Five reasons why I don't believe in God

Since 2004 I've written 2,365 posts on this here Church of the Churchless blog. That's a scarily large number, which testifies to my commitment to churchlessness after spending 35 years being firmly churched in an Indian guru-based form of religiosity.

During the past fourteen years I've talked a lot about why I no longer believe in God. I've put forth numerous reasons for my conversion to atheism. Here's a fairly brief description of five key reasons. 

(1) Existence must always have existed. Most religions teach that God brought our universe into existence. But I've never heard any believer argue that God brought existence into existence. That's because God must have existed prior to bringing everything else into existence.

So it sure seems like existence must always have existed. Otherwise, how could anything exist, including God? This leads to a strong argument against God: if religious believers say that God has existed eternally, this means that existence has existed eternally. 

Thus where is the need for God, since eternal existence, along with certain laws of existence necessary for further acts of creation, fills God's role without the need to posit a supernatural being?

(2) Religions and supernatural belief systems differ widely. If God or some other supernatural entity existed, one would think that there would be considerable agreement about his/her/its nature. But there isn't. 

Yes, I'm familiar with ideas such as Huxley's Perennial Philosophy, since I used to argue myself that there was a common denominator to the world's spiritual belief systems. However, I now realize that I was doing my best to cram wildly different forms of belief into the peculiarly-shaped hole of the faith that I followed.

There are literally thousands of different forms of supernatural  belief in the world. The major religions are just the tip of the iceberg, given the number of animistic, ancestor-based, and other types of spiritual systems scattered across our planet. So either God exists in a dizzying variety of forms, or God doesn't exist.

I'm going with "doesn't exist."

(3) The cosmos is vastly larger than needed for most religions. Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, are examples of religions that were founded by a human being who was considered to be in some fashion "God in human form." Meaning, if not actually God, a messenger from God.

Problem is, there are hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, and hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe, which is a fraction of the cosmos (the known universe, plus at least that portion of the universe that has expanded beyond our light horizon, since space itself has expanded faster than light since the Big Bang).

The makes Earth utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Yet many, if not most, religions would have us believe that happenings on Earth reflected God's plan for creation. Well, if this is the case, why is creation so much larger than needed if humanity was made in God's image and has a special place in God's consciousness?

(4) Those who supposedly know God aren't anything special. Some religions teach that God sent a prophet, savior, or other form of messenger to Earth a long time ago. Other religions teach that there are God-realized people living today. 

Regardless, at best there is scant (I'd say none) evidence that those who supposedly have come to know God are any different from you and me. Sure, there are plenty of stories about miracles, divine powers, and such, but somehow these all occurred in the past.

Now that modern science has ways of assessing whether someone has supernatural abilities, the flow of miracles has dried up. Which leads me and other skeptics to wonder whether they ever existed in the past, other than in the gullible minds of believers.

(5) There's no demonstrable evidence that God exists. This is an overarching reason that encompasses some of what I've already said in this post. I realize that plenty of people, alive and dead, are convinced that they've had experiences that prove God or some other divine entity is real.

OK. There also are lots of people who claim to have experienced alien abductions, seen Big Foot, had visions of heaven after almost dying, and so on. It simply isn't possible to accept that every subjective experience reflects an objective reality. That way lies, if not madness, an inability to distinguish fact from fiction. 

Along with almost every other atheist, I'm very much open to evidence of God. I've meditated virtually every day of my life for the past fifty years, or so. I've prayed, sat at the feet of a supposedly God-realized guru, contemplated the nature of existence, looked for divine signs inside and outside of myself.

If God exists, God is doing a heck of a job of keeping hidden. So I choose to consider that God doesn't exist. 

There are lots of other web pages that discuss why someone doesn't believe in God. Here's one that I found to be nicely convincing. 

Comments

[Aileen P. Kaye]

I agree. One question: Who was the person the Jews felt was a messenger from G-d?

[777]

So it sure seems like existence must always have existed.

Please reason out of the box, there where no time exists only 'EXISTENCE'

Existence does create some time_stuff, once in a while

You wouldn't graduate with this reasoning

Better start praying @existance

IT might hear U

But U are entitled to write all this which is a great theistic argument

777

[777]

Solopism / Solispism all over

YOU are THAT EXISTENCE
with a lot of non sense around it

That non-sense ( actual you ) doesn't permit you touching the core of yourself

That is a fabulous perfect protection of the core and it's content

777

[vinny]

Christianity are Islam are quoted in same breath but are different religions, Christianity based on "word" / Atomic energy leans towards Unified field/ Primal energy. All the modern inventions have been done by Christians not any other religion. To compare Christianity with other religions is like misguiding innocent people. To promote pseudo Christianity / false Christianity against the teachings of Christ is snare of kal / atheists to trap innocent gullible people and wean them away from Christ.

[Brian Hines]

Aileen, Moses talked with an angel connected with God. Here's what Wikipedia says: "Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, where he encountered The Angel of the Lord, speaking to him from within a burning bush on Mount Horeb (which he regarded as the Mountain of God)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses

And Wikipedia tells me that Abram had a pretty close relationship with God: "The voice of the Lord came to Abram in a vision and repeated the promise of the land and descendants as numerous as the stars. Abram and God made a covenant ceremony, and God told of the future bondage of Israel in Egypt. God described to Abram the land that his offspring would claim: the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaims, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham

I'm sure there are quite a few other examples of Old Testament people getting messages from God.

[Spencer Tepper]

OK Brian
Good comments. But let's look at the information from a different perspective.

"1.existence must always have existed." Nope.
There isn't much evidence for that. Energy and information, possibly, in one form or another, has always been, but who knows in what form?
The holy Bible says that in the beginning there were the waters, and God. That's it. Energy and thought?

The creation has been moving and changing from one state to another and we know so little even about this state right now. So did existence always exist? Definitely not in the form we see it today. There is no argument here for or against God. All you can say with any evidence is that stuff is progressing from some unknown origin to some specific and inalterable destination, and we are just a tiny part of that.

2. Different religions? Not so much. Three of them actually have the same "God".. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They are really like three chapters in the same saga.

Buddhism, Hinduism and Sihkism are all variants of the same teachings with reincarnation and Karma at the foundation.

All religions claim we have a soul.

No they are not all that different.

In fact they don't reflect well on our creativity as a species.

3.The cosmos is larger than most religions need. Hm. Hinduism claims we are just a speck in a vast creation of multiple planes of existence and millions of worlds.

Most religions claim this physical creation is just one plane of existence. Even the holy Bible claims God divided the "waters" into several different skies separated each by the "waters". Religions actually place this entire creation as the lowest and smallest among them.

The Catholic Church tried to claim Earth was the whole story, but scholars disagree about whether the Earth written of in Genesis, where the garden of eden existed, where all animals were vegetarian, was this particular planet or some entirely different reality.

From that perspective, Religions have defined a reality that extends beyond that defined by the physical sciences, which keeps expanding its definition with new scientific findings.

4. Those who know God aren't special?
Jesus Christ is pretty phenomenal when you read his philosophy. Leo Tzse is amazing. Socrates, the father of our system of justice, gave us the basis for rational thought and logic. Pythagoras gave us the foundation for science.

I would have to say the evidence is quite different : Those who know God have been among humanity's shining examples.

5.no evidence for God? Depends on your definition. God is reality. Therefore everything real is evidence in His support.

There is a great deal of evidence that practicing belief in God, particularly meditation and devotional practice, is very healthy. Having something you hold as sacred and which you believe is powerful enough to help you get through any personal difficulties is a very healthy thing. We are hard wired for faith and Submission of our difficulties to a higher authority. It's cathartic. Thankfulness to a Creator brightens our psychology.

6. Subjective reality is also real. It's part of the human condition. So long as we must create our own persona from our own limited understanding, it is natural to create a persona of God to understand our relationship to this creation.

[pooh bear]

I said on another thread that it is not that I don't believe in God, but I am unable to believe in God. My wiring won't let it happen. My conditioning doesn't support the mechanisms for belief.

However, this hasn't stopped me from exploring my inner nature as well as embracing rational science. I find no conflict between spirituality and science. They both are processes of exploration and discovery. One explores and documents the physical universe. The other explores our inner universe.

So I find many of the arguments to be spurious that are antagonistic towards spirituality simply on the grounds that it functions by different laws from those that govern science. They are two sides to the same coin of exploration and discovery.

Unfortunately, many of the arguments against spirituality boil down to, 'I don't experience, so it doesn't exist'. I think that materialists tend to short-change themselves with this attitude. It limits the field of exploration. But that is their choice based on the fundamental dogma of science that only matter exists, so therefore the only field to be explored.

[vinny]

If Christianity, Islam and Judaism are three chapters of same book. Why all the modern inventions have been done by Christians and not the other two genre religions??
Christianity before Jesus is dogma and against the teachings of Christ. Word Christianity derives from the word " Christ " not others. Matthew 7:15 " Beware of false prophets"

[Dungeness]

So it sure seems like existence must always have existed. Otherwise, how could anything exist, including God? This leads to a strong argument against God: if religious believers say that God has existed eternally, this means that existence has existed eternally.

It seems to me the flaw in positing that existence has always
been there is that God (or "Totality" to give it less of a
religious flavor) encapsulates all of it - time, space, seen
and unseen, existence and non-existence, even creation
itself.

Trying to grapple with the overarching possibility of God or
totality though is terra infirma. Eyes glaze over. It's stuff that
can't be apprehended or measured or described to others.

So instead we put God and existence itself in their
separate corners and let them duke it out for the crown.
They're combatants in the mental realm which is the only
one we understand. There we can't escape notions of
"now", "then", "here", "there", and all the myriads of
opposites that our mental dualism requires.

Those who may have experienced transcendent realities
can't referee these boxing matches either. They'll just tell
a story or suggest a metaphor to hint at what's outside
the ring. However, they can offer a meditative path to
to experience it directly. Because, without experience, it
becomes a fairy tale.

[Dungeness]

So it sure seems like existence must always have existed. Otherwise, how could anything exist, including God? This leads to a strong argument against God: if religious believers say that God has existed eternally, this means that existence has existed eternally.

It seems to me the flaw in positing that existence has always
been there is that God (or "Totality" to give it less of a
religious flavor) encapsulates all of it - time, space, seen
and unseen, existence and non-existence, even creation
itself.

Trying to grapple with the overarching possibility of God or
totality though is terra infirma. Eyes glaze over. It's stuff that
can't be apprehended or measured or described to others.

So instead we put God and existence itself in their
separate corners and let them duke it out for the crown.
They're combatants in the mental realm which is the only
one we understand. There we can't escape notions of
"now", "then", "here", "there", and all the myriads of
opposites that our mental dualism requires.

Those who may have experienced transcendent realities
can't referee these boxing matches either. They'll just tell
a story or suggest a metaphor to hint at what's outside
the ring. However, they can offer a meditative path to
to experience it directly. Because, without experience, it
becomes a fairy tale.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Pooh Bear!

You wrote:

"So I find many of the arguments to be spurious that are antagonistic towards spirituality simply on the grounds that it functions by different laws from those that govern science. They are two sides to the same coin of exploration and discovery."

God, I love that! Beautiful. The economy of a scientific thinker!

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Aileen and Brian:

Abram's covenant with God, the entire basis of Judaism, was actually a convo God had directly with Abraham in a dream state (have to give creds to Manjit on this, but it is so...)

God spoke directly to Abraham...in a lucid dream.

"12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi[a] of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
Genesis 15: 12-21

[Appreciative Reader]

2,365 posts, wow! Here's counting down to 2.5K!

.

Small nitpick about your #3 : Lots of religions have posited really huge expansive cosmologies -- far bigger and wider than would have been warranted by information actually available at the time they'd been formulated.

But of course you know that, because I suppose your RSSB (ex-) faith, on which you literally wrote the book, itself is an example of this, one example amongst many.

Just a general observation, this, just a general nit-pick : I'm not saying this lends credence to their other claims. When you go around claiming hundreds and thousands of things, a few of them may well turn out to be true simply by accident, much like a monkey throwing darts.

Nevertheless, it's curious how Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, as well as later religions like RSSB, were able to envisage such huge cosmologies that, back then, people would've had no reason to imagine.

Just one of those things one simply can't explain, I suppose.

[Appreciative Reader]

As for -- to take the thought forward -- why some God would care for what happens on tiny Earth, when He's got this huge huge creation to play with, that's easy enough to explain.

If you're an emperor whose dominion spans continents, you'd nevertheless be concerned about what happens in some small hamlet somewhere in your empire. Absolutely you would. Not personally concerned, perhaps, unless something extraordinary happened there, but systemically concerned, so to say, certainly.

And if the emperor has appointed some functionary to administer to that hamlet, then it makes sense that that functionary would be very involved in what happens in that hamlet. That's simply how governance works (or should).

This last, I suppose, would correspond with the Avatar, or with the Bodhisattva, or with the Satguru.

.

Not saying for a minute that this means there's a God! Merely thinking aloud that your #3 probably doesn't make too much sense.

Although looking only at the three Abrahamic faiths I suppose what you say does work. Perhaps that's the context in which you meant your #3?

[vinny]

Teachings of Christ are against the teachings of Abraham, to call Christianity an Abrahimic faith is foolishness to be fool innocent people. Christianity is scientific faith based on Gospel of John,prelude to Christ. In the beginning was the word, word was with God, word was God refers to Creative atomic energy before it created universe. Pure energy abiding in purity. Purity of what, Purity of energy not mixed with matter.

[Spencer Tepper]

Hi Vinny

You wrote

"Teachings of Christ are against the teachings of Abraham, to call Christianity an Abrahimic faith is foolishness to be fool innocent people."

You will have to take your case to St. Paul, who disagrees. Christianity is the same

"17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root[c] of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. 19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. 23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree."
Romans 11

"10 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ."
1 Corinthians 10

And you would also have to argue with David

" 15 Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.

16 In thy name shall they rejoice all the day: and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted."
Psalm 89:15-16

[vinny]

And you have argue with Matthew 7:15 " Beware of false prophets"
Do you know the etymology of word " Christian" It means follower of Christ not false prophets.
Compare the teachings of Christ, they are different from teachings of false prophets.
Don't think by blind faith of Church, see the veracity and contents of teachings.
Church was against the work of Christian Innovators, at times ordered to have them killed.
Now the same Church claims they are jewels of Christian faith. Pure hypocrisy.

[David Fleming]

It is just as as easy to believe that there was always something as it is to believe that there was once nothing. The former, however, is more rational.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hello, Vinny.

You say you believe that Christianity is not an Abrahamic faith, that Jesus's God was not Abraham's God? That's a new one, I've never heard this said before, ever.

Not to hurt your faith in any way, Vinny. Please believe whatever gives you solace and strength, I have no issues with your personal faith.

Just as a matter of interest -- and I ask not to debate you, but simply to know a bit more about what you believe -- would you care to share : Is this just a personal belief of yours, something you alone believe in, or is this part of some particular creed, part of the teachings of some particular denomination or group?

[The Sin Eater]

Don’t worry Brian - you may not believe in Him but he believes in you.

Don’t make Him use his other methods to bring you back and that goes for all you who right on this blog - or what you people call these things.

[tucson]

First of all, the problem for thinking people is the unlikely view that many religious people have about a benign God. That he is somewhere watching over things and yet there are horrible events occuring every day, every second, but sometimes he intervenes if he feels like it, if it suits his fancy, if we do the right prayer, penance or ritual, or not. The beauty of nature disguises the brutal fact that life feeds on life.... the bear tearing the guts out of a deer or hiker. All his plan. All in his will. That there is suffering in a very big way.

If God is so loving and kind why are things set up this way? That you are punished for being a sinner even though he made you imperfect and then expects you to jump through all these hoops to make him happy so that you can go to heaven, the highest region, etc.

The personal God that most people conceptualize is a creep. Who wants to go back to him? Do we have to? Who knows what sadistic games he has planned for us once we get to heaven? What if all the 72 virgins are really really ugly and smell bad and to get away from them he has set up some heavenly game for you to perform and for him to rub his hands together and relish.

Can any priest, rabbi, pastor, ayatollah, yogi, shaman or master tell us just exactly where heaven is? And what goes on there? And what you will be doing? Maybe it isn't all that great. Maybe it isn't much better than life here. Who can say? We just assume and go along with those who say they know when they really don't. If they do, how do we know they know? Most of the public just points up when referring to God and heaven, but they have no clue where he or heaven is or that they even exist.

Religion was set up to control the masses and to set up some reference point of security in an unknowable, incomprehensible infinity.

At least that is one way of looking at it. Not saying it's right. Just sayin'. There are other ways.

Brian stated " Existence must always have existed." As a reason for not believing in God because where, in that case, is the need for a creator?

Now we get into a more mature way of thinking about God, a word that means something entirely different to me than it does to many of the religious and atheist folks. I think of God as Reality, Ultimate Ground of Being, Existence, Consciousness, but not as something "elsewhere" or something you earn and go to or even see, a creator that made the universe which is other than that which it created. That has ideas about what you should and shouldn't do. Rather, it is existence, the awareness/consciousness right here and now that is what we are. There is no where to go, nothing to do about it. We are it wherever we are, however we are, which is always here as it is right now.

We are the light of awareness that gives rise to the manifestation and existence of the cosmos. Every point is its reference point from which the cosmos manifests, be it animal, insect or human. The cockroach is infinity. The cockroach is your face and you are his. It is all itself reflecting back at itself so that it can know itself.

The universe is what consciousness looks like to itself when consciousness experiences itself as a perceptual object.

This is not some far out esoteric mystical experience reserved for an exceptional saint or devotee who by some miracle, twist of fate, grace, good karma, or by performing lifetimes of austerities, becomes deserving of it in the eyes of a judgemental God.

The infinite doesn't care if we are bad or good. It's all good as far as it is concerned, rather, it is just fine as it is. It is what it is. No worries and no hurry. We are the eyes of God. We're it and this is obvious. Just see that there cannot be self or other because there is no self that is not other nor any other that is not self. Just don't confuse yourself with your selfie, with that reflection in the mirror. That is the infinite experiencing itself as a perceptual object which is only a reflection, a mirage, and not the thing itself. Any idea you have of yourself is just that. An idea. A reflection. The infinite can't look at what it really is because it is what is looking. Can the eye see itself?

But we do have the chicken or the egg question.. Is consciousness the product of matter or is matter the product of consciousness? Scientists know that the universe is 99.9% dark energy and they don't even know what it is. When matter is broken down to its fundamental particles it is only theoretical as to its actual existence. Has anyone proven the material existence of quarks, bosons and other quantum particles? They are just mathematical theories, ideas. And when they do prove them, if they do, then there will be some new fundamental particle to prove the existence of until finally they throw up their hands and say, "There really is nothing. There is no matter."

What really is.. is nothing, it is waves of nothing, the so-called dark energy. The universe is waves of nothing. Yet conscious it is, a consciousness that has no form or attribute, dimension or location. Sound, light, appearance, thought, all matter, are simply movements or waves of consciousness, a consciousness that is no thing at all. Something that comes out of nothing is just that.. nothing. 0+0=0.

The universe is consciousness so we are consciousness. Consciousness is the One. It is both experience and the knowing of experience. There is only consciousness. This, here, right now is It! No going there. No getting there, because there is here and here is there.

The universe is this formless nothing consciousness out of which, in which, of which is manifest the cosmos which is waves of awareness. Consciousness and the universe are equivalent. The body mind is consciousness, the infinite experiencing itself as a perceptual object which is just a reflection of formless nothing to itself which is no self. There really are no objects!! From the beginning not a thing really is!!

Non-objectivity is never born and never dies. What is there to begin and end? How could our moment to exist begin or end in timeless eternity? What we have is the infinite expressing itself in an appearance that is not real, only a reflection in conceptual illusory time.

Ramana Maharshi was asked where he will go when he dies. "Here of course. Where else is there to be?" We are this timeless, formless infinite moment that is and never dies.

Maharshi also said, "There is no greater mystery than this. That being Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality. We think there is something binding our reality and that it must be destroyed before the Reality is gained. It is ridiculous. A day will dawn when you will laugh at your effort. That which is on the day of laughter is also now."

[vinny]

Hello, Vinny.
You say you believe that Christianity is not an Abrahamic faith, that Jesus's God was not Abraham's God? That's a new one, I've never heard this said before, ever.
Not to hurt your faith in any way, Vinny. Please believe whatever gives you solace and strength, I have no issues with your personal faith.

Reply: Its not about my solace and strength, if electrons are revolving around nucleus since ages, Where is the question of my solace of strength ??
Scribes and Pharisees were already following the Abraham, but their morality was not greater than morality of tax collectors living off poor man's labor. You can compare them with capitalists in third world countries living off poor man's labor. But those scribes and pharisees had no scientific acumen either, Atomic structure was discovered by Christians [ Christ's followers] and not by scribes and pharisees [ Abraham's followers].

[Neon]

Exactly, why would you want to go back? If god has been there for eternity and creates the creation, when we go back, we will definitely be sent back. After all, he has an infinite amount of left, ofc the creation will be started again. And these gurus will come and con us one more time.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hey, Vinny.

Thanks for your reply.

But that wasn’t my question at all. The paragraph you quoted was merely an overture, so to say, a general expression of good wishes to you, leading on to my actual question.

Sure, I agree, Jesus did upset the apple cart of the Scribes and the Pharisees : but I wanted you to speak about your idea that Jesus’s God is/was different from Abraham’s God. Specifically, is that only a personal idea of yours, or is it part of the creed of some group that you are part of?

Again : I’m only asking in order to know a bit more about your beliefs, that’s all. Not challenging you on your beliefs in any way.

[vinny]

Appreciative reader said

Sure, I agree, Jesus did upset the apple cart of the Scribes and the Pharisees : but I wanted you to speak about your idea that Jesus’s God is/was different from Abraham’s God. Specifically, is that only a personal idea of yours, or is it part of the creed of some group that you are part of?

Reply : John the Baptist and Jesus's work does not admit any personal idea. Prelude to Christ starts with Atomic energy/ Physics/Word. In the beginning was the word, word was with God, word was God. Whole of true Christianity is logical like Physics. Ten commandments of Christ are the summary. Pseudo Christianity is that form of Christianity which mixes teachings of Christ with false prophets teachings. True teachings can empower common man to the extent that he can
become more powerful than the whole country he lives in which will spoil the apple cart of politicians and Church. These are my personal beliefs derived from logical interpretation of teachings. From these logical conclusions, a new denomination " Logical Christianity" can happen.

[Spencer Tepper]

The teachings are identical. Hear the divine Name.

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."
Dueteronomy 6:4-5

29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
Mark 12: 29-30

2 The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation:
Exodus 15:2

15 Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.

16 In thy name shall they rejoice all the day: and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted.
Psalm 89:15-16

Listening-pain and sin are erased. || 9 || Listening-truth, contentment and spiritual wisdom. Listening-take your cleansing bath at the sixty-eight places of pilgrimage. Listening-reading and reciting, honor is obtained. Listening-intuitively grasp the essence of meditation. O Nanak, the devotees are forever in bliss. Listening-pain and sin are erased. || 10 || Listening-dive deep into the ocean of virtue. Listening-the Shaykhs, religious scholars, spiritual teachers and emperors. Listening-even the blind find the Path. Listening-the Unreachable comes within your grasp. O Nanak, the devotees are forever in bliss. Listening-pain and sin are erased. || 11 || The state of the faithful cannot be described. One who tries to describe this shall regret the attempt. No paper, no pen, no scribe can record the state of the faithful. Such is the Name of the Immaculate Lord.
Nanak, the Granth

[Appreciative Reader]

Vinny, thanks for your reply (posted on May 24, 2018 at 03:17 PM).

And sorry for this delay in acknowledging! I've logged in here today after a good while.