You also wrote, “Anyone who believes in a wrathful, vengeful, angry, needy, jealous God is a fool.” But are not some of those things taught in scripture?

And lastly, this was a very insightful comment, “I say I was given the opportunity to find my way to God. MY way.” There ya go. This is not Christianity. This is Wilde-anity. You are following a God of your own mind. The bible calls it idolatry. You may not have carved one out of wood yet, but you might as well. There is no difference.

I realize that will read harshly. But I want you to know that your thinking is normal and I too am often guilty of imposing my own image of God, as how God really is. It’s a human trait we must always battle within. The only way to be sure that I do not follow my mind is to read scripture and realize that it has authority over my experience. Not the reverse.

I am curious what you think happens when you die, Wilde. Mind telling me?

“…He is nothing but a slave on whom we bestowed favor, and we made him a pattern for the Children of Israel….”. Quran 43:57-60
“You have uttered a gross blasphemy… Because they claim that the Most Gracious has begotten a son.” Quran 19:88-95
“In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary…” Quran 5.17,72

Do you believe Jesus was crucified? That he died for your sins? Consider what Mohammad said about that:

“… That they said (in boast): We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary…But they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them… for of a surety they killed him not…” Quran, 4:156-159

Jesus said “If you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins” John 8:24

There is no way to reconcile those two opinions of Jesus. Either He is God’s son, or to say so is blasphemy. It is nonsense to say you can believe both, and nonsense is nonsense, even if you speak it about God or religion.

It is one of the simplest and most common of errors to take a sentence or two from a writing and think you understand it. That is what disturbs me so much about our naive defenders of the faith. They see an email with a quote or two from something [I've not read the book in question] and jump on the bandwagon either for or against the article/book/post/etc.

Luke said that the people of Berea were more noble than those from Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily to see whether those things were so. Acts 17:11. So listen to what people say/write, that’s fine, so long as you search the scriptures to see if it is so.

Again, where’s your proof of that?”

Where is your proof that Conversations is not the word of God? Where is your proof that the bible is? There is no proof in religion, only faith.

But it is commonly known by historians that large portions of the Bible have been twisted, removed, and modified by various leader throughout the years.
You truly believe that a book could stay pure throughout a period of two thousand years? This is obvious even to someone who knows nothing about Bibles, walk into a bookstore: there dozens of them, all a little different! And yet you still say “No, it has remained true, it has remained pure, nothing could change the word of the Lord.” Not to mention the power a book of that magnitude has carried through the centuries. A leader (or dictator) could put anything in that book and it would be taken as “the word of the Lord”, obeyed and revered by all. You think the leaders of the past have not exploited that?! Come on! It has been THE most powerful control any leader has had over his people – “straight from the horse’s mouth”, follow it or face punishment by death. Yeah. because all those leaders were SUCH trustworthy guys. Opium for the masses indeed. They’ve gone so far as to create a big red man made of evil, and a world of fire! Oh, and you have to EARN your way to God, and he will punish you! My, a regular Shakespeare!

Do you truly believe that God spoke to Moses? You think he could not do it again? Do you tell yourself that he may have lost the power? Lost the will? I tell you, God has spoken again, to a man named Neale Donald Walshe, in the form of these books. That is the key to the faith I and others have in Conversations and in Neale – we see that he is a messenger, we see that he is genuine. We see that his message is true. And if you were to actually READ the book, rather than misquote it, you would see that this message is as pure as any Bible you could throw at me (if not more so). Anyone who can read this book entirely and completely disagree with its message is truly a man I would not like to meet. We know that God’s message in this book is true, because we can feel it is. You say that you cannot trust your feeling? Garbage. Feelings are all we have, and what we must trust most; the love for our fellow man, the pang in our hearts that tells us what is wrong, the joy we feel when we see that God is anywhere and everywhere we look, everyday.
God speaks clearly and concisely to us all, but to some more clearly than others. Neale is a messenger, dictating exactly what is said to him, and writing it down, nothing more.

I am 21 yeas old, and Conversations has changed my life. I have truly found God (or rather, remembered). There are no coincidences. I found this book because it is exactly what I was looking for.

Anyone who believes in a wrathful, vengeful, angry, needy, jealous God is a fool. God is pure love to everyone and everything (everything, which is ALL God in and of itself, remember?). I thank God, literally, and more immediately my parents, that I was raised without a proper religion, but always with a belief of God. You may say I’m lost, I say I was given the opportunity to find my way to God. MY way. And it wasn’t through religion.

There’s more out there than your precious book. Expand your horizons, think outside your nine dots, realize that there’s much more out there than you could ever know or comprehend.

Kim, I also just finished book 2. I can’t wait to start number 3, and can’t wait for the day that the laymen and the nonbelievers and the mislead and the Ron Shanks of the world come around and see what is truly so.

There are a couple points I’d like to address. First, I agree with you on race and baptism. God is the creator is skin color. Both Jew and gentile are able to be saved by His grace through faith. In 1 Corinthians 1:14 Paul thanks God he didn’t baptism the Corinthians. How could he say that if it were essential for salvation.

However, beyond that you seem to have made up a religion of your own… picking and choosing what you like and do not like. The bible calls that idolatry. You may not have carved an image out of wood – but you did carve one out in your mind.

The Bible was written by men – under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. How else can you explain the number fulfilled prophesies? The amazing accuracy of the manuscripts and geological reference points also serve to make it the most authoritative book in all history. Statistically there is no logical choice but to conclude that it was written/inspired by someone outside of space and time or someone who had control over minute details of future events.

Satan’s lie in the garden was “God didn’t really say that.” And you seem to be falling for the same old trick, Kim.

Don’t take my word for it, Kim. Read the Bible for yourself and obey what you read. I fully trust God to reveal His truth to you.

Let me know if you ever want to take more…

God bless you,

Ron