Geoff - Your mention of the “Waldo” scenario is similar to an argument we used in our missionary lessons when I served a two-year mission to Brasil. We argued that all the various Christian sects claimed to be the “True Church” of Jesus. Since only the LDS church was organized in the same fashion (12 Apostles, elders, teachers, priests, etc)and taught the same principles (love thy neighbor, etc) as the church illuminated in the Bible, only the LDS church could be the “True” church. The hole in this logic is that ALL the churches could be false. And from exhaustive research and experimentation I came to the conclusion that ALL the Christian churches are, indeed, false. After twenty years of researching and teaching the Bible, in English and Portugese, I realized that the organized religions of the day were political organizations that manipulated their members for the good of the leaders, not for the good of the people. I am now following a humanistic philosophy of Buddhism that does not use guilt trips to manipulate. We encourage each one to become the best they can be and to learn to enjoy both the sufferings and joys that life brings. Obstacles become an opportunity to grow stronger in our life. Now that’s a positive philosophy that I can live with.

leguru -Making a good thing out of something bad (hard situations)? Hell, why not!
oh yeah - the signature, does it mean that a good person tries to get rid of the (probably emotional) ignorance of the bad man? - so that the bad man becomes aware of the effects he has

I’ll add that, when atheists complain about the atrocities caused by religion (crusades, suicide bombings, etc), it only usually works as far as organised religion - if it wasn’t organised a lot of the problems wouldn’t exist, and people would experiment more with new ideas, rather than feel they shouldn’t explore. Without organised religion people would have to think for themselves a little more, and want to more.

Leguru,

Thanks, you make some very good points. I must admit that I don’t know all that much about Buddhism. I definatley see your points about the philosophy of Christianity, however, as I’ve already mentioned, according to Christian philosophy the best thing you can do for a person is lead them to Jesus. It’s especially tough for me to argue this point to most people because most, avarage, people have a different set of values and priorities than Christians. Actually, to admit a bit of cowardice, thats why I tried to focus mainly on the “myths” of the Bible. It’s an etremley daunting task for anyone, to argue a set of beleifs that go against mainstream culture. The only defense I have for the morality of Christianity today is that, at the very least, Christians truly beleive that what we are doing is one of the greatest gifts we can offer.

Bahamat,

You adress some interesting points here. I think your right, resisiting temptation, doing good deeds, and having good intentions do get you credit in heaven. I’ll admit, looking back on it now I may have been a little overzealous with what I said “Christianity” says. But it’s still in human nature to sin. I definatley think that if you have to steal somthing from somone in order to save another persons life, that isn’t a sin. It says in the Bible, and I’m not exactly sure where,Leguru perhaps you can help me out here having been a missionary for so long,that you will be reqarded in heaven for good deeds and you should do them, but it’s still not enough to make up for sin. But again, you have to try to look at it from God’s perspective, God loves us infinately, but nothing imperfect can exist in his domain. This is a dillema because, while God wants us in heaven, we can’t exist there because we do sin, so God sent his son, who never commited a sin, to die in the place of humanity. A perfect person dieing was the only way to wash away our sins and make our souls perfect. This is really difficult to accept unless you realize that God’s set of minimum standards go so far beyond our own it’s impossible to fully comprehend. Most people are, as you say, shades of gray, but if you mix gray in with pure white, it still makes the white darker. God gave people free will, and, when tempted, Adam and Eve gave in to that temptation and ate the fruit of knowledge, and thus, for all intents and purposes, cursed humanity. It’s not OUR faults that we sin, but we, nonetheless do, and sin can’t exist in Heaven. God doesn’t want to send us to Hell, in fact he doesn’t. It’s just the only place left for souls to go when they die, because Satan is there, and thus God isn’t. Hell isn’t a place where your physically or emotionally tortured, or burn alive, or something like that, it’s just the only place, in the entire universe that God isn’t, thats why its so terrible. According to Christianity, there can be no greater pain than being outside the presence of God. Remember, desires come from wanting to be close to God, so naturally Hell would be something like wanting something many times worse than you have ever wanted something before and knowing you will never be able to attain it. God doesn’t like sending us to Hell, but where else can souls go after they die? God can’t fix everything instantly because he gave us free will. Even God can’t stop a person from doing something that they have aready decided to do, because he made us in his image and gave us free will. So the only way to save us from the mistakes we make was to send his son to die for us, and thus wipe whoever’s soul clean that accepts it. It may seem like an injustice that Jesus had to die to save us but remember, he got back to Heaven so it didn’t really turn out that bad for him. People can’t learn their lessons because one we’ve sinned we’ve sinned, and so have lost admission to Heaven. But our time on earth is a seond chance, God could have just killed Adam and Eve right there in the garden because they had sinned, and he did warn them beforehand that he would if they did, but he didn’t, he loved them so much that he sent his son to die for them and all their children and so on.

But again, arguing this is all irelevant if you take it from a mainstream view of morality.

So it boils down to, if you elimenate everything other than the facts it’s impossible to prove, one way or the other. Mabey you’re right, mabey Christians shouldn’t place 100% faith in what they don’t know for sure, but we don’t really have that luxury. It’s more just a search within ourselves and this is the answer we’ve come to.

Leguru,

I’d very much like to hear what you found that made you lose faith in Christianity. If you want to post it on here or email your response (or not give one at all if it makes you uncomfortable) that works. I just like to have the perspectives of all sides. My email is Thanks.

To anyone who reads this before reading my other posts,

If you’re reading this and haven’t read any of my earlier posts, please dont let this one color your response to my first ones.

Thank you everyone and good chat ,
Geoff

Geoff - Interesting was that you referred to heaven as god’s domain (and later about god’s absecene from hell) - I was thinking perhaps by that you mean he has more control in heaven than he does in earth or hell, that would make sense in explaining imperfections - that although loving us he just isn’t able to eliminate the competing forces, and that might be why the imperfection of being able to commit sin/ wanting to exists.
But surely hell’s where he’s most needed by those suffering?

I don’t understand why there would be opposition, indeed I don’t understand why human nature has a bad side at all, but it does + i certainly don’t have the power to eliminate it as a mortal, perhaps god is similar - his ability restricted because he’s bound by rules himself (although where they’d come from would be a mystery).

I think I struggle to see how Jesus dying for us clears us of sin - it doesn’t change what’s already happened, it doesn’t make us any less guilty of what we did, we don’t get the punishment that would’ve taught us why sin was bad, and he has to suffer through no fault of his own, like a scapegoat for humanity - I doubt a reasonable god could blame an innocent for the entirity of mankind’s sins, it wouldn’t seem fair anyway.

This is really difficult to accept unless you realize that God’s set of minimum standards go so far beyond our own

I suppose it depends what the standard is - I agree that there’s no excuse for when people are unkind towards each other, but I wouldn’t want people have to live in a restrictive way when they havn’t yet seen why that sin is bad - i mean we need not fear hell, it’s just to say ‘that was a mistake because…‘ - and then you learn from it, and then there’s no point in keeping you in hell anymore.

Most people are, as you say, shades of gray, but if you mix gray in with pure white, it still makes the white darker

But there could still be a realm other than darkest black to accomodate these greys… It feels as if we’re damned to hell just for being born from what you say about none of us being suitable for heaven

so naturally Hell would be something like wanting something many times worse than you have ever wanted something before and knowing you will never be able to attain it.

A craving.. I agree, dependancy causes torture. But - I suppose a dependancy/addiction to god cause torture, so maybe hell is like rehab, so you can depend more on yourself and less on god. Heaven then would be analagous to snorting a load of god cocaine.

It’s just the only place left for souls to go when they die, because Satan is there, and thus God isn’t

I don’t think it needs to be so black and white - look at earth, you could say there’s partial presence (and abscence) of both god + satan, and in different shades in different places for different people - people can have heavenly or hellish mindstates, it’s as if you’re already in heaven/hell in life - look at depression or fear as examples of different forms of hell, or love + comfort as forms of heaven. On death/nde perhaps you enter that world you’ve created through your own mindstate.

God can’t fix everything instantly because he gave us free will. Even God can’t stop a person from doing something that they have aready decided to do

But he could make the person want to do something different - so that someone follow’s god’s will naturally through their own free will. What we want + don’t want could be manipulated so we can be ultimately controlled in a way that still lets us make the decision - because otherwise free will would prevent god from being able to make a plan with certainty that it was going to happen that way.

but remember, he got back to Heaven so it didn’t really turn out that bad for him

Maybe, but the present cannot be totally discarded for a better future - otherwise everyone would be determined to get pHDs and people would be willing to endure any level of sufferring for a really long time in life to get heaven at the end - but people have limits + take notice of how they feel at the time, we make decisions on how we feel now, sin wouldn’t happen if we didn’t think of the here+now and do things for short term gain.

People can’t learn their lessons because one we’ve sinned we’ve sinned, and so have lost admission to Heaven

I wouldn’t want to write someone off for eternity just because they made a mistake at some point in their past that they now regret. If you regret a mistake, you have learned, and you’re not the same as before.

It’s more just a search within ourselves and this is the answer we’ve come to

I agree - to search in ourselves. But supposing if you were born in some tribe that hadn’t even heard of christianity, would it still be christianity that you would find in yourself? Would you call it that if there was an alternative religion around that was mainstreem in that society and seemed to tie somewhat to your ideals?

Finally you have nothing to worry about the colour of the discussion - i detect nothing other than respectful talk with the intention to do what you think would help us

Bahamat:

I don’t think it needs to be so black and white - look at earth, you could say there’s partial presence (and abscence) of both god + satan, and in different shades in different places for different people - people can have heavenly or hellish mindstates, it’s as if you’re already in heaven/hell in life - look at depression or fear as examples of different forms of hell, or love + comfort as forms of heaven. On death/nde perhaps you enter that world you’ve created through your own mindstate.

Precisely what Buddhism/humanism claims. The carrot that Christians are chasing, “Heaven,“ is actually only a mindstate, also. And stating that one must do something impossible (become sin-free) or follow a certain political strategy (become a member of a sect) to attain this carrot is PURE manipulation. And, I might add, manipulation of the worst kind, since Heaven, or bliss, or joy, is actually attainable by anybody by living in a way that makes your life the best it can be and helping those around you become the best they can be. You cannot become a great human by yourself. Only compassionate actions will bring you true happiness that circumstances cannot rob you of. Buddha was not the only philosopher to discover this (become enlightened). It is a universal law that works every time for everyone that applies it in their life.

I forgot to address two more points.
Bahamat:

oh yeah - the signature, does it mean that a good person tries to get rid of the (probably emotional) ignorance of the bad man? - so that the bad man becomes aware of the effects he has

Actually, it affords a good person the opportunity to overcome some obstacles in his own life that have caused the other person to behave towards him in a bad manner (the bad man). Our environment is a reflection of our own actions. When we “kick that dog” often enough, the dog will turn on us and bite us, eventually.
Geoff:

I’d very much like to hear what you found that made you lose faith in Christianity.

The more I studied and taught Christianity, the more flaws I found in how it applied to different people and the more I saw how it manipulated the weakest, rather than make them stronger. It became obvious that the organized religions were not designed to help their members but rather to perpetuate the leaders’ power over them. Not a pleasant revelation. When I came across this humanistic philosophy, I immediately recognized this as a way to really help people in a social construct without developing some political organization that fed on the weakness of the members.

You have to understand that the religious standards of good people and bad people, black white and grey is built on wrong ethical bases,
The religious moral code goes as the following
-great god made us and everything else. (No proof of his existence or that he made us)
-god told us what is right and what’s is wrong
- Heaven and hell are the motivation for humans to be good and do good deeds.
So in other words you don’t do what’s considered a right deed because its right but the deed is right because god said so.
And your motivation is fear and pleasure.
It is the sickest moral code that ever passed through ethical philosophy.
I wont go through the thousands of truly amusing ethical theories right now some of theories were proven right and some proven wrong but nevertheless they where all based on logic , reason and rationality unlike the divine command theory.
I suggest you search around and read about utilitarianism , altruism , egoism , social contract and moral motivation before you start labelling people bad and good based on your 2000 years old vague book that was rotten by the guy who is written by a guy who revived after dieing when they nailed him on a tree (how is that scientifically possible)
Go swell your crap somewhere else because people around this bog are well educated.
http://science-vs-religion.blogspot.com

leguru: Actually, it affords a good person the opportunity to overcome some obstacles in his own life that have caused the other person to behave towards him in a bad manner (the bad man). Our environment is a reflection of our own actions. When we “kick that dog” often enough, the dog will turn on us and bite us, eventually.

But a good person shouldn’t have to change the way he lives just to please some intollerent so-and-so. The bad person deserves to be pissed off because of his lack of tolerence, the good person deserves his freedom to live his own life as he wishes. No one person should restrict the freedom of another needlessly, and if we all lived to minimise conflict with the bad, their intolerence would go unchallenged and we’d still be slaves to their arbitary rules.

To add to what m.wael alkel said:
Even if a god did exist, he’s just another being, albeit perhaps more powerful and in different form. We could, if we wanted, just ignore what he says is right/wrong and make our own rules, because we are independant. We could rebel against god if we thought he was wrong, even to our own loss, it might seem worth it if you believe in the princinple strong enough - and in life you can get away with rebelling + be completely untouchable - life is where people can make their stand, and spread their point unrestricted

First of all, the Crusades weren’t a religious war, although it is often erronously repeated to be. The Crusades were a territorial war.

That just goes to show how willfully ignorant of the facts you are.  Sure, it was a territorial war.  Anyone can say that and it would be true.  No one is even going to try to deny that.  But guess what?  You are forgetting about one key fact – the main reason why those Christians wanted that territory in the first place.  Anyone can look up this undisputed fact for themselves.  The only real reason they wanted control of that land in the Middle East was simply because it was their so-called “holy land” where their Jesus character supposedly was born, lived, died, and was “born again” according to your dogma.  They wanted to retake that land from the Muslims for purely religions reasons.  It’s not like they cared about their oil back in those days.  It’s not like they cared about the rights of the people.  All they cared about was their religion, which was as far as they were concerned, the necessary law of the land.  And during the process of the Crusades, which were originally meant only to retake the holy land, they proceeded to persecute all the non-Christians that they happened to come across along the way, including the Jews.  Now, how exactly do you not consider this a holy war?  If that’s not a holy war then I don’t know what is.  Do you?

You apparently don’t seem to even be able to understand the simple fact that there was no such thing as a “secular government” back in those days like there is today.  We take that for granted, don’t we?  In reality it wasn’t all that long ago when there was no such thing as “freedom of religion” or even “freedom of speech” for that matter because all of the major world powers that existed were in the complete, uncontested control of corrupted religions zealots like those in the Papacy.  Everything they did was for religious reasons because that’s all they ever thought or cared about was their religion, or at least that was their excuse.  Their religion was the center of everything because they had made it that way on purpose, whether it was for their own selfish gains or because they really did have faith in it, or whatever, it doesn’t matter because all of the major decisions that were made were subsequently based upon it, including the Crusades and the Inquisitions that I see you have chosen to ignore completely.  How can you even begin to deny that?

They began due to Muslims invading the Byzantine Empire, calling for the destruction of Christian church in Jerusalem, and killing Christian clergy and pilgrims. The Byzantine Emperor pleaded to the pope for help, and thus began the Crusades. It was about territory, not religion, and it was instigated by Muslims, not Christians.

Listen to yourself.  What you are saying is that one religious organization did something that made another religious organization mad at them, and so that religious organization decided to go to war with the other religious organization in order to retake their “holy lands” from the “infidels”, or whatever you like to call them, and you are actually trying to tell me that does not constitute a holy war or had anything to do with religion whatsoever.  ROFL

The Crusades then went on to kill from 1-2 million people over 300 years.

Yes, all for religious reasons.  Most of those who were slaughtered were Jews and other “pagan” heretics in the eyes of the Popes, who were even handing out “indulgences” to people to get them to willingly fight for their cause.  Yeah, I’m so sure that religion played absolutely no part in that whatsoever.  Nice try.

Dec 25th wasn’t Jesus’ supposed bithdate then or ever.

I would really like for you to tell that to all the Christians I know who would basically spit in your face for saying that.

I think Christians are almost universally aware that Christmas is not Jesus’ birthdate, but a celebration of his birth - regardless of date.

You are so completely wrong about that it is laughable because that is NOT what these Christian parents are teaching their kids, nor are they teaching them the real meaning behind Easter for that matter.

If you want to argue Jesus’ validity, that’s fine, but I don’t think an admitted lack of knowing his birthdate supports or contradicts that subject, since none of the Christian belief hangs on knowing when he was born.

You are missing the whole point that the whole Christian faith hangs on the flimsy belief that not only was he a real person but also that he was God.  The unknown birthdate is just one small example of your lack of truth on the matter that I offer you to consider.

Additionally, there are innumerous historical characters whose birthdates are unknown, yet this doesn’t negate the knowledge of their existence, if they are real.

That is oh so true but then, as usual, you are missing the key point that no one is expected to worship them as GODS and basically hand over their soul to them as you expect them to do of your Jesus the so-called Christ!

There was no indictment given of Romans “messing up” anyone’s religion.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.  The entire Protestant “Reformation” was totally based on denouncing the *Roman* Catholic Church from the very beginning.

I’m simply trying to disprove the idea that it is all based on astrology.

Then you’re going to win because I never said that it was totally based on astrology in every single aspect.  What I am saying is that a lot of the core dogma is, though.  Does that make you feel any better about it?

I would also appreciate it if you would refrain from being so insulting in your manner…

Well I’m so sorry but that’s just not possible since no matter what I say it’s going to offend you no matter what, no matter how much I might try to sugar-coat it so your little feelings don’t get hurt, just because everything I have to say goes against your religious dogma and dares to uncover at least some of its most horrid secrets that your church leaders have been trying to hide for 2000 years and you can’t stand to acknowledge it because you know very well that to even consider anything I am saying to be even a remote possibility it means that you will have to give up your blind faith and start thinking for yourself and thus lose your sense of security in the world because then you will have to try to find your own way through life instead of believing you have a free seat in Heaven waiting for you as long as you follow their rules.  Believe me, I do realize just how hard this is must be for you to grasp, the idea that your family, your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc., and all your pastors/priests/ministers that you have all put all your trust into all your lives, and their families and their family’s families, and so on and so forth, for God only knows how long, have all been deceived into worshipping a false sungod in a man-made religion that is totally based on some mindless scribblings on some ancient Hebrew scrolls that have only partially, at best, been able to survive all the centuries that they have been mistranslated, misinterpreted, and deliberately picked through by Men in Power who have taken authority over the truth.  I know how hard it is for you to even contemplate the possibility that it might be true because it makes you feel scared and it is only human nature to fear the unknown and to hate being scared.  But you know what?  That is just too damned bad.  If you don’t like it then you can go away.  Go hide in the pages of your book.  I’m not forcing you to read what I have to say like your church forefathers did just a few centuries ago when people just like me were imprisoned, tortured, and executed for being heretics just because we refused to swallow their bullshit and pretend we like it too.  And I can guarantee you that if Christians got their way there would be no more “freedom of religion” and our US Constitution would be thrown into the garbage and replaced with your King James Bible.

Christmas isn’t a celebration of the day December 25th itself, it’s the day we celebrate the fact…that he WAS born, not that he was born on that day.

If you are a real Christian then you should be celebrating it every single day of your life and not just on the day of the Pagan Winter Solstice.  It just goes to prove the irony that some people just can’t give up their life-long traditions even after they have been shown to be hypocritical and in total contradiction to what their own dogma actually demands of them.  I for one love Christmas but I certainly don’t celebrate it for the same reason that Christians do and every year, it never fails, Christians try to pervert that holiday with their dogma about Jesus in the manger under the eastern star with the Three Kings coming to adorn him!  Now whether you say they are doing it just for shits and giggles or whether they think they are actually celebrating real events that actually happened on that very date, who gives a hoot?  It still doesn’t matter!  It does not change the simple fact is that Christians do in fact celebrate Jesus’ birthday on that very day for very specific reasons that are very unChristian and that is the only point I am trying to make here, which is one you don’t even try to deny yourself, that your own religion has been perverted for centuries by people who deliberately incorporated pagan ideas that came from the Zodiac just so more people would be accepting of it.  The same pagan ideals that any Christian leader will tell you is going to get you sent straight to Hell if you give it any serious thought or consideration.

Let’s be real, can you honestly say that your parents told you the real meaning of Christmas when you were a child, when you were standing up before the crowds singing those church choir songs like “The Fist Noel”, or did you have to find it out for yourself later on?  Be honest!

As I said before, the idea of the “three” kings/magi/wise men, comes from the number of gifts brought to Jesus, even the version of the bible that came from the council of Nicea had no mention of three people or that they were kings. These are both simply popular misconceptions.

Popular misconceptions…the bread and butter of Christianity!

So to sum it up, the bible said that an unspecified number of magi came to visit Jesus and gave him some gifts. Using the logic behind the bible/astrology movement, it would be easy to translate the idea of the “three kings” stars to any mention in any book, ever, of an unspecified number of men.

Actually, no, not at all since those three stars that have been known as “The Three Kings” have been called so since before Christianity was invented and it just so happens that they line right up with the eastern star that is also said to have shown them the way to Jesus on this first birthday, which just so happens to be celebrated on December 25th, the same day that all 4 of those starts point directly to the sun as it rises in Southern Crux constellation.  Just keep ignoring the facts and they will go away, just like your church fathers taught you to do.  It doesn’t really matter what the bible really says anyway, since Christianity lets you go against it and still be saved from Hell, right?

I again have to point out the flaw in logic here. Using this logic you are saying that, again, any mention of a virgin in a book is representative of the constellation Virgo.

Uh, no.  Now your just putting words in my mouth.  What I said was, that all Virgin Mothers of God throughout the history of religion who’s names have begun with the letter M have been based on that constellation that uses the altered “M” as its symbol.  You want to talk about logic now?  No, I don’t think you do because there is no logic to the idea of “original sin”.

There is absolutely no correlation between the Virgin Mary and Virgo other than that they are both virgins.

That is only your wishful thinking.  All you have to do is look at all the other religions that existed before Christianity such as Mithraism that incorporate the exact same idea.

Based on everything I have said in all my posts I think it’s safe to say that Virgo and the Southern crux appearing in the vicinity of each other could be nothing more than a coincidence.

I never even made any claim that Virgo appears anywhere near the Southern Crux on any specific day.  Where the hell did you get that idea?  The only thing I have ever said about the Southern Crux constellation is that on December 25th, the day that the birth of your sungod-man is celebrated, the sun rises into that constellation while at the same time the eastern star of Sirius lines up with the Three Kings on Orion’s belt and they all point to the sun at that given time.  Get your facts straight!

Your right, the culture of that time was harshly patriarchal, but you can’t blame Christianity for the attitudes about women that were around before Christianity even came into being.

Actually, yeah I can, considering that Christianity has been used to keep sexism enforced over the centuries instead of dispelling it.  All I was saying, by the way, is that if there was any anti-sexism doctrines in the original form of Christianity they were erased by the early church fathers because they went against their patriarchal attitudes and there words cannot be trusted as the word of God.

In terms of Mary Magdalene, she is a very prominent figure in the bible; while not a “disciple” in the strictest sense of the word she was not censored from the bible.

That’s only what you believe because, like I said, there is evidence that suggests otherwise.  There is evidence that there may have been a whole extra book all about her that was deliberately kept out of the bible by the patriarchs of the time because it proves that she was actually a disciple and some Christians believe that the Mary mentioned in that book was actually the mother of Jesus rather than Magdalene and therefore, if that is true, then your Mother of God was actually, or at least intended to be, an actual disciple of Jesus, and if that is true then you can’t use her omission from the discipleship as an argument against the Zodiac principal.  Also it does seem a bit less than coincidental to me that there is another Mary in the bible who is in fact disputed to be one of the original disciples.

Whether or not the book of the bible that was supposedly written by her corresponds to the other books, we don’t know for sure and we may never know. If it is I have no problem believing it, regardless of the sex of the person it was written by, but until it is proved to have some kind of relation to the other books of the current bible (note I’m not saying proven that it’s true, just that it’s not a forgery) I have to treat it tentatively.

That brings up a very good point.  Whatever you consider “the current bible” as you call it.  What exactly do you consider to be that, the King James version, or what?  If so then I suggest you do some real research on its origins and how it came to be what it is today.  And then ask yourself the question, why would you take any specific translation or version of the bible that was written by people who purposefully omitted certain things and worded things a certain way based on their own personal whims, the whims of some English dudes that lived back in the 1500’s, to be the only true bible instead of the actual original writings of the Hebrews just because their version happens to be written in English and you’re too lazy to learn the language of your own savior?  Jesus did not even speak English!  All you are really saying to me is that you have chosen to ignore certain writings that have been uncovered just because they are not included in whatever you happen to consider “the current bible” that was written by mortal, pig-headed men in Europe just over 500 years ago.

Again I feel the need to point out that I’m not arguing that the bible was never tampered with or that it doesn’t contain some false information.

If that is really true then you’re religion has nothing to stand on and you can’t realistically expect a loving, just God to expect us to take this blatant heresy as His Word.  It has the same value as used toilet paper IMHO and I am sure that the real God feels the same way about it!

Christians base their faith around the three principles I have already mentioned, not the infallibility of the bible…

I really don’t understand how you come to that conclusion.  Christians base their whole faith on the primary principal that if you don’t worship some dude named Jesus who died on a Cross 2000 years ago in the Middle East after he was supposedly betrayed by a guy named Judas and some other Evil Jews to the Evil Romans who ultimately founded your whole religion, if you don’t accept this human sacrifice that was made to a bloodthirsty God to atone for all the sins of mankind then you are going to Hell, PERIOD.  You cannot deny that!  And they come to this audacious conclusion based on a few choice sentences that were written in that thing they call their Holy Bible that has been handed down to them from pagan heretics who willfully abused it from the very beginning.  More like Holy Bullshit IMO.  And this is the whole reason why the Witch Hunts happened right here in America.  Because if you don’t believe in Jesus then you are going to Hell, and if you are going to Hell then you are in league with Satan, and if you are in league with Satan then you are a danger to society and can’t be trusted and therefore the Church has the authority to take your life and torture you in the process!

...we know that people were willing to be murdered for their belief in these core principles of Christianity long before the bible as we know it today was ever written.

That may very well be true but then more of them were willing to commit murder for their beliefs rather than be a victim of it after the fact.  And if someone thought that their neighbor might be practicing Devil Worship that was a good enough reason!

Also, if there was another female (or male for that matter) disciple, that would invalidate the idea that the disciples represent astrological signs, and if there wasn’t another disciple then my original point (about the 12 tribes of Israel and Mary, i.e. Virgo) still stands.

And if you would actually read what I write then you would know that I said this might be one of the reasons they left her out of it.  DOH

What I was trying to say here is that it is easy to call one man, especially one who makes these claims, crazy and a liar. It is a lot harder to call multiple people who all wrote about the same events, at different times, crazy.

So then please tell me what is the difference if He would have written His own book right along with all the others who wrote theirs about Him as well?  It wouldn’t be just Him writing the book in the end anyway, it would still be all the others who believed in Him as well on top of that.  So, in that case, how would God writing His own version of things down hurt your religion rather than help it?  Do you actually see what you are saying?  What you are saying is wholly preposterous!  Can’t you see that this is just a weak attempt at a cop-out of trying to explain something that totally defies all logical sense?  I mean seriously.  On one hand you are admitting that the bible has been tampered with by ungodly men and on the other you are saying that God Himself meant it to be that way because it would be more believable than the real truth…OMFG!

That also brings up another point, the main criticism of the bible is that it’s the only record of its own events, but what those critics fail to point out is that there’s no evidence to say that the bible was written by one person, or even a group of people in the same time and place.

Do you really think that helps your case in any way?  That just goes to further the proof that it has been tampered with by many ungodly men with their own selfish and perverted agendas over long periods of time.  You have no way of telling which ones of them actually had “divine inspiration” and which ones did not, if any of them ever did at all!  And that is what the entire bible is based on – guys who said they got talked to by God, and you believe them without question!  You want some real logic now?  How about this, please explain how this Almighty God if yours has to depend on primitive mortal men to get His Holy Word out the whole world and into the future by their own weak and corruptible methods?  If He has the power to give out visions, visions that are vital to our very salvation, then why doesn’t he just do that for everyone and be done with it?  And since we humans are so ignorant, blind, and stupid that we can be so easily fooled by Satan and his demons and they have so much power over us and over God Himself in fact that they can easily pretend to be real angels from Heaven or even God Himself if they want to and we have no way of telling them apart from the “good guys”, then please explain to me how we should trust any one man or any multitude of men who have said they got visions of any kind?  How do you know that they weren’t really from the Devil himself and that he has tricked all you Christians into worshipping a false god so that you will get sent to Hell where he can laugh at you for all eternity?  After all, that’s his whole life mission right?  And if he was really as smart as the bible makes him out to be then it would make perfect sense for him to pull something like that.  Do you really think this Satan dude is going to come up to you in full demonic form complete with horns and pitchfork and say “Hey bud, my names Satan, want too sell your soul to me?  Come on you know you wanna!” ???  I mean really!  Obviously if he is anything like what your bible makes him out to be then he is going to find the sneakiest most underhanded and subversive way possible to get at you and if that means inventing a false religion that sounds good and appears good on the surface that lots of people will fall prey to because they’re stupid and won’t follow the basic instincts that God gave them then why would he balk at that?  He has taught you that you should ignore reason so you can have blind faith in what he wants you to believe and all your kind before you have done his will by committing atrocities in the name of the Christ.  You have no way of disproving that!

There is no evidence to support the idea that the bible wasn’t written by different people at different times.

When did I ever say there was?  Haven’t I been very clear on this from the beginning that I do recognize that fact and that is one of the main aspects of my augments in the first place?  You know what you are doing here?  What you are doing here is the same thing that all Christians do when tying to defend their faith – they draw erroneous conclusions from false pretenses that they invent to try to make themselves sound good to themselves.  They put false words in other people’s mouths and then proceed to argue against them as if that validates something.

So, from that perspective, there are at least 21 (the books of the bible not counting multi part books as separate from one another like John 1, 2 and 3) literary sources from that time that substantiate the claims of Christianity. But again, my point isn’t to prove the bible right, just to prove that it’s not an astrological allegory.

And you are doing a very poor job of that because all I ever said in the first place is that certain core aspects of the religion and the way it is practiced are derived from the Zodiac and that is something that Christians today are largely ignorant of.

The Old Testament speaks of a messiah that will come and sacrifice himself to save mankind from sin, exactly what Jesus supposedly did.

Does it say that he will be God incarnate and that we are to worship him as such?

They just, plain old fashion, don’t believe that Jesus was that messiah…They don’t have to. While it would make their lives easier, according to the Old Testament the Israelites are God’s Chosen people and they, aside from everyone else, can get into heaven through following a strict set of guidelines (i.e. not eating pork, etc.). So they can afford to be more skeptical than anyone about who the messiah really is.

Oh, I get it!  Now you are saying that God is a Racist.  Good one!

Gentiles (Gentile means not Jewish for the record) can’t afford to be that skeptical, and so far, the only person that could be that messiah is Jesus.

Let’s just say, hypothetically, that these Jews, who are in fact God’s Chosen People, as you say they are, are actually right…and Jesus is not the messiah.  What do you think is going to happen to all those Christians who worshipped a false prophet their whole lives?  Hmm?  And besides, what if one of us so-called gentiles decides to convert to Judaism?  The Jews themselves have no problem with that, they have ways by which anyone can become a practicing Jew if they are willing to put the time and effort into it.  I supposed you don’t think that matters because of their race?

Try to look at it from a Christian standpoint; we truly believe that by being evangelic we are saving people from an eternity in hell.

And that is your whole problem right there.  You have no proof that this is true and you still want to force it on everyone anyway, not because you care about people but simply because you want to spread blind faith and willful ignorance of any other possible truth that may exist throughout the world so you can feel better about yourselves.

Try to look at it from a Christian standpoint; we truly believe that by being evangelic we are saving people from an eternity in hell. Coercion implies a threat, a threat implies forcing someone, through telling someone that you will do something negative to them in order to get them to do something that benefits you. In the mind of a Christian evangelism=saving, not only do 99.9% of evangelical Christians not get anything out of their evangelism (that 0.1%= corrupt evangelical preachers that steal money through evangelism) and on top of that evangelism can harm most of these Christians because then they have to deal with the torment and ridicule of people who think they’re are trying to be coercive.

You are failing to take into account the simple fact that the less non-believers there are in the world, the less people there are in the world to counter your beliefs and make you question your faith.  In effect, it makes you feel good about yourself when you “save” people just because it makes you feel more secure in your own faith.  And you don’t really give a good god damn if the person is doing it because they really love your Jesus character or just because they are scared to death of going to Hell or if they are just tired of not fitting in to your oppressive Christian society.  This is the death trap of Christianity.  Most Christians only believe in their religion because they were raised to by their parents and to defy the religion is to defy their parents and risk being disowned.  Conversions are done out of nothing more than a pure, sickening fear that naturally sets into the weak minded of us from being told by so many people that they are going to suffer an eternal damnation in Hell if they don’t do it and a lot of them are people who are taken advantage of in times of personal crisis.

I can easily see how, from the outside, evangelism looks like coercion, but by the same token, from a Christian standpoint, there is no kinder thing we can do for a person than bring them to Jesus.

I’m sure that’s what all the other Christians were telling themselves when they were raping, torturing, and murdering all those pagans and stealing their land from them throughout your bloody history.

...events like the Inquisition and the Crusades were carried out by corrupt members of the CATHOLIC church, and cannot be associated with the protestant church today…

That’s total BS since the same bible that Protestants use to this day is also the very same bible that was written by and handed down to you by those very same heathen Catholics that you claim to despise so much, the oldest Christian denomination that persists to this day, their corrupted The King James Version.  Nice try.

The mistake that you, and all other critics of Christianity, are making is that Christianity is one continuous and undivided religion.

That could not be further from the truth, in fact it is one of my main arguments against the whole institution to begin with.  The fact that Christianity is so divided into different sects that all hate each other and all claim that their version of whatever is supposed to be the infallible Word of God is the only truth by which we can be saved and the only choice we have is to pick one and just take their word for it on blind faith or else be damned.  Screw that!

It is exactly because of this corruption, greed and perversion of the true Christianity (what Christianity was before being distorted by the Romans, in other words the three principles I’ve already mentioned) that Martin Luther broke from the Catholic church, which, I might add, was the event that started the scientific revolution.

As I see it that Martin Luther was just as much of an idiot as any of the Catholic fathers were.  And the only thing that really started the scientific revolution as you call it is pure secularism that doesn’t let faith get in the way of finding the real truth, whatever it may be.  Keep in mind that we are talking about the same Martin Luther who called reason a “the Devil’s appointed whore”.  And you are actually trying to give him any credit for any kind of scientific advancement?  Please.

No matter how you view that it doesn’t change the fact that, being a Christian myself, I deal with other Christians on an extremely regular basis, and as such I would probably have a better idea of the knowledge of the average Christian than you would.

Actually, you don’t even have the foggiest clue as to what you are talking about.  I happen to work for a Christian school and therefore I am surrounded by Christians on a daily basis myself.  The only difference between me and you is that I have an open mind and you do not.  You only have to deal with people who all agree on all the same basic principals that you think your life is based on.  Wow, that must be so challenging!

There, you said it yourself, religion demands faith in something that can’t be proven at this time. As I said before, no one can know if, at some point in the future, science will prove the existence/non-existence of God. Making the assumption that science will someday disprove God is just as much of a leap of faith as assuming that it will.

You are truly ignorant.  You’re just like all the other Christians who automatically assume that everyone who is against their religion is an atheist.  I never said that I was an atheist, in fact I have made several statements to the contrary, which just goes to show you don’t actually read anything of what I have said before you respond to it.  I never said that science has to prove or disprove the existence of God.  Get this trough your thick skull:  When I look in the mirror and when I look at everything else around me every day of my life that I can see with my bare naked eyes, I KNOW that there is a God!  I do not even try to dispute that very simple basic fact to anyone, let alone to myself.  My whole point, and my only point, here is very simply that your Jesus character cannot be proven to be God, the Son of God, the Jewish Messiah, Yahweh, the Godhead of the Holy Trinity, or whatever the hell you choose to think on that particular subject, and that assumption will never be proven at all and if it is then it will be too fucking late, and that is my whole argument and you cannot seriously expect anyone in the entire world, regardless of their race and culture, who is in their right mind to believe that they are going to Hell if they don’t believe what YOU say and pledge their allegiance to YOUR particular church!  Get it straight!  Your religion does NOT center around the worship of God, it centers around this guy that you like to call Jesus when in fact there probably never was anyone with that name in Jerusalem or any of the surrounding cities in that area during the year zero.  You disgust me!

Use REASON here.
You don’t even understand the basic concept of reason.  This just proves my point that it is impossible to REASON with Christians!  I really don’t know why I even bother to try.

I am simply presenting a REASONABLE argument that it is just as easy to prove Christianity as it is to disprove it.

No, you are not.  You are trying to base your so-called reason on the false idea that your religion is centered on God when in fact it is centered on some guy that supposedly lived in the Middle East at a certain point in history.  There is nothing at all reasonable about that.

Any argument you can make, on either side, can be turned around and used by the other. Believing that there is no God and that Jesus is not the savior of all humanity is just as much a leap of faith as believing it; it all depends on your perspective.

Wrong again.  There is much more reason for me to believe in God without your Jesus character mucking things up.

I’m not telling you that the bible is absolutely right or that Christians are infallible.

Then your faith is worthless.

The only conclusion that anyone can reach is that there isn’t enough evidence either way; neither side has been proven thus whichever side you’re on is based on faith, whether it be faith in the existence or non existence of God.

I’m going to keep repeating myself since you like to keep repeating yourself so that maybe, just maybe, you might actually get the whole point of this discussion.  My absence of faith in Christianity has nothing at all to do with an absence of faith in God.  It has EVERYTHING to do with it!  IMO your religion is perverted and disgusting and it is an affront to the real God who I can only hope is merciful enough to forgive you for your blatant stupidity.
Anyway, I’m sure we can both see at this point that this discussion is going absolutely nowhere.  I have said all that I need to say and if you feel the need to continue to twist my words and put words in my mouth that I never said just so you can have something to argue against and still sound reasonable in your own imagination then you go right ahead.  Because the only thing I do have left to say is that you are utterly hopeless.  Even if God Himself came down here to earth right now and stood right in front of you and told you right to your face that your religion is wrong, you still would not believe it.  You would just assume that it is Satan who is trying to trick you and lead you astray.  So if God Himself can’t do it then who am I do think that I can?  For all I care you can go ahead and continue to pray to that crude torture device with the mutilated corpse dangling from it that you call The Cross and adorn yourself with it like it is something beautiful.  Just don’t try to shove that nasty thing in my face or I will shove it right where it belongs!

However, if you would like to continue to an honest debate, I would be happy to bring up sensitive subjects like that of “original sin” and the “age of accountability”, some of which is actually in the bible and some of which is not, none of which can be logically explained no matter which way you try to turn it and yet are still essential doctrines of Christianity nonetheless.  But then only if you can promise to quit putting words in my mouth and actually learn how to read instead of being lazy and choosing to make blind assumptions about everything!  But then I guess that would be asking too much of you since blind assumptions is what you base your whole existence on anyway.

Been a few days since I dropped a line here, but.. (embrace thread drift!)

Leguru:
Insofar as my life is concerned, there are several philosophies, but one statement that I think describes it all.

In all that you do, from the most specific to the most general, you permit others to do the same. Therefore, do good.

A life devoid of love and compassion is a life utterly devoid of the capability to intend good.

Infernus:
You’re being a dick. That said, you’re right about quite a few things. I’m going to add my two cents.

In my personal experience (Yes, I understand this constitutes a tremendous blindspot and no, you shouldn’t let this influence a general opinion):

Christians almost universally believe Christmas was the date of Jesus’ birth. I don’t know more than one Christian who is, in fact, educated in Christianity. What passes for Christianity these days (and most certainly is not) is cultural, not literary or literal. Growing up, I was taught that masturbation is a sin, that Jesus birthday was on Christmas, that Easter is not about a bunny, but about Jesus being tortured and killed. My denomination made no mention of Jews at all, except to say that they also believe in God, but they have their own book and their own rules.

Oh, and Muslims? The devil’s religion. They hide in the deserts near the holy land because that’s where the battle of the apocalypse is to take place. It’s not that we don’t love them; they’re just going to burn in hell for choosing the devil in their hearts.

Anyone who doesn’t believe in God is going to hell, regardless of whether they were taught or not. If you love any of your friends, it is your personal responsibility to convert them, and if you don’t, it’s on your conscience. You don’t want that, do you? God speaks to us even today and gives us the gift of tongues to those who have enough faith. He does good things to us if we have faith, and bad things happen to us when we push God away (which is any time we do something “wrong”, and we know that because we “feel” it). For that matter, feelings represent the soul - the conduit to God. If your soul says it is so, it is so. The soul doesn’t lie.

Sound crazy? It should. And calling Christians of this sort anything other than crazy is absurd. But we don’t, because we stumble over ourselves trying to defend the religion these people follow. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of religious people worth defending, but it seems pretty clear to me that the religions that propogate today don’t stand on their own merit. They wouldn’t need believers if they did.

I can find Christians that are bright, educated, and offer critical historical, cultural, and economic criticisms of religious literature, sure. Most people, much less most Christians, are not that considerate or educated. For most Christians, it’s what they’ve inherited from their parents, which is precisely the problem. They accept it because it was forced on them by cultural pressure and authority. It becomes a part of their identity that they cannot easily divorce, and warp their view of the world to accommodate it.

My mother has read the Bible almost every night for decades. She’s read it cover to cover probably thirty times. She has, not once, seriously criticised it. She toys with the idea with her sister, but…Remember, sin lies in the seed of doubt.

Patness,

You make some good points yourself and I am sorry if I am “being a dick” as you say but I have to admit that I do get pretty pissed off when people take my words out of context and deliberately twist them around and then put words in my mouth that I never even said just so they can pretend like they have something that looks like a valid argument against me.  Just so they can pat themselves on the back and say they are doing some good work for defending Christ.  And this is not new to me, I have seen this same tactic used time and again from other biased groups besides Christians.  I only wish that I was perfect like Jesus and that I had the Zen-like control to make it look like none of this really bothers me and stay perfectly unemotional the whole time that I am speaking to these nutjobs but the simple truth is I can’t do that no matter how hard I may try because they make me so angry and I have this overpowering need to make them know that.  I want them to know exactly how I feel and I don’t feel like I should even try to hide that.  Plus there is the fact that I feel like if I try to be nice to them and say things in a nicer way so it at least looks like I actually care about not offending them even though I know for a fact that they are going to get offended no matter what I say or how I say it just because I don’t agree with them then I will just get run over anyway and I will still get shut out by their wall of denial and the only real chance that I have to even begin to make a point of any kind that I really believe in is by being very overly blunt about it so I can make sure that I am doing everything humanly possible to get my actual point across in the clearest most concise way that even the dumbest idiot on the planet can comprehend it before I can even begin to try and have any semblance of a meaningful conversation with these people that call themselves Christians.  Not it works either way, I guess.  I guess I’m just fooling myself into thinking that is even possible.  Or maybe I just don’t give a shit what they think after all.  What can I say?

I also realize that it must sound like I hate all Christians in the whole entire world and that I think they all deserve to go straight to Hell and actually that is not true at all.  I am against the whole idea of anyone going to Hell just because of their beliefs.  People are so ignorant and most of that ignorance is not even our fault because we are born that way and the only way we have to learn anything at all is from other ignorant people.  The blind leading the blind.  I think that actions are more important and in the end that is what God is going to really look at when He judges us, our actions and how they effected other people and the world around us throughout our lives.  Not what we thought or believed in or what we felt or didn’t feel at any given time but what we actually did about it.  Anyways, like I did say, as a matter of fact, I know there are at least some progressive/liberal Christians out there who probably aren’t even considered real Christians by the majority of the church leaders but still call themselves that anyway who are willing to at least partially open their minds up and at least try to consider other possibilities that are not sanctioned by any official church.  I also realize that, as deluded as they might be, there are some hard-core Christians out there who are really only trying to do the right thing as they know it and honestly help people the only way they know how to because they are basically good people at heart and it’s not even totally their fault that they have been deceived their whole lives into believing in a morbid fairy tale by everyone they love and that the only way to really help anyone else is to get them to believe it too.  It’s sad, but true.

As I have mentioned before, however, my only real problem with Christianity in general and the whole reason I started posting on this site about it in the first place is the relentless fundamentalism that so often goes along with it and just cannot be avoided.  The Christian fundamentalists, the aggressive church leaders who insist on continuously trying to shove bible-based laws into our system every chance they get because they really think that our founding forefathers of the USA actually intended for our government to be a fully Christian society that is based totally on principals that come straight out of the bible even though they are the ones who practically invented the separation of church and state to begin with, and even if the Christians know that’s not what they intended at all, oh well, to hell with them they will say.  “We are Christians!  We are right!  Everyone else is going to Hell so who cares what they think anyway?“  The ones who have attitudes like that are the ones who I am talking about here, the ones who I am ranting so hard against, and you know they are out there.  You know they are everywhere!  The ones who honestly believe that all non-Christians are either atheists or devil worshipers that honestly deserve to go to Hell and therefore also deserve to be treated as though they are already there.

I can’t help it that it makes me really angry when I read about this shit in my own local newspaper, like churches trying to stop Planned Parenthood clinics from giving out emergency contraception pills during spring break, and it makes me even more angry when I see it on national TV, like churches trying to keep gay rights out of our country altogether and trying to overturn Roe Vs. Wade so that women can once again be legally persecuted for having abortions, even in the cases of rape and incest and the cases where their life is seriously endangered by the pregnancy just because they have been brainwashed into thinking that all babies are a gift from God that should be cherished by the mother, even the ones who are conceived by a father who raped his own 12-year old daughter, and all that BS all because of a few vague passages in the bible that no one even tries to pretend actually came directly from either God or Jesus, that they keep trying to push as hard as they can to totally ruin our country and take away all of our rights and turn this whole god damned place into yet another oppressive Christian Church State that uses the bible as its constitution and IMO that is basically the same as bringing Hell to earth which is exactly what the Devil wants, if he even exists.  That is why I am so angry about it and I just can’t help it!  It is this same attitude that has helped to keep women oppressed for centuries and it is this same attitude that was used as an excuse to keep black people as slaves and to murder the Native Americans and take their land and it is this same attitude that has caused the countless gruesome murders of so many other innocent people throughout Christian history all over the entire fucking world and still continues to do so to this very day.  I am sorry but I cannot stomach that with a straight face and a calm voice!

I realize that I should probably just leave this site and quit torturing myself over it but if I don’t speak out against it now then who am I to say shit about it after it is too late?  If everyone chose to just ignore them and just let them to their own devices without making their voice heard in opposition to their hypocrisy and the atrocities that are just waiting to spawn out of it, straight out of the dark ages, then these Christians would surely take over the world in a heartbeat and bring Hell right to our doorsteps and that is exactly were we would all find ourselves all over again.  One thing I can say at least is that I am just using words to fight my battles and I am not out there actually committing murders or going door-to-door and harassing people or bugging people on the streets by trying to shove pamphlets in their faces or trying to get laws changed to get rid of Christianity.  All I am really doing here is going on a free public website and sharing my personal opinion about it with digital text that I fully believe is the honest fucking truth.  So sue me!

One more thing I should mention is that I have had some very bad personal experiences with Christians in my life that I will never forget.  Such as when my father was being abusive to my mother and my little sister and I and he was threatening my mother’s life as well as our mental health and my mother finally got the courage leave his stupid ass and take us with her, which I was very grateful for, and since my mother had never been allowed to work outside the home by my sexist father, and since she had dropped out of highschool to marry him in the first place, it was needless to say very hard for her to find a job in order to be able to support us and none of her family wanted to take us in even temporarily so we had no choice but to go to a shelter for battered women that was run by Christians until we could get approved for a room in a state housing project.  And while we were there they forced us to attend services at their church even though we said we didn’t want to, they said they would kick us out of our room if we didn’t go, and so we did go at least 2 or 3 times while we were there, and I think I can honestly say that it was the most god-awful experience that I ever had in my whole life next to my father’s emotional abuse.  Even the abuse of my Marine Corps Drill Instructors that I endured for 3 solid months in bootcamp was nothing compared to this.  They were hardcore southern Baptists who got all fired up by their preacher’s wailing sermons and then they would all stand up and sway and moan like they were getting you-know-what right up the butt right in front of God and everyone by the Holy Spirit that they all said was going into them and making them do this and they would be doing that I swear for hours on end, just swaying back and forth and hanging all over each other and moaning and wailing and crying and carrying on like a bunch of perverted mindless zombies, or maybe it just felt like hours on end to me because my family and I were the only ones in the whole god damned place that were just sitting there and trying not to look at them like they were all nuts even though that is exactly what we thought and we knew that a lot of them they were looking at us like we were some kind of heathens because we weren’t joining in with their animalistic vocalizations and undignified behavior.  It made me feel very icky to say the least!  To make matters even worse a few of them even came up to us afterwards and ask us how come we were acting like that, they were acting like something was wrong with us just because we were the only ones who were acting like normal people and all I could do was just look at the floor and mumble some lame excuse like “I don’t know” because I was too afraid of offending them to say what I really thought.  And then they also forced us to attend bible studies in between the actual church services.  That is when I first found out that Christianity was not for me.  And that was just the beginning!  So I hope this at least gives you some idea of where I am coming from.

You mean to tell me that some people actually use the Babble to condone their evil deeds? OMG! 

its only in religions where you have good people going to hell
my father is a Muslim and he is “a good person” but still by Christians he is going to hell and if you ask my father what would happen to Ghandi he would say he is going to hell because he is in an evil religion.
you labeled us as Christians , Muslims , Jews , Hindus and Buddhists while we were all just humans.
stop this joke called religion , its far than good by any means , its simply a big pile of hate , fear , ignorance , lies and selfishness

infernus - it’s good you’ve explained, and you make it understandable. The xians though probably won’t understand if they havn’t experienced the same degree of religious-caused suffering as you, they will simply see themselves as the rightous battling the unholy atheist, but if they see any emotion they will blame you entirely + think it was just you being nasty, it won’t even occur to some of them that they might’ve done something wrong themself. For conceptual things you’re more likely to get through to them in a neutral, respecting tone. If you want them to know how they make you feel, there are ways of saying it to them without expressing it in manerisms.

As you know, not all xians are like that, so it’s not fair to apply your anger for xians as a whole until you do see them exhibit the patterns that deserve that anger. I think something must be wrong for a person to associate themselves regimentedly with a organised religion, but we can deal with that, at least as far as they’re willing to listen.

m.wael alkel - certainly organised religion does these things, but religion someone makes up themself of individual beliefs is a different game

I couldn’t agree with you more, m.wael alkel.  Furthermore, I have learned that as much as we may want to we cannot simply ignore the Christians.  That is the unfortunate reality of our predicament.  We cannot ignore them because they want control of us and they will take control of us if we let them.

Let’s take, for example, what they are calling “The New Christendom”.  There is a book entitled “The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity” by Philip Jenkins, a well-respected historian, that I just discovered today.  It is quite an eye-opener.  I think that everyone in the world needs to pay very close attention to what is being said in this book.  Here is the general synopsis:

By the year 2050 only one Christian in five will be non-Latino and white and the center of gravity of the Christian world will have shifted firmly to the Southern Hemisphere.  This is the first book to take the full measure of the changing face of the Christian faith.  It shows that the churches that have grown most rapidly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are often more morally conservative and apocalyptic than their northern counterparts.  Mysticism, puritanism, faith-healing, exorcism, and dream visions - concepts which more liberal Western churches have traded in for progressive political and social concerns - are basic to these newer churches.  And the effects of such beliefs on global politics will be enormous as religious identification begins to take precedence over allegiance to secular nation-states.  Indeed, as Christianity grows in regions where Islam is also expected to increase we may even see a return to the religious wars of the past, fought out with renewed intensity and high-tech weapons far surpassing the swords and spears of the middle ages.

What is it basically saying is that Western Christians are largely ignorant of the unintended consequences that their aggressive evangelism in Third World countries could ultimately have on the future of not only the their religion but also the world at large.  These Western Christian missionaries go to these poverty-stricken pagans in undeveloped countries and prescribe their religion to them like a drug with the promise of miracle cure for all their problems while also handing out the basic necessities of life on the pretenses of “good will” and then after they’ve done their thing, or after they run out of money, they pack up and head back to their own country feeling good about themselves because they brought so many souls to Christ.  However, what they are failing to take notice of is that while a large number of these newly converted Christians are continuing to practice the religion, they aren’t necessarily doing it exactly the way they were taught by their missionaries.  What is happening is that just as the early Europeans shaped and molded the religion of Christianity into what it is today, after they took it from the ancient Hebrews and adapted it to their own culture, the southern nations are doing the exact same thing as Christianity has boomed in popularity among their peoples thanks to the indoctrination they have received from Western Christians.  The way in which these new converts practice the faith differs greatly from the Western nations.  At first glance this doesn’t necessarily seem to be a cause for concern, however, as Islam also continues to grow alongside Christianity in these regions, religious conflicts are also on the rise between the new converts.  This could be a sign of escalating violence on a global scale in the near future that could eventually result in a new age of holy wars or the “New Crusades” that could potentially spread into Western Civilizations and threaten their stability as well.  It is entirely possible, based on these predictions, that the Western world could even find itself unexpectedly under the control of a “New Age Papacy” that wages continuous wars against Muslim jihadists, i.e. terrorists, while they in turn continue their equally misguided efforts to resist the “infidel” that they believe is attacking them.  Also, under this kind of regime there would be little or nothing to stop a new wave of Inquisitions that could very well take place in order to root out domestic terrorists and others who are deemed to be enemies of the Christian State.

If you don’t believe that any of this is possible in this day and age then you should know that the Catholic Church is already preparing itself to take the lead in the New World Order:

In light of the New Age Movement, Globalism and Pope John Paul’s desire for an “Ecumenical Millennium” starting January 1, 2001, I thought you would find this article interesting. It comes from Pro-Ecclesia, Volume XXXI, No. 1. This is a conservative Roman Catholic publication.
A Vision of the New Christendom:  What will the New Christendom look like? What will living in the New Christendom be like? That’s the question I am to try to answer for you today.
Definition:  What is the New Christendom? The New Christendom is a Christian social order functioning in a system of Christian States. By “a Christian social order,“ we mean a social order that is founded on Divine Revelation, on the social principles of the Gospels and the Ten Commandments. It is a social system in which the Will of God is generally done on earth by government, by private institutions and enterprises, by families and individuals. It is what recent Popes have called “the civilization of tnith and love.“
Such a social system – Christendom existed for over 1,000 years. But over the past 500 years, the enemies of Jesus Christ, His Church and His People deliberately destroyed it.
Importance:  Why is a New Christendom important? Because the over-riding consideration in the New Christendom will be the salvation of souls. Today our present secular social order predisposes men toward eternal damnation. In the New Christendom men will be predisposed toward eternal salvation. Nothing is more important to human beings than the salvation of their immortal souls. Jesus Christ tells us: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his soul?“ (Mark 8:36)
What It Won’t Be:  The New Christendom will not be just a copy of the Christendom Past. It will not be a totalitarian system. It will not be the perfect society. It will not be a panacea for all social problems. The New Christendom will be a modem expression of Christian social principles, which are based on Divine Revelation and expressed in the Catholic Church’s social teaching. A totalitarian system is organized idolatry of the State; the State becomes the be-all and end-all of human existence, and determines the criteria of good and evil to benefit itself. In the New Christendom, Almighty God is the Be-All and End-All of human existence. God wills that men and governments obey His Commandments, do justice to each other, and that men love one another. Just as in Christendom Past the Catholic Church will serve as a defender of the human person and a bulwark against a tyrannical State.
Original Sin:  No human society can be a perfect society so long as men are infected with original sin. The New Christendom will have to deal with human beings who are still human. Although most men will obey the Commandments most of the time, sometimes they will sin. While many sins will not be tolerated in the New Christendom, such as abortion, sodomy, blasphemy, pornography, devil worship, it is impossible to suppress sin entirely among human beings. For that reason, the New Christendom will not be a panacea for all social ills. But it will immensely improve upon our present social system.
New Christendom’s Legal Framework:  The New Christendom will have the same fundamental legal framework as Christendom Past. The Christian State will recognize the Existence of One God in Three Divine Persons; that God the Son became Man as Jesus Christ; that Jesus founded the Catholic Church and entrusted to It His Divine Revelation and His Seven Sacraments, the keys to supernatural life and man’s eternal salvation; that the over-riding consideration in human affairs is man’s eternal salvation.
The Christian State will establish the Catholic Church and Catholic Religion as the official Church and Religion of the Christian State.
The State will recognize that the Catholic Church is sovereign in its field of action, with its own courts which have immediate jurisdiction over all its citizens; that the Church’s clergy, religious and institutions are exempt from all public duties and from taxation; that the State’s legislation must conform to Catholic morality; that the Church controls organized education (except that which other religions provide their members); that the Church handles public welfare: the care of the sick and needy.
The Christian State:  The Christian State will 1) maintain law and order, and keep the peace; 2) administer justice; 3) organize the national defense; 4) handle international relations; 5) enact legislation to facilitate commerce, travel and transportation; and collect taxes.
How the government of the Christian State will be organized, and whether the State will be a republic, monarchy, oligarchy, etc., is not our problem; that will be the problem of the great men and women who organize the Christian State.

What this means is that they are openly admitting that they want to take over the whole fucking world.  And I guarantee that they will do just that if they are allowed to do so.  Even more disturbing is the real possibility that it may already be happening right under our very own noses right as we speak.  The second half of the Zeitgeist movie delves into this.  Sure, I don’t want to believe it.  And it wasn’t that long ago when I dismissed claims like this as just another conspiracy theory.  However, in the revelation of this new information I am forced to accept the possibilities and at least give them some serious consideration.  I’m not saying that this is what is going to happen or that this is what is already happening, I am just saying we should look at it and take it seriously because it is a very real possibility.  The possibility that George Bush’s “War on Terrorism” really is just a prototype of the New Crusade.  The possibility that the very thing these “detestable” Muslims have been saying all along right from the beginning of the whole god damned thing is actually true and that our country is at war with them only for one real reason, which is not just to steal their oil but which is also, and more importantly, to retake the “holy lands” of Christianity.  The possibility that we may already be haplessly involved in the New Crusade, a religious movement that is actually disguised as a secular movement in order to lull the public at large who still believes that our Constitution is the real foundation of our government when it may already be in the advanced stages of dismantlement so that it can be fully replaced with religious doctrines without the consent of the people.
I believe it is very likely that organized religion will be the death of the world.  The way I see it, all these Christians are getting tired of sitting around waiting for the Apocalypse that they believe has been so accurately prophesized about in the Book of Revelations to finally come.  I believe it is entirely possible that they will take it upon themselves to initialize it just so they can be right.

Religion is just like a disease that spreads rapidly among those whose mental “immune systems” have been compromised and impaired by poverty and social depravity.  Christianity is peddled by its missionaries as a “miracle cure” that promises eternal salvation to all those who accept it on blind faith as the absolute truth and it is very addictive.  It encourages people to forgo reason and logic and requires them to become fanatics of their faith alone.  They come to believe that their faith gives them power and they become so drunk with it that they also come to believe that they can’t function without it.  Any possibility that doesn’t fit in with their prescribed dogma is immediately dismissed as heresy and therefore becomes blasphemy if spoken about.  Eventually, their faith is all they think about, all day and all night.  Subsequently they may even begin to have what is called “dream-visions” that they will be inclined to believe are divinely inspired messages that are being sent to them directly from God.  They may tell others about these “visions” and they may be able to convince others of their faith that they are true revelations.  This is how many “prophesies” have been incorporated into the Bible for centuries.  The weak-willed, downtrodden, and uneducated are especially susceptible to this dogma, which is not a cure for anything and is more akin to a virus.  As history has shown repeatedly, organized religion can have some very unpleasant and unintended consequences.  History may be about to repeat itself yet again.

I wanted to end the world once - so that I could end all sufferring. I heard that if you accelerate a particle to high speed it gains mass, so I thought perhaps, if I could get employed in the right place, I could create a miniture black hole this way, and there would be nothing to stop it oscilating up+down through the centre of the earth, consuming everything in it’s path. It would probably not be feasibly possible to create one that would grow faster than it decays (black holes ‘evaporate’, and faster when smaller) it’d have to be very massive to start with if you wanted to guarantee the whole thing works.

But - if we don’t finish the job of eliminating all conciousness, it may well cause more sufferring than it prevents, and for arguement’s sake, it would only necessarily end living conciousness, so the job wouldn’t be finished anyway. The ending of existence to end suffering also ends the good things like ice cream, and if there was life after death, we don’t know if it’s even possible to do at all. Some sufferring at least can be removed without death, but we will always be a slave to what needs we have at the time (in life that’s both physical needs like eating, and psychological needs).

Infernus, remember James Watt, Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior, shown in Wikipedia:

Watt periodically mentioned his Christian faith when discussing his approach to environmental management. Speaking before Congress, he once said, “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations.“[9]

[9] http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/009475.php
Could it happen? It already started. 

Legends of the Gods
The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations
by E. A. Wallis Budge
London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trübner & Co. Ltd.
[1912]
V LEGEND OF THE BIRTH OF HORUS, SON OF ISIS AND OSIRIS

PLATE XIV.

The Procreation of Horus, son of Isis.

THE text which contains this legend is found cut in hieroglyphics upon a stele which is now preserved in Paris. Attention was first called to it by Chabas, who in 1857 gave a translation of it in the Revue Archéologique, p. 65 ff., and pointed out the importance of its contents with his characteristic ability.

The hieroglyphic text was first published by Ledrain in his work on the monuments of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, 1 and I gave a transcript of the text, with transliteration and translation, in 1895. 2

The greater part of the text consists of a hymn to Osiris, which was probably composed under the XVIIIth Dynasty, when an extraordinary development of the cult of that god took place, and when he was placed by Egyptian theologians at the head of all the gods.

Though unseen in the temples, his presence filled all Egypt, and his body formed the very substance of the country. He was the God of all gods and the Governor of the Two Companies of the gods, he formed the soul and body of Ra, he was the beneficent Spirit of all spirits, he was himself the celestial food on which the Doubles in the Other World lived. He was the greatest of the gods in On (Heliopolis), Memphis, Herakleopolis, Hermopolis, Abydos, and the region of the First Cataract, and so. He embodied in his own person the might of Ra-Tem, Apis and Ptah, the Horus-gods, Thoth and Khnemu, and his rule over Busiris and Abydos continued to be supreme,