Cults.

My hubby and the 17 YR old are always going on insulting God and religion and making fun of my religious beliefs and strong faith and yesterday they were really going at it hard, saying that all religions are cults even the main-stream ones, how they all "brainwash" you, take your $$$$, demand your obedience, threaten you will hellfire and punishment from an angry vengeful God if you don't worship Him and follow his commands, telling you what you can and cannot do, dictating how you live, how to think, what to believe, how to dress and act, make you follow rules and rituals,etc. but the vast difference is with the mainstream faith you do have the freedom to leave if you want and with actual genuine cults you don't; it's a closed insular society closed off from outsiders, secretive, and they don't let you leave; that's the sign of a real cult, and they have inside secrets they keep hidden from others outside of the group.As for being punished for sins, it's NOT God that punishes sinners or sends them to Hell anyway; it's the person themselves that do, we are given free agency and we have the choice to choose good or evil, right or wrong,and we have to accept the consequences of that choice, and if we choose wrong( such as stealing, killing, etc.) then we've condemned ourselves to Hell by our own  wrong actions, our own bad choices, our own sins; we've made the decision, not God. Where we go is based on our decisons and choices and actions in our lifetimes, and although God does make the final decision it's a fair, just and right decision based on how we lived our lives; He doesn't condemn us; we condemn ourselves.

Then they were (even worse) also trying to "turn" the 13 YR old over onto their side and get him to agree that religion and God are "useless" and that he should also turn away from it and not believe either( despite my efforts to try and raise the kids godly they've pretty much all turned away now) trying to drill into his head all their anti-God and anti-religion blasphemy and hate( which in itself is a form of brainwashing!) trying to "convince" him of their argument and trying to get him to agree with them and he never really answered or said anything to their tirade so hopefully he won't "fall" for it and no matter what they say or do they will never take MY faith in God away from me and even though there have been issues with man-made religion and doctrines there will never be an issue with my actual faith and trust in God Himself and my strong faith is what has got me thru all the difficulties and trauma in my life and God has never stopped loving me and has never abandoned me even when everyone else has. I believe there is some truth in most religions and many paths to God and that He sent many prophets to different communities at different time periods and I have never doubted His existance and that's what faith is; you don't always need "proof"; some things you know in your heart, you just believe.

Today I also noticed Buddy had some blood coming from his nose and it dripped down onto his mouth and he licked it off ( ewww!) and I was worried at first( because I am a bundle of anxiety and that's how I work) afraid that maybe he had a tumour in his nose or something, causing the bleeding (esp. since long-nosed dog breeds such as Dachshunds do tend to develop nose tumours) but then when I put it all into the proper context and went over the entire sequence of events before and during  hopefully it was nothing as right before he had been snuffling along in the grass during his walk sniffing at everything and had several hard sneezing fits due to it so hopefully it just got irritated. I just worry so much about him that's all. I love him with all my heart and I have so much to lose. I still have the baaad abdomenal pain daily too now for almost a week and also alternating constipation and diarrhrea. Ugh! My poor asshole is also burning and feels like it's on fire too I can hardly sit down. This is just awful. I wonder if I have some sort of twisting or obstruction or something in my colon?