Is a religious person of church closer to God than a religious person of nature?

This is an interesting question To be able to understand the answer one must think beyond religion. Long back people saw a need to control others and a case for religion was born. The true religion of each person is individual for the simple reason that no two people of the same faith have an absolute same answer to life or God, even faith.

I am sure this would be appreciated. Faith in effect is an outcome of fear, fear for something unknown and unknowable. Fear of God, devil, hell, original sin and so forth were thought of as reasonable fronts to control the masses.

This was later known as religion. Besides Christianity, Islam went one step further and introduced an element of boons in heaven for the faithful. I consider religion as irrelevant All man in fact needs is knowledge; knowledge about oneself.

We are all reflections of the Supreme or Creator and therefore dwell in that energy all the time. The problem here is that we are not aware of this. We have to create that awareness, this level of consciousness as common sense would dictate.

Its hard to do, but doable Jesus was a teacher not a preacher, he baptised no one and stayed away from places of worship. He prayed alone. All this is not how Christianity is practised today.

Towards the end of his life Jesus threw up his hands and pleaded with his disciples that they had learnt nothing despite him being with them for 3-4 years. How could these very same disciples have written about the teachings of Jesus with any accuracy is indeed a pressing question. And then again Jesus declared time and again that the old teachings were irrelevant after he came on the scene.

He was to be followed, meaning his teachings to be followed, not declaring him a son of God or anything along those lines. He did not mention savior anywhere, he was merely a messenger, meaning a teacher or a guru. The need for a savior is only referenced in the Jewish text which he wanted to abandon.

Jews believed that a savior would be born to save the Jews, I don't know or understand from what Jesus preached dharma. Dharma demands that each person raise their consciousness to a higher level, wipe out karma ( in this context all sins) and achieve a fulfilled life to be free fron the cycle of birth and death. This may be indeed difficult for a person of Christian thought and belief to appreciate as this knowledge has been abused by their teachers of faith in an effort to gain control of this world in the name of Jesus the true son of God as they say Now to the concern about praying in Church.

I must say that any prayer does not go wasted. Raising your mind and soul to the Supreme is actually creating waves, the more waves the better and more meaningful. However unless an atmosphere is created that you seek to leave all to the Supreme it could be translated as ego satisfaction.To request daily bread is meaningless and ego building.

A truer or humbler and simpler prayer would be " Please help me remove untruth and let me be absorbed in search for truth and lead me from darkness to light or knowledge and give me everlasting life free from the cycle of birth and death ( Accumulated karma would lead a person to be repeating the cycle until and until the consciousness level is raised to infinity. ) Bramh D Mishra [email protected] The biblical perspective: Nature should be appreciated as God's creation, but to "worship" m through nature is merely paganism. In order to be "close to God," one must come to m through Christ John 14:6 Jesus said to him I am the way, the truth, and the life No one comes to the Father except through Me If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also and from now on you know m and have seen m We "see" God by "seeing" Christ; we "see" Christ by knowing and following s teachings Communing with nature can indeed help one feel "closer to God" by putting distance between ourselves and the distractions of life, and yes, Jesus often went off alone to pray.

But Jesus needed no mediator between mself and the Father ( John 10:30 I and My Father are one ). We do. Jesus is our mediator 1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus Question: If "church" is an unnecessary option in our worship to God, why did Christ establish it?

Answer: 1 Corinthians 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe Salvation can't be found in seeking God through nature. Salvation is found in God's word. S word is spread through "the message preached.

" The message is preached in the church In addition, God's will is that s followers associate with one another to share mutual love and encouragement; something that cannot be accomplished by communing with nature 1 Corinthians 1:9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of s Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.