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Tall Shadow I also agree with you that religion is the Spirit that is the problem. Jesus did not come to give us religion. Religion is the adherance to a set of rules as laid out by men in response to a set of beliefs gleaned from some type of religious writing. The Jewish people in the time of the old testament had a very lengthy set of rules governing what they could and could not do. Jesus said "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." Jesus took the Law and broke it down to these two commandments " Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Now wouldn't life be grand if we all loved each other as our selves. Ah therein lies the problem- we do love each other as ourselves. Our education system tells us that we are nothing but an accident of evolution, that it is only the fittest that survive, there is only so much to go around- you better grab it while you can. This fosters a feeling of hopelessness. If I feel that there is no hope for me then I need to make sure that you feel there is no hope for you. It fosters a mindset that says I'm going to look out for number 1 and I don't care what happens to you. If we could understand what drove Jesus to die on the cross for our sins I think we would have a much different view of our selves. He asked God to release Him from His obligation of the cross three times but each time as soon as He asked to be released from that obligation He immediately followed with the statement "nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done". He resisted going to the cross so much that he sweat blood but still he said "nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done". Now that is loving others more than yourself. The Muslim people see Jesus as a prophet of Islam. Wait a minute now Jesus said he was the Son of God. Either this guy is loopy, lying or who he says He is. You cannot look at Him and say that we accept part of who He is and ignore the stuff we don't like. IMHO
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