About Me
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I am not religious.
I am in fellowship with Jesus the Christ – a Christian if you will.
I am not religious.
Religion is a man-made system of man-made rules, activities, traditions, morality, and dogma placed on top of, in addition to, or in place of revealed truth.
Religion is a system used to judge those who are not in compliance with it, and to empower those who make it their profession. Religion is used by those in power to mentally, emotionally, intellectually, and/or physically control others.
Religion is rooted in pride and self-delusion. The more religious you are, the less likely it is that you will go to Heaven.
I am not religious.
Jesus of Nazareth was not religious. His messages challenged, confronted, and refuted the religious leaders of His day.
When Jesus was on earth, the only people He had a problem with were religious. The people who conspired to have Him executed were religious.
I am not religious.
I am only interested in one thing – understanding and revealing truth.
And if the Judaeo-Christian philosophy is true, then it should conform to and reflect the philosophical and objective rules of truth.
I believe it does. This blog gives my reasons (unfortunately you’ll have to endure my derisive sense of humor as well).
Related Podcasts – The Faith By Reason Introduction Podcast
Good site. I’ve enjoyed reading it. I especially like the fact that you are not religious.
Telling people that and that I hate religion is one of the small pleasures I have in life. Blogging on PP is another.
Thank you Melvin. That means a lot to me. I’ve been reading your blog for several years after finding the link on John Coleman’s site. You do a great job of warning people about the religious deception that permeates the pulpits. And as you can probably imagine, I appreciate your sense of humor. Tragically, some of the funniest parts of your blog are the comments by the sheep. I admire your restraint when you respond to them.
Hello,
I understand you are interested in understanding truth. Without an understanding of beginings there can be no absolute standard for understanding anything. What you end up with is a cacophony of relativism from folks who use it as a way to deny the very facts they know are true. The truth is the truth whether we believe it or not.
You say you are not religious – I assert you are. Religion by definition is, among other definitions – a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. I see from your dedicated blogging that you most certainly are religous. You want truth apart from the Jesus you claim was not religous. If the Bible is to be believed – it says a great deal about how religious Jesus actually was.
Jesus fulfilled ALL that He was sent to do. He commanded His disciples to make disciples-students-followers-learners, baptize and to teach them ALL that He had commanded them. Sounds like Jesus was pretty religous from that account in Matthew 28:19-20. The simple truht is that religion is man’s response to Gods’ Word. All humanity is religous in some way. Some religously reject The God of the Bible by using the excuse that Christians have abused the very things they were given to worship God. That is true. But just because there is abuse does not negate the obligation to worship the One true God on His terms and not ours. The truth of the matter is that no one after The Fall can or desires to worship God in the manner He deserves. It’s only until The Spirit of God (promised by Jesus to his people) opens blind eyes and renews dead hearts that our man-made religion (in whatever form we desire) is replaced by true worship of the living God who sent His Son to die to give us that gift of eternal life we did not even know or care we needed.
Just a thought…
Hello Ivin,
Thank you for reading the blog and for sharing your thoughts.
Keep in mind that I specifically defined “religion” as man-made dogmatic systems. How ever we define religion (or any other practice created by intelligent beings) we can conclude that it either came from man, or from God (the only known sources of intelligence). If religion is broadly defined as anything we do in service to what we consider divine, then Jesus was no more religious than Mohammad. That is why I strictly exclude those things inspired by the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible from “religion”. Jesus certainly followed and fulfilled the Mosaic Law perfectly, but the Law did not come from man, it came from God and thus does not fit religion as I defined it. Furthermore, since I believe that Jesus is God (and I will give my reasons for this belief in a mid-April post), all of His commandments to Christians also fall under the category of God-inspired.
I actually find the phrase “truth apart from Jesus” to be oxymoronic. Jesus IS truth. He is the First Cause of truth. Any honest search for truth will lead you to God; that is actually the underlying theme of this entire blog. If you are referring to the idea that I tend to lead with human logic and reason before going to the Bible, then I understand how this method can seem unorthodox. However my point is to show that the Biblical concept of God is not divorced from logic and reason. Logical deduction and Biblical faith are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, Romans 1:18-20 makes it clear that even if you have never seen a Bible, God holds you accountable to know Him based solely on human understanding of cosmology. This blog leads with Romans 1:20, then follows with 2 Timothy 3:16.
Thank you again for your comments. Please keep reading and let me know what you think as the blog progresses.
Ed
Ed,
Nice work. I’m a long time reader of Modeling God and saw the link there the other day. Thankfully I was able to catch it early enough to read everything rather quickly.
Keep up the good work, I look forward to reading more.
Tom
Thanks Tom. Please keep reading and let me know what you think.
Ed
Hey Ed. Love this site. Miss you both. Hope to see you both soon. Love to you both. Sandy & Sharon Skolnick
Thanks Sandy! Hope to see you too soon!
Hey, I love this blog. I would go back and access the previous pages and create “read next” links consistently on every post, so that someone can easily go from beginning to end.
Also, in one of the first posts, I believe you said something about man having free will but God and Satan not having free will. The idea has intrigued me ever since I read it. Would you please expand on that?
Thank you
Sure. In general terms, free will means “you can do whatever you want”. I define it more specifically as “the ability to act outside of your nature”. God’s nature is that he is always and completely right and just. God cannot be unrighteous and unjust. If He was, He would technically no longer be God. Therefore God cannot act outside of His nature. Therefore, God does not have free will. He can’t just do “anything He wants”. He can’t do evil, and He can’t lie because those things are unrighteous. God can’t even prevent sin in most cases because it would be unjust.
For example, lets say a man decides to kill his wife and goes to buy a gun. One might ask why God doesn’t just stop him right there and punish him? Because the man is not a murderer yet so it would be unjust to do anything to him. In fact, up until the moment he pulls the trigger, he is still not a murderer and has a chance to change his mind. If God did anything to interfere, it would not give the man the opportunity to NOT commit the murder.
Man’s nature (generally speaking) is that he is NOT always and completely right and just. However he has the ability to choose to act outside that nature by following God (who of course IS always and completely right and just) and doing His will.
Satan also does not have a free will. His original nature was to reflect/represent the glory of God. After he fell, that nature was warped in that he still wants to have the glory, but since he is separated from, he wants the glory of God, WITHOUT God. He wants to be worshiped. That has been his desire from day one and its never changed (there is more detail on this in the “Know Thy Enemy” series that I just finished).
I hope and answered your questions. Let me know if you need any additional clarification. I’m glad you like the blog. PLEASE tell others about it. I’ll also go through the pages and add links to the next posts as appropriate. Thanks for pointing that out.
Hi, I was introduced to this site by one of my friends and let Me declare I am so thankful to him. Your site is so clear and easy to understand, best thing is you explain things with My understanding, You may believe this or not but I eagerly wait for your new post. keep up the good work May God bless You with Book of Your Own, hey I would also like to connect You on FB, please let Me know i that could be a possibilty. Vaibhav Patole sonluawerr.wordpress.com
Thank you so much for the encouraging words! I’m curious, who is the friend that turned you on to the blog?
Thank you.
Dear E. Mabrie, after listening to your podcast for the 1st time, I saw a number of errors you made. One of the biggest is presumption. Presuming something to be true just because a Christian scientist says it is true is not wise. To assume, also, that when the Scriptures state a fact as a current condition of the world, weather wise, does not mean that is how it stayed until the flood. If you lived back then and observed a continuing steady weather condition., then you would have a foot to stand on.
I also read that your April 3, 2010 response to a reader of your blog. Let it be known, you wrote your blog in English, Not Mabrie-a language. Therefore you do not get the privilege to redefine English words like “religious”. We all are the readers of your blog. we understand the dictionary ,so we expect you to follow those definitions as well. That would be the kind thing to do. And from the perspective of Yeshua, do all things out of love for people. 1 Cor. 13. Try starting there and ending there. There is more. But I want to let you know, that I spend time with an Autistic young man came up with some pretty presumptive viewpoints about theories. When I asked for the sources, he sent me the link to you podcast. Remember those who put themselves in the place of “teacher” shall be held doubly accountable. Your zeal outweighs your accuracy.
Thank you for your comments Ronald. My responses are in bold below.
Dear E. Mabrie, after listening to your podcast for the 1st time, I saw a number of errors you made. One of the biggest is presumption. Presuming something to be true just because a Christian scientist says it is true is not wise. Can you show me where I presumed something was true ONLY because a Christian scientist said it was? If you’re speaking of the series on creation, I am certain that I used multiple scientific sources, many of whom were secular.
To assume, also, that when the Scriptures state a fact as a current condition of the world, weather wise, does not mean that is how it stayed until the flood. If you lived back then and observed a continuing steady weather condition., then you would have a foot to stand on. Were YOU alive during the pre-flood era? If not, then wouldn’t your view on the weather at that time also be presumptuous? Is my Bible-based view of the climate more presumptuous than yours? if so, why?
Let it be known, you wrote your blog in English, Not Mabrie-a language. Therefore you do not get the privilege to redefine English words like “religious”. Actually, since different dictionaries define “religion” differently, it would be intellectually dishonest for me to use that term WITHOUT defining it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a noncontradictory definition for what I mean when I use it. People who use words without defining them are dishonest. When I talk about “religion”, you now know EXACTLY what I mean. Under the rules of rhetoric, that is more important than whether or not my definition conforms to whichever dictionary you happen to be using.
We all are the readers of your blog. we understand the dictionary ,so we expect you to follow those definitions as well. Who is “we”? Do you presume to speak for all my readers and listeners? Doesn’t that seem a bit presumptuous on your part?
And from the perspective of Yeshua, do all things out of love for people. 1 Cor. 13. What is your definition of “love”? Is it the same as the Biblical definition?
I spend time with an Autistic young man came up with some pretty presumptive viewpoints about theories. When I asked for the sources, he sent me the link to you podcast. You keep referencing presumption. What is your definition of presumption? It may be that we define it differently. MY definition of presumption is assuming facts without evidence. Whenever I give a fact, I offer evidence (whether or not you AGREE with the evidence is irrelevant as far as the definition of presumption is concerned). If you find a fact I gave where I neglected to give the evidence, let me know and I will gladly provide it.
Remember those who put themselves in the place of “teacher” shall be held doubly accountable. I’m very comfortable being held accountable to what I teach because I give scripture references throughout my blog and I repeatedly teach contrastive thinking, wherein I make it clear that I am teaching what I know to the best of my knowledge, and I am open to being proven wrong. Can you say the same?
I can’t thank you enough for the work you have done on this blog, your podcast and now YouTube! I grew up as a Christian but I always felt there were things missing and now I realize it was the spiritual world view! Everything seems so much clearer now with this new perspective. Your ministry has really helped to renew my faith. Thank you so much!
Throughout the years of listening to your podcast I have noticed you comment on a few different denominations. I am curious to know if you have ever found a denomination that you feel truly embodies the truth of the Bible along with a spiritual world view? Or if not, have you found one that is close?
I have been thinking of starting a Home Church but I have to confess that I have become so comfortable with the “religious” aspects of the church that I think I would miss it.
Thanks again!!!
Thank you JD! I’m glad that Faith By Reason and the SPiritual World View has helped you in your walk with Christ. People like you are the reason that I do what I do. As far as denominations, I frankly think they are all flawed because, by definition, a denomination emphasizes one aspect of doctrine, usually at the expense of others. My recommendation is to find a church that teaches the ENTIRETY of God’s word. I believe a home church is a great idea. This is how the Acts church (the only churches that got it right) started. Come before God humbly with a sincere desire to know Him and then ket Him lead you
I just want to say that i have learned a great deal from your podcasts and truly miss your teaching. Is this the end?
Hi Ron, I really appreciate you and I’m glad you have gained value from the site. I’m still posting, just not as regularly as I’d like. My content tends to go on YouTube first, but I’m adding to to the FBR site weekly to catch up