A Mystical Experience with the Son of God [Jesus Christ]

It's counter-ballast. I do indulge in rhetoric to make a point sometimes, but my original position is clear: no one has produced any credible evidence that these religious claims have any basis outside the scriptures, and these scriptures are the products of Bronze Age sheep herders. Can't for the life of me figure out why an adult would cling to them so. Unless it's just fear and trembling in the face of the prospect of death.

If I were actually "the devil," would this sort of statement have any sort of impact at all?

Happy

Ed Zackery.

The Vatican representative, Cardinal Pacelli, was so highly regarded by fellow Catholics, he was elected as Pope Pius XII.

The devil is trying to destroy my testimony by messing with the tags.

Says a lot, dunnit?

Matthew 7:6
“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

Over the years this scripture has been so grossly misconstrued, but it is the first thing that popped in my mind when I read what you wrote. Here's the thing... "The church" has made this out to be something quite insulting to anyone who disagrees with what they believe. As if it were calling them all dogs, pigs, dirty, even unworthy of such "so called" knowledge.

The problem is knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is found when you look beyond just the words that are written. Bible or not. I recently have been rethinking a lot of things I have believed over the years. Unfortunately the grossly misconstrued version of this was in the forefront of my mind for a lot of those years.

I see it a little differently now. Think about pigs... They will eat anything. So if you were to be standing next to a pig pen and your pearl necklace broke and all the pearls fell into the pen, what is going to happen? They are going to gobble them up because they don't understand its not food. Then what happens? Well, eventually they poop them out because they held no nutritional value to them whatsoever.

Your pearls have then become a waste to you, and were never meant to benefit them. They are no longer even able to be beneficial to anyone anymore. Would you want them back? I wouldn't! My point being this... When you have something you consider valuable, you need to be careful who you share it with. Not because they are dirty, unworthy dogs, (because they aren't) but because it may not hold the same value to them as it does to you.