Rightwinger.  You said it well.  I kept saying AMEN to everything you wrote here.  People have no idea.   Demon possession or control is most of the time quite subtle.  I saw one blatant demon possesed individual in my life and it was real.  I had known the guy for quite a while and thought he was a Christian.  He went into full demon possessed mode when his new wife was getting baptized.  It took four men to physically restrain him and he was moaning and groaning the whole time.  They said later a sulfer like smell (there you go Lula) was coming out of him.  It was very very scary. 

I've had many experiences over the years where I could see demon interference.  I remember one time I was trying to reach my unbeliever grandmother.  Everytime I tried to speak with her at her home, the phone would ring at the right (or wrong) time.  It felt like she was right there starting to get the answers to her questions when all of a sudden the phone would ring.  This happened more than once. 

So I decided one day to put it on paper and mail to her.  I wrote out, in red pen, the whole plan of salvation using the Roman's road and mailed it.  A couple days later she called me asking if I had sent her something.  When I said I did she said "you know that big rain storm we had?"  I said "yes."  She then went on to explain how her mailbox got flooded out (never happened before) and my letter, written in red, bled.  It all ran in such a way she couldn't even read it. 

Reminds me of Daniel.  After receiving a terrible vision about the end times for the Jews he prayed and fasted for 3 weeks.  The Angel Michael came in answer to the prayer but said he was fighting demons (and chief demon to Persia) to reach Daniel.  While  Daniel's prayer was heard on the first day it was a full three weeks before it was answered because of the spiritual battle going on. 

Yes.  I read recently that a network director or producer was giving a seminar to comedy writers.  One of the things he said struck a nerve with me.  He said for a comedy to be really funny at least three commandments need to be broken.  We've been conditioned for quite a while now to laugh at sin.  We don't even realize we're doing it.  The next time you watch a comedy notice this. 

Not to my knowledge.  He had plenty to say about the religious leaders who were leading the people astray (like I do) but when it came to secular government he said things like "pay to Ceasar what is Ceasar's." 

In Proverbs it says that God puts the kings in their places.  He allows it and we need to recognize it.  Sometimes I think he gives us what we deserve or what we ask for. 

I mean his concept of hell.  While he was very eloquent in portraying his divine comedy, his notion of eternal suffering was from his roots in christianity.  He embellished on it.  And to my knowledge, most christians have not picked up the concept of hell being frozen over with satan chewing the greatest betrayers of all time (at the time of the writing, a mere 3, but I am sure he would like to include more if he were writing it now - or since the 3 represented the unholy trinity, replace them with some from the more modern era).

Rightwinger posts:

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Ditto. And thank you for sharing becasue it has given us a lot of food for thought as well.

It's a spiritual battle for our soul that as a consequence of Adam and Eve's Fall everyone of us is engaged whether we know it or not, believe it or not.

You know, I see it on here all the time, and hear from a friend and co-worker who's a Wiccan (or, as he prefers, simply, "pagan"), how so many of  the "major" religions in the world have the same, basic spine to their makeup, and how this is because they all, over the millennia, simply have drawn from one-another, to make up other myths and religions. Much as the Romans drew from the Greeks for their gods and myths.

This, according to the atheists, is supposed to prove that all of it is false; a lie, made up by man to enslave the minds of the masses.

I suppose that's possible, but isn't it at least as likely, that all the religions and their according beliefs could, just possibly, have arisen from a single, common denominator?

A single, central Truth, that simply morphs and adapts to cultural and societal mores?

We can't all be completely right, but perhaps we're not all completely wrong, either.

Could be.

Cute; but hardly what I meant, and I think you know that. Although, He did wear sandals.

He challenged the religious authority, because the religious elite had become such hypocrites and tyrants, all in the name of His Father.

Jesus' ministry was about following God's authority, not the copious rules and regulations the Pharisees had subtly imposed on the people over the years, by "interpereting the Constitution", if you get my drift. His message was much simpler, as was God's, in the beginning. It was the Pharisees which had made it unweildy; virtually impossible to follow all the rules. And that's why Jesus came, and it's why He died. So we didn't need all those rules and regulations, anymore.

You know, I've often wondered.....what do Jews do now, to atone for their sins? Aren't they still supposed to follow the old ways?

I mean, I never hear about PETA protests outside synagogues, where lambs, bulls, doves and sparrows are sacrificed to make up for the sins of the faithful.

Good. Then we are done with secular government being a sin.

Next?

Yes, we care for and love people who call themselves Atheists by telling them the truth. It's the truth that sets us free.

Just as the human will can freely and deliberately sin and do the most abominable things, so the human mind can defiantly and illogically deny the most self-evident truths. Denying the existence of God denies reason and the general consent of all peoples from the beginning of the world.

Non sequitur. A secular government does not "remove or forbid" G-d.

Sacrificing animals is suspended in Judaism whenever the Temple doesn't exist, same between the first and second Temple.

You're welcome. It's a valid question.

Nazi Germany also used the services of the Church as well as Muslim preachers. I wouldn't call them exactly "secular" since the Nazis had pretty good ideas which religions they liked and which not.

The Soviet-Union didn't persecute religions because it was secular but because it was communist.

I agree that Jesus wouldn't support a communist government. (Although I believe he would love socialist socieities like kibbutzum.)

Iran does too. But Iran is hardly secular.

I think you are confusing secular (doesn't care about religion) with anti-Christian (does care about religion).

I agree that many who advocate a secular government really want an anti-Christian government. But that says more about those people than about secular governments.

In the Soviet-Union and China they have a secular government because they want to persecute Christians, not vice versa.

I think you are being intellectually dishonest if you claim that a feature of communism is a feature of secular government just because a communist regime is a secular government.

That's like saying that water does not help against thirst because some water (that in the oceans) is too salty. The problem is not the water, the problem is the salt.

The Nazis thought that the different "races" had different status. They believed that the Japanese were the yellow master race and they believed that the Arabs were the middle-eastern master race (all ultimately led by the top master race in northern Europe). The entire Nazi ideology was complete nonsense which is also why it contradicts itself. The Kurds and Persians are "Aryans" in the ethnic sense while the Arabs are closely related to the Jews. The Japanese are related most closely with (perhaps) the Turks, but even that relatioship is of over 10,000 years ago.

The Nazis certainly didn't mind cooperating with the surprisingly loyal churches in Germany. And the Vatican was also created by the fascists. It was quickly learned that religion was also an excellent instrument to keep people loyal.

The highest level of charity is where the donor does not know the recipient and the recipient does not know the donor.

Prominent members of the Confessing Church, those protestants in Germany who didn't collaborate with the Nazis later said that a Christian can only be a socialist.

If your point is that persecuting Christians is a feature of secular governments but that pointing out that it is governments both secular and non-secular that do so the, yes, I am ignoring your point.

But then your point would be tautological and useless.

You would just be saying that secular governments persecute Christians hence governments that persecute Christians are secular hence all secular governments persecute Christians. What would be the point?

Don't rephrase what I say in order to have a better attack vector.

You are making the same mistake as above. Not all A -> B can be rephrased B -> A.

Just because persecution of Christians (actually all religions) is a feature of communist dictatorships doesn't mean that such persecution is the sole reason for their existence.

I don't know. One rarely hears about those things.

It does if it's run by Secular or Atheistic Humanists.

If by "removing god" you mean that a secular government might stop you or some other band of religious fanatics to force your morality on everybody else then, yes, secular government does "remove god". And thank G-d for that.

Luckily secular government allows neither you nor the Taliban to order people around.

The last thing G-d or Jesus wanted is for the beliefs of one group to be forced on another. Force is the opposite of faith.