touch me not

Christendom has been celebrating Christmas for many centuries now. What does history say? By and large, does Xmas really change people for the better to become peace-loving, selfless, merciful like our Lord Jesus Christ?

Is the news below an exception not the rule?:

"A fight has broken out at the church built on the spot where Jesus is said to have been born.

Palestinian police stormed the basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem after rival groups of Orthodox and Armenian clerics clashed in a row over the boundaries of their respective ancient jurisdictions inside the church".(Sky News)

Thanks for your respectful and sober answers.

Daniel 2:44 (New International Version)

44 “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.

Revelation 5:10 (New International Version)

10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,

and they will reign on the earth.”

New International Version (NIV)

Matthew 6:9-10

9 “This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

10 your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Isaiah 2:4 (New International Version)

4 He will judge between the nations

and will settle disputes for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

nor will they train for war anymore.

Psalm 37:9-11 (King James Version)

9For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.

10For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.

11But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Why does evolution not lead to perfection?

Or will it in the future?

Got this answer from a previous question asked:

"Without death, there would be no drive to procreate. In fact, there may even be a drive against it. And without procreation, there is no evolution. Death is basically required to make room for new life, which is a KEY component to evolutionary change."

So was evolution designed to keep life going?

Thanks for your honest and sincere answers...

of even the fittest?

God instructs appointed men in the congregation to safeguard the flock by expelling unrepentant wrongdoers from the congregation. When would Christendom listen to God's Word?

1Cor 5.9-12 (NIV):

9 I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11But now I am writing you that YOU MUST NOT ASSOCIATE WITH ANYONE WHO CALLS HIMSELF A BROTHER BUT IS SEXUALLY IMMORAL or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

12What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13God will judge those outside. "EXPEL THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOU."

[CAPS mine]

...blood transfusion and because of their complete involvement in the community’s life preaching God’s government as the only hope of ailing mankind?

Moscow (AsiaNews) – Jehovah's Witnesses have again become the target of Russian police and courts. On 17 March, police agents stormed early in the morning a number of private homes in the city of Tambov (western Russia). Backed by a court order, they searched the premises and seized about a hundred books, including copies of the New Testament, computers and other electronic equipment, as well as printed material on the religious group’s activities.

…The authorities especially object to the group’s support for conscientious objection, opposition to compulsory military service, refusal to bear arms, rejection to blood transfusion and the demand that its members be completely involved in the community’s life.

Hippocrates was a Greek physician of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. who has become known as “the father of medicine,” but much that the Bible says about diseases was written by Moses, about a thousand years before then.

Yet, significantly, The AMA News published a letter from a doctor that said: “The best informed medical researchers now doing the best work are arriving at the conclusion that the Bible is a very accurate scientific book. . . . The facts of life, diagnosis, treatment, and preventive medicine as given in the Bible are far more advanced and reliable than the theories of Hippocrates, many still unproven, and some found to be grossly inaccurate.”

Dr. A. Rendle Short in his book The Bible and Modern Medicine, after pointing out that sanitary laws among the nations surrounding ancient Israel were very elementary if they existed at all, said:

“It is the more surprising therefore that in a book like the Bible, alleged to be unscientific, there should be a sanitary code at all, and equally surprising that a nation just escaped from slavery, frequently overrun by enemies and carried away into captivity from time to time, should have on its statute books so wise and reasonable a code of rules of health.”

Some of the world’s most famous scientists have found it hard to believe. They see intelligence in the natural world.

Nobel-prize-winning physicist Robert A. Millikan, although a believer in evolution, did say at a meeting of the American Physical Society:

“There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends . . . A purely materialistic philosophy is to me the height of unintelligence. Wise men in all the ages have always seen enough to at least make them reverent.”

Evidence of design surrounds us, in endless variety and amazing intricacy, indicating a superior intelligence. This conclusion is also voiced in the Bible, where design is attributed to a Creator whose “invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable.”—Romans 1:20.

If all faiths lead to the same God, surely we would see each one of them exerting its influence to unite mankind in peace. Do the facts confirm that they do this?

From the 11th to the 13th century, Christendom, that is, nations professing to be Christian, went to war with Islamic powers in a series of Crusades.

In 17th-century Europe, Catholics and Protestants locked horns in the Thirty Years’ War.

In 1947, as soon as independence from Great Britain was declared on the Indian subcontinent, Hindus and Muslims were at one another’s throat.

More recently Catholics and Protestants spent years in conflict in Northern Ireland.

In the Middle East, Jews and Muslims still find no peace with one another.

And at the top of the list, World War II which engulfed members of all five major religions, even involving members of the same faith on opposite sides of the conflict.

Have the world’s religions by and large brought peace and unity?

If not, would this exclude a single or few religion(s)? Is there such one true religion? [John 4.23]

Will political governments eventually ban all religions as enemies of world peace? [Revelations chaps 17 & 18]

The account recorded at Gen 3.1-5 tells us that Adam and Eve were given a law. They were prohibited from eating the fruit of “the tree of the knowledge of good and bad”. The penalty was death.

The capital punishment as provided undoubtedly drives home the point that the law was of great importance and violation was a serious offense.

The account further says the “serpent” cleverly claimed that if they violate they would be “like God, knowing good and bad”. In what way did Adam and Eve become “like God?” should they break the law?

By their disobedience, they would in effect say: ‘This is what is “good” for us. We would be better off determining what is “good and bad” on our own. We do not need God’s laws.’

The “tree of the knowledge of good and bad” was in fact symbolic of God’s sovereignty, his right to rule. Eating the fruit of this tree simply means Adam and Eve rejected God’s law and His right to rule. They wanted independence from their Creator and from thereon determined on their own what is “good and bad”. Yes, like the serpent’s cunning remarks…they became “like God”.

Isn’t the world today running practically the same way as in Adam’s? Human rule have displaced God’s?People live according to what personally fits them best displaying a strong spirit of moral independence?[Rom 5.12; 8.22; 1Jn 5.19]

Is it the same group as the 144,000 of Revelations chaps 7 and 14?

If not, what is the Great Crowd's hope?

The Great Multitude in White Robes [Re 7.9-14]

9After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

10And they cried out in a loud voice:

"Salvation belongs to our God,

who sits on the throne,

and to the Lamb."

11All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,

12saying:

"Amen!

Praise and glory

and wisdom and thanks and honor

and power and strength

be to our God for ever and ever.

Amen!"

13Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?"

14 I answered, "Sir, you know."

And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Revelation 5:10

“..and you made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they are to rule as kings over the earth.”

Revelation 14:1

“And I saw, and, look! the Lamb standing upon the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand having his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads”.

Revelation 20:6:

“… they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years”.

…by their image and icon veneration and their worship rendered to “saints,” Madonnas, and crosses.--2 Corinthians 5:7; 1 John 5:21.

“Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God . . . They became foolish and turned the glory of the incorruptible God into something like the image of corruptible man and ...”—Romans 1:21-23.

(Psalm 115:4-8)

. . .Their idols are silver and gold, The work of the hands of earthling man.

5 A mouth they have, but they cannot speak; Eyes they have, but they cannot see;

6 Ears they have, but they cannot hear. A nose they have, but they cannot smell.

7 Hands are theirs, but they cannot feel. Feet are theirs, but they cannot walk; They utter no sound with their throat.

8 Those making them will become just like them, All those who are trusting in them.

Historian Arnold Toynbee once wrote: “ Man’s true end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever.”

Also, King Solomon wrote: “The conclusion of the matter, everything having been heard, is: Fear the true God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole obligation of man.”

In Eden Satan the Devil promised Eve that she and Adam would become "like God" determining on their own what is "good and bad" if they leave their Creator and live independently from Him

[Gen 3.1-5].

Have we become "like God" as Satan promised?

Daniel 2:44 (New International Version)

44 "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.

...that everlasting torture of wrongdoers in a literal fiery place is justice??

Even God's Word say God will never do it:

Psalm 103:6-12 (New International Version)

6 The LORD works righteousness

and justice for all the oppressed.

7 He made known his ways to Moses,

his deeds to the people of Israel:

8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,

slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse,

nor will he harbor his anger forever;

10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve

or repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us.