Last Commented Religion & Spirituality Blogs (1,493)

I have been single for almost 2 years now, and when I ended my previous relationship in January 2016, I was hoping to start dating within 3 months' time. I convinced myself that by then I would be ready. I started putting myself out there, I started seeking a new relationship while still full of anger, disappointments from my previous relationship. I was quite disappointed when the year ended while I was still single. I sought a relationship in every way possible. I stopped seeking God, and sought my husband. As the search continued, I was quite  disappointed with God. I was lonely, alone and miserable, and everyone knows that misery loves company.  I thought finding my husband would make me complete as I thought I would meet this special, perfect guy who would bring happiness to my miserable life. I wanted someone to fill the void that I had from my previous relationship, but little did I know that only God could do that for me.  Only God loved me that much to take my brokenness and exchange it for wholeness. I was determined that it was my boyfriend's or husband's duty to make and keep me happy.
 
 During that time, I prayed, fasted and did all a christian single woman could do, until few days ago when I was reading Matthew 6:33 which says "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you"KJV. I have read this verse so many times before, but this time it was different. My eyes were opened to the truth that I needed to hear for so long. I also like Holman Christian Standard Bible which says "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you". God promises to provide all these things while we seeking his kingdom and his righteousness.
 
I was seeking the creation instead of the Creator, I was seeking the thing created instead of the One who created it. My eyes were opened and I realized that I am not on this planet to seek a husband, or a relationship. My assignment on this earth is not to find my husband, but I had a bigger purpose and assignment. God further made me aware of the fact that I am a woman, therefore, I will be a wife someday and the bible says in Proverbs 18:22 "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD" NIV This means that I am to be found, not find. I am not an initiator, but a responder. I was so amazed by the fact that I spent 2 years of my singleness seeking my husband, instead of seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and wait for God to give me all these things.
 
Being single is not easy, especially when everyone around you is getting married, engaged and you remain the only single friend they have, but I can guarantee you that should you seek the wrong things, you will find rest on the prostitute's lap. Look at what happened to Samson in Judge 16:19 "After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him".
 
God has allowed me to be in a place where I trust him more than I did 2 years ago, I am at peace, I am wise, I am better, stronger (spiritually). I am becoming a woman that I am proud of.  I am grateful for the closed doors, I am grateful for the potential husbands I met and prayed they would stay, I am grateful they never did. I am expecting my husband to be more what I asked for, I am expecting "...exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" Ephesians 3:20 KJV. I am not putting my expectation on people anymore, my expectations are on the Word and the promises of the Lord.

When the term “God” is mentioned, it seems it is generally assumed that everyone has a clear and common understanding of what it refers to.
But is this really so?

Could it be that there are significant differences in what different persons perceive as God?

I think that it is very important to closely examine the answer to this question in fairness to those who consider themselves to be atheists, and also theists, since these terms are both related to the notion of God.

We define ourselves as beings, that is, human beings. A being is a living entity, endowed with some type of life force which may be termed spirit. Each human being is said to have such a spirit (or soul). God is also normally perceived as a spirit.
A human is viewed as a being at the natural level whereas God is viewed as a being at a higher level, referred to as the Supernatural level.

I wonder if viewing a human being as an entity at the natural or human level and viewing God as an entity at a higher or supernatural level somehow seems to suggest that God may be viewed as a superhuman being. In other words, God is viewed as having human-like attributes, but at a higher or superhuman level. Essentially, this is an anthropomorphism.

Anthropomorphism (Merriam Webster Dictionary):
an interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or personal characteristics.

In the Bible, the book of Genesis states that God created man in his own image. George Bernard Shaw said: “God created man in his own image and man has returned the compliment”. That is, man has created God in his own image, with human-like attributes.

Is it possible that one can have a direct apprehension of that spirit (or force) which religion (theology) refers to as God, without viewing it in terms of human or superhuman attributes, that is, natural or supernatural? One simply views it directly as some phenomenon and is contented to apprehend it at that level.

I think most persons would agree that there is some sort of order or principle in the working of the cosmos. Perhaps having a direct awareness of this principle in action is having a realization of the very “essence” of what is commonly termed God. Scriptures or religious teachings attempt to put a “form” to this "essence" and view the essence and form as being synonymous and co-existing with each other. Both are essential from the religious perspective.

If a person has such a direct awareness, that is, of the “essence” without having an interest in the teachings or dogma of any religion, is such a person an atheist or “godless” - a term which, to many, has negative connotations such as evil-mindedness and an uncaring attitude towards others, etc.?

Does one need to believe in God as defined in the dogma of religion in order to love others and to have a caring attitude toward them and, more importantly, to express this attitude in action?

Some of the world's notable philanthropists are atheists. These include Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.
There are several well-to-do theists who profess a caring attitude toward others but do little or nothing to express it in action.

Do you view the term “God” as an anthropomorphism?

I have seen comments by some individuals mentioning the term “higher power” in this regard.

What is your personal understanding, if any, of the term “God”?

"Pope Declares No Hell?"

So ran the riveting headline on the Drudge Report of Holy Thursday.

Drudge quoted this exchange, published in La Repubblica, between Pope Francis and his atheist friend, journalist Eugenio Scalfari.

Scalfari: "What about bad souls? Where are they punished?"

Bad souls "are not punished," Pope Francis is quoted, "those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls."

On the first Holy Thursday, Judas betrayed Christ. And of Judas the Lord said, "Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man shall be betrayed; it were better for him if that man had never been born."

Did the soul of Judas, and those of the monstrous evildoers of history, "just fade away," as General MacArthur said of old soldiers? If there is no hell, is not the greatest deterrent to the worst of sins removed?

What did Christ die on the cross to save us from?

If Francis made such a statement, it would be rank heresy.

Had the pope been speaking ex cathedra, as the vicar of Christ on earth, he would be contradicting 2,000 years of Catholic doctrine, rooted in the teachings of Christ himself. He would be calling into question papal infallibility, as defined in 1870 by the Vatican Council of Pius IX.


Questions would arise as to whether Francis is a true pope.

Everyone in this world wants love but why is then "There's not enough love to go round"? 'Sympathy' Rare Bird.
The way I see it is, what we do with the light of our love, where does it go? We tend to focus this light on just one person - a partner or lover, or we just focus it on our family. And if we don't have either we focus it on ourselves but this doesn't make us feel loved. For love to be activated and felt, there must be more than one person, just as with music there must be a listener for it to be appreciated.
What we should do is shine this 'light of love' on all we come into contact with, and even those we don't. Our love should not be a single beam of light but like a lantern which shines all around. But how to create that amount of love? Well, you just have to feel it, want it and want the world to be a better place for all, then visualise this inside your own being. You have to create the energy within yourself. The love you have is just the polarity of your energy and how you focus your attention on it, how you think of it and how you see it. We are all co-creators with the creative force of life.

Actually there is enough love to round, just like there is enough daylight to go round but in the middle of the night we don't see it.

It may not happen on your timetable or the way you thought, but He is a faithful God. What He promised you, He will bring to pass. Have faith

I am starting a new Religion.


All votive offerings, in form of anger, hatred, dispair, disappoint, failure, envy, anxiety, depression, pain should be left in the box, and you will be born new this instance.


A  votive offering is one or more objects (in this case emotions)deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place. ( according to Google)

You shall not covert the votive crown made of these negative emotions, and live in peace for ever till you die.


What happens after death is not my concern, and so shall not be questioned.

I am not a God, so don't pray for any s*xual or other favours from me. I am just a human.

But this blog is sacred.

Shockingly true. Finally someone in the Muslim world sees and expresses the truth.



Way to go Yousef Al-Husseini.

The TRUTH hurts but for humanity's sake we must face it and do something about it.

I hope peace will reign for the whole of humanity.

The specific goal of Hirshi, is to remove any excuse that causes these terrorism.



Explain why the millions of non terrorist who stood in support if the killing of Hebdo

Explain the caliphation movement, history indicates it's continuum. There wasn't a single Muslim in the middle East in 600 AD.

Explain the above link that promotes killing of infidels by a preacher. Don't tell me the audience were only terrorists in the making.

Again, there are goid people in every religion, they are not the ones that are persecuted.

Then again, the San Bernardino incident, killed 14 innocent Americans.

Born and raised in the US, he wasn't showing any terrorism inclinations, two years before the incident, he went to Pakistan abd married a terrorist.

The point I'm making, we can't be sure who is good and a terrorist one.

Trump for that reason wants to stop Muslim coming to the US. I can't agree more.

Everyone is lonely when they don’t feel love but we cover our loneliness and lack of love by keeping busy, doing endless activities and also by resenting someone; anger can be used to drown out the need for love.
It’s quite easy to say “I am not lonely, I like my own company” but really this is a cover up and stops us trying to connect with others. The reason for this is that love is our natural state before life gets its hands on us and we have to grow up. We want to feel the love of another but often we pretend this is not so and find a pet or a hobby as a substitute.
The truth is we all desire love but many people suppress the feeling because they cannot find it. Thinking about needing someone to love and be loved by can be quite depressing when the need cannot be satisfied, so better to be busy and not think about it. Why is it so many people are experiencing depression today or are just not happy with life? The simple answer is they do not feel love. It’s not possible to feel love and be depressed at the same time. That’s like standing in the heat of the sun and feeling cold.
The desire for love is inherent in everyone because love means we are wanted, are cared for and that we are precious. Without these needs being satisfied, what are we? Answer – lonely and sad.
The trouble is, we accept being lonely and not loved as a by-product of life, a natural consequence of it, and we consider it something really special if we find love with another, or indeed with others. Being lonely and not loved seems to be normal and being loved is that which is special but shouldn’t it be the other way round? Shouldn’t love be normal and being unloved as something which is a unique event and special in that it shouldn’t happen?
What we should understand about loneliness is that it should only last as long as to show us that we don’t like it, and not a moment longer. Once we realise we don’t like being lonely and without love, we should do everything in our power to address this and change it. That doesn’t mean going crazy on dating sites to find that ‘special partner’ or ‘soul mate’ but that we realise that if you feel that way, and millions of others do too, there is something majorly wrong with how we are leading our lives all round the world. It’s an epidemic illness which goes unnoticed. Therefore, we have to be the doctors attending to our own illness and the illness of others too.
The answer must be to find out where love comes from and how we can make it an energy force which we can use, not just hope for. Hoping for love to come along is like hoping for a train to arrive if we don’t know if we are on the right platform.
The thinking tends to be that if two lonely people find each other and create love, then that is a wonderful thing and would be so if the love lasted for always but as we know, unfortunately so often it doesn’t. Meanwhile millions of lonely unloved people search for the answer and many sadly give up without succeeding. However, if we don’t find love in one way, perhaps we are looking in the wrong direction? We are on the wrong platform.

I was walking along a street near my home and my gaze was drawn toward the bright yellow flowers planted in the troughs at the side of the road. As I got close I was curious as to whether the delicate flowers had any scent and so bent down to find out, and yes there was a sweet aroma. I took a further deep inhalation to absorb more of this precious scent amidst the strongly polluted air around, full of engine gases and then a thought occurred to me. These little flowers must be pumping out this fragrance all the time, not just when I stopped by to sniff them. And then I was struck by the significance of this – twenty-four hours a day these small delicate plants are emitting a strong aroma but where can it come from? We humans of course emit our own particular aroma (smell) individual to each one of us, just as we do heat, and this is because we have a beating heart and a powerful system which converts food to energy. But what about the flower, it doesn’t have a beating heart and its roots sit in soil which has a completely different aroma. So how does a flower generate such a strong energy? Of course it is not done for us humans to enjoy, it is done to attract the insects which will pollinate it but nevertheless this is quite a feat.
This is just one of the wonders of life which we probably spend little of our time admiring. In fact how much of our wonderful world do we take time to really appreciate?

Babel meaning an idiom of confused noises came from the Biblical Old Testament when people tried to build a tower reaching out to skies, God scattered them as nations and different tongues. Resurrection of Babel is an idiom meaning globalization of the English language with the spread of the internet and social media. As an example: resurrection of Babel is synonymous with the coming of the New World Order the Illuminatium, the World of Abundance and Light for all as prophesied by the Illuminati.