It is impossible to taste the sweet without having first tasted the sour. This is one of the many lessons found within Genesis 2.0 and more specifically the story of Adam and Eve. It is also from this twisted tale of betrayal and deceit that we gain our knowledge of mankind?s free will, and God?s intentions regarding this human capacity. There is one school of thought which believes that life is mapped out with no regard for individual choice while contrary belief tells us that mankind is capable of free will and therefore has control over hisown life and the consequences of his actions. The story of Adam and Eve and the time they spent in ?paradise? again and again points to the latter as the truth. Confirming that God not only gave mankind the ability to think for himself but also the skills needed to take responsibility for those thoughts and the actions that they produced.Within the Garden of Eden God placed two exquisite trees. Each quite different in its purpose, however both proved to play an integral role in the tale of man?s beginning. Perhaps the better known of the two, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, was the only one, which God imposed a contingency upon. ?You many freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of if you shall die.? Is this to imply that knowledge is perhaps more important and therefore more closely guarded than life?

It is when you get excited about the Word that it will work for you. There is no such thing about being in faith for something and being depressed about it. There is no such thing as being in faith about something and being bored with it. If you are bored then you are not in faith. If you are depressed then you are not in faith. Faith believes that God has heard our prayer. Faith believes that my seed is in the ground. Faith believes that its words are in the ground and change is on the way, answers are on the way, money is on the way! If you are expecting to see and feel the change and difference than you cannot be depressed over that. It will excite you.

Would you turn with me this evening to the book of Hebrews seven and then First Corinthians six? We are beginning a new series this evening and I would appreciate it if you would be expecting with me for revelation to flow.

In Hebrews the seventh chapter, he is talking about our high priest, Jesus.

Looking at the Pagan religions, which could probably be traced to a very beginning of the civilization, one can not but notice a minute role devoted to men. People are weak and irrelevant; what is important are gods, their characteristics and their worship. The deeds of men only make sense in the context of gods worship. The well being of men and society at large also depends on how successful men are at the Devine worship. No act in itself is virtuous; it is good if it pleases god or gods being worshiped. Men can be a hero if gods favor him, typically for possessing some characteristics of those gods. In the Pagan world gods are also well described, we know how they look, what they like, how to worship them, even their daily routine, their powers and characteristics. And it is not surprising - gods after all are of outmost importance, the only meaning of existence, and the only hope for men to achieve something.

Atheism is not a belief.

Atheism is the absence of belief in any Gods.

Atheists are people who do not believe in God or other spiritual beings.

Some atheists go further and deny that God, or other spiritual beings, exist.

Agnostics

Agnostics, in the popular sense, are people who have doubts about the existence of God. They don’t believe that God exists, but they don’t believe that God doesn’t exist, either.

There are probably over a billion people who don’t believe in God, but don’t go as far saying that they are certain that God doesn’t exist.

The strict meaning of Agnostic is not the same as this popular meaning.

An agnostic in the original sense of the word is a person who thinks that we can’t ever know about anything other than the material world, and therefore that the question as to whether God exists or not is one that can never be answered.

Reasons for Non-Belief

People are non-believers for many reasons, among them:

Atheism is their chosen philosophy.

They find insufficient evidence to support any religion.

They think that religion is nonsensical.

Ronald Rolheiser believes that something inside our DNA makes us want to possess whatever is beautiful and to have exclusively for ourselves whatever we love. It is hard to look at what attracts us and respond only with gratitude and admiration. Etty Hillesum gives us an honest expression of this in her memoir, An Interrupted Life. Etty eventually discerned that the answer lay in the admiration without seeking to own and the love without seeking to manipulate. Furthermore, Etty obtained an attitude of peace of soul. Although she was not free from the stress of the Nazi invasion, with herself being a Jewish woman, she found tranquility. Through God, she was able to let grudges and hurts dissolve through love and understanding, and found the capacity to live out the remainder of her days in harmony—with those with whom she disagreed and agreed with. There is an earthy and embodied dimension to Etty’s spirituality. She described her romantic adventures with no more reticence than she reserved for descriptions of her prayer, which she developed an amazing capacity for. For Etty, everything–the physical and the spiritual without distinction–was related to her passionate openness to life, which was ultimately openness to God. When Etty began her diary, the Germans have occupied Holland and are beginning to isolate the Dutch Jews. Jews are thrown out of their jobs, forbidden to buy in many shops, and kept out of parks and public places. But throughout the first part of the diary, we do not hear about the war or the suffering of Dutch Jewry. Instead, we learn about Etty’s inner life; she talked about her studies, her desire to write, and her feelings about her parents, her friends, and her lover Julius Spier.

Sikhism is the youngest of the world fifth great monotheistic religions. In 1801, the Sikh state was founded in Northern India by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. The word ‘sikh’ the Punjabi language means ‘disciple’ or ‘learner’. Sikhs are the disciple of god who follow the writings and teachings of the ten Sikh guju’s (teacher). The wisdom of these teachings in SRI GUJU GRANTH SHAIB is practical and Universal in their appeal to all mankind.

Sikhism was founded by Shri Guju Nanak Dev Ji (1469-1538) who was born in the Punjab area of what now is Pakistan. Guru Nanak began his mission after a mysterious three-day disappearance at the river bein near Sultanpur. When he re-emerged, he announced that god was beyond outward religious distinctions and that what matter was to everyone to be a truly devout follower of his or her own faith. He is responsible for the saying “There is no Hindu; there is no Muslim” which has become one of the pillars of Sikhism. (Hopfe-189) He spent the rest of his life teaching, writing hymns which his muslim companion set to music, and traveling as far as Srilanka, Baghdad and Mecca to discuss religion with Muslims and Hindus. He preached a message of love and understanding and criticized the blind rituals of the Hindus and Muslims. (Borak 53-55) Guru Nanak passed on his enlightened leadership of this new religion to nine successive Gurus.

Considering my thoughts on the afterlife is something I have done several times in my life. My views and beliefs have changed over the years regarding this subject. My Catholic upbringing was probably where my first views came from. They were the traditional heaven and hell beliefs and also of purgatory. Today my thoughts are not so black and white.

I am not sure what lies beyond this life. I do believe that we just don’t disappear but that we change forms. I personally struggled with this subject because I have researched several different religions. I saw each had unique beliefs about the afterlife but all believed in one. For me I believe that we are reunited completely with our Creator. As a result all our fears and anxieties will disappear. We will be “one with the father”.

The afterlife, in many cases, sounds more magnificent than life as we know it. Beliefs about an afterlife are, in fact, beliefs and not perfectly accurate information. Having specific beliefs about a person’s destiny after death is a way for many people to cope with death and have a sense of closure. Ideas about the afterlife may vary greatly, but one thing all religions and cultures have in common is that they trust that their own specific beliefs are the only way. There is, and always will be, a broad range of views on the ideas of afterlife, from traditions as diverse as apocalyptic Judaism to Hellenistic religious culture.

The aim of this short essay is to illustrate Anselm’s doctrine Cur Deus Homo, in reference to his interpretation of the atonement and then relate it to the characteristic claims of the Chalcedonian creed regarding Jesus Christ ‘as one person to be recognized in two nature’s’.

Anselm’s theory on atonement is that of a philosophical one which he believes should be understood as a necessity. Anselm’s doctrine, ‘Cur Deus Homo’ which is translated as ‘why God became a man (human being)’, and the motive behind this work is to prove God’s existence. His main target audience are those among the non-believers of God.

Anselm’s argument and idea on the incarnation was to build upon the Chalcedonian definition of faith. So Jesus is to be recognized in two natures as he is in the Chacledonian creed. So Anselm sets out to prove the philosophical necessity of the incarnation and the truth regarding the Chalcedonian creed and the nature of Jesus Christ. This next passage, which is one of the most famous from the preface of Cur Deus Homo, explains what Anselm believes to be the absolute reason for the Incarnation of Jesus Christ…

The antichrist is the chief opponent of Christ. The antichrist is expected to come at the end of the world to deceive and lead many followers of Christ astray. The first time that the term “antichrist” was applied was in John’s epistles. This was the first time the term had been used, but not the first time in history that a reference had been made to the opponent of Christ. The term “lawless one” (2 Thessalonians 2:3) was used in a letter that had been written before John’s epistles. The only two works in the Bible that contain the word “antichrist” are the first two letters of John. In these, John says that the antichrist has come and is already active in everyone who denies that “Jesus is the Christ”.

The antichrist is an eschatological figure. This means that it is involved with the Jewish and Christian ideas of the end of the world and the events leading up to it. The idea of an antichrist was originally a Jewish one. Over time many people have accused others as being the antichrist. The earliest reference is in the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 38 & 39), in which a warrior-king named King Gog was thought to be the antichrist. In the Book of Daniel, the author implies that Antiochus IV Epiphanes (the second Seleucid ruler of Palestine) was the antichrist. Nero, Diocletian, Caligula, and Julian were all Roman emperors who were thought to be the antichrist. In the Middle Ages, it was common for political opponents to call each other the antichrist.