Blog Challenge Day 4 - my views on religion

For those of you who don't know, I am a seventh day Adventist. What is a seventh day Adventist? And where did we come from? well, Before the Catholic Church came about,thousands of years ago, there was a group of followers who followed Jesus Christ. They were considered the early church and had known him personally. They followed Christ's teachings as he said to and were persecuted by the Roman Empire. With the conversion of Constantine, Constanine decided to unite the whole world in "Christianity" and this brought in the era of Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism started worship on Sunday to not offend the roman pagans and adopted their gods/idols and gave them Christian names such as Mary, Peter, and James. They worshiped on Sunday because that is the day that the sun was worshiped. From that time on, the "early church" was forced to become an underground church. They were persecuted to the fullest extent and many were martyred. The reason why it's called the dark ages is because so many of them died and the world was kept in the dark about the Bible because only priests were allowed to read them.
Many people hate religion because they think that all we did was fight wars and kill anyone that didnt agree with us. That is false religion. That is the religion of power. I believe in Jesus and never force Him down anyone's throat because accepting him is a personal decision. We worship on Saturday because when God gave the red the Ten Commandments, he specifically set aside the Seventh Day to be holy. After creating the earth, he set aside a day for us to rest and spend time with him and not worry about everything during the week. From Sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night, we observe the sabbath. Our religion is different from others because we do not believe in salvation by works. So observing the sabbath does not give salvation. It is something that we do because we love God and in consequence, follow his commands. We are saved by accepting his sacrifice of dying on the cross and rising again and having a personal relationship with him. So that is where we get the Seventh Day part of our name. The Adventist part comes from our belief that Christ will come again one day to take us to heaven. From here comes our belief that when you die, you stay dead and do not go to heaven in spirit form. Any spirits that are seen are satanic apparitions and are condemned and not to be associated with us. The use of mediums and psychics are strictly forbidden because that is not from God.
Gah! There's so much to write. I'm sorry f it's a bit long. But that is a small piece of what i believe in and what my views on religion are.