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Sometimes you have to wonder about the religions of the world. Many people who claim to be very religious will cut your throat in a second. Others think nothing of performing dastardly deeds upon those of other religions or races. All one has to do is look at all the wars that have been fought in the name of religion. Then there are those that are officers of their church, temple or mosque that just use their positions for sinful and deceitful purposes. I have always felt that if you believe in a particular religion, you should continue to believe in it, but be very careful about who you listen to, even if they are religious officials. If one attends a religious ceremony and your clergyman tells you that killing someone from another religion is fine, that should be the tip off that God wouldn't like this. I assume that someone attending religious services must believe in God.

When your church is spending billions of dollars to pay for law suits, because of children that were abused by the clergy, you have to wonder about their message, don't you. If one investigates the child sexual abuse cases, they will find that it is taking place at alarming rates, in many different churches and many different denominations. People's faith is being tested as never before. It has gotten to the point where people are afraid to leave their children with the clergy and rightfully so. Then there is the stealing. Stealing by clergy seems to have reached an all time high. What is going on? I really don't want to get into that, but I am just pointing out that so called "religious people" can be dangerous and the prudent person will take everything they say with a grain of salt and use his or her own judgment to decide if the message that is being sent is a credible and religious one.

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Much of what most of us believe has been tailored over the centuries by man.What I am talking about started when certain books were allowed into the bible and others were banned. The books that were left out of the bible are not well know by the general public. Some texts were kept in by the Catholics that were left out by some Protestants. Some texts were considered as being authoritative, but weren't included because the CANON was closed. Some texts were thought not to be apostolic and left out. Some texts were considered heretical. There are those texts that were left out because it was felt that they were too far fetched.

Examples of texts that were left out of the bible are:

The Didache: The Lord's Teaching Through The Twelve Apostles To The Nations. This is a sort of manual for moral behavior. It was lost for hundreds of years and then turned up in a Monastery in Jerusalem in 1875. Another text that was called Heretical was The Gospel Of Thomas. It is a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus and is considered genuine. It was thought to have been written about 140 AD. A text that was considered outrageous was The Infancy Gospel Of Thomas. It tells of Jesus, when he was a small child and states that he made five sparrows out of mud and they came to life and flew away. It then goes on further, to state that Jesus cursed a boy and he withered up and goes on to say another boy bumped him and Jesus killed him.

I always thought that the idea of religion was to make religious finds public. Apparently, many finds have been kept private. The most recent example of this is the Dead Sea Scrolls. Different scrolls have been found in different caves in the area. The scrolls are mostly in the hands of the major religions and also secret elite organizations. Don't even hope to ever see them in their entirety. Sure, you will be allowed to see the tiny bits and pieces that they want you to see, but not anything that might be controversial. Some of the agencies that have scrolls? An article I read awhile back claims that the Rockefeller Museum in Eastern Jerusalem, the Department of Antiquity in Israel, the American School of Oriental Research, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Israeli Biblici of Archeology are the main holders of the scrolls, with some fragments and a few scrolls in the Vatican and Royal Museum at Leningrad.

Some scholars have stated that the scroll contain no new text, but tend to illuminate what we already know. To prove this, they refer to the Library of Congress that has some handpicked fragments and a couple of parchments that seem to prove this. This is not what everyone believes however. There have been leaks of the content of some of the scrolls. It is claimed that the scrolls are of far greater value than we are being led to believe. It is said that they talk about great spiritual visions and revaluations, give accounts of holy men and touch on things as obscure for the time, as contact with other worlds and meeting angels. They supposedly tell of the execution of Jesus and reveal secrets about the great flood.

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So if this is true, why haven't we been informed about their content? It has been said that the contents of the scrolls will cause too much contention for the organized religions and it is easier to just hide the scrolls away until they are forgotten. The famous event in the bible about Ezekiel seeing a wheel in the sky is recited in a scroll found in 1952 and quotes Ezekiel as saying, The Hand of the Lord is upon me (revealed). The Mighty Arm of Elohiem rose up from the river Chebar and touched my tongue; then my eyes; then my head, in the midst of the whirlwind caused by the wheel within another wheel thus emanating from the North. The living creatures were like Angels. The Beings looked like men. The wheels did touch the Earth; the fire subsided and the door of the chamber opened and the silver pathway was lowered by the Angels." Another passage from a different text that is attributed to Jesus states, "My message to you is to stand fast and hold to that which has been proven to be just and true. Do not hold onto those things of this present world, but rather seek first My Kingdom and you will be the recipients of all that is good and Holy."

Why would messages like this be blocked from our view? I have come to the conclusion that most religious organizations are being misused. Sometimes they are no more than a political extension of our society. They are a good place for some people to get power. Once this power is obtained, it can then be used for good but also for evil. Many times, sadly, it is used for personal gratification of some illegal sort or to convince people to blindly attack and kill others, in some sort of religious war, or to donate inordinate amounts of funds to to be misused by the religious organization. Messages of peace and harmony have no place in the plans of these people. Another reason is that some of the things that we have been taught may just turn out to be wrong. Just one example of this might be that Jesus could have been married.

Here area passages from one of the scrolls in Cave #3 from a copper scroll:

"By My Word have I spoken these things that you may know, that I am the God that never fails, that I am the God Who shall never leave you, nor forsake you." "Do not allow your discouragement to overcome you, but rather rejoice in the truth that I have indeed sent help to you from the Stars."

I think you can see that in the last passage, since it says that help was sent from the stars, might be too controversial for any church. It might tend to reinforce the business about Christ being an alien, depending on how it is interpreted.

Unfortunately, as long as we are on this earth, we will never have the entire truth on anything. It is the nature of some men to hide what they think is contrary to their objectives and only release what supports their position. This is true in government, politics and religion and even industry. Giving up your religion is not the answer, but using your God given judgement is.

*I have not seen the passages I quoted personally, these are supposed interpretations.