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Thread ID: 129795	2013-03-13 21:03:00	Shape-Shifting Jesus Described in Ancient Egyptian Text	zqwerty (97)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1332575	2013-03-14 02:00:00	1200 years ago is still 800 years after the crucifixion, not exactly an eye witness account. The only thing certain about history is that more is lost than remembered.	dugimodo (138)
1332576	2013-03-14 03:41:00	Have any of you read Dune, by Frank Herbert? There were People called Tleilaxu who used to grow Ghola (ghost) in Axolotl tanks. They had shape shifters as well. Could be a reference to that. Chill...I do not doubt or believe anything to do with religion/heaven/hell. We will all know for sure one day. Me, a lot sooner than you. might be able to pm you at the time :devil Ken	kenj (9738)
1332577	2013-03-14 03:55:00	They are very predictable, aren't they? Types like Johcar, R2x1 and pcuser42 are not people who would come up with a serious comment, they just poo-poo anything to do with religion. You were not asked to believe, just to consider the possibility. Thanks Chill and Kenj. Some people are capable of serious comment no matter what they believe. Personally, I find it most interesting. I had never thought of any other reason why Judas would have kissed Jesus. The popular belief is, of course, to betray him, but I never would have thought it was because he could change his appearance. Something else to ponder.	Roscoe (6288)
1332578	2013-03-14 04:07:00	What makes you say that? If anything, another extra-biblical source quoting the events of the death of Christ would surely give credence to the events? FWIW the Quran speaks of Jesus several years after his crucifixion, travelling to India with his family. :2cents:	WalOne (4202)
1332579	2013-03-14 04:21:00	You were not asked to believe, just to consider the possibility. I cannot consider anything that is physically impossible, unless Jesus was liquid.	pcuser42 (130)
1332580	2013-03-14 05:08:00	It's quite interesting, apparently in Indian cultures, Judas is seen as the hero a lot of the time, because trickery and backstabbing somebody else are often seen as something to be valued and heroic in their culture. Certainly an interesting slant on things too!	Chilling_Silence (9)
1332581	2013-03-14 05:51:00	What makes you say that? If anything, another extra-biblical source quoting the events of the death of Christ would surely give credence to the events? Questions, comments and thoughts: A Few words on Atheism and its definition: • Atheism is not fundamentalism or limiting in any way. It is just the demand that extra-ordinary claims demand extra-ordinary evidence. If you told me it rained on your way to work, I might believe you on hearsay because it is a common and ordinary event. If you told me it rained and I could see clear blue sky, I might gather evidence by looking out the other window or seeing if your clothing is wet. Now if you tell me there is an invisible man in the sky who can read your mind and help you live forever if your good – I feel justified in demanding a bit more than word of mouth. It is not up to the listener to prove the statement wrong; it is up to the claimant to supply proof that it is right, and the more outlandish the claim, the more evidence needed to justify it. • I don’t need an argument against you religious views to justify my own. • Atheism is not an affirmation of belief, nor is it even the root source of any perspective on the world. Atheism is in itself a result of viewing the world in a rational manner. A ‘rationalist’ has no recourse to violence or extremist view. • It is my responsibility as a rational person to challenge and question something I see as irrational. • There is no evidence for fairies, ergo we can logically assume they don't exist. There is no evidence for goblins, so it is reasonable to say they don't exist. No-one has ever managed to provide any credible evidence for unicorns. The rationalist would conclude they, in all likelihood do not exist. Philosophical Thoughts: • You cannot prove the existence of something that does not exist, nor can you disprove something that does not exist. You can however prove something does exist – yet for 2000 years there has not been a single tiny shred of proof. • If this is the god you permit your mind to attach itself too, surely you must be prepared to question its existence and all of its foundations for yourself? Otherwise you may as well pick Horus from even further back in history. If you respect yourself you owe it to yourself to check on its validity – that it was not simply an accident of your geographical birth place. • Many great journalists and scientist have made the statement that religion poisons everything: It is the notion of unquestionable authority concocted by men long dead, over periods of history greater than many lifetimes as if some sky puppet were pulling the strings of it all. It is infantile to buy into such poppy-cock logic as if ones accident of birth formed ones personal belief and made it superior to other ‘geographical’ beliefs in some cosmic sky puppet war between good and evil bringing all the different belief systems to wage war with each other. The very idea that somehow, somewhere in amongst ALL the historical religious bunkum exists one superior and cosmic truism which has been clouded throughout history by evil alternatives being deliberately put on earth by anti-god sky puppets to mislead humans in every location and generation is pure refuse – and that the test be a fair one that they should somehow rise above and see absolute truth in spite of it all – is intellectual effluent. • You take the myth of Adam and Eve being the first parents of humanity literally yes? Do you realise Darwinian evolution, the fossil record and molecular biology confirms it as a MYTH? • Did Adam and Eve sin? They disobeyed God by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Right and Wrong). So, yes… Right? Just one problem. How could Adam and Eve have been expected to comprehend the implications of their actions if, prior to their indiscretion, they had no concept of wrong, evil, punishment, suffering, pain, and death? Even if God had been successful in adequately explaining all of these concepts and the distinction between right and wrong to them beforehand, this means that he would have had to have given them knowledge of good and evil anyway, which turns this entire story into one big ridiculous farce. Prayer: • Amputees – not a single case, ever of an amputee having an arm/leg grow back. Your bible claims prayer works, when the reason is just. Surely there would be at least ONE case – but there is not. Thus prayer must be false and not work. • Pray and it will be given. If say 50% of prayers are “answered” and the other 50% are put down to “gods will” – why bother to pray in the first place? He’s going to do what he wants anyway. In other words – he answers prayers not because you want them but because they fit with what he wants to do anyway! This removes any freewill and shows dictatorship bully boy traits on the part of the god. Again, why bother? Religion as a form of psychological abuse: • Hell is child abuse. Telling a child he/she was born in sin (which somehow magically passed down through generations) and will go to hell unless he/she becomes a Christian is child abuse. That is the church cutting you just to give you a plaster. The mere concept of a wrong doing (in itself subjective) being able to pass onto future generations is ridiculous and false. To punish every human for ever could not possibly be the work of a loving person/god – a vengeful, vindictive bully? Yes. • A sin can NOT be inherited I find it abhorrent that a new-born baby is considered to be dirty with sin. This makes a complete mockery of true morality, which requires both an understanding of right and wrong, and that individual’s wilful intention to do wrong, in order to determine immorality. Even our modest human justice system has the basic common sense not to prosecute minors for their ‘immoral’ actions, let alone for those of their ancestors. • A father demonstrating love by subjecting his son to death by torture to impress humans – as far from a loving god, deity etc. as you can possibly get. • This life is NOT a ‘vale of tears’ It makes me nauseous to think that children are being taught that the most important part of their life is auditioning for the next one. This is a truly poisonous concept that inevitably leads to the degradation of our current world as a transit life - a ‘vale of tears’ that we must ‘put up with’ momentarily until our ticket is clipped and we are rescued from this miserable existence of trial and temptation. In stark contrast, atheists in general believe this to be our one and only life, a view which, I can assure you, makes life precious beyond all value. Irrational thinking of the religious mind: • A boat sailing on the ocean sinks and the sailors manage to survive. People of ‘faith’ cry “god saved them, see he does love you!” – The rational atheist says “but he made the boat sink in the first place, what a cruel person. Why cut people just to give them a plaster?” Rational and logical thinking trump again. • A blood sacrifice can NOT ‘pay’ for a person’s sin. It is an archaic, deeply flawed view of morality that says that, as long as there is blood spilled to appease god (and innocent blood at that), and then the crime is forgiven. How can someone else pay for your sins? In what sense is morality and justice served if someone, say, offers to take the place of a condemned criminal in the electric chair? Does this change the fact that the criminal has not been held responsible for his actions? And how is the innocent death anything more than a sad, pointless waste that doesn’t add a grain to the overall moral equation? This is corrupt morality, removing responsibility from the sinner and causing a dangerous, volatile mind-set where anything goes as long as you repent before the buzzer (also known as the ‘miraculous death row conversion’). Blinded by the numbing repetition and familiarity of this salvation plan, Christians fail to see the stark depravity and poison that drips from it. Indeed, if this is not superstitious witchcraft, then I don’t know what is. (Well that’s not entirely true. These definitely are: Christian ‘spells’ cast through persuasive prayer, the macabre cannibalistic 'ritual' of communion, the truly frightening 'possession' that causes a person to speak in tongues…) • Religion is not justified at all. A better term for ‘faith’ is unreason. Having exhausted all possible reasonable excuses for belief, all that remains is the unreasonable or ‘faith’. • “Faith is the substance of things hoped for” or in other words – “wishful thinking is the substance of things hoped for”. • Professions of ‘faith’ consist of merely assuming what has to be proved. Thus a bold assertion is then followed with the words ‘for this reason’ as if all the logical work had been done by making the assertion. • Is god perfect? Well there could be arbitrarily three types of god: 1) Inept/incompetent Any universe created by such a god would be so unlikely to produce any sort of universe; we can easily discount this one. 2) Flawed That god could get some sort of universe going but it would be so untrustworthy that any sentient life that appeared in it – god would have to tamper with it to try to get it to work right. Such a universe would need regular tampering with, a creator fiddling with the very thing that he/she created, having to resort to dictating holy books, answering prayers, miracles and all manner of other sordid transcendental acts. Just so that such a god was not continually riddled with guilt for creating beings that were aware of just how egregious his/her work was. God would be like a kid with an ant farm, a monstrous abomination, chasing people he didn’t like around with a god-like magnifying glass. In a horse race of god’s, such a god would be an ‘also-ran’, not worthy of any positive note. 3) Perfect god Being perfect, this god would only ever create a perfect universe. Such a universe would run perfectly right from the start and never need tampering with. Everything in it would be perfect and self-contained. Such a universe would never need tampering with. Everything in it would never need holy books, writing for its inhabitants or prayer answering or miracles. Everything would be natural. The earth would not be positioned where asteroids and comets would hit it (we lay in the belt), nor would it be on a billion or so year collision course with the sun. There would be other planets nearby that support life and the earth would not freeze every million or so years. Plus many more examples! • “I feel god’s presence” 1) Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews etc. all claim to feel the presence of god. Your experience can be dismissed in exactly the same way you dismiss the experience of other religions. You have to prove that your particular god is real in order to prove the authenticity of your religious experience. Not the other way around. 2) Knowing god exists has nothing to do with feeling his presence. 3) How do you know, other than you’ve been told to interpret warm feelings this way, told what you’re experiencing is god. You don’t and wishing it were so does not make it true or verifiable. 4) How can you be sure it is the Christian god? 5) Describe the feeling then find a religious text that matches. If you can’t you have no reason to claim the feeling is your god. In fact theist texts clearly depict any feelings of god as wrathful, jealous and vindictive. • The 10 Commandments are redundant and meaningless. 1) I am your god. - Well you would say that wouldn’t you. 2) Don’t have any other gods. - see above. 3) Don’t make idols. - see above. Possible competition. 4) Don’t take my name in vain. - watch your lip! 5) Keep the Sabbath - Spend at least 14% of your life reminding me how special I am, it’s all about me remember? None of the above has anything to do with how we should relate to each other. Although there is plenty of ammo to justify violence towards anyone who might think your god is, well a little bit up himself. 6-10 Proscribe adultery, murder, theft, lying and envy – all of which is stating the bloody obvious to anyone who simply choose to live by the golden rule: do as you would be done by – so also redundant. The commandments add nothing to civilisation. But have accounted for millions of deaths defending numbers 1-5 against anyone rational who says your god might not be the only answer. So they do more harm than good – a net loss to society (inquisition, stoning’s, rape, murder, genocide, genital mutilation etc. throughout history committed by theists in name of their god). • A just, loving, and secure god would realise that simply not believing in him is NOT a crime worthy of hellfire. The Ten Commandments are woefully inadequate as a moral guide. The first four are blatant religious propaganda - basically a plug for the Hebrew God. The remaining six are dangerously held up as exhaustive and inspired by those who apparently haven't read them. For example, one wonders how 'lying' and 'envy' make the big list of don'ts, but not rape, torture, child abuse, racism, slavery… And surely nobody still seriously believes that black and white moral guidelines are of much use in a greyscale world. "Thou shalt not kill" - but what about in genuine self-defence? "Thou shalt not bear false witness" - but what about lying to the Nazi officer who asks if you are hiding Jews? True morality requires judging each case on its own merits, not just overlaying the same clumsy morality stencil on everything. By labelling virtually every natural urge and function as a sin (from sexuality, to having negative feelings towards our enemies), the church ensures the lifelong dependency and commitment of its guilt-ridden, emotionally-crippled followers. 150 years ago: the abolition of slavery. 100 years ago: the emancipation of women. 50 years ago: inter-racial marriage. Today: same-sex relationships… Why is it that the church always has to be dragged kicking and screaming (by secular outrage) towards the tolerance and compassion that, ironically, it claims to hold a monopoly on? • don’t be afraid to question the Truth is never embarrassed by honest enquiry What if the greatest deception the devil ever played on man was to convince him to devote his time to mindless rituals, self-depreciation, and violent prejudices? Of course, I realise this is a ridiculous premise: ‘the devil’ is a construct of religion, not vice versa... Have you ever asked yourself this question? I mean seriously asked yourself? Pierre Charron once noted that we are baptised or circumcised a Christian or a Jew, long before we are even aware we are a human. Is it any wonder then that, through early indoctrination while the critical mind is still developing, we almost without exception go on to inherit the precise religion of our parents or surrounding culture? No, of course not - it’s only natural. But that doesn’t say much for the actual truth of that particular religion, does it? • Noah’s ark – with all the modern resources of our time we have yet to completely catalogue all of the millions of species on this planet and new species continue to be discovered and evolve. With all out modern methods of transport and bulk shipping, it must self-evidently be considered that we could not collect, transport and provide the husbandry, store (and keep fresh) eco-specific fodder or massive bulk of animal food obviously required. It would be impossible to provide for all and give the often unique habitat and environment for anything other than a tiny percentage of animal species. Not to mention the huge scale of boats required to get species from specific parts of the world where they live in isolation and exist nowhere else in the world. How could termites be housed in a wooden boat? Or the many insects that live for only a few days, some just hours? Specific host virus’ and other microbiology that requires no cross contamination? Now if the flood was saline, freshwater fish would need to be housed and if freshwater flood, salt water fish housed. Theists then claim further biblical stories based on this myth of the flood to be valid! • There are hundreds of contradictions in the bible, here is just the tip of the sinking iceburg: 1) According to John, the wooden tablet on which the Judges set down the reasons for Jesus’ sentence – the titulus – is nailed to the wood of the cross, above Christ’ head. According to Luke, it hung around the neck of the condemned man. Mark remains vague and if we compare Mathew, Mark, Luke and John on this titulus, the writing on it says four different things. On the road to Golgotha, says John, Jesus bore the cross alone. Why then do the others add that Simon of Cyrene helped him? 2) Depending on which gospel we consult, Jesus appeared after his death to a single person, to a handful, or to a group. And those appearances occur at different locations. 3) Exchange between the condemned man and Pontius Pilate (Roman Governor). Apart from the fact that in such cases the interrogation is never undertaken by the great man but by his underlings, it is hard to envisage Pontius Pilate conversing with a Jesus who was not yet Christ nor what history would make of him – a planetary star. At the time Jesus would have been merely a common law defendant, like so many others in the jail cells. It is hardly probable that an exalted official would deign to talk with a petty jail bird. Moreover, Pontius Pilate spoke Latin and Jesus Aramaic. How could they have conversed as Johns gospel says they did, back and forth without an interpreter? Sheer myth. 4) Pontius Pilate described in gospels as procurator – the title of which was not first used until the year 50 of our era! • Omnipotence, omniscience is mutually incompatible. If god is omniscient he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent! • He, who designs the game, dictates the possible moves – there are far too many negative moves in this game of life for any such deity to be loving and/or forgiving. These questions of morality show us that this creature would be dangerous to live under – if it existed. • Morality Contrary to what your church may have told you, atheists do not automatically turn to hedonism and anarchy. In fact, those who suggest that a man must be ethically restrained by a religion reveal, quite frankly, just how deep-seated their own morals are. It is an easy target for the church to blame society’s ills on man’s inevitable shelving of the god myth. But the fact remains that there is a fraction of the immorality now than there was when the church had complete, unchallenged influence over every aspect of society. This was a time of Crusades, Inquisitions, and witch- and heretic-burnings. It was a period known as the Dark Ages, and that they truly were – both morally and intellectually. • Creation: Most people think that you need a god to explain the existence of the world. They point to the complexity and order of the universe as sure proof that it was designed by a conscious entity, but stop one step short of reaching the glaring conclusion to their logic. Such an intelligent designer, one might well presume, would have to be fairly complex and ordered itself, wouldn’t it? Perhaps even more so than the universe? So then what created god? It is a giant leap from "We can’t yet explain every aspect of the natural world" to "God did it.” To rid us of a natural difficulty, the theist has invented a supernatural one. • God-of-the-gaps: We once believed that thunder and lightning was god getting angry. Of course, now we have a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, it would be hard to find anyone who still believes this. Religion is a crutch left over from man’s pre-scientific youth and, like a child with a security blanket, our continued reliance on it for emotional support is unhealthy and detrimental to our growth. As the ground illuminated by science advances, this god-of-the-gaps of human knowledge will continue to retreat with the shadows. You only have to look to the mistaken assumptions of your religious ancestors for a glimpse of the future of your god. In the meantime, the atheist is not so intellectually promiscuous as to jump at a supernatural explanation just so that we can have an answer, any answer, right now. Don’t take your minister’s word for it don’t even take my word for it Look it up for yourself: Take Matthew 1:22-3. Ask yourself: Was he telling the truth when he said that Christ’s virgin birth had fulfilled a prophesy (Isaiah 7:14)? Look it up. Read the context around it. Judge for yourself. Wasn’t Isaiah actually claiming that the baby would be a sign that a planned siege on Jerusalem during a civil war would fail? In fact, doesn’t the prophet then go on and try to fulfil his own prophesy at Isaiah 8?! • Let me tell you about Mithra… Mithra was a Persian/Indian god of the 6th century BC. Apparently, he was born of a virgin on December 25th (as were the gods Osiris, Horus, Marduk, Sol, Saturn, and Apollo), a birth witnessed by shepherds, and by gift-bearing Magi who had followed a falling star. He became known as the Light / Good Shepherd / Son of God, and was said to be able to raise the dead, cast out devils, and cure the blind, lame, and sick. Like the god Attis, Mithra was sacrificed at the spring equinox (Easter, or ‘Eostre’, being the ancient goddess of spring), rose up after three days, and ascended to paradise (a Persian word). Prior to this, Mithra celebrated a Last Supper with his 12 disciples (representing the 12 signs of the zodiac). In memory of this, his followers would 'eat' their god in the form of wafers and bread (like the followers of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus) – bread marked with the cross, a symbol borrowed from another god, Tammuz. Mithra’s worshippers also believed there would be a ‘day of judgment’ when sinners and the 'unbaptised' would be dragged down to darkness… Sound familiar? Christianity is simply a mish-mash, hand-me-down, patchwork quilt of all the most memorable elements of a thousand different ‘pagan’ religions that came before it. • Born of a virgin: As we have seen, the virgin birth story is neither unique nor original to Christianity. Traditionally, a claim of virgin birth was a way of conveying the authenticity and importance of a god (and sometimes even mortals, such as Julius Caesar) to a largely uneducated audience. • December 25th: This date marks the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere - the turning point of winter as the days start to get longer again. Long before Christianity, sun god worshippers set aside this day to celebrate the beauty of nature with the return or 'birth' of the sun. With the obvious symbolism for the pagans, it is easy to see why many virgin-born saviour gods were said to have been born on December 25th in the hope of winning credulous and superstitious converts. It was in 350AD that Pope Julius I ‘set’ Christ’s birthday to keep up this long tradition. • So what does the Bible tell us? • Who should we kill? - Homosexuals (Lev.20:13, Rom.1:26-32) - Adulterers (Lev.20:10, Deut.22:22) - Disobedient children (Deut.21:20-21, Lev.20:9, Exod.21:15) - Women who are not virgins on their wedding night (Deut.22:13-21) - All non-Christians (parable told by Christ - Luke.19:27) - Those accused of wickedness by at least two people (Deut.17:2-7) - Anyone who works on the Sabbath (Exod.35:2-3, Num.15:32-6) (not even to kindle a fire, and no exclusion for ambulance drivers) • Women - It is “shameful” for a woman to speak in church (1Cor.14:34-5) - A man must OK his wife’s words if they are to have force (Num.30:8) - A woman must not teach or hold authority over a man (1Tim.2:12) - Lot saves the messengers from the men of Sodom by offering up his virgin daughters to “do to them as you please” (Gen.19:8) - “Kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourself every girl who has never slept with a man” (Moses - Num.31:17-8) • Slavery - God supports slavery (Lev.25:44-6, Exod.21:2-8, Eph.6:5, Col.3:22) - Instructions on how to sell your daughter as a slave (Exod.21:7-8) - When to give your slaves “severe” or “light” beatings (Luke.12:42-8) - OK to beat slaves only if they don’t die within 2 days (Exod.21:20-1) - How to mark your slave: drive an awl through its ear (Deut.15:17) • Marriage - It’s best if all people remain unmarried. Marriage is a lesser-of-two-evils compromise for Christians too weak to resist their sexual urges, “for it is better to marry than to burn.” (Paul - 1Cor.7:1-2, 8-9, 25-6, 38) - The rapist of an unwed woman must buy her and make her his wife (apparently a far more 'holy' union than a genuine, loving same-sex relationship - Deut.22:28-9) • Justice - If a man suspects his wife of cheating he can serve her a cursed drink; if she becomes deformed, then that proves her guilt (Num.5:12-31) - 42 children killed by bears for calling a prophet ‘baldy’ (2King.2:23-4) - OK to beat your children with a rod - it won’t kill them (Prov.23:13-4) - God commits, orders, or endorses every form of atrocity known to man (pretty much pick a page of the Old Testament at random) • Do the Old Testament laws still apply? - Every “jot” and “tittle” (Christ – Matt.5:17-9) • Christ, what a role model… - Christ tells us we must "hate" our entire family, and even our own life, if we want to be one of His disciples (Luke.14:26) - Those who abandon their families will be rewarded (Matt.19:29) - "For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother... And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." (Christ - Matt.10:35-6) - “I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Christ - Matt.10:34) - If you don’t have a sword, sell your clothes to buy one (Luke.22:36) - Curses fig tree for not bearing fruit in off-season (Mark.11:12-4, 20-1) - Didn’t want to help girl because she was a “dog” gentile (Matt.15:22-8) • Of course there are several good passages in the Bible, the ones that are carefully selected by your minister for Sunday readings. But (and pardon the analogy) if you find some chocolate in a pile of dung you don’t eat it, right? No. The good is tainted by the bad that surrounds it. "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” Epicurus (341-271 BC) "To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin." Cardinal Bellarmine at Galileo’s trial, 1615 there is no such thing as second-hand revelation. The Bible is simply hearsay. "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." Nietzsche (1844-1900) • Christians dismiss 9,999 religions as false. Atheists dismiss just one more than that… How moral is the following: I am told of a human sacrifice that took place 2000 years ago, without my wishing it and in circumstances so ghastly that had I been present and in possession of any influence, I would have been duty bound to try and stop it. In consequence of this murder, my own manifold sins are forgiven and I may hope to enjoy everlasting love. Let us just for now overlook all the contradictions between the tellers of the original story and assume that is basically true. What are the further implications? They are not as reassuring as they look at first sight. For a start, and in order to gain the benefit of this wondrous offer, I have to accept that I am responsible for the flogging and mocking and crucifixion, in which I had no say and no part and agree that every time I decline this responsibility, or that I sin in word or deed, I am intensifying the agony of it. Furthermore, I am required to believe that the agony was necessary in order to compensate for an earlier crime in which I also had no part, the sin of Adam. It is useless to object that Adam seems to have been created with insatiable discontent and curiosity and then forbidden to slake it: all this was settled long before even Jesus himself was born. Thus my own guilt in the matter is deemed “original” and inescapable. However, I am still granted free will with which to reject the offer of vicarious redemption. Should I exercise this choice, however, I face an eternity of torture much more awful than anything endured at Calvary, or anything threatened to those who first heard the Ten Commandments. The tale is made no easier to follow by the necessary realization that Jesus both wished and needed to die and came to Jerusalem at Passover in order to do so, and that all who took part in his murder were unknowingly doing god’s will, and fulfilling ancient prophecies. (Absent the gnostic version, this makes it hopelessly odd that Judas, who allegedly performed the strangely redundant act of identifying a very well-known preacher to those who had been hunting for him, should suffer such opprobrium. Without him, there could have been no “Good Friday,” as the Christians naively call it even when they are not in a vengeful mood”. There is a charge (found in only one of the four gospels) that the Jews who condemned Jesus asked for his blood to be “on their heads” for future generations. This is not a problem that concerns only the Jews, or those Catholics who are worried by the history of Christian anti-Semitism. Suppose that the Jewish Sanhedrin had in fact made such a call, as Maimonides thought they had, and should have. How could that call possible be binding upon successor generations? Remember that the Vatican did not assert that is was some Jews who had killed Christ. It asserted that it was the Jews who had ordered his death, and that the Jewish people as a whole were the bearers of a collective responsibility. It seems bizarre that the church could not bring itself to drop the charge of generalized Jewish “deicide” until very recently. But the key to its reluctance is easy to find. If you once admit that the descendants of Jews are not implicated, it becomes very hard to argue that anyone else not there present was implicated, either. One rent in the fabric, as usual, threatens to tear the whole thing apart (or to make it into something simply man-made and woven, like the discredited Shroud of Turin). The collectivization of guilt, in short, is immoral in itself, as religion has been occasionally compelled to admit. - “God Is Not Great” Christopher Hitchens. A few quotes from some of the greatest minds of humankind: “The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next” – Ralph Waldo Emerson “Who but a slave thanks his master for what his master has decided to do without bother to consult him?” – Christopher Hitchens “Assuming that god can make us feel the presence of a non-existent entity, and further assuming that he need not go to this trouble if the same effect can be produced in us by the actual presence of that entity, god could still if he wished cause us to believe in the existence of stars without their being actually present. “Every effect which god causes through the mediation of a secondary cause he can produce immediately by himself”. However this does not mean that we must believe in anything absurd since “god cannot cause in us knowledge such that by it a thing is seen evidently to be present though it is absent, for that involves a contradiction”. – Ockham Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense. - Voltaire A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. - Albert Einstein Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators. - Richard Dawkins You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend - Richard Jeni I doubt that religion can survive deep understanding. The shallows are its natural habitat. Cranks and fundamentalists are too often victimised as scapegoats for religion in general. It is only quite recently that Christianity reinvented itself in non-fundamentalist guise, and Islam has yet to do so (see Ibn Warraq's excellent book, Why I am not a Muslim). Moonies and scientologists get a bad press, but they just haven't been around as long as the accepted religions. Theology is a respectable discipline when it studies such subjects as moral philosophy, the psychology of religious belief and, above all, biblical history and literature. Like Bertie Wooster, my knowledge of the Bible is above average. I seem to know Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon almost by heart. I think that the Bible as literature should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum - you can't understand English literature and culture without it. But insofar as theology studies the nature of the divine, it will earn the right to be taken seriously when it provides the slightest, smallest smidgen of a reason for believing in the existence of the divine. Meanwhile, we should devote as much time to studying serious theology as we devote to studying serious fairies and serious unicorns. - Richard Dawkins - The Independent, 23 December 1998 The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it. - Robert G. Ingersoll Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca the Younger Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365 not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc. because no specific numbers were given. Satan - 10. - Unknown “Who but a slave thanks his master for what his master has decided to do without bother to consult him?” – Christopher Hitchens “Assuming that god can make us feel the presence of a non-existent entity, and further assuming that he need not go to this trouble if the same effect can be produced in us by the actual presence of that entity, god could still if he wished cause us to believe in the existence of stars without their being actually present. “Every effect which god causes through the mediation of a secondary cause he can produce immediately by himself”. However this does not mean that we must believe in anything absurd since “god cannot cause in us knowledge such that by it a thing is seen evidently to be present though it is absent, for that involves a contradiction”. – Ockham First of all, science never intended to deny your god or creation-myth in any way. That may come as a surprise but its true - because that’s not the way we roll and simply not the way science works. It is more or less a matter of collateral damage. Sometimes it happens and we all have deal with that in order to move on in life. Not everything stays afloat in the wake of human knowledge. In fact, most things don’t. With what we know right now it is safe to say it is very unlikely that your religion is the right one. Not because we want to, don’t like you or because we don’t respect your opinion - but because we see your god slowly sinking in the waves of reason. The only thing we do is inform you about the new things we have discovered. Without asking anything back. What you do with that information or what it tells you about your belief is up to you. Interesting to know and study but not our problem. Take the good advice for what it is ... we are not the enemy. Facts overrule assumption; it is as simple as that. All the things we have discovered are telling us a different story from what any religion has told us. It doesn’t matter if we like it or agree with it, the outcome stays the same. It's time for you to stop blaming us for correcting the mistakes that have been made. We can't wish or pray dinosaurs and the Big Bang away anymore. That’s wacky. Even if we wanted to, it would be delusional for us to declare they never happened or existed. Because it would be based on opinion and not on facts. There is no need for a Shiva, Thor, Ganesha, God or Zeus in order to explain the world around us. For you to say that science is wrong about your seven day creation is to say that every step along the path that led us to where we are right now was wrong. A distorted point of view, to say the least, and an insult to the human intellect for sure. Every day science discovers something new that we didn’t know before. And by doing so improves our lives in many ways - without the need to believe in it in order to for it to work. You don’t have to pray to it, sing songs about it or go to a temple to pay your respects to it (though a simple thank you would be nice once in a while). You have every right not to agree with what we do. But it would make a lot more sense for you to take your arguments somewhere else. Take them to Marx, Sartre or Spinoza to name a few out of many, because they are your real enemies - instead of fighting it out with a little something we call ... reality. We can't change reality because it hurts your feelings or goes against the will of your god. Science is not a democracy. It is the understanding of the physical world around us. In the end I just don’t understand and I never will. Almost none of all the people that ever lived ever heard anything about your god. In time he is just a tiny spot on the map and one out of so many. Give yourself the freedom to doubt ... because without doubt there is no choice. And having a choice is what makes us learn and move on in life. Don’t fill in the gaps with your imagination. Science is the accumulation and use of knowledge we humans have gathered in the time of our existence, brick by brick and little by little. Nothing more and nothing less. We go with the stuff that works and leave the rest behind. A matter of trial and error. The only way to keep on improving life for all of us is to keep god out of the equation. Because with god included it will fail, time and again. There is a perfect, benevolent omnipotent being. He loves us all, every one of us. He loves us so much that he sent his only son to suffer and die so that we could be saved from sin and from death. What a loving god he is. He made this world for us to live in, a world full of wonder and beauty. It is perfection, it must be, because he is perfect and loves us all. This perfect world contains suffering, so much suffering. That suffering must surely be good, part of his plan. Perhaps we need to suffer, to grow and develop as full people, so that we can be as perfect as him. Yes, that must be it. The world is perfect because it challenges us, makes us complete. There are miracles, which change the world. The perfect world. It's changed by miracles. This is getting a bit confusing. Bear with me. Ah yes. Perhaps we make the world less perfect, because we do have free will. So, occasionally God steps in to adjust the world, to keep things on track after we have corrupted it. Yes, that must be it. The world is perfect, except for our influence, and then God keeps it on track with miracles to guide the faithful. This is the all-powerful and benevolent creator looking after us. Then there are saints. Saints are people who guide the way, who are examples to us all. When I was younger Christopher, patron saint of travellers help us find our way. Saint Christopher. I remember that name. Ah yes, he was a Saint who was dropped by the Vatican. Oh. Saints are supposed to intercede for us with God. Perhaps some other saints helped when Christopher was demoted. No, that wouldn't work. Perhaps the saints realised we were mistaken from the start and so took the part of Saint Christopher. Yes, that must be it. We should pray to saints because even if they don't exist, the prayers will get through. Yet another way the creator cares for us all. The Vatican supports science, and puts much effort into ensuring that someone deserves sainthood. There is rigorous research, and there must be evidence of miracles. Evidence of miracles. Scientific evidence of miracles. That must work like this: someone said that they were cured of a serious illness after praying to a saint. That sounds reasonable. All that needs to be shown is that there was a cure that can't be explained by science. Wait a minute. I'm having trouble with this. Please be patient. The problem is that the Church says the supernatural is beyond science, but they are using scientific methods to try and show that there was a miracle. But they show a miracle through the inability of science to explain what happened. So they have a mystery, and because it's a mystery, it must be a miracle. No, that can't be right, can it? Because that would be a 'miracle-of-the-gaps', and putting God into gaps is not supposed to be good theology. I'm going to have to think about this. Let's get back to the saints. They intercede for us with God. Pray to a saint and ... no, wait a minute. That doesn't seem right somehow. Does that mean that prayers not to a saint aren't listened to? If they are, what is the point of the saint? What if the saint chooses not to listen - should we then try asking god instead? I'm confused even more. Saints must be good people when alive. They may even perform miracles when alive. Now hold on, what's that all about? Aren't miracles supposed to be god's way of setting the world to rights and guiding us? So how do the saints get to choose when the magic works? Oh dear. I'm beggining to have problems. There is an all-powerful and benevolent god who nevertheless needs to tweak his creation to keep it on track, but he still loves us all and listens to our prayers, but then he sometimes ignores them unless we pray to saints, who we know are saints because the Vatican has used science to prove that because we have a mysterious cure the only explanation must the saint nagging a reluctant God into helping someone who is suffering, except for when we have got it wrong and made someone a saint who should not have been, when presumably a rota of stand-in saints who pick up the slack. Well, at least we can look to the historical lives of saints as examples for us all. Putting aside Saint Christopher, of course. Some of the achievement of the saints include developing injuries that remind us of being tortured on the cross, managing to be in two places at once, and levitation. Right. Self-harming, having a double, and flying. Examples for us all.. I'm having a bit of trouble with this saint business. To summarise - looking upon scriptures, historical accounts and speaking to religious people with a rational and logical view; religion and any form of creator is doomed to the history books as yet another page of mythical delusion. Man has created many gods and many religions, each has been abandoned and/or dismissed as myth when either the people had died out/killed or new knowledge had rendered any such belief unfounded. The current gods that mankind believe in are no different – we cannot even agree on the same one yet alone which bits of each book to believe and follow. The way I see it is that there is so many religions in the world today and each one claims their god is the only one ‘true’ god and belief in any other is a ticket to ‘hell’. Yet each one is dependent on geographical locations – if you are born in America, chances are you will be brought up as a Christian, Iraq a Muslim and so on. I find it very hard to believe that a god so seemingly obsessed with being worshipped (see 10 commandments above) that it would even allow other religions to exist as well as fail to provide ANY single shred of evidence for its existence. So if each religion claims its one ‘true’ god is the only god you have just as much chance of going to hell as you would if you did not follow ANY religion and even less chance of going to heaven. Then to follow on this line of thinking I look at the scientific evidence for evolution (which is contradictory to the religious propaganda taught to children and adults in religious settings) and it is extraordinarily overwhelming and sinks the already sinking religious ice-burg. One last point that is important to add is that science is open to scrutiny – when a scientist theorises something new, other scientists repeat the experiment under the same conditions – testing it. It is peer reviewed and undergoes so much scrutiny. If it is found to be false, the theory is discarded. If proven by others it is considered factual. The important part is that regardless of how much time passes by the same theory can be discarded if new information or evidence is discovered. This is the key difference – religion is not fluid. It is based on a black and white unchanging view on the world, laws to obey and cannot be changed. Society changes, morals change and what is acceptable is constantly changing and fluid. Abortion is not a forbidden act punishable by death – just one example. Stoning is no longer acceptable despite being explicitly stated (in the bible) that it is the punishment for a variety of even minor ‘crimes’. I ask what it would take for a religious believer to no longer believe in their god and the response is usually the same – nothing could knock their faith in their god, no amount of evidence to the contrary would sway them. But ask a rational thinker (atheist) what it would take for them to believe in a god (any god) and the response is again, usually the same – EVIDENCE. So to close, while there is overwhelming evidence that supports evolution and the non-existence of any creator I conclude that there is no god. Any belief in a creator is founded on myth and lack of education on the evidence. Until the existing evidence is found to be false and evidence found in favour of a creator I will remain a free thinker un-bond by the limiting thinking of religious indoctrination – I am a rational, free thinking Atheist. I challenge you to name one moral action performed by a believer that could not have been done by a nonbeliever.	Disco_Dan (16576)
1332582	2013-03-14 06:08:00	Heck 20 mins and I'm only half way	gary67 (56)
1332583	2013-03-14 06:12:00	Oh and FYI full peer reviewed references available if requested. Something the religious cannot provide...	Disco_Dan (16576)
1332584	2013-03-14 06:12:00	Questions, comments and thoughts:You should really include your sources when you copy and paste from the internet...	Jen (38)
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