If you have understood Joshua well, you should be able to see at some level what religion is and how it is used to hide and destroy the heavenly Father’s will as expressed through Joshua. Religion is the things people believe and do in the name of God or ‘the spiritual’, which things have no basis in Joshua’s teachings or which contradict or nullify what Joshua says. Please read the previous sentence slowly and carefully and seek to understand what it means, for this is the very reason people hated and subsequently killed Joshua… because he exposed the falseness and loveless-ness and emptiness and wrongness of mankind’s religions and beliefs.
In the bible/Christian realm, their religion would include – but not be limited to – things like the following:
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Religious Belief or Practice |
Joshua’s Teaching |
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Looking to “the bible as the word of God”. |
Joshua is the Word of God to man-kind. |
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Listening to the religious leaders to understand God and what God wants |
Listen to Joshua to understand God and what God wants |
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Relying on the religious leaders to tell you what Joshua means |
Have child-like faith and you will understand Joshua’s teachings |
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‘Going to church’ |
Be the called-out ones |
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Paying the religious leaders to substitute for Joshua |
Follow Joshua |
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The rituals performed while ‘at church’ |
Joshua does not ask for rituals, but rather for love |
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Paying a ‘tithe’ to support the religious organization |
God doesn’t need nor want money or material things |
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Substituting worship with singing |
Worship in spirit and truth |
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Having prayer meetings with people praying out loud |
When we pray, pray in private and in secret. |
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Paying to build a religious temple usually called ‘the church’ |
Use the money to help others |
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Paying clergy to say words at weddings and funerals |
Have people who actually knew the deceased speak from the heart |
Perhaps one of the most powerful things used to control people is fear. Unfortunately, we humans are very susceptible to fear guiding our beliefs and behavior. In truth, we as human beings don’t need to be guided by fear. However, we do need another motivation for us to do what is right if we don’t have fear guiding us, and that other and higher motivation is love. Remember, the core of God’s love is selfless behavior motivated by compassion. If all people were motivated by that love, this world would be a radically different and an infinitely better place.
Unfortunately, this is not so, so in place of the truest love, most have fear motivating them to avoid doing wrong things. In other words, fear would motivate me to do whatever it takes to avoid loss or damage to my person or life…to defend my life in this world. Selfishness motivates me to preserve or advance my own well-being in this world no matter how it might affect others. Fear is a powerful trap due to our selfish nature, motivating us to protect our self-interests at all costs. The examples here, are examples of fear working in a selfish human being. Unfortunately, we are not naturally loving and selfless so our default motivation is fear and selfishness.
Political leaders use fear for their political ends when they say things like, ‘that nation wants to harm us so we ought to do this…’ or, ‘those extremists are among us and must be rooted out’. Business leaders use fear when they say things like, ‘this bad thing is probably going to happen so you need to buy our products or services to be ready…’; or, ‘if you don’t have this product or service, people won’t like or accept you’; or, ‘if we don’t make our profit margins, we are all going to be out of jobs’.
Religious leaders use fear when they say things like, ‘if you don’t believe this, God will be mad at your’; or, ‘if you don’t do this or if you do that, God will condemn you to hell’. The threat of hell is a very powerful fear motivator, perhaps the greatest ever created and used by people against others. "Hell", as defined by the religious leaders, is a place of eternal torment…where a person’s soul will be tormented forever. Many people will reasonably do whatever they think is necessary to avoid everlasting torture! Thus, most religions, including bible/Christian religion, have been very effective, over the centuries, at controlling many people by fear.
Here is the ultimate fear trap explained in a bit more detail.
Belief 1: Part of God’s character is that he is an angry, vengeful, wrathful being, who is eager to want to punish and destroy those people who fail to meet his perfect moral standard – the sinners and transgressors…see the Hebrew scripture to see this.
Belief 1 is false.
Belief 2: Due to that part of God’s character of ‘holiness’, anger, vengeance and wrath, he created a place of eternal torture for those people who don’t meet his perfect moral standards.
Belief 2 is false.
Belief 3: Therefore, those who don’t meet God’s perfect moral standards (as given and explained by the religious leaders) – will be sent to eternal torment by God.
Belief 3 is false.
In come the religious leaders with their self-serving religious system to allegedly try and help people avoid hell and instead enter into heaven. What is perhaps the most popular ‘protestant’ solution to the hell problem? It is something like, ‘just believe God’s grace and believe this stuff about Jesus and participate in our religious organizations (in reality, give money to us), and you will be heaven bound’.
As a factual example of religious leaders using fear for money, much of the billions of dollars of wealth that the leaders who make up and control the Roman Catholic religious system control, came from the fear concepts of purgatory and hell that they propagated and used for many centuries to take money from people.
In essence, religious leaders say that if you don’t believe and do what “God wants”, you are going to hell – a place where you will be tormented forever. In reality, if you don’t believe and do what the religious leaders want (not God), then they tell you, you are going to hell. Tragically, the religious leaders do not represent Joshua’s Father, the Creator…rather, Joshua represents God. As you have seen if you have read and understood his teachings well, Joshua says that he is to be people’s life/spiritual leader, not anyone else. And Joshua wants people to actually love one another each day, and not play foolish, selfish, empty games based on men’s religion. God does not exist in the little box called “religion” that people put Him in. Rather, He is the great Spirit which created our soul and spirit and He expects human beings to love each other all the time in all contexts of daily life…he expects us to do what is right, chiefly love one another.
The reality is that we ourselves set our after-physical-death-destiny by what we choose to do with the life we were given. God condemns no one, nor does He send people to hell – a real place of captivity, justice and destruction - not of eternal torment.
Joshua speaks for the Creator, God and he says:
Most religious leaders teach that what you believe is what determines if God sends you to heaven or hell. There are two falsehoods and one truth in that statement. One falsehood is that what one believes is solely responsible for one’s after-physical-death destiny. The other falsehood is that God determines a person’s destiny. The truth is that a person’s beliefs do play a role in determining one’s destiny, but only a role, not the sole determining factor. Please see Finding Eternal Life Amidst the Darkness.
Please, enter into his Life and come, join the Peaceful Revolution!