Is It or Isn't a Religion? You Tell me.

[Ninurta]

I've always thought and this includes my own beliefs (Buddhist) that religion is nothing more than an organization requiring money to support itself and Control Over The Masses To keep That Money Flowing In. 

Indeed it can be ... hint the RCC .. however, there are two entities that run side-by-side ... 
the true Bride of Christ and the Satanic perversion of the Bride (Rev 17) ... many bewildered and confused < Satan's MO
The scripture indeed sorts these out .... the sheep and the goats / the wheat and the chaff / the left and the right

The important takeaway here is that it's not important that "the scriptures" sorts them out, but the important thing is it ought to be teaching it's READERS how to make that distinction. Sadly, most don't get that lesson from it. Instead, they go along and pick out the parts that they want to believe, and discard the rest. Because of that, most "christians" are utterly and completely unable to separate the sheep from the goats - they lack the ability to realize that they ARE goats.

At my age, I've been to a lot of churches over the years, both Catholic and Protestant, and have found exactly ONE, way back when, that actually taught what the bible says, and didn't shy away from integrating the difficult parts into their theology. They discarded nothing, and are to be commended for it.

That church, as far as I know, is no more. the building is still there, and has services every day it's supposed to, but the theology has changed to an unrecognizable mishmash of what the parishioners want to hear, and what the preacher wants them to believe.

The "Bride of Christ" you speak of is not, nor ever will be, found within the confines of a church - not "church" in the modern sense of the word, anyhow. It's not confined to a single religion, and definitely not a set of "doctrines" - that would be like trying to confine God it's self to a set of "doctrines", and we most certainly don't write policy for God in the form of "doctrines", "doctrinal statements" or "confessions of faith".

God, a real god, will not allow itself to be confined or constrained by the pronouncements of mere humans. That's not a real problem, though, because most of them are distracted from God anyhow, busy whacking each other over "doctrines" rather than chasing after God.


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