A leap of faith, agreed upon, as necessity for the heart, by atheist, existential writers.

As far as interpretations. I agree with Justathought that "It makes no logical sense, that a loving God would only provide one path to him despite the different cultures in the world."

I came here because there is a lot of love with people that don't believe in Jesus.

Maybe he's right. Jesus said you can only get to the Father through Him. Maybe Jesus was just saying that, when we die, if we have gone through the sanctification process, and lived constnatly trying to better ourselves to we could love others, and have a relationship with God, that he will be there to accompany us to Heaven.

The ironic thing is. I DO believe in Jesus with all my heart. However, I know there are very loving holy people out there that don't believe.

Check this metaphor out. A corn field, with tilled soil, is best for growing corn.

However, if a seed was to fall somewhere else, and grow, would we not harvest it, simply because it wasn't in our corn field?

We might say, wow, its amazing!

All i'm saying is. Saying I am 100 sure in my interpretation, means I have no religious tolerance.

However, saying, Jesus might have meant this, and I'll try my best anyway, I think, does a bit more.

Also, beware of emotions. Yes, they validate truths, but, the Devil can use emotions as well.

As Suzanna said, let us all just dig deeper.

Comments welcome. For example, what else did Jesus say that points to we have to believe in what God did, in order to believe in God in a way that we can get to Heaven?

For those that don't believe, it is said that their ignorance won't be used against them. That doesn't mean they can't get to heaven. Let me just say that, perhaps they would listen a bit more to people like us, if we weren't so demanding of our interpretations. Matt you say like half the country is floating towards Hinduism. That means, whatever we have been doing, hasn't been working. We can't say the same thing over and over, and expect every generation to respond the same to it. We need to learn about people, and Love them, like Jesus did. Not sit out here making websites, perhaps, although, I do apologize for being so forward, and I do understand the therapeutic aspects of writing, for ourselves mostly, although we do direct it toward others.

However since I believe in Jesus, for me to turn my back on Him now, would be a serious disappointment, I know.

Conversion to any religion is a betrayal of your true self. Your just a human being and your mind should be free so you can enjoy your life. Instead your mind was taken hostage and you are now wasting precious time devoting your life to an empty fictional story.

May life be kind to you and let you realize you do not need a god to make you special. You are special because there is only one of you in the whole world, and that is miraculos enough.. and it came to be just because life is amazing.. not because ofsome silly fictional character.

You take this as meaning that everyone must convert to your version of Christianity or go to Hell. This is NOT what this says, and in fact, this statement can be interpreted in many other ways (never mind that we're dealing with a translation, which can also change nuance and shades of meaning.)

I interpret that statement to mean, Jesus, as the personified expression of God, is the way we will all reach God because that's His role…to be the bridge between God and man. Not as an edict, i.e., you must be a Christian or else, but as a hand reaching out.

Now, you claim you are fundamentalist in your views of the Bible, saying that we must adhere to the Bible exactly, and claiming you don't pick and choose what to believe in. But are you actively following the commandments in Leviticus or not? Do you shave your bead? Wear clothing of mixed fabrics? Dispose of your household mold properly?

I find that many fundamentalist Christians selectively choose those aspects of the Bible they will own as "this is the only way it is" but then conveniently ignore other parts or passages that don't fit in with their particular rigid Christian worldview.

My Jesus and my God will never turn away his children just because they happened to ascribe to other belief systems. In the end, it is that moment of facing God in the "hereafter" where the soul will choose whether to be with God or without God ("in Hell").

Bottom line, I do not find your interpretation of what Jesus said to be "irrefutable" by any stretch of logic or imagination. It is YOUR interpretation. Not mine. And frankly, I prefer to believe in a God that is much, much much MUCH more forgiving than you happen to be.

And frankly, it's fundamentalist thinking such as yours that is PRECISELY the reason many Americans are drifting away from Christianity. People like you are one of the MAIN CAUSES of people leaving Jesus. They do not find it at all logical to believe in a God who would be so restrictive and punitive that you MUST believe exactly such-and-such or suffer in Hell. It makes no logical sense, that a loving God would only provide one path to him despite the different cultures in the world. Your rigid "irrefutable" claiming of the truth is precisely why people shut off to Christianity and turn to other, more open-ended spiritual practices. Something to consider.

1)Steve – "Every bible of the 108-Variations were copied and copied and re-copied"

I see your point. Since Bibles today are from a long time of being reproduced by hand, it does seem your argument is correct. But, there are over 5000 manuscripts of the Gospels, this is generally accepted that the 4 gospels have a solid foundation and they can be taken as reliable.

2)"WE CREATE OUR OWN REALITY" I dont agree with this, i can say look there is a horse over there, but that doesnt change the fact it is a cow."Car was lets say a fork" I really dont see how this is reality. This is language. Just because in a language they may use the word "fork" instead of "car" is not changing reality, it is just a difference in language.

I dont think i need to say anymore to this

3)"Women shouldn’t cut their hair or wear pants…" alright, i am unfamiliar of these passages, can you please post a reference? What you must remember is that not all the writing in the Bible is written universally. Some writing (leviticus is a great example) is written for specific people. i.e. Leviticus was the recorded law for the Jewish people, that were the laws that Hebrew society was based on.

Thanks all, look forward to hearing your responses

Caleb

I struggled with many aspects of Christianity before I became a believer. Everything from the teachings/interpretations of the Bible, the hypocrisy of many Christians, to the thought that only Christians are saved. But I became a believer through the Baha'i faith. There is a God. One God. And he has continued to send his message and will through his messengers/mirrors/manifestations – through Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad even Buddha and Krishna. God will never leave us alone. He continues to upgrade His message as humanity evolves and its capabilities (both individually and as a whole) increase. Of course there are mistakes/mis-interpretations of books written thousands of years ago. Hence God advises of those mistakes/mis-interpretations with the next manifestation and provides us with further guidance to lead humanity to the next level.

May God bless your journey and your efforts to save his people.

Matt your heart is for Jesus and is to be commended. God will love you for all you do regardless of unintentional misinterpretation which we have all been guilty of and will struggle with at times. We are all learning and growing and none of us are finished with that.

My understanding is that we entered a new covenant when Jesus died bringing us under Grace not Law as we were incapable of keeping all the Law. That doesn't give us licence to do as we please though. But it was to rid us of the trivial and get us to work through relationship with a living God. Jesus asked us to keep His commandments and there were (2)He made it simpler for us.

YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF

If we focus on this God will be so close to us we will walk straighter, hear Him and do his will more, interpret the word more correctly and love one another more and more. We must stop judging one another, arguing over the Law and encourage each other to seek a stronger relationship with the God we share. Our time is running out and we have work to do. Reach out to those who are hurting, show who Jesus is by reflecting His personality in us and our lives. Don't scare people away from a rule-bearing God when he is only interested is reconciling himself to his children and using them to reconcile as many as possible (more urgently now than ever before). Doing this we will follow the commands of a God that knows better than us and hates religion.

Many blessings to each of you!!!

I am not looking to bash you or tell you that you are a horrible person for feeling the way you feel, but I hope that you will take the following to heart and think over it. You must realize that the NT we read today in our Bibles is not the original text as it was written by it's authors. It is all translated from language to language, which means no one can completely understand the authors fine details without looking at the original text. (Hence the saying "lost in translation") As an example, I have found a rather lengthy, but good explanation of the scripture that most believe instructs women to not cut their hair.

http://www.actseighteen.com/articles/uncuthair.ht…

I believe it does a great job of taking the ORIGINAL text and breaks down the words more thoroughly than what is written in our translated Bibles today to explain what is meant.

However, debating over scripture is a waste of our time spent here on Earth. We could argue back and forth about what a piece of scripture "really means" until we are blue in the face, and in the end neither of us would be the wiser. So I have two things to say:

1.) If you believe that the scripture truly does say for women to not cut their hair, then by all means please, do not allow your daughters or wife to cut their hair. No one will call you a sinner because your wife and daughter do not cut their hair, and that way you are confident you are following Christ's commandments.

2.) However, even if that IS what the scripture is saying (that women should not cut their hair), then the sin that a woman commits by cutting her hair is no worse than any other sin that we all (You and I included) commit all the time. So simply because we as Christians are not perfect, is no reason to turn your back on the church and deny that Christ is our savior.

This applies to all the examples you mentioned. Wearing pants, owning slaves, or whatever it may be. None of these will change the fact that God sent his Son to die on the cross for us. In fact, that is the very reason he sent Christ to this Earth, because we are broken people who all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Christ has washed us clean of all of it, and we should rejoice in that. Not run away from the church because we misinterpreted a piece of scripture, or because we are not perfect.

Enough of my babbling. I pray that God will open your eyes and your heart, and bless you. Thank you Matt for this post. Keep up the good work, and thank you for glorifying God with the gifts he has blessed you with.

For every commandment that you see other Christians having trouble believing, there are a handful of other parts of the NT that you and your own ignore as well.

Women shouldn't cut their hair or wear pants, slavery is OK as long as you beat the slaves correctly. Oh no, they didn't mean it in the obvious way, *THIS* is what they meant…..

To be completely honest with you, it is a mindset like the one that could have written this article (you) that has driven me away from the church that I loved and to go so far as to call myself a simple Diest. The second half of John 14:6 simply cannot be accurate.