thats mental...

Shalom All,

Been there, done that. Glad to out of it. Always felt uncomfortable with all those statues in church buildings, and felt worse when asked to kneel and pray to god before these statues. The worst was when I had to kiss the feet of a statue on a crucifix during Good Friday! Really could not understand why such customs and traditions prevailed until I decided to investigate it more than 20 years ago. Phew! The truth is damning! A simple understanding of the Decalogue makes it impossible to reconcile the use of statues, and only convoluted thinking can justify the use of statues in the worship of the Creator. Moving on with the Decalogue, the Sabbath question pops up and refuses to go away when one truly pursues the divine messages behind it, and the misleading rationale of keeping Sunday as a replacement day of worship falls far short of the mark. To all who read this, I urge you to ask questions: why do we do the things we do and believe the things we believe. Forget about the beliefs of others, start with yourself. Ask yourself why do you have three meals a day, why do you brush your teeth before breakfast, why do you trade your time for money pursuing goals that deny you freedom? Ask yourself why do you think the things you think, and why do you believe the things you believe. And be honest about the answers! And if you find the spiritual answers lacking, then it really is a good idea to start/keep reading YY and try to understand all the precepts contained herein. And if you do not find your questions answered, ask! "Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened, ask and you shall receive." Believe this, not because I said so but because it comes from our Creator!

Yahweh Bless You All!

Your "questions to ask yourself," bitnet, are things that I realize I often do different than what society dictates to do, and with positive results. Doing things based on tradition or simply because it has always been done that way is a really stupid reason to do it.

Another thing that you reminded me of. When I went back to where I grew up at the end of 2007, I saw this new building off in the distance. I was far off, but it was so huge it looked like a skyscraper in the middle of a corn field. A giant could have lived there. It was all light up and gaudy, too. I actually thought it might be some muslim place. But, just last week I got back in contact with an old friend, and he said it is a catholic church, and it is still being built. They are having it built using the same types of material, techniques, and tools that would have been used hundreds of years ago. Remember how I said it is far off, well they are going to have a path all the way to the highway that is littered with life size statues of "saints" that are painted to look real. It is supposed to be some sort of holy trail. My friend said that the plans make it look like a catholic amusement park. Utterly rediculous.