Lie #4 Loopholes To Hell

(From the 10 LIES OF RELIGIOUS CHRISTIANITY)

If you can recall in Lie #1, the First Layer Gospel promises eternal life for everyone who believes. After you have confessed with your mouth and believed in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you place in heaven is secured. A few weeks later, you will realize that this promise is only a marketing gimmick.

The religious pastors will tell you that you can still go to hell even after you have become a Christian. (By the way there is no provision in the Bible for us to “unsave” ourselves.) So, how can Christians go to hell? The religious pastors have created several ways for you to do that. I have summarize them into the following categories:
1. Reverse your confession.
2. Blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.
3. Not behaving in accordance to the accepted standard.
4. Asking God for the wrong thing.

Let me explain in detail.

Reversal of your confession.
This means you say the opposite from what you have said when you were first saved. You do that by telling Jesus that you don’t want him, you reject him, tell him to get out of you life or any other words with similar meanings. You may say that consciously, in a fit of anger, when you are drunk or when you talk in your sleep. According to some churches, you will cease to be a Christian and you will go to hell.

Let us assume that the above doctrine is true. What will happen if you have rejected Jesus out of a fit of anger? The answer is to accept him back. Repeat the sinner’s prayers and you are saved again. In this scenario, one can move from heaven to hell and back to heaven again quite often, depending on how impetuous one is.

However, the real problem is what if you do not remember your rejection of Jesus. You may have rejected Jesus in your sleep or at a time when you were very busy. So, you end up going to hell without knowing it. The solution is to play safe by saying the sinner’s prayers every day.

This is the result of living as a religious Christian.

Blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.
This is the most damming part. This doctrine is based on Jesus’ words in the Bible taken out of context.

28I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them.
29But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”
Mark 3:28-29 (NIV)

The words in the above verses were specific for that time and place only. These words not repeated in other locations and time. However, religious pastors had made them applicable for everyone of us. If you blaspheme or say any bad things about the Holy Spirit, you will go to hell. No one can help you. This is a life of misery.

Who do you think will fall for this threat? The answer is, those who take it seriously. The harder you try not to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, the more likely you will do it. Let me conduct an experiment here.

Think of the Holy Sprit. Recite the term “Holy Spirit” repeatedly in your mind. See next page.

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit

STUPID!!!

Ops! You have just called the Holy Spirit stupid. You are doomed to hell forever.

If you are terrified, be calm. You can never go to hell for any sins. The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a perversion of the Bible. If we can go to hell so easily, Satan will not be bothered to tempt us with so many sins. All he has to do is to repeat what I have done above.

Not behaving in accordance to the accepted standard.
This is the most popularly used in religious churches. Let me refer to Lie #1. In the First Layer Gospel, you were told that you are saved by faith alone. In the Second Layer Gospel, you will be told that faith without works is dead. This means the promise of faith alone in the First Layer Gospel is no longer applicable.

The next question is, what sort of works and how much of them? The answer is unlimited. It depends on how creative your pastors are. So, you will have an unending list of dos and don’ts to do. As I have mentioned in Lie #1, every church has different list. Certain acts like going to a cinema to watch a movie, can be acceptable in certain churches but is a sin in some others.

Failure to conform to the unwritten list may cause you to go to hell. If you happen to be in a very strict church, then you will have a higher chance to go there.

The most common standard is the requirement to confess your sins. Some churches believe that unconfessed sins can get you to hell. If that is so, you cannot afford to accumulate your sins daily to confess because you might forget some. Imagine a scenario where you committed 100 sins and you only confessed 99 of them. This one sin that you missed can get you to hell.

What is the solution then? You must confess the sins the moment you commit them. So, you entire waking hours are filled with confessions of sins. What a life!

There is also another twist to this rule. Some theologians came up with this idea that if you have truly believed in Jesus, you will have the desire to live the right way. This means you want to do what they tell you to do. If you don’t, then this means you have never really believed in Jesus. In this case, you have never been saved in the first place. Your destiny is hell.

Let me give you an illustration on what this means. Suppose I have the desire to pray now. This means I have truly believed in Jesus. I am saved. Five minutes later, I have no desire to pray. . This means I have not truly believed in Jesus. I am not saved. In another five minutes, I have the desire to pray again. So, I am saved again. My past keeps changing depending on my desire of the moment. Welcome to the life of religious Christianity.

Asking God for the wrong things.
This is what happened to me. I have a blog, which I write on trusting God for all our desires, including the desire for a lot of money. Many Religious Christians tried to write in to witness the truth to me because they want to save my soul. It seems that asking God to give me a lot of money will cause me to go to hell.

Conclusion
I don’t think I have to remind you that there is no Biblical basis on any of the above loopholes to hell. So, the forth clue to identify a religious church is after the First Layer Gospel stage, they will show you that the door of hell is open again for you.

Lie #3: The Sheep Must Feed The Shepherd

(From 10 LIES OF RELIGIOUS CHRISTIANITY)

The relationship between God and believers for Christians is modeled after the shepherd and the sheep as shown in the verse below:

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
Psalm 23:1 (NIV)

The same model is also used to describe the relationship between church leaders and members of the church. Many churches use the title “pastor” on their leaders. This term has the same meaning of shepherd. If you are a member of a church, your pastor is your shepherd and you are his flock.

Let me begin by explaining the relationship between the shepherd and flock of sheep in the Bible. Please note that this relationship is based on the actual Hebrew shepherds. They did not ride on horses nor did they used any sheep dogs to help them. The shepherd walked in front and his flock of sheep followed him. It is therefore right to say that the shepherd leads his sheep.

However, this does not mean the shepherd is the master of his flock. In fact, the flock is the real masters and the shepherd is their servant. A shepherd can either be an employee of the sheep owner, the owner himself or a combination of both. I am going to explain to you that, no matter which category the shepherd falls in, make no difference to the truth that he is a servant to his sheep.

Suppose the shepherd is an employee. He is paid to care for the sheep. His responsibility is to ensure that the sheep under his care must never starve, never thirst, always healthy and always safe. If he fails in any of the above, he will risk his job. So, every shepherd who wants to keep his job must take good care of his sheep as though they are his masters.

What if the shepherd and the owner are the same person? In this case, the sheep are his assets. If any of his sheep loses weight, sick or harmed, the shepherd/owner gets poorer. So, in order to protect his net worth, the shepherd/owner must also take good care of his sheep as though they are his masters.

Let us move on to the role of the sheep. The sheep only have 2 things to do: follow the shepherd and enjoy life. Unlike their western counterparts, there were no dogs to force the sheep to go to the right way. All sheep must follow the shepherd willingly and that is the only responsibility they have. Their shepherd will take care of all their needs.

Not only that, sheep do not have to reciprocate the same favor or services to their shepherd. Let me put it this way. While the shepherd has the responsibility to care for the sheep, the sheep in turn are not obligated to do the same to the shepherd. This means the sheep do not have the obligation to feed the shepherd when he is hungry nor protect him when he is in danger. I don’t think you can ever hear this truth being preached in any religious church.

Let us now consider how this principle applies to God and us. The Lord is my shepherd. Using the same model, we can conclude that the Lord must care for all our needs as though we are his masters. It is the Lord’s responsibility to ensure that we always have enough to eat, drink and protected from all harms. We don’t have to chase after prosperity because it is a part of the Lord’s responsibility to us as our shepherd.

Our role as his sheep, is to follow him and enjoy life. Using the same model again, we are not obligated to return the favor. We don’t have to bother whether the Lord has enough to eat nor should we try to protect him from any danger. He knows how to take care of himself.

This basically sums up what Christian life is supposed to be. Follow the Lord and enjoy life.

Next, we move on to the church. The same model applies to the church. The pastor is the shepherd to his church members. They are his flocks. It is the pastor’s responsibility to ensure that his flock shall never be hungry, thirsty or harmed in any way. This is his responsibility as their shepherd. If he fails in his job, he will have to answer to the sheep’s owner, God.

At the same time, church members only have to do the same things the sheep do, follow the shepherd and enjoy life. Like the real sheep, church members are not obligate to feed or protect their pastors. In other words, pastors have no right to demand money from their church members.

Is this principle being practiced in the religious churches? The answer is no. In fact they are doing the opposite. Religious pastors often see their church members as their source of money and free labor for them to exploit. If you have been attending religious churches often enough, you will hear the pastors demanding money or services from their members. They must be thinking that the more they exploit their members, the more points they will score in heaven.

In Lie #1, I have described how the pastors in my first church had shamelessly squeeze money from the church members to finance their building project. Even after they got the money, they did not stop. One church leader had even went up to the pulpit to tell us that if we continue to hold back (meaning not giving more money to the church), the church staff will have to forgo their annual bonus. So, it is our responsibility as church members to give more money to the church so that the pastors can have their annual bonus. Who are the blood-suckers here?

Therefore the third clue to identify a religious church is the pastors exploit the church members for money and labor.

Engineering Analysis On Rony Tan Saga

I have written my views on Rony Tan saga as a Christian. Now, I want to look at it from an engineering perspective. For those who don’t know me, I have a degree in civil engineering from the National University of Singapore. I am qualified to do this analysis.
(Some people find fault in the above sentence. If I have written this article last month, I would have said I am an engineer. I can’t said the same now because I am not an engineer at this moment.)

Let us begin from the status quo. Pastor Tan had removed the offending videos and apologized to his victims. His apology was accepted by the leaders of Buddhists and Taoists. Yet, there is still widespread anger on him. Why?

The most obvious part is, there is a perception on double standards in the enforcement of law. There were 3 teenagers been arrested by the police for posting racist remarks. Pastor Tan’s offence was definitely more serious. Yet, he was never arrested. This has created the impression that pastors are above the law.

However, I believe there is an underlying reason behind this widespread anger. The people are not angry with Pastor Tan as an individual but on what he represents. He is now seen as an icon the represents all the aggressive evangelistic moves done by Religious Christians.

I have read many postings on over-enthusiastic Religious Christians trying to convert people at all cost, including insulting their religions. Such phenomena is not new in Singapore. Religious Christians can sink to any level, even to the point of humiliate others in order to get them to convert, What Pastor Tan has done is he has presented himself as a focal point for people to direct their anger from their humiliation.

Therefore, punishing Pastor Tan represents punishing those Religious Christians.

There is also an issue of perverse logic. I have watched the video on the interview with the ex-nun. The pastor’s logic was totally sick. When miracles happen to Buddhists, the demons are behind it. When the same miracles happen to Christians, then it must be God. If I don’t know better, I will avoid Christianity like a plague. No wonder, people are angry and want to see justice done.

Finally, many churches are still very hostile toward religions other than theirs. Pastor Tan would never have stepped into a temple if the ISD did not call him. I can relate a personal experience here. When I was in my first church, I attended one of their overnight prayer. One of the prayer item was to pray against a coming Buddhist event.

The was an event that would take place a few days after where there was an exhibition on Buddhist arts. Somehow, we saw that as an offence to us and we have to pray against it. On hindsight, I find that very sick. Even prayer was used to propagate hatred.

So, my advice to all religious churches is, if you want to be accepted by the public, you have to stop all your hostilities.

This is all I have for now.

Senior Pastor Rony Tan And Buddhism

I have not been writing recently because I have been busy in my new job. However, I am compelled to make time to write in to state my position because I think it is important for some Christians to show the world that some of us are not evil. If you have been following the news in Singapore, you should be quite familiar with the above name. So, I will not waste time dwelling on it.

Let me begin by describing how I first got to know about this famous incident. Actually, my wife was there in the service with our son. Our son’s health had not been good. So, my wife had decided to take him to Lighthouse Church to attend the healing service. In case somebody may ask where was I at that time, the answer is I was at work. We work on Saturdays in the construction sector.

It was only after I reached home that my wife told me about the service and how she was disappointed in it. She went there for the healing but all she got was an introductory course in Buddhism. As I am quite experienced in attending churches, I am not surprise that it was meant to degrade the religion. After all, it is not really unexpected.

At that time, I did not predict the present outburst unless some spies went there to tape the service secretly and show it openly in the internet. It seems that the service of the spy is not needed at all. The pastor himself uploaded the video of the service in his website for the world to see. He shot himself in the foot and the rest is history. It caused a widespread anger and even the authorities got involved.

Subsequently, Pastor Tan removed the video and apologize publicly. There are basically 2 different responses from the public. Some people choose to accept his apology and move on. The rest wanted him to be punished for his crime.

That is the summary of the hottest news in Singapore. Now, I shall present my analysis as a Christian.

Let us look at the issue on insulting Buddhism. Why did he do it? The answer is clear. The pastor wanted to get people to leave Buddhism and become Christian. I don’t think I have to convince anyone that his objective has failed miserably. Why did he fail?

First, the entire event was in a church. Those who attend the church are mostly Christians. This means they did not believe in Buddhism. They believed in Christianity. What is the logic in degrading Buddhism to a group of people who do not believe in it in the first place? This is the first flaw.

Secondly, the approach the pastor used was totally not objective. He used an ex-temple assistant cum ex-Buddhist to explain what Buddhism is. How objective was that? The event was not about revealing the truth of Buddhism but on finding excuses to insult it.

Third, the way the pastor clowned around in pretending to be Buddha has removed all doubts on his true intention. His motive was to insult. If he had done that to Islam, he would have received a lot of fatwas on his head by now.

He must have thought that such a great sermon must be shared with the whole world. So, he did something very bold. He put the entire video on his website to share his “gospel”. He must be hoping that the Buddhists would watch his video and realize how dumb their religion is. Then they will turn to the True Religion, the Christian Religion.

Unfortunately, the opposite happened. In fact, the Buddhists are now seen as peace loving, honorable, open-minded, kind and forgiving. In contrast, the Christians are now seen as war mongering, petty, insulting and narrow-minded. The pastor has effectively promoted Buddhism and insulted Christianity instead.

That is not all. No other churches dared to condemn such a behavior. When some Muslim terrorists commit terrorism, many Muslims had openly condemned their actions. Why? They do not want the rest of the world to see them as terrorists. However, when a Christian pastor commit evil acts, none of the churches dare to condemn it. Do they realize that their silence may be seen as an endorsement to evil?

As a Christian, I find this phenomena extremely insulting. This is why I want to openly state that I condemn the actions and behavior of Senior Pastor Rony Tan of the Lighthouse Evangelism. I declare openly that such actions were against the will and nature of the God of the Bible. Such action can only be inspired by the Devil himself.

I hope I have made myself clear as a Christian.