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Correct me if I am wrong, but to the best of my understanding, we were addressing the question (see post #11 above): “what institution[s] produced Black leaders in America?” Your post above, however, has conveniently forgotten this issue choosing instead to pick up the “preachers are against African culture” discussion.

You are wrong. LOL

I said this:

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Where is your evidence that the church produced them? What if there is another explanation? Maybe the church just can't sabotage some souls.

I provided a link about scientific research into reincarnation and a link to an essay of mine that mentions books in the Ethiopian Bible that are not in the European Bibles.

I have talked to Africans who have told me that belief in reincarnation existed in African and still exists today though European Christianity has made inroads. Now of course the concept of reincarnation means that there is an existing personality that has to unfold from birth but the environment can affect that unfolding. So the Church can be suppressing leaders not just creating them. You can't have leaders without followers. Are European derived churches more about suppression and selecting LEADERS that want to maintain that tradition.

Yeah the Catholic Church created popes. But how many people were burned at the stake in the process?

The Ethiopians kicked the Jesuits out in 1633. Weren't the Ethipians Christians?

SHEOL is the word in the Old Testament that gets translated as Hell. I have asked a lot of Christians about it and only two of more then 50 recognized the term. It doesn't mean Hell and I only stumbled across it by accident. So these so called Churches don't do a good job of spreading accurate information about the book they claim is the Word of God. That is Leadership for you.

Check HELL in Cruden's Concordance.

All about Sheol and hell

Charts for Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus

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Sheol In ancient Jewish beliefs, the dwelling place of the dead: "the land of gloom and deep darkness" (Job 10:21). It was generally believed that the good and the wicked alike dwell in Sheol. The apocryphal First Book of Enoch, however, describes Sheol as being divide into different regions, where the dead are rewarded or punished according to the lives they led. ("If This Goes On—", Starship Troopers)

A Heinlein Concordance

um

ghenna, sheol and hades....

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Originally Posted by meknow ghenna, sheol and hades....

Gehenna and Hades are New Testament.

Hades is Greek and the Greek metaphysical paradigm did not have a Heaven. Everyone went to Hades therefore Hades does not mean the same thing as Hell. Hades and Sheol mean pretty much the same thing.

The Euro-Christians aren't telling the straight dope on what they claim in the Word of God.

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Hades
That which is out of sight, a Greek word used to denote the state or place of the dead. All the dead alike go into this place. To be buried, to go down to the grave, to descend into hades, are equivalent expressions. In the LXX. this word is the usual rendering of the Hebrew sheol, the common receptacle of the departed (Gen 42:38; Ps 139:8; Hos 13:14; Isa 14:9). This term is of comparatively rare occurrence in the Greek New Testament. Our Lord speaks of Capernaum as being "brought down to hell" (hades), i.e., simply to the lowest debasement, (Mat 11:23). It is contemplated as a kind of kingdom which could never overturn the foundation of Christ's kingdom (Mat 16:18), i.e., Christ's church can never die.
In Luke 16:23 it is most distinctly associated with the doom and misery of the lost.
In Acts 2:27-31 Peter quotes the LXX. version of Ps 16:8-11, plainly for the purpose of proving our Lord's resurrection from the dead. David was left in the place of the dead, and his body saw corruption. Not so with Christ. According to ancient prophecy (Ps 30:3) he was recalled to life.
—Easton's Illustrated Dictionary

Sheol
(Heb., "the all-demanding world" = Gr. Hades, "the unknown region"), the invisible world of departed souls. (See HELL.)
—Easton's Illustrated Dictionary

Gehenna
(originally Ge bene Hinnom; i.e., "the valley of the sons of Hinnom"), a deep, narrow glen to the south of Jerusalem, where the idolatrous Jews offered their children in sacrifice to Molech (2Ch 28:3; 2Ch 33:6; Jer 7:31; Jer 19:2-6). This valley afterwards became the common receptacle for all the refuse of the city. Here the dead bodies of animals and of criminals, and all kinds of filth, were cast and consumed by fire kept always burning. It thus in process of time became the image of the place of everlasting destruction. In this sense it is used by our Lord in Mat 5:22, 29, 30; Mat 10:28; Mat 18:9; Mat 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5. In these passages, and also in Jas 3:6, the word is uniformly rendered "hell," the Revised Version placing "Gehenna" in the margin. (See HELL; HINNOM.)
—Easton's Illustrated Dictionary

My point is that the simple minded stuff that we were told as kids where the GOOD people go to Heaven and the BAD people go to Hell does not correspond to the translations and the metaphysical confusion of 2000 years ago.

I spent 13 years in Catholic schools but didn't learn about SHEOL until I was over 40 years old. Of course I have been on the look out for it since then but it still doesn't turn up. With all of the Christian propaganda on television and radio you don't hear the word SHEOL. In fact the word PROPAGANDA comes from the Catholic Church.

That is why I like the George Harrison song:

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The Art of Dying There'll come a time when all of us must leave here Then nothing Sister Mary can do Will keep me here with you As nothing in this life that Ive been trying Could equal or surpass the art of dying Do you believe me? There'll come a time when all your hopes are fading When things that seemed so very plain Become an awful pain Searching for the truth among the lying And answered when you've learned the art of dying But you're still with me But if you want it Then you must find it But when you have it There'll be no need for it There'll come a time when most of us return here Brought back by our desire to be A perfect entity Living through a million years of crying Until you've realized the art of dying Do you believe me?

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you are right again, christianity does not say that good people go to heaven and bad go to hell...

you are right again, christianity does not teach that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell...

you will be a convert afore long ya...