This website will be of special interest to people who have questions/problems/arguments with religion.
| QUESTIONS, PROBLEMS and ARGUMENTS THAT PEOPLE HAVE WITH, or ABOUT RELIGION | LINKS THAT ADDRESS THESE ISSUES |
| What does God expect from me? |
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| Is it possible to know or prove that God exists? | |
| Why are people (especially Jews and Christians) dropping out of religion? | |
| The moral impossibility of interpreting the literal Bible seriously because of the many unloving, immoral and illegal commandments and stories that totally contradict what might be expected from a loving God or from people who claim to follow that God. | |
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Struggles with doubt about religion. |
DOUBT IS GOOD |
| The problems of believing that religion and faith are identical. | |
| Skepticism of Judaism and Christianity because their practices do not agree with the idea of a loving God.
Anger at religion because of abuse perpetrated by religious people and organizations. |
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| Aversion to religion because it is toxic. | Toxicity |
| Aversion to religion because it has pagan origins. | |
| Aversion to religion because religious people are self-serving hypocrites. |
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| Aversion to religion because it is full of people who can’t think for themselves, are easily duped, and are only motivated by emotion expressed though mindless obedience to silly religious laws, rituals and music. | |
| Aversion to religion (especially Judaism and Christianity) because the confusing symbolism and references to ancient cultures makes it difficult to understand and irrelevant to modern times | |
| I feel like a religious outsider. How can I find someone who feels the way I do about religion? |
In pursuit of understanding of these issues, the Religion Detox Network has the following objectives:
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Continue reading to learn more about this website.
RADICAL VIEW OF RELIGION
From the brief overview in the previous page, readers might be tempted to imagine that further investigation of this website will challenge their religious beliefs. This will happen for all readers regardless of their religious history — including people who have had no active history with religion. Here are the possibilities:
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Religious people (especially Jews and Christians) who dare to venture into this website will do so at great risk. If they are even a little bit open-minded, they will learn things about religion, themselves and God that they never heard or never could have imagined. What they learn will bring them to places of decision-making that have life and death implications. Either they will choose to remain religious (i.e. they choose death and slavery), or they will choose to listen to God’s voice which will explain to the mystery of the Bible to their hearts (i.e. they choose life and liberty).
Non-religious people, both those who believe that God exists and those who do not believe or are skeptical about his existence, will also be faced with choices. Before they make these choices they will first learn that there are good, Biblical justifications for their aversion, mistrust, skepticism and even hatred of religion. Surprisingly, they will learn that their attitudes and opposition to religion are identical to God’s attitudes and opposition. Some might even be surprised to learn that they understand religion and God better than religious people do.
While non-religious people will be inclined to believe that they arrived at their beliefs about God and religion through intellect and reason, or empirically, it could be argued that they can understand only because God has given them the ability to see through all the shortcomings of religion and has preemptively saved them from the oppressive influence that all religions maintain over their followers. They may then be forced to reckon with the possibility that they have heard God’s voice and didn’t even know it.
Non-religious readers who are inclined to accept that their beliefs about religion were actually a gift from God will then have to decide what kind of response, if any, they will make to God for his mercy toward them. Those who are not inclined to give God any credit for their negative views of religion may simply feel vindicated in their opposition to religion and continue to resist and oppose it — perhaps with even greater resolve because of what they have learned here.
For both religious and non-religious readers who choose to investigate this website, the learning process begins by studying scriptures that religious people have long ignored. There they will find hundreds, maybe thousands, of scriptures that effectively expose religion as deception and turn four thousand years of religious teachings and traditions upside down. But, more than that, the website tries to help people learn how to study for themselves to learn from God himself that what he really wants/expects from his people is a pure heart — not religion. The deep spiritual knowledge acquired actually turns the Bible right-side up from a document that is full of mystery to one that is understandable.
Going through this process is very much like detoxifying from any addictive drug. Detoxifying from religion can be slow, agonizing, and even painful. But it is nonetheless true that freedom from religion can be achieved for those who are committed and have support from others.
Individuals are responsible for mustering up their commitment. The Religion Detox Network will provide support by creating Networking opportunities with others who have been through the process or are going through it still. It will also help by pointing people to the only effective antidote to religious lies: Listening to God’s voice. When that happens, people are set free from the power that religion has had over them.
RELIGION IS NOT FAITH
Religion Detox Network will be of interest to people who think that faith and religion are interchangeable concepts. Those who are willing to investigate the differences between faith and religion will learn that they are exactly opposite in meaning as seen in the following statements:
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STUDY TIP: The Bible describes the differences between faith and religion in several ways:
The reason people are confused about religion and faith is that religious leaders down through the ages have wrongly and deceptively taught that religion is the same thing as faith. They felt justified in this teaching because they interpreted the Bible literally — not symbolically. In doing so, they stumbled over the human, fleshly tendency to understand the literal words of the written Bible with their intellectual minds instead of listening to God’s spoken voice with their hearts. They made this mistake because they did not have spiritual eyes to see or ears to hear God’s voice.
Even though these errors in Biblical interpretation have deceived hundreds of generations of Jews and Christians, many who are leaving religion are beginning to recognize the truth and are choosing genuine faith that God honors while rejecting the religions that man honors. This website will add to their understanding about the differences between religion and faith and disclose scriptures that reveal why God is calling his people out of religion.
Read more of “Religion is not Faith” ⇒
GOD IS CALLING PEOPLE OUT OF RELIGION
Many people are starting to notice that the world of religion for Christians and Jews is changing. The forums (see list in right sidebar) in Religion Detox Network are for the brave, adventurous people who have become statistics in this changing world. Whether they know it or not, God has called them out of religion into a spiritual life that religion could never deliver.
Read more of “God is Calling People Out of Religion” ⇒
THIS WEBSITE IS INCOMPLETE AND IMPERFECT
Visitors to Religion Detox Network will notice that the titles of several pages are followed by ***. This notation is meant to warn readers that they will find the *** notation in the content of the pages. These three asterisks are used to identify pages that are “works in progress”, which means that they are incomplete and imperfect.
We alert readers to this notation so that they will not be surprised to find typos, incomplete thoughts, erroneous links, and other kinds of problems in these pages. Of course such problems may also exist in other pages as well, but these are pages for which the authors are aware of the problems and are still working to correct them.
Read more the website being incomplete and imperfect ⇒
CLAIM YOUR REWARD! CLICK ON THE LINKS TO HEAR GOD’S VOICE
NETWORKING
Anyone who has ever made a break from religion, whether by choice or involuntarily, knows that doing so can be a very lonely and painful experience. Since we hope that many readers will choose to break from their religions, we think it is important to provide opportunities for them to network with others who also feel alone because they have escaped from religion or are thinking about breaking away.
DEFINITION OF RELIGION
Before we discuss the nature of religion, it is necessary to define it because God’s definition of religion is different from the world’s definition. We will first look at the world’s definition.
Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist described it in “Religion as a Cultural System,” in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion , ed. M. Banton (London: Tavistock, 1966):
| (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic |
This is a technical, academic description of religion that makes sense only when we think critically about our own religious experiences. Having done that, we offer our own paraphrase of each of Geertz’s five points in a narrative form:
| Religion is a system of symbols (e.g. Christian Cross, Star of David, clothing, jewelry, buildings, leaders, objects, traditions, ceremonies, festivals, sacraments, etc.) for which people form long-lasting, powerful, emotional affections that motivate them to organize the symbols into a system of corporate and religious laws that will successfully preserve and advance the religion in ways that have an appearance of Godliness. |
With all due respect to Mr. Geertz and his professional colleagues, we also offer our short, non-technical, somewhat cynical, man-on-the-street definition of all kinds of religion:
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Read more of “Definition of Religion” ⇒
RELIGION IS THE KINGDOM OF FALSE PROPHETS
The elementary features of religion found in historical religion, including Judaism and Christianity, have a form of godliness, but lack real spiritual power. Although they are based loosely on the Bible, and reference God and Jesus as their respective spiritual authorities, God considers these Old/First Covenant religious traditions a covenant of death based on works of the law (i.e. flesh).
To call religion a covenant of death seems a harsh condemnation until we consider that the Old/First Covenant religion always includes human teachers and does not depend on the spirit of God to teach all things as provided in the New Covenant. Because these human teachers (i.e. false prophets, powers and authorities in heavenly places) take on many forms in Biblical language, it is critical to know how to distinguish between a True Prophet and a False Prophet.
Read more of “Religion is the Kingdom of False Prophets.” ⇒
WARNING: DO NOT BE PUT OFF By THE REPETITION
People who are well acquainted with the Bible know that God repeats himself often. There is no place in the Bible where God explains his tendency to repeat himself, so we can only assume the following possible reasons:
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Readers who bother to click on links to scripture in this website will notice that they often go to multiple scriptures that basically say the same thing. Because we see this model of repetition throughout the Bible, we have employed it in writing the Religion Detox Network. Thus readers will find many concepts and scriptures mentioned repeatedly throughout the website.
We mention this in advance to prepare readers for the repetition they will find here and hopefully deflect any fault they might find with it. There may be many things to criticize here, but repetition should not be criticized. Our thinking is that if it is OK for God to say the same things over and over, it is OK for us to say it also — as long as what we are repeating is what God has said.
USE DISCERNMENT
Readers of Religion Detox Network will find occasional links to material researched and written by others. We include these links when we feel that the author has done a reasonably good job of addressing a topic that we are discussing. Including these links does not mean, however, that we agree with absolutely everything the author has written. It only means that, in our opinion, there are seeds of truth in these links that is worth sharing to further stimulate study.
As always, we strongly recommend that readers of everything (whether written by us or other authors) included or referenced in this website use extreme discernment when reading. In other words, they should pick out the meat and toss the bones because very few authors get it all correct. We include ourselves in that group. See the Comments page for guidance on how to correct the authors.
The final point about discernment is that God is the ultimate arbiter of truth. To know what God says, however, it is necessary to listen to his spoken voice while reading the Bible.
PERSONAL NOTES FROM WEBSITE MODERATORS
Some readers who find their way to the Religion Detox Network might wonder who created it and why. This is a fair question that we always ask and research before reading websites and blogs dealing with religion. Readers who ask the same question can read this page and “Moderator’s Religious History” to learn a little more about us. Those who are very curious about us as authors of this website may also read the following:
Our main purpose in creating the Religion Detox Network is to challenge religious people to reconsider what they believe (and practice) regarding God and religion. Our format is to expose readers to scriptures that they may have never read or have never been able to understand and show how literal interpretation of scripture leads to misunderstanding that results in the formation of religion that leads to separation from God.
We are well aware that much of what is found in this website will be considered heretical by readers who believe in literal interpretations of scripture. And we are well aware that most of symbolic interpretations found here are in radical opposition to long-held, cherished doctrines and traditions in both Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Nevertheless, we are compelled to report the truth.
Readers who cannot tolerate having their religion challenged by these symbolic interpretations will probably back-click out of this website as quickly as possible because of the discomfort. Some readers may find what they read here offensive. Readers who are super-devoted to Judaism, Islam or Christianity may be so offended that they will want to retaliate against the website with efforts to discredit, disable, or even destroyed it. Nevertheless, we are compelled to report the truth and we expect that we will receive adverse reactions because this is exactly what happened to Jesus who promised that we would be persecuted.
Retaliation is exactly what we expect from Old/First Covenant religionists. Retaliation is what some of the Jews (i.e. Pharisees) did to Jesus whom they considered to be a lawbreaker who threatened their religion. Therefore, retaliation is is the attitude and response we expect many readers will have to this website, and maybe even against us as authors.
But we trust that there will also be a few readers for whom their existing doubts about religion will propel them to break through their comfort zones and give God room to open their spiritual eyes and ears to new understandings of the mystery and figurative language found throughout the Bible. We are confident that these readers will be glad they opened themselves up to God in ways they have never done before by humbly accepting the possibility that their literal interpretations of scripture may be wrong and that religion is sin. It is is for their freedom from injustice and oppression that we are glad to suffer any retaliation that may come our way from others who reject and despise us for what we have written here. The cry of my heart allows me to do no less.