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The Holy Bible is the main source of Christian knowledge and teachings for most Christians and their religions. The Bible is comprised of several smaller books, written by men who lived thousands of years ago who wrote their stories down in an attempt to share their view of the world as they felt they understood it, as well as to create order among societies and to have rule over their people.
There is a misunderstanding in the world regarding the Bible and cults. Few persons in the world regard the Bible and learning from it as cultic, but this is because most do not truly understand what the Bible consists of. Many persons think of the Bible as a moral and accurate book. While it does contain some positive things, the truth is, most are unaware of the overwhelming immorality and factual inaccuracies within it, only applying those few positive things that it might have to offer. But with anything beyond this, Biblical practice becomes cultic practice. In fact, there are persons who believe that the entire Bible is morally perfect and is completely factually correct, to be followed and believed without question and with passion, with every word to be taken literally. This is called fundamentalism, and it is the conviction and practice of fundamentalism which is most cultic.
The idea that the Bible is without errors is not only extremely incorrect, but it is extremely dangerous. Science has already destroyed most of the Bible's credibility. Even many mainstream religions, including Christian denominations, admit that there are plenty of mistakes in the Bible. We have been discovering how incorrect the Bible has been for many years now. For instance, we have known for quite some time now that the Earth is not flat, that it is billions of years old, that life evolved from previous life forms, and that there was no great flood as described in the Bible. And believe it or not, there are in fact no talking serpents or men who can survive three days inside the bellies of whales. By believing in such fallacies, we are hidden from true knowledge, limiting our progress in our civilization due to negative consequences such as being technologically impaired and less knowledgeable in the field of medicine, which ultimately will lead us as a people to suffer by experiencing more difficult and less enjoyable lives, which will never get better.
Further more, the idea of the Bible as being the authority on morality is a great perversion of common sense, and poses an even greater danger than its factual errors. Again, even mainstream religions, including Christian denominations, admit that there is a lot of immorality in the Bible, and is not to be practiced. Not everyone agrees on everything when it comes to ethics, and we still have ways to go in developing our morality even further, but we as a people in developed societies have come to understand certain fundamental values for everyone. And in doing so, any person of any moral society should be able to understand just how immoral the Bible is. For instance, the Bible teaches hatred and evil, calling upon its followers to kill innocent persons, including atheists, non-Christians, homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, women who aren't virgins on their wedding day, and animals for sacrifices, while advocating slavery, violence, and torture unlike any other religion. By following such absurdities, we hide ourselves from true morality, once again limiting our progress in our civilization, by engaging in extreme consequences such as being hateful and intolerant, which ultimately leads us to more difficult and less enjoyable lives, and a world that will forever be full of suffering.
The 4th Watch cult is a fundamentalist organization. They believe that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. Straight from the 4th Watch website, they state:
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We believe in the Bible as the inspired God's words and are therefore inerrant and infallible. That is the final authority on faith and morals for all men.
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The 4th Watch certainly makes the absurd claim that the Bible is to be followed literally, and thus poses a very real danger to society. Many of the immoral concepts found in the Bible are indeed followed by the 4th Watch. Fortunately, while they dangerously follow the Bible in this literal manner, this is not always the case. In fact, the 4th Watch, despite what they say, do not always follow the Bible as literally as they say they do. For instance, the Bible specifically forbids women to preach the gospel, yet the 4th Watch goes against this and allows female pastors. Yet, as the Bible commands to hate homosexuals, the 4th Watchers fully comply. This just goes to show how the 4th Watch picks and chooses what will be believed, as most other Christians do. Now, while this is the case, they still hold the belief that the Bible is inerrant and will deny that they teach unbiblical principles. For instance, they make excuses to get around the Biblical command that women are not to teach. But regardless of their selective Biblical truth, their fundamentalism is still strong and they still hold the idea that the Bible is without errors and is the final authority on morality, which causes them to make immoral decisions and believe in inaccurate ideas, which ultimately makes them dangerous.
Despite the many versions of the Bible, the 4th Watch favors the New International Version. It is somewhat ironic that the Apostle strictly teaches that he is the only one with the authority to teach the word of God, and yet uses someone else's Bible to teach it. It is surprising he has not written his own yet, complete with a third testament which would include the Gospel according to the Apostle Arsenio Ferriol. But perhaps that would be going too far and even his own followers would back down.
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