What Nietzsche Meant by “God is Dead”}

Mitchell writes:

In popular culture the phrase is often mistaken as an anti-Christian statement. Some sort of declaration of Atheism. This is most obviously manifested in Christian content like the film God’s Not Dead. In the movie, a disgruntled atheist professor demands his students declare the death of God and embrace atheism. {What Nietzsche Meant by “God is Dead”}

With his background and his protestant family it would be strange that with his pretty bold statement that would be going against his own family’s belief and bring a serious anti-Christian message.
The saying „Gott ist tot“ or “God is dead” also known as “the death of God” first appeared in Nietzsche’s 1882 collection “Die fröhliche Wissenschaft” or “The Joyful Wisdom” also known as The Gay Science, also translated as “The Joyful Pursuit of Knowledge and Understanding”. The German Wissenschaft never indicates “Weisheit” or “wisdom”, but concerns any rigorous practice of a poised, controlled, and disciplined quest for knowledge, typically translated as “science”. Nietzsche speaks about “what if” which does not mean “it is”.

As such Nietzsche writes

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ […] Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’ — [The Joyful Wisdom §341]

A statue of the Buddha from Sarnath, 4th century CE

A demon or sick person often is seen as a mad person or some one not by his senses. That mad man also can look at different deities and ascetics and sages like Gautama Buddha, probably a very attractive figure for Nietzsche because of all the philosophic thoughts of that teacher who lived in northern India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries before the Common Era.

We find the first occurrence of the famous formulation “God is dead,” first in section 108.

After Buddha was dead, people
showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a
cave,—an immense frightful shadow. God is dead:
but as the human race is constituted, there will
perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which
people will show his shadow.—And we—we have
still to overcome his shadow! {— §108}

The Joyful Wisdom or The Gay Science, first published in 1882 and followed by a second edition, which was published after the completion of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, in 1887.

Section 125 depicts the parable of the madman who is searching for God. He accuses us all of being the murderers of God.

“‘Where is God?’ he cried; ‘I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers…”

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? {Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann}

Mitchell explains

The line is part of The Parable of the Madman a section from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science. It depicts a maddened individual running around a village asking where he can find God only to declare that God must be dead. In his ever creative style Nietzsche is using this madman as an outlet to explore an idea. Particularly he’s interested in the shifting values of European culture during his lifetime. {What Nietzsche Meant by “God is Dead”}

More and more people took distance from religion, most people confusing God with Church. Having found so many lies in church they considered “God” also being a “fat lie”. Though many wondered what their life was to be and if there was nothing behind it or something hidden for them.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel also had pondered the death of God, first in his Phenomenology of Spirit where he considers the death of God to

‘not [be] seen as anything but an easily recognized part of the usual Christian cycle of redemption’

But there some thought Jesus Christ to be the God, and when Jesus is God and Jesus died than really God would have died. Naturally Jesus is not God, because God is a Spirit Who has no beginning and not end and to Whom man can do nothing. In case Jesus is God and has died God would be dead and this did hurt Hegel, who writes about the great pain of knowing that God is dead

‘The pure concept, however, or infinity, as the abyss of nothingness in which all being sinks, must characterize the infinite pain, which previously was only in culture historically and as the feeling on which rests modern religion, the feeling that God Himself is dead, (the feeling which was uttered by Pascal, though only empirically, in his saying: Nature is such that it marks everywhere, both in and outside of man, a lost God), purely as a phase, but also as no more than just a phase, of the highest idea.’.

Nietzsche recognizes the crisis that the death of God represents for existing moral assumptions:

“When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident… By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one’s hands.”

Nietzsche saw how man went away from the faith in God and by doing so was looking for new answers or better answers than the churches could give. When not any more believing in the beautiful masterly concept of creation by the Divine Maker belief of cosmic or physical order also fell to the ground.

Nietzsche saw Europe was slowly transitioning into a sort of cultural Nihilism. As advancements in science and technology lead to more and more questioning of the status quo, Philosophical values were beginning to shift. What Nietzsche is getting at here isn’t a declaration of the truth value of Christianity. In fact truth is a topic Nietzsche is extremely critical of. Instead he’s pointing out the weakening of Christian influences on society. {What Nietzsche Meant by “God is Dead”}

Clearly the church was loosing its grip on the citizens. The ability to have the Bible in print and available to lots of people, made them also aware that for years those churches had lied about many things. Those who really went to study the Scriptures where confronted with many things the church said which were not written at all in the Bible.
An other problem arose by the growing knowledge and advancement in the sciences. Several people wanted to play for god themselves.

Later on people can take a look inside the armour and see there is no God there, and say God never existed in the first place. Whether or not God actually exists or existed at any point as an entity in the universe is not as relevant as the fact that there is an inherent need in most people to have faith in God. That in itself does change how people behave, hopefully for the better.

To put this hollow armour analogy in a more abstract way, is that at first people had a genuine faith in God whether or not this faith was reciprocated by an actual God. Over the course of time this genuine God was replaced by a man-made image of God. Man got rid of the real thing in favour of a man-made facsimile. I suppose the underlying motivation is that if man made God, man can also control him. {What did Nietzsche mean by God is dead?}

Seeing how man went away from God Nietzsche probably was very well aware that this could bring man in trouble.

Given Nietzsche’s strong animosity towards religion, you would think people realizing that ‘God is Dead’ would make him happy. After all, Nietzsche was dedicated in his quest to try and rid the individual of dogmatic and supernatural beliefs. Surely, people disregarding religion would be a comforting sight to Nietzsche. But this was not the case. Nietzsche was deeply troubled by the lack of a God, he feared that this may lead to the destruction of our society. {Nietzsche: God is Dead (Part 1)}

The end of Christianity for Europe might bring desolation and chaos. Churches had fostered on human dogma‘s and now people had come to see how different they are to Biblical dogma’s. But when one finds that a church has lied so much would one go for an other church and not face the same problem? Mankind always have nuzzled dogmatic beliefs that are widely held and accepted by society and do not want to do away with so many traditions.

Many of these beliefs go unquestioned, and thus we live in a sort of ‘herd’ similar to sheep (the term sheeple is probably the best representation of this). By overcoming the herd perspective, a man can free himself and achieve new heights. {Nietzsche: The Ubermensch (Part 2)}

When there is no God or when man himself is god, then man may be the master of everything (does he think). When there is no God,like so many think, then man loves to be as a god being the super being or Ubermensch, to which nothing is to small or to big and everything can be made possible. When it is not possible to do something today than it will be possible tomorrow or in the future, so why worry?

The Ubermensch is supposed to act as the answer to the problem of nihilism. Since God is dead, that means there is no objective truth or morality. Thus, an Ubermensch acts as his own ‘God’, abandoning the herd instinct and determining his own morality. He is neither slave nor master, as he does not impose his will on others. He is a master of self-discipline. He must be willing to embrace suffering and learn from it. In a way, the Ubermensch is the next step in human evolution. It’s a new intuition, perspective, and greatness for mankind. {Nietzsche: The Ubermensch (Part 2)}

For sure, man has to take a long way before he shall reach such a state. He also seems to forget that is what the Word of God demands from man, that man work at themselves transforming their character to an ideal being without faults. Only problem that than poses, is to know what would be faults, and what would be the right things to strive for. For a Bible Student no such problems arise because he can find all answers in the Bible. But those who do not want to take a serious look at that Library of ancient works, still many questions shall stay unanswered.

Additional reading

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God Isn’t a Republican

Posted on 2016/11/10 by Marcus Ampe

U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Man has always to be very careful not to trap in the marauder’s poisoned snare. Living in this world he may not be off the world but has to stand strong in his faith and always keep human dignity.

Knowing we are weak we must trust on the Most High and make sure that we do stay living according to the Will and the Law of the Most High Divine Creator, being sure that once His son shall govern here on earth at the only best governement, the Kingdom of Christ, being part of the Kingdom of God.

To remember

God =/=

face of any political organization
ministry, face of mega churches or popular religious leaders
not Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative

God =/= enclosed within stained glass or marble.

God doesn’t mock women, poor, disabled, condemn people

God forgives

Stop the idolatry => Stand up for peace, protection, human dignity, freedom and healing for all Americans before and after the election no matter who wins.

Additional reading

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Save

The Question is this…

Posted on 2015/08/19 by Guestspeaker

Many may be saying there is no god or gods at all and that it is all a fabrication of the human mind.

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Those who find that somehow something has to be behind this universe and all the things that can be found around us. but how many know Who is the Mastermind behind it all?

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How many are really knowing the Divine Creator and how many are willing to open their mind to this Eternal Spirit Who cannot be seen by man or they would fall death?

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The unseen, the untouchable, is so difficult to comprehend.

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The God of order Who created everything, has done it with and out of love. It is His goodness which transcends our understanding we think it is impossible that there can be such a Goodness existing.
Absolute completeness is so difficult to understand for our little human mind. Our brain is so incomplete, it seems, that the idea of such Perfect Being looks impossible.

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Though there was a time man had no fear and no problems and everything seemed all right. But it was too nice to be true and man doubted its Creator.

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Man came to separate and to see separation between the Creator, man, animal and plant and wanted more than he had received. This greed made him blind.

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After the first Adam failed god had to create a second Adam. That sent one from God came unto the earth to show the world the true hand of the Master-worker. God gave his only begotten son as a good shepherd to guide us and to show us the only one Way to God. In his way we should come to walk.

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When willing to go that Way we shall notice that God shall be the first one to go with us. when we are willing to open our eyes and ears, we shall see and hear God, who shall receive us as His children.

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There are plentiful reasons to get to know God and not to hesitate longer.

*

rich? or poor? > matters not your station in life

matters > certain about your future destiny

fail to listen and heed, destiny = same as fools whose shepherd is death + separation from the Almighty God

if you listen, heed and accept the Living Word > destiny in eternal space of the Kingdom of God

+ will be guided on your journey by the Good Shepherd

*

Are you Jew? Are you Gentile? Are you male? Are you female? Are you slave or free? In this present world we make distinctions but “there is no partiality with God.” [Romans 2:11] Those who hear his voice and follow, to them the promise is this:

Rom 8:14 MKJV For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

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Find additional reading:

Others that hinder the message

This is an amazing thing

+++

Supplementary readings:

The Fear Of The Lord

Hearing God’s Voice | Almighty God’s Utterance “God Is Sovereign over the Destiny of All Mankind”

Affirmation of God: I find the comfort of God in quietness.

The answers in your soul

Only God Can Judge Me

Straight Outta “Love”

Richard Corriere’s “In Their Own Words.” John Kasich On God’s Unconditional Love

The Severity Of Vain Glory

Only the lonely…

“Listening Heart”

Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd

Jesus as the Shepherd (emptycrosscommunity)

Jesus as the Shepherd (betsybeadhead)

The Unsurpassable Value of the One

Leaving Jesus In the Bedroom

Rivers of Living Water

Sheep and being led by the Spirit (part two)

Pieces of Grace

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I Am Called

We Have Sinned

To sit for more

Occam’s Razor Is Satanic

SonShine's Journal -

Let me ask you; Do you know God? Let me tell you about my God because He can be your God too! He is “great and certainly worthy of praise,” He is the defender of both the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, the young and the old. You may have heard about his mighty deeds, but have you seen them? Observe His fingerprint of lovingkindness upon the lives of those he calls his own. It is because of this that we are to “go and tell” that the next generation may also know and be known as children of the Almighty God.

Are you rich? Are you poor? It matters not your station in life. What matters is that you are certain about your future destiny. If you fail to listen and heed, your destiny will be the same as fools whose shepherd is death and…

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El Shaddai Who appeared unto Abraham

Posted on 2015/05/26 by Marcus Ampe

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1 ASV)

“And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am {1} God Almighty; walk before me, and be thou perfect. {1) Heb [El Shaddai]}” (Genesis 17:1 ASV)

“2 And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah: 3 and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as {1} God Almighty; but {2} by my name Jehovah I was not {3} known to them. {1) Heb [El Shaddai] 2) Or [as to] 3) Or [made known]}” (Exodus 6:2-3 ASV)

“Who is like unto thee, O Jehovah, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11 ASV)

“Now I know that Jehovah is greater than all gods; yea, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly against them.” (Exodus 18:11 ASV)

“And he said, Thou canst not see my face; for man shall not see me and live.” (Exodus 33:20 ASV)

“Hear, O Israel: {1} Jehovah our God is one Jehovah: {1) Or [Jehovah our God, Jehovah is one]; Or [Jehovah is our God, Jehovah is one]; Or [Jehovah is our God, Jehovah alone]}” (Deuteronomy 6:4 ASV)

“For I will proclaim the name of Jehovah: Ascribe ye greatness unto our God.” (Deuteronomy 32:3 ASV)

“Thine, O Jehovah, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heavens and in the earth [is thine]; thine is the kingdom, O Jehovah, and thou art exalted as head above all.” (1 Chronicles 29:11 ASV)

“And the house which I build is great; for great is our God above all gods.” (2 Chronicles 2:5 ASV)

“Behold, God is great, and we know him not; The number of his years is unsearchable.” (Job 36:26 ASV)

“{1} Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. {1) Or [Let be]}” (Psalms 46:10 ASV)

“«A Song; a Psalm of the sons of Korah.» Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised, In the city of our God, in his holy mountain.” (Psalms 48:1 ASV)

“Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high; Thou who hast done great things, O God, who is like unto thee?” (Psalms 71:19 ASV)

“Blessed be Jehovah God, the God of Israel, Who only doeth wondrous things:” (Psalms 72:18 ASV)

“That they may know that {1} thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, Art the Most High over all the earth. {1) Or [thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art etc]}” (Psalms 83:18 ASV)

“There is none like unto thee among the gods, O Lord; Neither [are there any works] like unto thy works.” (Psalms 86:8 ASV)

“For who in the skies can be compared unto Jehovah? Who among the {1} sons of the {2} mighty is like unto Jehovah, {1) Or [sons of God] 2) Or [gods]; See Ps 29:1}” (Psalms 89:6 ASV)

“How great are thy works, O Jehovah! Thy thoughts are very deep.” (Psalms 92:5 ASV)

“3 For Jehovah is a great God, And a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth; The {1} heights of the mountains are his also. {1) Or [strength]} 5 The sea is his, and he made it; And his hands formed the dry land. 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker: 7 For he is our God, And we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To-day, {1} oh that ye would hear his voice! {1) Or [if ye will hear his voice, Harden etc]} 8 Harden not your heart, as at {1} Meribah, As in the day of {2} Massah in the wilderness; {1) That is [strife] 2) That is [temptation]} 9 When your fathers tempted me, Proved me, and saw my work.” (Psalms 95:3-9 ASV)

“For thou, Jehovah, art most high above all the earth: Thou art exalted far above all gods.” (Psalms 97:9 ASV)

“He hath sent redemption unto his people; He hath commanded his covenant for ever: Holy and reverend is his name.” (Psalms 111:9 ASV)

“For I know that Jehovah is great, And that our Lord is above all gods.” (Psalms 135:5 ASV)

“Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised; And his greatness is unsearchable.” (Psalms 145:3 ASV)

“but Jehovah of hosts is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.” (Isaiah 5:16 ASV)

“And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: {1} the whole earth is full of his glory. {1) Heb [the fulness of the whole earth is his glory]}” (Isaiah 6:3 ASV)

“Jehovah of hosts, him shall ye sanctify; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” (Isaiah 8:13 ASV)

“To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?” (Isaiah 40:18 ASV)

“I, even I, am Jehovah; and besides me there is no saviour.” (Isaiah 43:11 ASV)

“Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have I not declared unto thee of old, and showed it? and ye are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any.” (Isaiah 44:8 ASV)

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15 ASV)

“Who should not fear thee, O King of the nations? for {1} to thee doth it appertain; forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is none like unto thee. {1) Or [it beseemeth thee]}” (Jeremiah 10:7 ASV)

“{1} As a sweet savor will I accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries wherein ye have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you in the sight of the nations. {1) Or [With]}” (Ezekiel 20:41 ASV)

“And I will sanctify my great name, which hath been profaned among the nations, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am Jehovah, saith the Lord Jehovah, when I shall be sanctified in you before {1} their eyes. {1) Or according to another reading [your]}” (Ezekiel 36:23 ASV)

“And I will magnify myself, and sanctify myself, and I will make myself known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am Jehovah.” (Ezekiel 38:23 ASV)

“The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou hast been able to reveal this secret.” (Daniel 2:47 ASV)

“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as Jehovah hath said, and {1} among the remnant those whom Jehovah doth call. {1) Or [in the remnant whom etc]}” (Joel 2:32 ASV)

“For then will I turn to the peoples of a pure {1} language, that they may all call upon the name of Jehovah, to serve him with one {2} consent. {1) Heb [lip] 2) Heb [shoulder]}” (Zephaniah 3:9 ASV)

“After this manner therefore pray ye. Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” (Matthew 6:9 ASV)

“And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good save one, [even] God.” (Mark 10:18 ASV)

“For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; And holy is his name.” (Luke 1:49 ASV)

“{1} God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. {1) Or [God is spirit]}” (John 4:24 ASV)

“1 These things spake Jesus; and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that the son may glorify thee: 2 even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that {1} to all whom thou hast given him, he should give eternal life. {1) Gr [whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he etc]} 3 And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, [even] Jesus Christ.” (John 17:1-3 ASV)

“I manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them to me; and they have kept thy word.” (John 17:6 ASV)

“25 O righteous Father, the world knew thee not, but I knew thee; and these knew that thou didst send me; 26 and I made known unto them thy name, and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:25-26 ASV)

“And it shall be, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2:21 ASV)

“For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, [even] his everlasting power and divinity; {1} that they may be without excuse: {1) Or [so that they are]}” (Romans 1:20 ASV)

“for, {1} Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. {1) Joe 2:32}” (Romans 10:13 ASV)

“O the depth {1} of the riches {2} both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! {1) Or [of the riches and the wisdom etc] 2) Or [both of wisdom etc]}” (Romans 11:33 ASV)

“4 Concerning therefore the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is [anything] in the world, and that there is no God but one. 5 For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth; as there are gods many, and lords many; 6 yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” (1 Corinthians 8:4-6 ASV)

“according to the {1} gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. {1) Gr [good tidings]; See Mt 4:23 margin}” (1 Timothy 1:11 ASV)

“For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, [himself] man, Christ Jesus,” (1 Timothy 2:5 ASV)

“For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us:” (Hebrews 9:24 ASV)

“And we know and have believed the love which God hath {1} in us. God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. {1) Or [in our case]}” (1 John 4:16 ASV)

“and the four living creatures, having each one of them six wings, are full of eyes round about and within: and they have no rest day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, [is] the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and {1} who is to come. {1) Or [who cometh]}” (Revelation 4:8 ASV)

“saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who art and who wast; because thou hast taken thy great power, and didst reign.” (Revelation 11:17 ASV)

“And I heard the altar saying, Yea, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.” (Revelation 16:7 ASV)

Preceding:

Bible, sword of the Spirit to come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man

El Shaddai Die verscheen voor Abraham

El Shaddai Jehova der Abraham erschienen

El Shaddai ’Eternel et Dieu puissant Qui apparut à Abraham

Find also:

El-Shaddai God Almighty Who no-one may see and live

No man see the Almighty God and live

“Jehovah” at Exodus 6:3 (1611 King James Version) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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El Shaddai Die verscheen voor Abraham

Posted on 2015/05/26 by Marcus Ampe

“IN HET BEGIN schiep God de hemel en de aarde.” (Genesis 1:1 WV78)

“Toen Abram negenennegentig jaar was, verscheen Jahwe hem en zei: ‘Ik ben God almachtig, richt uw schreden naar Mij en gedraag u onberispelijk.” (Genesis 17:1 WV78)

– 17 Toen A̱bram nu negenennegentig jaar oud was, verscheen Jehovah aan A̱bram en zei tot hem:+ „Ik ben God de Almachtige.*+ Wandel voor mijn aangezicht en betoon u onberispelijk.+ 2 En ik wil mijn verbond geven tussen mij en u,+ opdat ik u zeer, zeer moge vermenigvuldigen.”+

2 En God* sprak verder tot Mo̱zes en zei tot hem: „Ik ben Jehovah.+ 3 En aan A̱braham,+ I̱saäk+ en Ja̱kob+ ben ik altijd verschenen als God de Almachtige,*+ maar wat mijn naam Jehovah+ betreft,* daarmee heb ik mij niet aan hen bekendgemaakt.*+

“2 Wederom richtte God het woord tot Mozes en sprak tot hem: ‘Ik ben Jahwe. 3 Aan Abraham, aan Isaak en aan Jakob ben Ik verschenen als God Almachtig; mijn naam Jahwe heb Ik hun niet geopenbaard.” (Exodus 6:2-3 WV78)

“Wie is van de goden als gij, o Jahwe? Wie is er als Gij, schrikwekkend en heilig. om roemvolle daden geducht, om wonder na wonder?” (Exodus 15:11 WV78)

“Nu weet ik dat Jahwe groter is dan alle andere goden.’” (Exodus 18:11 WV78)

“Maar hij voegde er aan toe: ‘Mijn gelaat kunt gij niet zien, want geen mens kan mijn gelaat zien en in leven blijven.’” (Exodus 33:20 WV78)

“4 Luister, Israel, Jahwe is onze God, Jahwe alleen! 5 Gij moet Jahwe uw God beminnen met heel uw hart, met heel uw ziel en met al uw krachten. 6 De geboden die ik u heden voorschrijf, moet ge in uw hart prenten. 7 Ge moet er met uw kinderen telkens opnieuw over spreken, wanneer ge thuis zijt en onderweg, als ge slapen gaat en opstaat. 8 Bind ze als een teken op uw hand en als een band op uw voorhoofd. 9 Grif ze in de deurposten van uw huis en op de poorten van uw stad.” (Deuteronomium 6:4-9 WV78)

“Jahwe’s naam roep ik uit: Breng hulde aan onze God!” (Deuteronomium 32:3 WV78)

“Aan U, Jahwe, behoort de grootheid en de kracht, de luister, de roem en de majesteit, want aan U, Jahwe, behoort alles in de hemel en op de aarde. Aan U, Jahwe, behoort het koningschap, aan U, die als hoofd boven alles verheven bent.” (1 Kronieken 29:11 WV78)

“(2:4) De tempel die ik wil bouwen zal groot zijn, want onze God is de grootste van alle goden.” (2 Kronieken 2:5 WV78)

“Ja, hoogverheven is God, we kennen Hem niet, onnaspeurlijk is zijn ouderdom.” (Job 36:26 WV78)

“(46:11) Laat af en beseft dat Ik God ben, Ik: boven de volken verheven, verheven hoog boven de aarde.” (Psalmen 46:10 WV78)

“Een lied. Een psalm van de Korachieten. (48:2) Groot, hoog te loven Jahwe: in de stad van Hem, onze God, waar zijn heilige berg zich verheft, -” (Psalmen 48:1 WV78)

“uw gerechtigheid, God, naar zij oprijst, hoe Gij grote dingen gedaan hebt. Wie is, o God, gelijk Gij?” (Psalmen 71:19 WV78)

“Geloofd zij God de Heer, de God van Israel, die wonderen doet, Hij alleen.” (Psalmen 72:18 WV78)

“(83:19) weten zij dat slechts Gij – wiens naam is de Heer – over heel de aarde ten troon zit.” (Psalmen 83:18 WV78)

“Geen god, Heer komt U nabij, uw werken zijn onvergelijkelijk;” (Psalmen 86:8 WV78)

“(89:7) Wie daarboven reikt tot de Heer, welke godenzoon evenaart Hem?” (Psalmen 89:6 WV78)

“(92:6) Hoe groots is uw schepping, o Heer, hoe grondeloos zijn uw gedachten,” (Psalmen 92:5 WV78)

“3 Want een godheid groot is de Heer, koning groot, alle goden te boven. 4 In zijn hand zijn aan de diepten der aarde en de steilten der bergen beheerst. Hij; 5 aan Hem hoort de zee want Hij schiep haar, en het land, dat zijn handen formeerden. 6 Nadert, buigen deemoedig wij neer, knielen wij voor de Heer die ons maakte: 7 onze God is Hij, wij zijn het volk dat Hij weidt – de schapen in zijn hoede. Het is heden! hoort naar zijn stem: 8 verhardt niet uw hart, als bij Meriba, als bij Massa, toen in de woestijn; 9 toen uw vaderen Mij hebben verzocht, Mij tartten – en nog zagen mijn daden!” (Psalmen 95:3-9 WV78)

“Want Gij zijt de Heer, souverein, boven heel de aarde verrijzend, hoog – alle goden te boven.” (Psalmen 97:9 WV78)

“Bevrijding schonk Hij zijn volk, schiep voor de eeuwigheid zijn verbond. Heilig, ontzagwekkend zijn naam!” (Psalmen 111:9 WV78)

“Ik belijd het: groot is de Heer, onze Heer – alle goden te boven.” (Psalmen 135:5 WV78)

“Groot is de Heer, hoog te loven, nooit is te doorgronden zijn grootheid.” (Psalmen 145:3 WV78)

“Maar Jahwe van de legerscharen wordt groot in zijn oordeel, in zijn gerechtigheid toont de heilige God zijn heiligheid.” (Jesaja 5:16 WV78)

“Zij riepen elkaar toe: ‘Heilig, heilig, heilig is Jahwe van de machten; al wat de aarde vult is zijn heerlijkheid.’” (Jesaja 6:3 WV78)

“Jahwe van de legerscharen moet gij als heilig beschouwen, alleen voor Hem moet gij vrezen en beducht zijn.” (Jesaja 8:13 WV78)

“Met wie zoudt gij God vergelijken en welke voorstelling zoudt gij u van Hem maken?” (Jesaja 40:18 WV78)

“Ik, Ik alleen ben Jahwe, en een redder buiten Mij is er niet.” (Jesaja 43:11 WV78)

“Weest niet beangst of radeloos: heb Ik het u niet van oudsher bekend gemaakt en verkondigd? Gij zijt mij getuigen: is er een god buiten Mij? Er is geen andere rots, Ik ken er geen!” (Jesaja 44:8 WV78)

“Want zo spreekt de Hoogverhevene, die troont voor eeuwig, wiens naam de Heilige is: ‘Ik ben de Heilige die woont in den hoge, maar ook in het geslagen en diep vernederd gemoed: Ik geef nieuw leven aan het vernederd gemoed, nieuw leven aan het geslagen hart.” (Jesaja 57:15 WV78)

“Iedereen moet U vrezen, koning van de volken; dat komt U toe. Onder de wijze mannen van volken en koninkrijken is niemand aan U gelijk,” (Jeremia 10:7 WV78)

“Als in een geurige gave zal Ik behagen in u scheppen, als Ik u heb weggeleid uit de volken en u heb samengebracht uit de landen waarover ge verstrooid zijt, en zo door u aan de volken getoond heb dat Ik de Heilige ben.” (Ezechiël 20:41 WV78)

“Ik zal voor mijn grote naam, die ontwijd is onder de volken, die door u onder hen ontwijd is, weer eerbied afdwingen en door u aan de volken tonen dat Ik de Heilige ben; zo zullen de volken erkennen dat Ik Jahwe ben, luidt de godsspraak van Jahwe de Heer.” (Ezechiël 36:23 WV78)

“Zo zal Ik mijn grootheid laten zien en tonen dat Ik de Heilige ben. Wanneer Ik Mij openbaar zullen alle volken erkennen dat Ik Jahwe ben..” (Ezechiël 38:23 WV78)

“De koning zei tot Daniel: ‘Waarlijk, uw God is de God der goden en de heer der koningen. Hij openbaart geheimen en daarom hebt u dit geheim kunnen ontsluieren.’” (Daniël 2:47 WV78)

“(3:5) Zo zal het gaan: alwie de naam van Jahwe aanroept, hij wordt gered, want op de berg Sion en in Jeruzalem daar zal de redding zijn, zoals Jahwe heeft gezegd. En degenen die door Jahwe worden geroepen, zij zijn het die ontkomen.” (Joël 2:32 WV78)

“Maar voorwaar, dan geef Ik mijn volk andere lippen, reine lippen, om allen de naam van Jahwe aan te roepen en Hem te dienen, zij aan zij.” (Sefanja 3:9 WV78)

“Gij moet daarom zo bidden: Onze Vader die in de hemel zijt, Uw Naam worde geheiligd;” (Mattheüs 6:9 WV78)

“Jezus antwoordde: ‘Waarom noemt ge Mij goed? Niemand is goed dan God alleen.” (Markus 10:18 WV78)

“omdat aan mij zijn wonderwerken deed Die machtig is, en heilig is zijn Naam.” (Lukas 1:49 WV78)

“God is geest, en wie Hem aanbidden moeten Hem in geest en waarheid aanbidden.’” (Johannes 4:24 WV78)

“1 Zo sprak Jezus. Toen sloeg Hij zijn ogen ten hemel en zei: ‘Vader, het uur is gekomen. Verheerlijk uw Zoon, opdat de Zoon U verheerlijke. 2 Gij hebt Hem immers macht gegeven over alle mensen om eeuwig leven te schenken aan allen die Gij Hem gegeven hebt. 3 En dit is het eeuwig leven, dat zij U kennen, de enige ware God en Hem die Gij hebt gezonden, Jezus Christus.” (Johannes 17:1-3 WV78)

“Ik heb uw Naam geopenbaard aan de mensen die Gij Mij uit de wereld gegeven hebt. U behoorden ze toe; Mij hebt Gij ze gegeven en zij hebben uw woord onderhouden.” (Johannes 17:6 WV78)

“25 Rechtvaardige Vader, al heeft de wereld U niet erkend, Ik heb U erkend, en dezen hier hebben erkend dat Gij Mij gezonden hebt. 26 Uw naam heb Ik hun geopenbaard en Ik zal dit blijven doen, opdat de liefde waarmee Gij Mij hebt liefgehad, in hen moge zijn en Ik in hen.’” (Johannes 17:25-26 WV78)

“Dan zal het geschieden, dat ieder die de naam des Heren aanroept, gered zal worden.” (Handelingen 2:21 WV78)

“Van de schepping der wereld af wordt zijn onzichtbaar wezen door de rede in zijn werken aanschouwd, zijn eeuwige macht namelijk en zijn godheid. Daarom zijn zij niet te verontschuldigen.” (Romeinen 1:20 WV78)

“Want alwie de naam van de Heer aanroept zal gered worden.” (Romeinen 10:13 WV78)

“O onpeilbare rijkdom van Gods wijsheid en kennis! Hoe ondoorgrondelijk zijn zijn beslissingen, hoe onnaspeurlijk zijn wegen!” (Romeinen 11:33 WV78)

“4 Wat nu het eten van offervlees betreft, wij weten dat er in de hele wereld geen afgod bestaat en dat er geen God is behalve een. 5 Want al zijn er ook zogenaamde goden, hetzij in de hemel hetzij op aarde – en in deze zin zijn er ongetwijfeld goden en heren in menigte – 6 toch is er voor ons maar een God, de Vader, uit wie het al voortkomt en voor wie wij bestemd zijn, en een Heer, Jezus Christus, door wie het al bestaat en wij in het bijzonder.” (1 Corinthiërs 8:4-6 WV78)

“die steunt op het roemrijk evangelie van de gelukzalige God, dat mij is toevertrouwd.” (1 Timotheüs 1:11 WV78)

“Want God is een, een is ook de middelaar tussen God en de mensen, de mens Christus Jezus,” (1 Timotheüs 2:5 WV78)

“Want Christus is niet het heiligdom binnengegaan dat, door mensenhanden gemaakt, slechts een symbool is van het waarachtige heiligdom; Hij is de hemel zelf binnengegaan om er nu, voor onze zaak, bij God present te zijn.” (Hebreeën 9:24 WV78)

“Zo hebben wij de liefde leren kennen die God voor ons heeft, en wij geloven in haar. God is liefde: wie in de liefde woont, woont in God en God is met hem.” (1 Johannes 4:16 WV78)

“En de vier dieren hadden elk zes vleugels; rondom en van binnen zijn zij met ogen bezet. En zij roepen zonder rusten dag en nacht: ‘Heilig, heilig, heilig, Heer, God, Albeheerser, die was en die is en die komt.’” (Openbaring 4:8 WV78)

“zeggend: ‘Wij danken u, Heer, God, Albeheerser, die zijt en die waart, dat Gij uw grote macht gegrepen en uw koningschap aanvaard hebt.” (Openbaring 11:17 WV78)

“En ik hoorde de stem van het altaar: ‘Ja, Heer, God, Albeheerser, waarachtig en rechtvaardig zijn uw oordelen.’” (Openbaring 16:7 WV78)

Voorgaand:

Bijbel, zwaard van de Geest in de eenheid van het geloof en van de kennis van de Zoon van God om tot een volkomen mens te komen

Volgend:

El Shaddai Jehova der Abraham erschienen

El Shaddai ’Eternel et Dieu puissant Qui apparut à Abraham

El Shaddai Who appeared unto Abraham

God die Almagtige ’n Gees Wie geen mens kan sien en nogtans lewe nie

God die Almachtige Geest die geen mens kan zien

Allmächtige Gott denn kein Mensch wird leben, der Dich sieht

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Religion…..why the competition?

Posted on 2015/01/17 by Marcus Ampe

His Religion and Hers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When there would be no religion in this world people still would compare each-other and would find enough reasons to argument and even to go fighting against each-other because of the differences in opinion. Also a very big problem is that many persons do have such a high opinion about themselves and their own ideas that they do consider their thought as the best one and want to press it on others.

We always should keep an open mind and allow other ideas to exist next to our ideas and should share the common values in our effort to make together a world worth living in for all beings whatever colour they might have, whatever tongue they make speak, whatever faith may feed their hearts.

Let us also remember what purpleraysblog says:

Religion is simply the brand name for the various endeavors to perceive God and His Will!

And the different people may look for different ways to come to that One and the same Divine Creator. May we also not forget that it is Jehovah God Himself Who pulls people to Him and knows their heart.

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Preceding article:

A world with or without religion

++

Additional readings:

Are you religious, spiritual, or do you belong to a religion, having a faith or interfaith

Faith because of the questions

Religious Practices around the world

Are you religious, spiritual, or do you belong to a religion, having a faith or interfaith

+++

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Photo credit: http://www.generationnext.com.au/2014/05/religion-dead-australia/

“The problem arises when we say, ‘Our religion is right; yours is wrong!’ This is like saying, ‘My mother is good; yours is a prostitute!’ Love and compassion are the very essence of all religions. What, then, is the need for us to compete?”
-Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi)

View original post

A world with or without religion

Posted on 2015/01/16 by Marcus Ampe

Last week Europe was shaken like the world got a shock in 2001.

European newspapers could fill their pages with the recent and potential terrorist attacks in France. Analysts, experts, and commentators take time and space to discuss and debate the facts, often with skewed and confused perspectives on Islam, and offer a variety of political and emotional responses.

Since the Wednesday January 7 terrorist attacks on the satirical magazine, there has been not only a sharp increase in anti-Muslim attacks in France, but in many countries, again lots of people are saying that it would be better not having any religion and than we would have more peace. Those claiming it would be better without religions do seem to forget it is not the religions which brings the fighting under people. In case there was no religion and in case people had no faith in certain higher values than life provides at the moment, it even could be that there would be more fighting going on in the world.

Would people seriously think that there would not have any terrorist attacks against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo or against the Jewish supermarket in Paris, when it would not have been Jewish but would have been part of a certain political group or certain chain?

Eurobarometer Poll 2005 Percentage of those who agreed to the statement that “there isn’t any sort of God, spirit, or life force”. Colour enhanced from the original: contrast -0.5; gamma 0.7. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When you take away religion you still have people who can think differently over certain matters. Atheism would not guarantee that they all would agree with each other. Having no religion shall not take away the differences in political thinking and shall still give, and perhaps even more, reason to disagree and react heavenly to other political parties. Have a look at how many different political opinions and how many different political parties there are in the world.

Interior Ministries would have much more work with different opposing groups, who would not mind to try to get rid of the others, no matter at what cost, because they would know a human life having no value when it is done with.So, by taking care of other opinions they shall be happy to be the only ruler and would not fear anything but the strongest human being, and therefore shall try to do everything to become the strongest themselves.

Now with ethics still playing a role and with people led by their faith to organise their life, people shall feel restricted in what they are allowed to do or in what can be done. With not ethics their shall be no boundaries. For those who think when people do not belief in The God or any gods, the world would be safe of fightings, I would like to tell them that atheism in a certain way is also a religion and when it can not be considered like that it is at least also a faith.

In atheism there are also many thoughts, like there are many denominations in Christendom or in any other religion.

When there would not exist religion people would, as they did, find it out. It is true there would not be Islamophobia or Judaism fear, but still homophobia, racism would still exist. Even having no gods around people would create themselves high persons and idols, like they still do today. Even people who do not believe in God or gods call their idol ‘god’. Just look at the titles they give in the world of sport and how many gods can not be found under the footballers, tennis players and boxers.

Please also do not forget that ‘god’ is a tittle, meaning a higher person or being an important person. In the Bible we do find several called god. Angels are called god in the Holy Scriptures, but also Pharaoh, Moses, Apollo, Zeus and others. Some even think because Thomas at one point says “my god” think he is taking Jesus as his god and as God. Those readers do not see or hear the “and” before “my god” and do not understand Thomas is speaking to one person about that one person and about an other person, the God of Jesus, the God of Abraham, Who is the God of gods.

In this world when there would be no religion we also would see various god-men around the world, with whatever title the people then would give them or whatever word may be used in their language to denote such a figure. Everywhere in the world of religious and non-religious people we can find human beings who seem to be having this delusion that they have special powers or abilities that promote them to a pedestal that is higher than that of us mere mortals.

Shutupshakalya thinks that’s what makes them excel in their line of business. He also thinks it is good to have faith in a guide/teacher/guru and have a direction in life. I also believe it is very important that children have a good example they can look up at and follow. Teachers or educators or leaders in a youth or adult movement have helped many a men realize their potential (in movies, mythology, and real life).

Throughout the ages the world has seen many inspirational teachers, gurus, masters of with, inspirational thinkers, who stimulated others to think for themselves and to make a real quest in life.

Every age has got its master or people where others looked at or wanted to follow. Jeshua, the Nazarene (also called the Christ) was also such a man who got a lot of followers though others did not like that at all. Mahatma Gandhi and Luther King also were preachers of peace who did not want to create a new religion, like Jesus did not want to do that.

India has always been a very fruitful region for spiritual leaders. Also in this century a new special guru has found attention.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Insan, as he calls himself (you can’t miss the mass appeal there) happens to be this socio-religious (and I think political as well) leader in India that has a huge following. His ‘fans’ claim that he is a do gooder who is trying to rid youth of the nation from the evil clutches of drugs. He carries out blood donation drives, and his many followers unquestioningly tread on the path illuminated by him. Why should anybody have a problem with such a man who is working for the society? {The God Complex & An Exercise in Absurdity}

This man who is born Gregory House frequently referred to overt acts of philanthropy and generosity as underlying symptoms of a disease.

In his vitriolic style, he mocked people for having the “God Complex”, while it can be debated that he had one too. {The God Complex & An Exercise in Absurdity}…

But then, he decides to make a movie and star in it as a (super)hero. The promotional trailers of MSG-Messenger of God are on the telly and some people like me who are on a highway to hell by India’s religious standards are having a good laugh. His fans have come out all guns blazing on various social media platforms, silencing the detractors and rooting for their babaji. They counter the arguments by asking questions that are only beaten in absurdity by the movie itself. {The God Complex & An Exercise in Absurdity}

We also love to live a moving picture show, loving to see a better world for us than we can find in this real world. Have a look at Facebook, and you will understand what I mean. There you can find a beautiful example how people present themselves differently than they really are. Also there they love to show others how they can interact and build themselves an empire of friends and activities wherewith they can show off.

Those supporting the movie (most of whom are followers of the baba) innocently question that when other movies can show miraculous escapes and stunt scenes, why can’t Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s movie show him performing miracles?

Second. more important question is that when other movies get away with questioning religion in the name of ‘freedom of expression’, shouldn’t the makers of MSG be allowed to have their freedom too?

The last few days it was all about that freedom in Europe. Having received a big slap in the face we had to cry out loud our anguish at our hurt community. In which way were we to be pushed or to be allowed to go? Where is it that we want to go with our society and ow do want propaganda, brainwashing, infiltration allow our lives to direct?

After the Great War, lots of people thought never such a cruelty would come over them again, but soon World War II was on their doorstep. After that calamity the West soon recovered and thought it was now safe. But on September 11, 2001 the dream of the Western World was demolished by the crash of three air-planes. The material world of successful accomplishments could experience the deadliest attack ever launched on American soil, leaving them asking again:

Why did God permit such a thing to happen?

and

How can human beings be capable of such diabolical savagery in the name of religion?

2015 January 11 in remembrance of 2001 September 11 again an Islamic terrorist act on symbols of the Western society and its freedom - Attack on Charlie Hebdo mazazine in Paris, France

2015 January 7 in remembrance of 2001 September 11 again an Islamic terrorist act on symbols of the Western society and its freedom – Attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, France

On Wednesday January 7, 2015 it was again of the same sort. Once more the West was attacked, fired in the middle of their weak heart. Again there were people who said it was done in the name of their god, though in the Abrahamic religions there is no such God who would agree with such violence. Others said it was the fault of the religions, but they seem to forget in case there were no religions there still would be other groups fighting each other.

Lots of people do accept opposition from one or the other side but not from certain other sides. But also to be questioned is how much and in which way do we want to accept opposition.

In case there where no religions and no people believing in The God, a god or gods, they would have favouritisms for certain civic believes or political ideas.

Already from the beginning of mankind people sought ways to live with others and to form communities. Therefore different systems where thought of. The different opinions how to make the best of life would also trigger differences to have people arguing and even coming to fight with each other. Economical and political factors would be there to have people coming against each other and even being prepared to kill others for it. History can proof that.

To say therefore that religions are the cause of such misery is doing injustice to those religious people. Most of them look for ways to come at peace with each other in respect of certain values which they consider very important for making a good working human society. They mostly have ethics which they want to give priority to material or personal gain.

What we see from those who claim to be fighting for Allah is that they mostly do not follow the Words of that Allah and even do not mind killing other followers of that God. Boko Haram and ISIS are very good examples of that letting the world see that they are not afraid to rape and kill children, women and men, who also believe in their God. those jihadists also have no scruples to bomb mosques, temples of worship for Allah, and to burn Holy Scriptures like the Quran.

Those people who terrorise others misuse religion to bring more reason to frighten others for what they are doing. The jihad-fighters want people to believe that the Quran justifies their actions. Others do want to believe them and do want to believe others

Islam’s “victorious-with-terror” prophet (Hadith, Bukhari 2977) commands Muslims to mimic his example (Qur’an Sura 33:21) by ruthlessly pursuing non-Muslims (Sura 4:104, 48:29) to “terrorize” them (Sura 3:151, 8:12, 8:57-60), to “siege and slay them” (Sura 4:89, 33:57-61), to “murder” and to maim (Sura 5:33; Hadith, Tabari 9:69) in order that they be “subdued” and “destroyed” by Allah at the hands of Muslims for the cause of Islam (Sura 2:244, 4:76, 8:39, 9:14, 29-30, 9:38-39, 9:111, 61:10-12). Yet when the light of truth is shone upon the horror that is Islam the willingly ignorant still choose to remain in the dark, for to expose pure evil is to expose a monster they’d rather not see … {The Ghost Of Charlie Hebdo And The Purple Beret}

Many do not want to show true respect for those who believe in certain values and in certain elements which are above our human intellect, like spiritual beings and The God of gods.

Pope Francis I, who has urged Muslim leaders in particular to speak out against Islamic extremism, went a step further when asked by a French journalist about whether there were limits when freedom of expression meets freedom of religion. The leader of the Roman Catholics insisted that it was an “aberration” to kill in the name of God and said religion can never be used to justify violence.
But he said there was a limit to free speech when it concerned offending someone’s religious beliefs.

“There are so many people who speak badly about religions or other religions, who make fun of them, who make a game out of the religions of others,”

he said.

Religious or not, we all should see what happens in the context, of how human beings act. We should see that even without religions we would have agitators and “provocateurs”. They often are not interested in ethics and what a majority wants. They want to push their believes and their wants on others. They just want to have power over the rest of the world.

In the wake of the Paris attacks, the Vatican has sought to downplay reports that it is a potential target for Islamic extremists, saying it is being vigilant but has received no specific threat. Francis I said he was concerned primarily for the faithful, and said he had spoken to Vatican security officials who are taking “prudent and secure measures.”

In many countries it is the unbalance of one group opposite the other that creates problems. In France for example we can see that 5 million Muslims account for 10 to 12 percent of the country’s total population (the largest Muslim population in Europe) and Jews (478,000) are outnumbered by its Muslims 10 to 1. The extreme right party National Front receiving 4,712,461 votes in the 2014 European Parliament election, finishing first with 24.86% of the vote and 24 of France’s 74 seats, should give a clear sign of the danger that could come up to France even when those Jews would not be religious Jews and the Muslims would not exist but still be from foreign origin. The Algerians, Moroccans a.o. North Africans and Turkish people would face the same danger as now with their own religions.

Reburied in Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem the Jewish cell phone salesman Ilan Halimi got a garden named after him in Paris where he was kidnapped on 21 January 2006 by a group called the Gang of Barbarians and subsequently tortured, over a period of three weeks, resulting in his death.

Without religions we also would have headlines about the hatred between people and could find articles about unspeakable murders like the one of the French Jewish man of Moroccan descent Ilan Halimi in 2006 which heralded a sharp turn back to Europe’s most notorious hatred, at the hands of its newest population. More than 1,000 people marched through the streets of Paris, demanding justice for Halimi, on Sunday February 26, 2006. Initially buried in the Cimetière parisien de Pantin near Paris his funeral in Paris drew a large Jewish crowd. It could not stop the violence against Judaic people. There have been thousands of attacks on French Jews and Jewish sites in the years since Halimi was killed.

We should know that not only

nationalism is a foundational aspect of French life. Old nationalist allegiances have made it hard for well-meaning Muslim immigrants to integrate into society, as they have no direct ties to Metropolitan France. They live largely among themselves in banlieues, whose customs and norms closely resemble those of the inhabitants’ countries of origin—not those of their new home. {The Existential Necessity of Zionism After Paris: a commentary Editorial}

America’s premier monthly magazine of opinion and a pivotal voice in American intellectual life “Commentary” does see the problem of our European community. Also when there would be no religions we would have people from all sorts of places in the world gathered in our regions. After the second world war we had great dreams of a united world. In the postwar age we needed workforce to build up the country again and invited people from other continents to work for us. The doctrine of multiculturalism, the idée fixe of postwar Europe, has not only a strange relationship with French nationalism:

Though it would seem nationalism’s ideological opposite, multiculturalism offers rosy-cheeked cover to France’s deep unwillingness to allow anyone without centuries-old roots to become “French.” Nominally, according to the postmodern ideal of multiculturalism, no one culture is more virtuous than another.

And so the anti-Western, anti-Semitic Islamism practiced by France’s most dangerous citizens is not to be vilified, but rather understood and, ultimately, tolerated. As a matter of daily reality, however, multiculturalism allows the French to keep the Muslims separate—and unequal. And it allows some in France to entertain the belief that Jews, too, can never be French. {The Existential Necessity of Zionism After Paris: a commentary Editorial}

Several may wonder now what France and its neighbour countries are going to do now they seem to be caught between the deadly reality of radical Islam and the potential manifestation of a neo-fascist revival. In case there would have been no religion there was still the matter of all those ‘foreigners’ and all those ‘coloured’ living in Europe, the same as in America you could find immigrants and coloured people.

In Europe we notice that there has come a certain pressure on many, who have seen in the economical crisis and the political evolution a similar situation as in the 1930s. Therefore many religious as well as non-treligious Jews have chosen to go to their promised Holy Land. Last year, a record-high 7,000 French Jews immigrated to the Jewish state — more than double the year before. The Jewish Agency, which oversees immigration of Jews to Israel, now estimates that some 15,000 French Jews will make aliyah in 2015.

In case there would have been no thought or no idea of a god or gods and no religions, people would have invented something to classify the different groups and ideas between the many different folks. Those classification would be there like we already classify the continents with different names and can find in each of them a multitude of political parties, which have nothing to do with religion. We can see between those political parties there are also battles going on the same as their is competition between economical forces.

With or without God, people would find enough time, arguments, money and weaponry to make their differences hard.

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What the Charlie Hebdo terrorists have won so far (bangordailynews.com)
Although French police have hunted down and killed the suspects in Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo attack, the terrorists have, on at least two levels, already won: They’ve scared a number of powerful news organizations into submission, and they’ve stoked European Islamophobia, whose rise will help militant Islamists recruit more supporters.
Anti-Islam Rallies Growing in Germany (guardianlv.com)
After the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices in France last week, anti-Islam rallies in Germany are seen to be growing rapidly. The rallies are being held by a group known as Pegida, which means in English: Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident.Pegida is a right wing organization in Germany that is holding protests in various cities to fight against the growing influence of Islam in the everyday life of the country. The organization claims that the influence of Islam is slowly destroying the European culture. They also are against certain immigration practices, asylum seekers, and they want the “protection of Judeo-Christian culture” for the Western world.Although the protests in Germany have been taking place for some time, the number of attendees has been rather small in the past. On October 20 of last year, the first rally only had about 350 people present. At a meeting on January 5, there were 18,000 protestors there. Once the killings at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices had taken place, the number of participants has grown greatly.
Hypocrisy Abounds: Free Speech as Cover for Islamophobia (truthdig.com)
A magazine that most people outside France had never heard of before Jan. 7 now has legions of followers and fans around the world. The dominant narrative that has emerged from the horrific massacre of 10 staffers of Charlie Hebdo (plus police officers and hostages) is that the very foundation of freedom itself was attacked last week in Paris, and that the best way to fight Islamic fundamentalism is to uphold the ethos of Charlie Hebdo’s irreverence and satire. After all, in seeing their own values embodied in Charlie Hebdo, holders of “Je Suis Charlie” signsseem to be positioning themselves on the “right” side of freedom and democracy.
Anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant rallies grow in Europe (thestar.com)

A grassroots anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant movement is continuing to move across Europe in wake of the terror attacks that hit Paris last week.

A crowd of nearly 25,000 attended an anti-Muslim rally in Dresden on Monday. For the last several months, the German group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, has been holding the demonstrations, calling for stricter controls on asylum rules and tighter immigration policies.

Germany, along with northern European countries, is experiencing massive influxes of migrants from conflict zones in the Middle East and North Africa. Vast numbers of Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis and others caught up in war, persecution and poverty are all trying to settle in wealthier European countries to begin new lives.

But as some European countries struggle with youth unemployment and sluggish economies, tensions rise.
A dying Western culture is the problem (thecommentator.com)
The German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “We need to say that right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism should not be allowed any place in our society.” That was the German Chancellor’s response to Pegida, the burgeoning movement in Germany against what its supporters see as the relentless Islamisation of Europe.Ms Merkel’s comment was a politician’s slur. The problem for Angela Merkel is that it’s not Pegida that is anti-Semitic, but large numbers of Europe’s Muslims. This is a truth that the EU political establishment refuses to acknowledge, even when its own bureaucrats produce the hard evidence.For example, a 2003 European Union study on anti-Semitism found that Europe’s anti-Semites were not the usual stereotypical suspects (white, skin-headed Nazis), but Muslim gangs. The report was suppressed — Europe’s PC politicians did not like the findings — and only became public when details were leaked to the Jerusalem Post.But who needs a study to show who the anti-Semites are? You can hear it and see it on Europe’s streets.
‘Charlie Hebdo’: why jihad came to Paris (irishtimes.com)
Nearly 1,300 years have passed since Charles Martel turned back the Islamic invasion at Tours, and there was a historic resonance to the policeman’s words.
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Amid the blur of stained glass, incense and candles inside the cathedral, Fr Emmanuel Da alluded to the atrocity. “Whatever his religion, whatever his culture, a human being is your brother, and violence is a prison,” he preached. “Harming one brother with homicidal violence is harming God. There is no act more repugnant to God than homicide.”
Charlie Hebdo Attack Could Induce Spread Of Anti-Muslim Sentiments In Europe (eurasiareview.com)
Elmas stated that Turkey stands as one of the most exemplary countries in terms of showing that Islam can coexist with the values of democracy, rule of law, etc. Here, Elmas underlined that Turkey should continue to cooperate with the EU and that the two parties would greatly benefit from identifying and acting upon the lowest common denominator between them when it comes to the issue.
European Powers Implement Police State Measures in Wake of Charlie Hebdo Attack (gunnyg.wordpress.com)
Governments throughout Europe have responded to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in France by moving quickly to push through a raft of anti-democratic measures. They are exploiting the shock and confusion generated by the event in Paris to take actions… European Powers Implement Police State Measures in Wake of Charlie Hebdo Attack
Timeline of European terror attacks (seattletimes.com)
A gun assault on the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo Wednesday was the deadliest terrorist attack in France’s recent history. Some other terror attacks in Western Europe:

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