What about the stories of being terrorized? Seems very similar to current stories of people who have left the cult.
Yes - it is a cult. Just like the Baptist church. And the Mormons.
And the Liberal party.
As soon as he mentions the word "hypnotise" it was easy to see his direction.
There is absolutely no hypnosis of any kind in Scn. None. Ever.
People like these just flat out lie, and those who believe them never seem to go and find out for themselves.
I was a senior exec in Miami for nine years. During that time I saw countless people whose lives were changed for the better and improved.
I was also on senior management communication lines and was in a position to see EVERYTHING that came and went, to and from management.
People like this bum here who bitch and whine and moan and complain, who can only hope to detract from something that does so much good, can only be expected to bitch and whine and moan and complain about everything in their life.
He's just a whiner, but he's making money at it!
The old line about Hubbard saying that to get rich all someone has to do is start their own religion has been taken ssssssoooooooooo far out of context every time it's not even worth mentioning. But people believe it anyway.
Believe what you want. But for those who have no experience in it - don't pass judgement.
Yes, I do have an opinion, but will reluctantly keep it to myself, since it is my opinion that all religions are very much cult like. Nothing wrong with being spiritual, but there is a fine line with religious brainwashing.
Yes, I do have an opinion, but will reluctantly keep it to myself, since it is my opinion that all religions are very much cult like. Nothing wrong with being spiritual, but there is a fine line with religious brainwashing.
I agree. I have never seen the point of organized religion. Even the Christian Bible in some passages promotes worshipping alone, for those that are religious.
Religion is pretty much man made. Biblical Christianity was never intended to be a religion, nor was it intended to be called Christianity. In fact the word church is a mistransltion of a word meaning congregation or called out ones.
Did you know that in the original writings, Mary was not called a virgin? The word they used was mistranslated. It actually meant "young woman". But the clerics liked the idea of a "virgin birth", so it was never fixed.
And Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. That was changed by a Pope. He supposedly didn't like the fact that she was held in very high regard in the early days of the church.
A look at the Septuagint translation of almah by Semitics scholar Dr. Cyrus Gordon, provides additional insight on the matter:
The commonly held view that "virgin" is Christian, whereas "young woman" is Jewish is not quite true. The fact is that the Septuagint, which is the Jewish translation made in pre-Christian Alexandria, takes almah to mean "virgin" here. Accordingly, the New Testament follows Jewish interpretation in Isaiah 7:14. Therefore, the New Testament rendering of almah as "virgin" for Isaiah 7:14 rests on the older Jewish interpretation, which in turn is now borne out for precisely this annunciation formula by a text that is not only pre-Isaianic but is pre-Mosaic in the form that we now have it on a clay tablet.6
Jewish and Christian scholars would be hard pressed to deny that the Greek term parthenos and the Hebrew term almah may have been used interchangeably by those Jewish communities that adopted the Septuagint.
On the other hand, J. Gresham Machen, who has done a definitive study on this passage, asserts that the translation in the Septuagint of the Hebrew word almah as parthenos cannot be used to show a Jewish doctrine of the virgin birth, for one also finds the word parthenos used in the Septuagint to translate the word na'arah, which merely means "young girl."
For Machen, the very fact that the passage does not have a history of Jewish messianic interpretation and the very unlikelihood of this passage being interpreted messianically makes the New Testament account all the more credible. In other words, the gospel writer, Matthew, was not trying to fit Jesus' life into a traditional mold, but rather turned to Scripture to explain what had taken place in the event of the virgin birth.
One cannot assert that the prophet was speaking of a virgin technically on the basis of the word almah. Nor can a serious student lightly dismiss the word as having no possible reference to a miraculous conception.
Footnotes
Psalm 9:1, 46:1, 68:26; Song of Solomon 1:3, 6:8; 1 Chronicles 15:20.
Genesis 24:43; Exodus 2:8; Isaiah 7:14; Proverbs 30:19.
For a thorough study of these passages, see Young, Edward J., The Immanuel Prophecy: Isaiah 7:14-16 (Second Article). The Westminster Theological Journal, 16:23-50 (November 1953), p. 171-177.
LaSor, William Sanford, n.d., Isaiah 7:14—"Young Woman" or "Virgin," Unpublished manuscript, Fuller Theological Seminary, p. 5-6.
Young, p. 33.
Gordon, Cyrus H., Almah in Isaiah 7:14, The Journal of Bible & Religion, Vol. 21 (April 1953), p. 106.
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