What's the difference between a Christian and a stockbroker?
The stockbroker knows he's lying
Jesus died on the cross for your sins.
So why beat yourself up with guilt? Enjoy your sins, they're already paid for.
O.K. cheap shots at Christianity I know. My problem with Christianity lies not in the fact that people are believing something I don't, its their attitude to people who don't share their beliefs.
Not so long ago I had a Christian complaining in response to my stating a few basic truths about Christianity that "we've heard it all before, you have brought nothing new to the debate." Of course they had heard it all before, there is only one truth and no matter how many times those who choose to live a delusional life will deny it, it is still the truth. It is Christians who bring new stuff to the debate, inventing new evidence for their beliefs as soon as the old batch is discredited.
Now I have no problem with people believing whatever crap they want to. I believe a lot of crap and I try not to have double standards. I believe in King Arthur and Robin Hood, both totally fictional; I believe in The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, The Yeti and all those other lake and forest monsters though I know there is only a very very slim chance of any being real, I believe in the superiority of all things British, that The Beatles are better than Elvis, that beer brewed in the north of England is better than any southern brew (although I have personal experiences to disprove that) and that John Steinbeck is the best modern writer. I do not ask anybody to share my beliefs.
What I do have a problem with is people who proclaim their beliefs, which are even whackier than mine, as truth. And I get really, really pissed off, angry even, when somebody tells me that if only I would stop being so arrogant and open my heart to God, I would understand the crackpot beliefs of fringe Christian sects are in fact some great Universal truths.
In other words these people want me to allay their chronic insecurities by becoming as crazy as they are. Which is quite insulting.
When somebody recently told a humanist friend, "I pity you if you have never known the love of God," I said to myself "right, that's fighting talk where I come from."
So, in this most sacred of all weeks, the festival of the first full moon after the spring equinox at which Ostara, goddess of the swelling corn is celebrated, let's look at how Christian preachers and lay preachers play dirty to avoid rational debate. Fourteen points to mirror the stations of the cross and then we will see what is left of the Christian argument.
(1)
Christians have always dismissed earlier belief systems as ignorant and barbaric superstitions. So all that stuff in the Greek myths about Zeus impregnating Danae in the form of a shower of gold, or appearing to some other girl in the shape of a swan and saying "Take me to your Leda is just fairy stories they tell us. But they want non-Christians to believe God got a virgin pregnant?
(2)
Christians deny the existence of the thousands of Gods of paganism, Hinduism and other traditions.
So why do they get so pissed off when I and others deny the existence of just one God? What proof have thery that their is the one true God. He may be, but we've only his word for it.
(3)
In the comments on this article some Christian is going to tell me evolution is a ridiculous theory and cite an irrational theory known as irreducible complexity to back up their case that the Universe and life are so complex they could only be created by design.
Then they are going to tell me God created man out of dirt. Yeah right.
(4)
Why do Christians make such a big thing about one guy being martyred by pagans but rejoice when they read in The Bible about God wiping out whole nations?
(5)
Millions of words have been written by the most intelligent, articulate and highly educated humans to prove the scientific version of prehistory, yet all it takes is some idiot to grab a Bible and start speaking gibberish (in tongues) and Christians offer us that as "proof" God exists.
And they expect us to shout Hallelujah, I was blind and now I see.
(6)
Women are denounced as evil and not so long ago were imprisoned, tortured and burned to death for believing in a threefold Goddess, the maiden, the mother and the wise woman, yet your own "One True God" is in fact three gods in one and echoes the aspects of the threefold Goddess so closely "those who have eyes to see" (John 16, 12-14) will understand God is just a transvestite who borrowed his sister's clothes.
(7)
Though Christians are very fond of talking about "the truth" we do not have to look very deeply into The Bible to catch God lying. In the creation myth God tells Adam: "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for on the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."
The Serpent however tells Eve: "Ye shall not surely die".
Adam and Eve both ate the fruit of the tree and neither of them died on that day. According to the story Adam lived until he was over 900 years old. God lied. The serpent told the truth.
(8)
Christians, ordained preachers and laity alike, tell us theirs is a tolerant faith and their God a good, forgiving God. And yet only last week when I told someone I would never believe in the God of Abraham it earned a response that I had better change my mind or would burn in the eternal fires of Hell. Kind, forgiving God, tolerant faith. My arse!
(9)
Christians like to say that morality can only come from belief in God. Atheists do not believe and therefore are immoral. "You think it is OK to kill me and my family," Christians are fond of accusing.
Strange then that in the U.S.A. it is the Bible Belt states that are most enthusiastically in favour of the death penalty. A majority of humanists oppose the death penalty.
Morality it much older than Christianity of course and far too complex an issue for most Christians which is why they reduce morality to sex, drugs and property rights.
(Its an interesting statistic that of America's burgeoning prison population 76% are Christian and most of these were Christian before they committed their crime)
(10)
Christians like to claim the moral high ground in discussions on slavery. In fact the established churches in the early nineteenth century, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Calvinists and Lutherans all opposed abolition of the slave trade. The churches that did join the abolitionist cause were The Quakers, Unitarians and Moravians. Of these I know beyond doubt that Christians deny Quakers and Unitarians are actually Christian faiths as neither believes in the divinity of Jesus.
(11)
Fundamentalist Christian preachers like to claim that evolutionary science has us evolving from monkeys. Were they blessed with a measurable IQ of any sort, even in single figures, they would understand that while we and the great apes (not monkeys but similarish) have a common ancestor, all life forms (yes, fundies too) are evolved from microscopic blobs of jelly.
(12)
Many Christians like to make a big thing of their pro - life, anti - abortion stance. This is a bit hypocritical though when we look into what God has to say on the subject:
<b>Hosea, 13:16</b> Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.
<b>Numbers 31:17</b> "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him." Well it does not actually call for abortion, just the murder of all women who might be pregnant.
<b>2Kings 15:16</b> Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up.
So we can surmise then that God has no problem about aborting the babies of non-Jewish women. If we accept that Christians succeeded the Jews as God's chosen people why are they getting so uptight about non-Christian women seeking humane, medically supervised early stage abortions.
(13)
As we have seen The Biblical God has no qualms about telling his followers to murder small children and pregnant women but if we look further there are calls for genocide and for the ritual murder of one's nearest and dearest. Examples are too numerous to list but you might like to look here to get the picture.
Nobody is exempt but homosexuals and women are the main targets fingered by God for his hit men.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't one of the ten commandments go something like "Thou shalt not kill?"
(14)
And now we come to the crucifixion.
Actually I have done this one before, so if want to gain an understanding of what might really have happened (Crucifixion was NOT a death punishment in The Roman Empire at the time, those sentenced to death went to the arena) and you live in a state where Monty Python's Life of Brian is still banned, read The True Tale Of The Easter Bunny.
Is there anything left of Christianity now we have shown the faith to be deceitful, dishonest, hypocritical and based on a false premise and a fairy story no more factual than the legends of Robin Hood and King Arthur.
All I ask of Christians is that they just stop trying to impose their beliefs on the world. Christian beliefs are no more sane than any others, just a lot more dangerous to non Chistians.
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Comments: 177
Seriously there are humanist societies that meet regularly, often in libraries.
I view my book groups as my version of humanist societies. We can more freely discuss any topic having to do with humanity than any church group to which I belonged, unhampered of course by dogma and that never ending threat of blasphemy that you get in all religions.
I leave you with a few of my least favorite bible verses:
"And Er, Judah's first born, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also" (Genesis 38:7-10). "If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger; her husband's brother shall go in unto her . . . And if the man like not to take his brother's wife . . . then his brother's wife shall come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot and spit in his face . . . And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed" (Deuteronomy 25:5-10).
"Nor am I willing to write off Christ, something in the heart leads one to believe in Christ and hope in Christ despite all of the stupidity, arrogance, mean spiritedness, etc. associated with the Evangelicals and their poltical arms."
In Judaism Jacob is probably the patriarch who comes in for the most serious scholarly discussion. Jacob was not a saintly man. He may not have even been a good man.
Nippy, if I win the lottery, I'll buy this for your birthday
Yep, but Ian already mentioned the kill all the men etc. stories. That was of course standard procedure everywhere around the world, but the stories didn't all get written up in holy books that at the same time were supposed be some kind of manual of morality and righteousness.
I'm playing Devil's advocate here (Jesus's advocate?) but I will say that it is not fair to write off ALL Christian though because of the fundamnetalist denominations. Lutherans, Methods, Universalist, etc. are reasonable, non-evangelical denominations with a much more enlightened view of their religion. It's the literal interpretists who are the problem. The irrationality doesn't come from anything inherent in the Christian faith, it comes from defining ONE book as completely non-negotiable. You then have to distort all of reality to fit the criteria of that book. The same would happen if you used The Cat in the Hat, the Tao Te Ching or The South Beach Diet. The faith itself is no more inherently oppressive than any other, it's the interpretation and lack of flexibility that's the problem.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com
Reporting you sir!!
Genesis 19:5-8
"5And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
6And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
7And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
8Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof." (King James Version)
THIS is the guy God spared?
How do fundamentalists, who believe every word of the Bible is the absolute truth and the word of God, deal with stuff like this?
I love it when they say, "Well you have to interpret that stuff."
But then, they say, "Homosexuality is bad because the Bible says so."
They don't seem to have any need to interpret THAT! What GARBAGE!
George Orwell had a good name for this kind of self delusion.
He called it "doublethink."
Ian, I'm an Christian and believe me...I couldn't care less what you believe. Oh, and please trying to impose your' beliefs on others.
Felix, what belief is he trying to impose on you? He's forced no one to read and threatened no one with Hell or a variation of eternal punishment?He said what HE doesn't believe and some reasons why.
You said it, free speech was always suppressed not by fear of the tortures of hell, because freethinkers never believed that rubbish anyway, but by fear of the church torturers.
The Spanish Inquisition was more than just a Monty Python joke and the Protestant inquisitors who sought to persuade Catholic "heretics" to recant by using such reasoned and civiliesed arguments as sticking hot pokers up the holes in peoples' bottoms amongst other things were no better.
We are going to hell in a metaphorical sense at least. A quick look at the financial news from the past few dats conforms that.
I am very well read on Arthurian myth. He is of course a "deliver" mythical being like Hercules, Seigfreid, Cuchulinn etc. Most legends have him reigning after the Romans left Britain however he first pops up in pre-Roman Celtic myths which meant he lived over 400 years.
Thhat is no reason to give up on him though, I haven't for all that I know.
Same with Jesus. Christians like to say there is "proof" that he lived and was a real historical figure. That alleged proof consists of one line in the Imperial Annals of Rome that merely notes "a rebel hailed by his followers as The Messiah was executed in Jerusalem." Given there were lots of "Messiahs" running around Palestine at the time, it could have referred to anybody.
If we treat Arthur and Jesus as symbols however, they are perfectly valid.
I will have something on that topic soon.
I did say I believed The Beatles were better than Elvis. It illustrates that what we believe does not have to be proven or rational.
I'm biased on this point though having seen The Beatles supporting Roy Orbison in 1963, between Love Me Do and Please Please Me (showing my agfe now).
I was one of the last people to actually HEAR them sing live at a gig. Once Please Please Me hit No. 1 all anyone heard was the screaming.
Love and peace brother.
Jesus didn't either, there is a lot of evidence though that he died in Britain or France - if you count stuff written a couple of hundred years later by people with a political agenda as evidence.
Those verses remind me the Jews lived in the desert. And all sorts of stuff like pyote and mescaline comes from desert plants doesn't it?
What were those Bible writers on?
I have a blog friend in Britain who has a PhD in theoretical physics but turned his back on that when he found it offers no answers only more questions. He has now devoted his life to Islam in its more philosophical form.
We discussed however the Hindu / Pagan concept of a oneness a unifying energy (as proposed in the quantum theory of Peter Higgs) and decided that though the existence of such an energy may never be proved it does offer an answer to those who need one.
The possibility of an infinite and eternal universe is just too much to get our heads round but my preferred solution is stoicism. What happens happens. There is not much I can do other than deal with it the best way I can.
So as we are told God looks after his own, may we assume he is a slaphead?
Sell all the women into slavery? I'm all for that, I'll offer 50,000 shekels each for Janny Caldwell and Michelle Mead but only 45,000 for Sandy Knauer as she will need a room with widened doors.
I never said there were no good ideas in the Bible.
Well I got bogged down on my Easter trilogy, A Brief History of Birth Control and Abortion so luckily I had this one in reserve.
Kill all the men etc. stories. It was standard procedure, as was raping all the women.
This is what Bible literalists need to come to terms with. The stories are not exclusive to their religion, the difference is nobody else ever took them seriously. They were not created to be taken literally.
Ian, my daughter was in the room with me when I collected those verses yesterday. I read her some satire, and then I read those verses to her. She laughed at both, and refused to believe me when I told her those verses were real. Now she wants to read the bible, for all the wrong reasons I'm afraid. Or maybe not - maybe a good laugh is the best reason.
Should I be insulted?
You are right but unfortunately the Evangelicas have hijacked Christianity. I did make it clear however that I have no problem with many forms of Christianity. I was a bit dishonest there actually, I do despise the way mainstream churches refuse to denounce the extremism of literalists and evangelicals. Leaving it to Jesus, as they do, is cowardly and a cop out.
No, I'm just offsetting the costs of modifying the property my harem lives in. But only joking, I have a wheelchair too so the work is already done.
You didn't think I was referring to weight did you my sylph like sweetie?
Banned user, who and why. I miss all the good stuff because of the time difference.
Lot is one of my faves too. This just man was quite happy to say: OK guys you can gang bang my wife and daughters but don't disrespect my male guests.
Nice bloke.
I've read many fundies here and elsewhere who would be right at home in Orwell's Ministry of Love, though they belong in Room 101 of the Minsitry's windowless and soundproof headquarters.
The problems arise when people get so far up themselves they lose the ability to distinguish between facts and beliefs. I believe in UFOs because I have seen two in my life. I was not drunk or on drugs and on one occasion was with others who saw what I saw. We did not see a flying saucer or little green (or grey) man. We saw something in the night sky, about the height a light aircraft would fly at a guess, but it behaved in a way no vehicle powered by known air or space technology possibly could.
What was it? Around twenty years later we still do not know. We could not identify it but it flew. An unidentified flying object.
To say anything else would be speculation.Thus it should be with religion, if we seperate what is known to have happened from what we know did not happen and concede that the rest is pure speculation that is fine with almost anybody.
It is the people who pass off speculation as fact that I have a problem with.
And I can't see Ian's icon either (though his is just blank space
Yeah, well I felt a bit blank yesterday. The old trouble you know :-)
Ian, I'm an Christian and believe me...I couldn't care less what you believe.
Fine. Why bother to comment though, especially as I do state quite unequivocally I do not ask anyone to share my belifes. In fact I would rather nobody did share my beliefs, it would destroy my delusion that I am unique.
Or was it a case that you did not read the whole article before commenting?
If that is the case, you have not done a very good job of hiding the fact that you haven't read the article. Follow this link to my review of a book titled How to talk about books we haven't read in which I give a lesson in how to review convincingly stuff that we haven't actually read.
There is a trilogy by Terry Pratchett, titles The Wee Freew Men, A Hatful of Sky and The Wintersmith in which Pratchett gives the best definition of magic and how to be a witch I have ever read. Distilled, it goes "Magic is seeing what is really going on, understanding and presenting it in such a way that tose who are scared of reality can accept."
But I'll expand in a longer article, its time Pratchett was recognised as a great writer.
And then when Roxanne is old enough you can buy the books for her.
Nice bloke.
And remember, after all that the wife gets turned into a pillar of salt for the crime of turning back to look, possibly with a bit of sorrow and compassion in her heart....
Good link, thanks. Few people realise that "The Jews" of the OT are very much a myth and that the Biblical creation is not from an ancient oral tradition but was created by the scholars whose work is collectively labelled Ezekiel, which means it was written abound 600 BC.
Prior to the "liberation" of Palestine by Cyrus the Great the people of that area had taken the religion of whoever ruled at the time, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Phoenicians with a few earlier Persian dynasties invading from time to time.
The Book of Esther in the OT is nothing more than a thinly disguised (they changed the spelling of the names slightly) telling of the Babylonian myth of Ishtar and Marduk.
Evangelicals tell me Anglican and Roman Catholics and followers of the Eastern Orthodox tradition are not real Christians.
Who am I to argue?
And then Lot put his biological daughters up the duff as if he had not done enough damage already by offering to hand them over to a gang of sex crazed drunks.
It just keeps getting better :-)
The devil guy was banned previously for attacking other Gather members and threatening them. For the safety of Gather members he was banned.
It now looks like he has started another fraudulent account
No good asking me, I don't run gather.
Aniko, I know, a god that will help you out with some hungry bears on a whim is probably not the kind of god who'll stick by you.
Ian, is it Ezra or Ezekiel? Pratchett is truly amazing. Only Balzac and a few others I can't think of could sustain that level of quality over such a huge number of books. One cool thing about Pratchett is that A. S. Byatt is apparently a huge fan. It's guilt by association but I like it anyway.
Its not a question of arguing about beliefs, too many people do not know the difference between beliefs and facts.
Also there is the question of "bearing false witness." In the thread someone suggested I was trying to impose my beliefs. It was a false accusation of course, the "bearing of false witness."
So if some people are not going to practice what they preach we must question them.
And then there are all those posts we cannot possibly respond to individually suggesting the hurricane, drought, forest fire, financial crisis are an expression of God's anger because America tolerates "faggots." If we do not challenge these people they get the idea everyone agrees with them.
Anyway, it brings in lots of points ;-)
I've been saving this one for a while, I promised one christian troll a crucifixion at Easter. Nemo me impune lascitur. (hey, Latin as well, how's that for a touch of class.)
Winding people up is fun too - especially if they deserve it.
I think all beliefs should be ridiculed - it helps keep us sane.
Amber, at least get yours lies straight.
I tend to say that my problem is not with Christianity, but with Christians. And, of course this does not mean all. I have met many rational, intelligent Christians just as I have met many complete loons that are not Christians.
I don't have a problem with the belief system, it just isn't the one I chose to adhere to. I do have a problem with others that try to force that belief system on me while at the same time, violating their own religion's rules and ethics in the name of their god, which apparently makes it all ok.
Truth on the "other' hand is something else, just a bunch of "relatives" until reconciled under an absolute truth which would be the definition of the concept of a God or intelligent universe ... IF ... one believed in such at all ...
My beliefs begin with this: Cosmic Cycles, past, present, and future realities., and then we can go on from there ... maybe ... :-)
Two points:
1. I was not kicked off for threatening people, Amber. I was kicked off becasue I did flagging runs against Gather staff to see exactly how quickly they could remove the flags from their own content when they took weeks to get to mine or others. I've never threatened anyone on this site ever. I recall that I had some choice words for you but I never once threatened you.
2. Gather is well aware that I am back and have in fact sanctioned it. So please 'report' me to whomever you wish.
That makes it easy, then. I'll just accept as fact that you don't believe what you say.
It now looks like he has started another fraudulent account
Stand by the words??
Why was it then he had one account....I notified Gather...banned!
He got another account...I notified Gather...banned!
Cut to his 5th+ account now....(other were banned for given reasons)...and now hes legit???
ok??????
denial can be hard to overcome
Ah, you just didn't understand it then.
What part of "I don't ask anyone to share my beliefs" do you interpret as my attempting to impose my beliefs on others? I'd like to help if I can.
Yeah, and we still don't know what those lights in the sky were. And what's more we don't really care much.
Don't feel hurt because Sandy is beating you up about not getting your lies, just sent your twisted lies to me and I will morph them into surreal humour for you.
If it spells its name C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N then as far as I am concerned its a Christian. You have told me previously that you are a Christian mystic but if you had read and understood the NT you would know that Jesus himself forbids dabbling in mysticism.
Until you produce an undisputed definition of what a Christian is, there is no difference between you and Ted Haggard in my book.
Look at it logically. Were I to say "I'm a Frenchman," it would be fair to assume I was born in France or at least lived there and been granted citizenship.
If I said "I'm a Frenchman but I'm not like other Frenchmen, I'm a more English sort of Frenchman," people would be entitled to think of me as somewhat bewildered if not stark raving bonkers in the head.
So tell us how your version of Christianity is right and all others wrong and we can all help you understand where you are missing the point.
I think the point you are trying to make Gary is that in your view non-christians should not be allowed to comment on Christianity. Am I right or am I right?
In Europe we don't have a problem with Christians or Christianity, non-believers put £millions into preserving our ancient churches and Cathedrals. But in Europe we know what Chritians stand for.
Jesus, if we believe the New Testament was a socialist, a leftie. Feeding the 5000 does not refer to conjuring tricks with a tin of sardines and a batch of bread cakes, it means if everybody shares what they have there is enough for all.
The zero taxers of the rabid right would never accept that of course. I want it all, I want it now," is their creed.
So they invent totally warped versions of Christianity that allow them to believe the more they lie, cheat and steal their way to wealth the more God loves them.
That is why Christianity has become despised.
Thanks for trying to straighten Amber out, looks like I'll have to deal with her myself.