Prophecy fullfilled

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Skybird

It's hear-say anyway, and between the fixing of the gospels in writing, and the life of Jesus lay more than 70 years, that is 2 generations. Someobdy called the gosepls "70 years of Chinese whispers" for that reason, but at least parts of the gospels make much more sense and reveal far greater reaosn than the rest of the bible. I would say that at least about the sermon on the mountain. If you cut away all the rest of the bible, I would say it is no loss, and if it would have been done earlier, and there would have been no Bible and no Quran from the beginning, than mankind probably would have been far better off in general. In the end, all I ask for is reason, and desist from missionizing and trying to make somebody else's decisions for him (no matter what your motive is). Your freedom to believe what you want ends where you start to limit the freedom of the other.

Epistles from the Christian Scriptures (New Testament): Liberal theologians believe that some of these were written as late as 150 CE, up to 4 generations after Jesus' death, by authors who were not eye witnesses of his ministry. Those writers could have based their letters on traditional sayings attributed to Jesus which dated from an earlier era. An analysis by G.A. Wells showed to his satisfaction that the authors definitely believed in the existence of Jesus, but did not cite any evidence that he lived in the 1st century.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm

[Happy Times]

We're laughing. But in reality - she is tragic.

True, it hurt to look at her children, the youngest especially.

[Chock]

If you really believe that some benevolent all powerful being in charge of creating and running the entire universe got in touch with you to point out that it was going to be windy, and then despite being benevolent, neglected to warn someone else - who was subsequently killed by that same wind - then I'd recommend you seek psychiatric help.

Just ask yourself which is the more likely explanation: schizophrenia, or the (supposed) creator of the universe getting in touch with you?

You're entitled to believe it of course, and I'm sure many 'religious' people will also swallow it. But frankly, the mere fact that a lot of people in the world believe that kind of thing doesn't make it any less preposterous, just more prevalent.

My personal belief is that it's no wonder the world is in trouble when people who believe this kind of thing are allowed to vote.

Chock

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Fish

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm

Interesting, but no matter wether Jesus lived for real or not, he is dead since 2000 years and is not meant to ever come back. That's why I always refuse to join that personal cult around him, and refer only to some small parts of the bible that eventually I cvonsider to be reasonable and respectable BY THIER CONTENT. If Jesus lived for real or not, is relatively unimporant for me. the story around him, fictional or real, is no illustration of events by which man has been freed from taking responsibility for himself. The story only illustrates in what way we need to pick up and accept that responsibility. In other words: the story of his crucification does not mean that there was a man dying in our place, and now we are forgiven once and for all. It only means he died to hint us the way that nevertheless we need to go ourselves. Pick up your cross and carry it yourself. In plain English: accept the responsibility for your life, for your deeds, your thoughts, and the consequences you cause in the world, for they will fall back onto you in some way. From here, it is not far to the Karma idea in Asian philosophy.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Interesting, but no matter wether Jesus lived for real or not, he is dead since 2000 years and is not meant to ever come back.

Actually that's not correct, nearly every sect of Christianity believes in a second coming of Christ at some point.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Actually that's not correct, nearly every sect of Christianity believes in a second coming of Christ at some point.

I know, but shall they believe what they want, and wait until all hell freezes over. You are free to believe what you want, i mean. Believing is not knowing. On every third Friday and on weekends in July I for example take the freedom to believe that the sky is green and the grass is blue.

But I could of course believe something different, too. Believing is not knowing, and indicates the absence of knowledge (for where you have knowledge you do not depend on blindly believing anything anymore. but many people deceive themselves on what they believe they know...). The act means systematically taking the unexamined and unexaminable for serious and real and true knowledge - where the truth is it is the most shallow way to experience and to live your life, that way you hinder yourself from gaining knowledge..

Don't get me started on believing! It served nothing good to mankind. It's like driving fast on the highway with closed eyes.

Take a nicotine pill instead.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Don't get me started on believing! It served nothing good to mankind. It's like driving fast on the highway with closed eyes.

Take a nicotine pill instead.

Yeah well just remember non-belief hasn't served anything good to mankind either Skybird except maybe create a cultural and moral wasteland ripe for domination by a tight knit group of believers.

And no nicotine in any form for me thank you Herr Docktor. Not good for the heart stents doncha know.

Speaking of which i'd like to believe that God had at least a little help in pushing me into getting checked out after my heart attack when normally i avoid medical places like the plague. Maybe i'll suddenly take to driving fast on the highway with my eyes closed now eh?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Yeah well just remember non-belief hasn't served anything good to mankind either Skybird except maybe create a cultural and moral wasteland ripe for domination by a tight knit group of believers.

Atheistic religions like for example Buddhism by far cannot compete with the record of violence, conquest and intimidation set up by theistic global religions like Muhammedanism and "Churchism". And I reject the implicit conclusion that where there is no belief in a culture, there are no moral standards, no ethics. I would say that rejecting theistic believing in Gods, Allahs, some ancient vulcan gods or Harry Kruger (and thus: rejecting believing in general), often leads to far greater voluntary ethical and moral development and higher standards in the way that less acts of barbarism and violence are done in the name of "God", and that there is more willingness to reach out for the other, and be tolerant and not wishing to stick one's nose into other people's private business, becasue one does not think in termas anymore what is separating oneself from the infidel. The history of theistic beliefs is a history of ongoing violence and separation and erecting border and prejudice. Islam does like this, the medieval and later churches did like this. the latter accepted that it could not be like that any longer, and gave ground to sciences, philosophy, arts and culture, and gave up the idea of the inquisition. Note that many of those Christian sects keeping separate from the church, and trying to follow not the church's doctrine but the teaching of Jesus, often did not allow to become the origin or the excuse for violent excesses, wars and attempts of conquering (which did not save them from becoming victims of such things all too often). That is true for two so separate sects lile the amish, and christian mysticism (Meister Eckehard etc.) in general.

You may want to hint me at things like the Maoistic culture revolution in China, Stalinism in Russia, Nazism in Germany, racism like the KKK in general. but I would hint you back to the fact that these ideologies, although often being explicitly in rejection of popular relgious myths, nevertheless are belief-systems like the established religions: they believe in the strong Fuhrer who never fails ( a messiah-surrogate, if you want), they believe in the collective dominating over the individual, the power bof the community, they believe in law and order which sometimes came in the form of shock and awe. I don't see things like this in principal oppostion to theistic religon's beliefs. they share more characteristics than what keeps them separate. I even would say that capitlaism and communism are belief systems in the main, because even capitalism believes in something: in the dollar/euro, in the philosphy that only material values count and non-material values are unreal and thus can be ignorred, in the idea that it is one against all others, and the stronger one shall win while the weak shall fall. This ideolgolies believe in different things, but they believe very much in the same way and by the same mechanism and seek what is their understanding of happiness, like the official religions do.

And if you think that is too far-fetched and too queer, I recommend you come to Germany and visit the city of Wolfsburg, with the main factory of Volkswagen. In the auto-city, cars are celebrated like religious icons or holy relics, are presented in ways with very obvious and intended parallels to popular religious myths, it is a self-presentation of total materialism, the perfect waltz around the golden cow, the climax of all possible illustration how deep the cultural fall of the West already has been. It was totally crushing, and you cannot draw paralleols to what you see at the usual yearly automobile exhibitions. I myself saw the modenr religion VW had created around the automobile, I saw their priests and the believers, and left with a stunned mind and a feeling of total frustration.

If one day there would be a museum like the Creationsit museum, and instead of animals and people and holy figures they have put cars into the showcases that are meant to illustrate evolution (or whatever they call it ), I wouldn't be surprised a bit.

as usual, what i mean already has been expressed by others in so much more trenchant ways.

Miracles and morals:


In Jesus' name:


Catholic morality:


Politics and religion:

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Skybirds patented Wall of Text

Don't give me subdivisions Dude. Religion is religion. It is but only one of the many excuses people have used to justify violence throughout mans history. You're talking about greed and dominance but that ain't what belief is all about.

[Safe-Keeper]

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:s tupid ppl

Granted, there are lots of loonies out there, but surely you understood that was a satirical joke?

Edit:

The Lord said, "A hurricane will broach Texas"

Translation: I felt I had very good reason to believe a hurricane would hit Texas, and decided to do absolutely nothing about it and instead let an innocent die.

One minute later while I was still pondering the message plus why He would tell me this ...

The Lord said, "If a missile were to be launched against Tel aviv ... it would land in Jordan"

How do you know this was a show of force and not a prophecy? And haven't missiles been launched against Tel Aviv before?

My faith has been increased ... God is in charge

...is he?

See, while GeeTrue's original post may have been a 'Poe', or parody of religious fundamentalism, it raises an important point: how can natural disasters be... what's the word they use... reconciled with an omnipotent, loving God?

If He cannot stop these disasters, He is not omnipotent.
If He chooses not to stop the disasters, how can we call him loving?
If He directly causes them, He is a threat to humanity.
And if He neither can, nor wants to prevent natural disasters... to paraphrase what a Greek philosopher said, why call him a god?