John 4:23
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

* * *

What is the problem with the religions, and why the religious people are
often considered as the worst ones when compared with the atheists?

When we come to Biblical Israel, the tribe members were born in the
faith in God of Abraham, Israel and Jacob, and would suffer penalty
up to the stoning if preaching other gods.

In Christianity, there were radical measures to extinguish "pagan temples"
and heresies, using bloodshed and only to replace them with the generations
of people who did not wash.

In Islam, it is still punishable with death if someone leaves Islam.

This is why nobody abandons the religions, because they would have to
leave their zone of comfort. They simply degrade to a state of not believing
and keeping formal traditions, customs and empty sacraments without
the Holy Spirit of God. Often doing everything that atheists do, under
the excuse of grace.

The more their gruesome crimes increased, the more they insisted that
the are infallible, they have the key to reexamining the faith, and everything
else is heresy.

But this is no longer good enough for our Saviour.

What I heard today is would be want to live in a world that is not based
on the law and evidence, but on a personal opinion, experience and feelings?
Where a jury could condemn us to death based on how they FEEL
towards us, our political group, ethnicity or religion, rather than evidence
that we have committed any crime deserving death?

We need to base our faith on spiritual evidence. The established religions
have some source that is not based on human reasoning from the material
world but is supernatural: we see that both Moses and Jesus had
supernatural help in their ministry. With miracles that the pharaoh's priests
could not repeat, but they had to admit that it is the finger of God.

Ground up, it did not work. Atheist scientist failed to discover the
Creator from His Creation, and they believe in the "Blind Watchmaker"
building a complex watch with over fifty precise gears.

God doesn't want to force people to stay in faith by fear of death
or even the fear of Hell. The worshipper in Spirit and in truth would
first love God for what He is.

We would not really be pleased with a girl who would only love us
for our property, then get rid of us and bring another guy into our apartment,
and have bastard children?

Would we still be pleased with a woman who would not do this only
because of what the neighbours and the village might say, but otherwise
she sees no fault in conceiving with man who is not her husband while
she is married, and whom we'd need to have surveillance over for the
entire life?

God also would not bring such person into Heaven or Paradise, for faith
only our of fear of men or fear of death is of no value. This is why God
not only does not keep us in faith by fear, but also allows the enemy
to tempt us.

Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
him.

Diligently seeking God ... what does it mean if one is in God's chosen people,
but keeps hating and killing and deceiving to get gold and wealth?
Is he superior to a Hindu teacher who seeks enlightenment and peace,
and lives modestly, only with the necessities for life?

James 1:26-27
26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue,
but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. 27 Pure religion and
undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

1 Peter 4:18
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the
sinner appear?

What is really making up for a true religion and spiritual path, that makes
them different from the false ones, useless ones, and the beliefs that
come from the enemy of our souls?

However cruel this might sound, God and Jesus allow false prophets
and false messiahs to come and deceive many - 1. to tests us, and
2. because we must learn spiritual discernment and critical thinking.

1 Corinthians 11:19
For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved
may be made manifest among you.

So God doesn't want burning of the heretics, honour murders of those
who abandon faith nor he censorship of "false news", he wants a generation who will love Him for what He is - the Creator of life and Saviour from the
slavery of sin, death and Hades - and faithfully and critically reject all others.

Worship of material idols eventually brings misery, the ultimate form
being the worship of machines, giant factories and the politicians -
and sacrificing for them.

Eventually, without true religion as the means of reconciliation, mankind
can only seek into deeper corruption, as there is no way of climbing up
after a fall, one can only fall deeper, and the Unmerciful one hates
the one who resist sin, makes them the worst sinners, and binds them
tighter into its slavery.

The true religion should be any that leads back, returning the soul to
the Creator. Worshiping female sexuality, male sexuality, human sacrifice,
or money, gold and wealth obviously do not count (Astarot, Baal, Moloch
and Mammon respectively).

There are also pointless superstitions such as choosing the statue of
a golden calf for to reach Heaven and making golems for delivery.
All of that miserably failed, again and again.

While we should fear God, it should not be the wrong kind of fear
as of the angry old man who watches every single move of ours, fault
finding.

But it doesn't even mean that we "do as we will".

The true path is somewhere in between.

The moment faith becomes institutionalised, the enemy starts to work
to convert it into his instrument, and bring his evil children on top.
They will not be called children of devil but i.e. "holy inquisition".

Religious institution without the Spirit of God is as useful for salvation of
the soul as an empty canister can not quench thirst if there is no water
left in it.

Being a member of an institutional religion is as useful for the
soul as being a permanent member of a pub: good people in a pub
remain good, and mean people in the pub remain evil - yet nobody is
converted more often than it happens with complete atheists.

in the LORD God Merciful, Longsuffering
Amen