The doctrine of purgatory says that people suffer to pay for for their own sins. The Bible tells an entirely different story.

When I was a teen, I went to a church in a Seattle suburb. Another church down the street had a split over doctrine. They were Seventh-Day Adventists.

It's okay for Christians to eat pork. Why wouldn't it be okay? Some suggest that because the ancient Israelites were forbidden by God to eat pork, Christians are to avoid pork as well. That this is nonsense should be obvious to everyone, as Christians are not Israelites. Unfortunately, many preachers and teachers are teaching nonsense.

Postmodernism is the idea is that reality is subjective...that there is no absolute truth, and that reality differs from person to person. The phrase "what's true for you might not be true for me" typifies a postmodern point of view.

The KJVO controversy is about whether Christians should consider only the King James Version of the Bible to be reliable and trustworthy. While there are a variety of views within the KJVO movement, the basic idea is simple: no other Bible will do.

Also known as "Moonies" and "The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity," adherents of Unification believe Sun Myung Moon to have been the manifestation of God on Earth.

Created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology is a pseudo-scientific business cult masquerading as a religion. Among its teachings is the idea that remembering your true identity will allow you to change reality with your mind.

The name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” was taken to avoid confusion between the Watchtower organization and others who claimed to be the true followers of Russell, calling themselves the Laymen’s Home Missionary Movement and the The Dawn Bible Students.

Islam is the 2nd largest religion in the world, with 1.6 billion people declaring their faith in Muhammad and Allah. With today’s birth rates and conversions to the religion, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in world.

While it could be said that Christianity had no beginning, the Christian church as we know it began in the 1st century AD. Founding Occasion: The death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

Theologically, Christian Science is a cult of Christianity. Also known as The First Church of Christ, Scientist, it shares common ground with Gnosticism.

Baha'i is a cult of Islam. Its founding occasion is Muhammad’s announcement that he bore a divine revelation destined to transform the spiritual life of the human race.

Religion FactSheets outline the basic information about world religions, cults, and movements, listed alphabetically. They're some of the most popular content on GodWords. If you'd like to request a new FactSheet, feel free to contact me.

First, the Bible does say that God wants everyone to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). Second, every Christian I know would say that God is certainly sovereign. That's found throughout Scripture. So, why would I disagree with the author's conclusion? Simple: he assumes that God's sovereignty gives Him everything He wants. I'm not convinced.

The 2014 movie Noah is clearly The Most Divisive Movie Ever, except for all of the other religious movies ever made. I don't do movie reviews...but, since so many are asking questions about the theological content in the movie, I figured I'd better get to work. WARNING: SPOILERS.

Some like to say that there is no absolute truth. It's a fun mental exercise, but nobody - absolutely nobody - lives that way. How can I be sure? Try a little experiment...

This quote from noted theologian C.S. Lewis highlights a major problem for modern atheists: they borrow heavily from a worldview they reject. When thinking about the process of thinking, atheists assume that their brains can be relied upon to give good answers.

One simple reason is that we tend to think that God loves us for what we do. If God loves us because we're nice, it becomes easy to look down on mean people. If God loves us because we're generous, we have no trouble being critical of stingy people.

Solipsism is the idea that only one's own mind is certain to exist. Very few people are sincere solipsists. Instead, solipsism is generally used as an argumentation tool. For example, one might ask how another knows that something is true, to which a scoffing reply might be "How does anyone know that anything is true?

King James-Only folks make some outlandish statements about God, the Bible, and the King James. It's not a monolithic movement, so you'll find that some are more "out there" than others. Here's a sampling of the kinds of things that KJO folks believe: