Faith... with no organized rules..

[Iridescence]

Not a peep?
Some of my more profound postulations too.
Took a lot of whiskey to come up with those gems.

Your toons usually are so distracting...

 

[MarcATL]

Is it really necessary that a persons faith be organized into a religion...?

If you accept that there is a higher power than yourself and you require yourself to do the right, fair and proper things..etc.

Eh...just thinking out loud..

You'll probably see me post this again in the future.

God is a God of order. Everything we need to know as humans is in Genesis. He created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. To show that man was not created to work, but to worship Him. As well as to show that The Sabbath was created for man, not man for The Sabbath. Work came in the form of a curse after they ate of the forbidden fruit. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked...

Everything man needed, was already provided by the time he was created. Air to breathe, animals for companionship and for caring, nature to enjoy and to tend to, fruits of all manner to eat and partake of. Fruits and vegatables were the original diet BTW. Not meat. That came after sin was introduced in the world.

Everything God does is done in order. He created the heavens and the earth, then the sea and then the trees/greenage, then the animals, etc. So too, should we worship. The Church is a body. aka the Body of Christ. Your eye doesn't look one way and you walk another way, that's a dysfunctional body. So too goes The Church.

The lack of "rules" as you put it is akin to free-for-all, which is not order, and is akin to chaos, which is not of God's will, as God is a God of order.

Hopefully you got the point.

Wonderful post... But would you mind to further explain what the forbidden fruit was and why work... was given to man? So many genuinely seem to have no clue.

Certainly.

The forbidden fruit was the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which was in the middle of Eden.

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

It was that same fruit that was the cause or the object of the first lie. Which was "thou shalt not surely die." That first lie, is the root cause of MUCH deception and confusion in the Christian world and beyond (but that's another topic altogether)

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

The curses comes here...

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Now because of sin, which is turning away from God, or disobeying God, we, as humans now have to bear pain in childbirth vs. 16. The dominion of male over female. Not the corrupt RW version, just dominion and it states that the woman will desire her husband as well, so these are the rules of nature as ordained by God.

Mankind will have to toil the earth, or work, in order to eat aka live. vs. 17. Verse 18 states that it will not be easy, hence work, again. And verse 19 covers a bit more of work and goes into the nature of man, being originally formed from the dust of the earth and now returning to the dust once he dies. Hint: This refers back to the first lie.

Clear as mud?

 

[Avatar4321]

There was a time when humankind had only the earth beneath feat and stars above head as spiritual guidposts.

I think we would do well to revert to the basics.

I disagree. The Gospel has been preached since the beginning.

 

[manifold]

[youtube]qxJKFu51lbM[/youtube]

I've got my own moral compass to steer by
A guiding star beats a spirit in the sky
And all the preaching voices -
Empty vessels of dreams so loud
As they move among the crowd
Fools and thieves are well disguised
In the temple and market place

Like a stone in the river
Against the floods of spring
I will quietly resist

Like the willows in the wind
Or the cliffs along the ocean
I will quietly resist

I don't have faith in faith
I don't believe in belief
You can call me faithless
I still cling to hope
And I believe in love
And that's faith enough for me

I've got my own spirit level for balance
To tell if my choice is leaning up or down
And all the shouting voices
Try to throw me off my course
Some by sermon, some by force
Fools and thieves are dangerous
In the temple and market place

Like a forest bows to winter
Beneath the deep white silence
I will quietly resist

Like a flower in the desert
That only blooms at night
I will quietly resist

 

[ABikerSailor]

Is it really necessary that a persons faith be organized into a religion...?

If you accept that there is a higher power than yourself and you require yourself to do the right, fair and proper things..etc.

Eh...just thinking out loud..

First.........a bit about my religious background.............

Baptized Lutheran, but went to Episcopalian, Catholic, and Baptist churches because of stepfathers and foster parents. Quit religion until 1994 when I came across Zen and then decided to become a Taoist, and now I also study Buddhist and Judaic theology.

One thing that I've learned is that almost all religions believe in a supreme God, and pretty much all the rules laid down by the various religions are pretty similar.

Tao reflects a great deal of what Judaic theology teaches, and Buddhism reflects a great deal of what Yeshua taught His disciples.

Me? I personally believe that the various religions are there to give you a foundation in a belief system, but they are basically just starting places.

In Christianity, (as well as many other religions) we are taught that we must make a friend in Yeshua and God. Now, with that thought, my friends are allowed to drop in at my house any time they like, I don't have to meet them at one specific time/place each week, so why should I settle in my relationship with Father (the Our Father is how I learned how to pray) and have some intermediary between me and Him to tell me how I feel about Him, and how He feels about me?

If I talk to Him enough, I'll know how He feels about what I've been doing.

Unfortunately, over the years since religion was first created, many people have seen how it's a really easy way to hold control over people and their money.

If you cut out the religious middlemen, lots of preachers would be out of jobs (especially people like Creflo Dollar and Joel Osteen).

 

[Iridescence]

It is a fascinating subject... but I suppose it will also forever be within the shroud of God's covenantal laws.

 

[editec]

Is it really necessary that a persons faith be organized into a religion...?

It is for most people.

They need rules and boundries to guide them.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Is it really necessary that a persons faith be organized into a religion...?

It is for most people.

They need rules and boundries to guide them.

Yes, just like you need to learn math, science and reading, as well as the rules for a decent society while you're in school.

But you don't stay in school forever, eventually, you strike out on your own with the knowledge that you'd learned to find your own way.

Yes, religions have rules and dogma, but those are just starting steps towards a genuine relationship with whatever you call your Higher Power.