Happier Abroad Forum Community

First of all, I was hanging out with magnum yesterday. Yup, he's back in China! So I was walking with him on the street yesterday (at about 4:30 PM), and this guy just popped up beside me and asked me whether I knew about the Bible. I told him I'm already a Christian (so is magnum), but he kept on preaching to me anyways.

So he began telling me that there are in fact two gods, one male and one female. I told him that God is male ("The Father", "Lord" are male names/titles), but he then took out his Bible (I don't know what translation) and tried to justify this false teaching using Genesis and Galatians. He pointed out that "let us make man in our image", the "us" was referring to a female deity figure. So I once again asked him whether he was preaching that there are two gods, and he affirmed it. I haven't read the Bible in such a long time, plus his false teaching made me lose my calm, so I yelled at him and dismissed him rudely. I regret not correcting him as a good fellow believer should have done.

This is the first time that I have encountered a false teacher, and although I regret not doing exactly the right thing, I was able to hold up guard and tell lie from truth. I thank God for allowing me to be tempted, testing my faith in Him. I hope I am better prepared to deal with these false teachers in the future.

Fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, have you encountered any cult preachers while abroad?

Majority of teachers & preachers say the wrong thing because the bibles they've got are just one man's version or interpretation. The real truth would be in the texts that bore the original language. With that siad I think the safest approach would be to just stick with the basic laws, the 10 commandments, you can't go wrong by not complying with that no matter what religion you are.

The Old Testament in Genesis does use the plural form for God.

"Then God said, ‘Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness."

The Bible isn't one book but is a complex collection of independent documents written at different periods. The earlier chapters were most likely written during a transition time between polytheism and monotheism. Most Christians don't read the Bible but just a few parts that are hand fed to them and selected not to contradict each other and support a particular theology. The early Catholic Church handled the problem by just making it illegal for people to read the Bible.

Baoning and Magnum together in China! Interesting...

Maybe one day, all three of us, and possibly even Xiongmao and Ghost (who left angrily in protest of the bannings) can meet.

Anyway...yeah; there's lots of false preachers out there in the 'David Koresh/Jim Jones' mode, so be careful when it comes to religion--especially Christianity.

I might get into trouble for this with some of you bible boys but here goes, Jesus isn't god. So many worship him & pray to him, but he was just a messenger & a teacher. In the bible he clearly prays many times. So if he was a god or the god, who was he praying to?

I don't think anyone is at fault for thinking he's god or believing it though. Islam, Vedic scriptures, Hinduism & Judaism all have texts about him. He was the most popular son of god, but there were many like him.

I was approached by some Korean girl asking me about if I knew there was a "mother god".

Turns out she was from this World Mission Society Church of God. They are kinda creepy. They believe a Korean woman named "Jerusalem" is some sort of God incarnate.