Number 1

Most of my friends and relatives are of the Christian persuasion, some are fanatics while others are less judgmental and then some don't seem to judge at all. Life and people are definitely diverse and colorful, and this diversity and colorfulness is the stuff that makes life interesting and worth being a part of.

The heaven and hell concepts are the issues that religions harp on week after week after week.

They say: Accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior and you will
go to heaven, but if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your
personal savior then you go to hell.

They say that we have a choice but this is not much of a choice. If I do not believe in a religious system this does not mean that I choose to go to hell. How does one choose to believe in something that sounds illogical? You may profess that you believe and go through the motions like your suppose to so that you convince your colleagues, your newly found brothers and sisters in Christ.

I do believe that if one believes that believing in Jesus Christ as your savior, your salvation from hell and ye shall not parish but have everlasting life, then, I think it appropriate to share your belief with others, but keep in mind that your belief is no more than a belief in Santa Clause. Your belief is still only a belief and you have no right to make others feel shallow or stupid or evil that don't share in your beliefs.

I personally find it difficult to believe that a God that could create an entire universe and a multitude of life forms and all of the natural laws that work for our good as long as we use them wisely could not think of a less barbarous way to save the people of the world without arbitrarily choosing a virgin girl to carry His and her child to birth, allowing her to nourish and love and raise this child, and this God knowing all the while that this child's sole purpose is to be brutally beaten and crucified to his death. This all because Adam and Eve ate a forbidden fruit that neither Jesus nor the rest of the entire world had anything to do with.

If this awesome creator said to Adam and Eve that "in the day that ye eat of this fruit ye shall surely die" could this same God not have been powerful enough to have proclaimed that "in the day that ye eat of the fruit of the peach tree ye shall have everlasting life". If this God is all powerful then why must He choose barbarism as the only way to show His love of the world?

There was a time that I believed in that biblical account of the way to salvation from hell but I have come to the point of not believing in a literal burning hell fire. I have a belief in a loving creator that did not create a hell or a Satan nor even evil. This thing people refer to as evil I merely call it 'Invalid Thinking'. The individuals that many people label as evil, I think that they are existing in varying degrees of invalid thinking, and some I think become mentally ill.

I do not believe that man will ever recognize religion for it's limited benefits. There will always be fanatics because there will always be 'Invalid Thinkers'.

Finton