I know this is probably a controversial and heated topic, but I'm not writing this for that purpose. I'm writing this because I feel there's a lot of extreme religions out there, some are cults and some are not. However, all have one common denominator, they believe everything they do is in the name of God or it's what they were told "God wanted". Most of this stuff however is not in any way, shape or form things God would want (at least not the one I learned about). So, I'm writing simply out of my own disgust and confusion as to why people want to attach Gods name to everything (especially bad and horrible things) or annonunce that they know for a exact certainty that that's what God in fact wanted.
Here's a list of cults that claim to be in the name of "God".
1. The FLDS- Led by Warren Jeffs
The FLDS is Mormon cult basically which practices polygamy and it's leader Warren Jeffs would pick who the young girls would marry and sex was a big practice in the cult, hence why he was arrested for child sexual assult. Of course all of this was all in the name of God.
2. Alamo Christian Ministries- Led by Tony Alamo
Alamo Christian Ministries was a Christian cult and much like the one above, he would marry young girls and sexual abuse was apart of this so called religion. Obviously, this to was in the name of God.
3. Children of God- Led by David Berg
Children of God's leader was invovled in horrible sexual abuse of women and children. It was also known in the church for the women to use something called flirty fishing , they would dance in a sexual way to get people to come to the church. All that went on here was also in the name of God.
4. The People's Temple- Led by Jim Jones
The People's Temple is best known for the mass suicide that took place in Guyana of 918 of it's memebers. Jones would force people to give up their belongings and basically held them prisoner, of course all of this was in the name of God as well.
I do understand these are very extreme examples, however as I said some are very extreme and some are not but all want to give this false impression of God and put the fear in people, to me that is wrong because that's not what a spiritual believe is about, fear and evil doings is not apart of that.
Hinduism and Buddhism are based on a true spiritual believe, it's about achieving peace and nirvana. It's basically about living a good life, fear is not apart of that. Of course all religions have it's extremists that will take it too far, so it's not to say that no one has ever taken these two religions too far but from my knowledge there's no record of that have.
See, I'm a Catholic just a simple Catholic of course now being older I view myself as just more of spiritual person since I've met some extremely Catholic Catholics and I don't have the views they do and I wasn't even taught what they were taught. I did go to 8yrs of Catholic school and I went to church twice a week, once on Fridays with my class and once on Sundays with either my parents or grandparents. So, I did learn some of the basic things you learn as a Catholic. However, I never read the bible and we never were read the bible in school. We had a simple kids bible with pretty pictures but mostly we just would read from a prayer book at lunch and have religion class and write letters to God of what we are thankful for and stuff but nothing extreme or what most Catholics are taught I was not taught that, neither by my teachers or my parents.
When I was in another Catholic school for middle school it was horribly ran and our church was a gym, are teach would even say we could skip religion class and even once suggested the parting of the sea scene in the Ten Commandments with Charleston Heston was made of blue Jello, though I find that unlikely since I don't think they had blue Jello in the 1940's. The point is, they weren't big on teaching religion despite it being a Catholic school.
So, my basic understandings of God and what I believe now is that he basically wants you to live a good life, be the best person you can be and when you do wrong, admit that you did and except the consquences of your actions, don't judge others, accept people for who they are and not what society tells you they should be, treat others the way you want to be treated, be selfless and not selfish and when your completely lost and have no where to go and feel completely alone you can pray to him for gudiance and strength. You can know that there is someone watching over you who doesn't judge you and completely accepts you and will guide you in your life espeically when you need it the most. That's what I learned.
So, all these cults that say that what they are doing is in the name of God, are not in fact in the name of God because that's not what any God worth believing in would want. All those people who say God hates gays and women who abort there babies (despite the fact he created all people), is not true because God doesn't judge people. That is what I was trying to explain to someone I was once friends with when I said "I don't believe in all these religions who attach God's name to everything". Those examples are exactly what I meant when I said that, people who say "you will burn in hell if you listen to rock music or wear makeup. That's a sin against God", really? What does that even have to do with anything? Logically why would he care? The God I learned about just wants you to be a good person and live a good life, that's it. Not all this other stuff people attach his name to, to get you to believe that what they preach is true.
Tell me what do you believe? What do you think?
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