I was raised as a child in church, my family are christian, my kids raised in the church. I was once an utmost believer. There's this hymn, "I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back". I'd sing that in church with utmost sincerity, deep conviction. Everything has changed, never believed it was possible. I now view the bible stories as a scam, the Jesus stories a scam. The heaven and hell a scam. The whole Jewish manipulation of religion a giant scam. The resurrection a scam. All the bible promises and miracles a scam. All of it it engineered by faulty fraudulent humans. Is there a God? Imo, yes, but nothing like jewish bs. The God is not an individual, God imo is everything collectively, every single particle or non particle is God. God the father son and holy spirit is pure bullshit, human bullshit story. An angry God, a punishing God, is bullshit. It could be said a loving God is bullshit, because what is, is what is. Electricity for example, a force for good or bad, is neither loving nor hating if it kills you, it just is what it is.
Religion in general is one of the best possible business models, aside from running a government or protection racket. Who (or what) are they really worshiping?
"All who dwell on the earth will worship [the beast], whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." (NKJV) 666 could be any number because numbers go against the oneness of Christ. There are no numbers in Christ. It's only where numbers are valued that you have to worry about the cost of food...or worry about food at all. Anything that requires food can be classified as a "beast", which does include humanity. Arguably, the human brain is the most concerned with numbers among all mammals. Money arises from what the brain believes. To have money, you first must recognize, or accept, certain limits. There is a limited amount of gold, for example. If we can agree on that, then we can have money. Conversely, there is no such thing as a limitation in Christ. Because of that, there is no money in Christ. So the beast, and the problems it faces, and the problems facing any brain that believes in the beast, and gives the beast value (worth-ships, worships), exist only on earth (or any other planet that supports beasts and the food that they must eat). "Slain from the foundation of the world" means that Christ was slain when the world was founded. The world was founded when the proverbial prodigal son walked away from unlimited power...into a foreign land of limitations. These are self-imposed limitations, btw. "Slain" means that the concepts valued by the prodigal son function to "kill" the concepts that support and sustain Christ. For example, faith kills knowledge. Also, imagination kills reality. The prodigal son can only "live" in a land of faith and imagination. The more the prodigal son values the things he believes in, the more "real" they become to him, until the memory of what was real, Christ, is long forgotten. At which point Christ may as well be dead. But Christ is only dead to believers in the beast. If you believe beasts are real, for example, then you know nothing of Christ. Knowing nothing of Christ, then Christ may as well be dead to you. Believing is a choice. Thus, believing and giving value to (worshipping) are synonymous. If you give value to anything other than Christ, that will cause major problems for you. Those problems can only be experienced in the land of make-believe. You can reduce the value you give to make believe by accepting Shakespear's analysis of the situation: "All the world is a stage, and we, men and women, are merely players". You can further reduce the value you give to the beast by classifying humanity similar to the way you classify leprechauns and unicorns. Christ is unlimited, and has no name because of the nature of oneness. There are no distinctions between one being which is unlimited, and another being that is unlimited. Technically they are the same, without enough distinction to require a name. There are no names if, in reality, all living beings possess unlimitedness as integral to who/what they are. The term Christ, then, is useful only for the self-banished who might be waking up to question the conditions of the beast, looking rather to the reality of unlimited power. As such, the term Christ is best understood as a term of astonishment, as in: Christ! As you wake up, you will indeed be astonished. If you are not astonished, you are probably still asleep (dead), still having problems with the beast. If you like, you can think of the prodigal son as the beast. You can think of the brain as his signature. The brain is like the best thing the beast has made and is highly valued. The brain means, "the beast was here". The mark and the signature are the same thing. It's like a John Hancock on the declaration of independence. The brain symbolizes the value set of the beast. Whatever is marked by it will have a similar set of values. So you don't want to rely on it too much to determine what, and what isn't, real. Reality and Christ are the same living Being. So you don't want to ask the brain too much about Christ. Knowledge of Christ will come by way of experience. At best, you can use the brain to prepare yourself for an experience. As such, knowledge has to come directly from Christ. As such, all knowledge is about Christ. If it's not about Christ, its not knowledge. It's about things believed. Conversely, all beliefs are also about Christ. For example, 2 + 2 = 4 is not knowledge. It's about things believed, the belief, for example, in separation, distinctions, differences, inequality. Everything that contradicts Christ. Beliefs tend to "kill" Christ, as they mangle and twist Reality beyond recognition. Where beliefs begin, Christ ends. Beliefs can only live where Christ dies. A world founded upon faith must therefore "kill" Christ. This is why Christ is slain upon the foundation of a world of beliefs/faith/imagination. Anything with a "beginning" functions as the ending of Christ, which is eternal (without beginning or end). Therefore, "In the beginning" is not a good start for a book about Reality. Such a book will be a fiction. It will largely be about the problems of beasts. Those problems have not necessarily been ameliorated by the brain. Arguably, problems have been exacerbated by the brain. Pound for pound, the brain has not added to a net gain for Reality. The brain is the sign, or signature, of a net negative. Are you astonished yet? The countermeasure is to withdraw faith/belief in a world founded upon faith/belief. The countermeasure is to rely only on knowledge, specifically the knowledge of Christ, through experience. This is a revelation.
The hypocrisy. Besides the fact once I left the church I finally was able to confront my own dishonesty. Christianity is based on belief and faith. Like trading, if a person believes something, that belief does not necessarily translate to truth, reality, profit. Everyone has to work life out for themselves. If you want to be a sheep and follow bullshit, then do it. There's a lot if bullshit in politics and religion, and they are tied together.
There' one song the church should play / sing. But they won't. It's too confronting. The congregation would walk out due to self righteous indignation.
That's funny, because to me, the hypocrisy actually increased my faith. Just proves this Bible verse is right: Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? We all evil in the heart, rotten to the core, both the Christian and the atheist. Only God is good. Everyone is a sheep, both the Christian and the atheist. The atheist believes in the big bang hypothesis. But science 101 says a hypothesis cannot be proven, only disproven.