In Reply to: I don't think Alans reply was defensive posted by lydia on January 01, 2004 at 14:36:04:
Lydia, I have defended Alan's post below and will repost it here, but I'd also like to add something afterwards. I wrote:
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Alan tends to speak somewhat bluntly but I do understand the logical point he was trying to make, and he was not quoting the 'confusion' verse to say Eva was 'of the devil.' He said: 'My Bible says that God is not the author of confusion. One cannot embrace the teachings of Christ ...and at the same time embrace the teachings of Hinduism and Bhudism, which claim there are many paths to God. Christ said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me."' You may disagree with Alan, but his point is that Hundus & Buddhists claim there are many paths to truth or enlightenment (Buddhists don't even believe in a god) but Christianity states that there is only one path. What Alan was trying to say was that he couldn't understand the mixing of two mutually-exclusive belief systems.'
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OK, having said that, and also agreeing that NC's reaction (calling Alan a MF)was over the line, I still think it is beholden to those of us with Christian faith to realize that many people have come out of the COG/Family experience with a very bad aftertaste of oppressive 'Christianity'. We were battered and abused with Scripure & told very clearly that God would judge us & kill us if we deviated from the straight & narrow Berg teachings. We had harsh religion shoved down our throats & many people were deeply scarred by the punishments & Victor Camps & seeing their kids screwed over in the name of God. So now that they choose to explore other avenues of spirituality, they have very strong reactions to anything being told them with Scripture quoted.