B1- BibleA

Graham L. Kendall
Last updated 1/13/2005
Email grahamkendall74135@yahoo.com
I am found on IRC EfnetUndernetDalnet as glk
Files on science and religion and math are found at
http://www.grahamkendall.net/
All are free to use any of this material without limit.
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New material is added below this section

==
Standard Christian Claims and Suitable Answers.
==
An event xyz in the future will prove Christianity is all true.
A. Future proposed evidence is not present good evidence.
--
Science is based on faith and science is a religion
A. Science assumes the laws of nature are constant.
Science is based on observations and experiments.
Faith is belief without evidence. Science deals in evidence.
--
Science is full of holes.
A. All science has holes, eventually filled by more and better
science. As science makes discoveries, it exposes new holes and mysteries,
to be solved by future science. All science models are tentative and
approximate.
If you want ABSOLUTE TRUTH, look to philosophy and theology.
--
Evolution has many gaps.
A. Only a very small percent of all living things fossilize.
Go a mile in any direction, noting all living things.
How many of them will fossilize and be found by a scientist?
Try to find a fossil of any modern species. Lack of fossils does
not mean lack of life forms. The more fossils found, the more gaps created.
In 100 AD, it was 100% gap.
--
Science does not know everything. it has not discovered xxx yet.
It once taught yyy was true.
A. It knows more each year, correcting earlier science models.
All science models are approximate and tentative.
Christians keep trying to destroy science education,
then they complain science is making discoveries too slowly to satisfy them.
Think of all the hard problems past science has solved, all without including
miracles or acts of gods.
--
The Second law of Thermodynamics prevents evolution as it says everything
gets less organized with time.
A. The Science version (as opposed to the fundie version) states that
the Second Law describes conditions in a closed system(foam cooler). In such a
system, energy becomes less available with time(flashlight inside runs down and
air becomes warmer.). It says NOTHING preventing evolution.
The earth is not a closed system, with sunlight streaming in, supplying energy.
--
Science has fraud and error, like Piltdown and Nebraska Man.
A. Science has methods for detecting and correcting frauds and errors.
The long history of science making valid predictions validates its
assumptions and methods.
--
Science does not know the origin of the big bang.
A. Science observed results of the big bang in the expanding universe,
the 2.7 degree microwave radiation, and the ratio of light isotopes.
The origin of the big bang itself is still a science mystery.
The term before the big bang has no present science meaning as time was a
product of the big bang. Cause does not apply to the big bang itself
as cause assumes laws and time sequences.
Both were products of the big bang, 13.7 billion years ago.
The May 2004 Scientific American has a major article on potential bb origins.
--
Science does not know the origin of the first cells.
A. All science has mysteries. They usually eventually get solved by more
and better science. Chemists and biologists are working on this problem.
The original surface of the earth was greatly bombarded during the time of
chemical evolution. This destroyed biological trace evidence, leaving only
carbon.
The C13/C12 ratio of carbon tells if it was once part of a living system.
Plant cells have a preference for C12 over C13 in using carbon dioxide.
Read March, 1999 National Geographic for a major article on life origins.
The June 2004 Discover magazine has a long article on possible prelife
chemical steps.
--
Evolution is not valid science.
A. The science community and the U.S. Federal Courts decided evolution is valid
science and creation is religion. No professional science journal refutes the
fact of evolution. No physical evidence refutes the fact of evolution.
Genetic continuity is a law of biology. Common ancestry is a fact of biology.
Each geological period had different species, all derived from species of
earlier periods, since the first cells formed. Evolution is never proved.
It has been validated.
--
Science discovered the Ark on Ararat.
A. No Ark has been found anywhere.
No particular mountain of the Ararat range was mentioned.
--
Science discovered the Noah flood.
A. No science reference includes the Noah flood. No physical trace of this
flood is found anywhere. No science or history reference included a world
Noah flood. Local floods are known, some large. There is no water to flood the
earth.
--
It takes more faith to believe in evolution than to believe in God.
A. Evolution is descent with variation over time in a breeding population,
both observed. No gods are observed.
--
Many scientists, past and present, believed in God and had a religion.
A. The religious opinions of scientists have no particular authority.
The value of the opinion of a scientist is only as good as the evidence he can
offer. Claims by scientists without supporting data are personal
philosophy/religion, not science. Scientists can have religious delusions too.
--
Science agrees with Genesis.
A. The only parallel between science facts and Genesis is both have a
beginning. Genesis has plants on earth before the creation of sun, moon
and stars. Genesis has a walking, talking snake holding a conversation,
people and animals without parents, no rain until the time of man and a world
flood. It has birds as the first land animals. These are all refuted by
science observations. Many religions have origin stories.
--
God did it with a miracle.
A. Any story, no matter how wild, can be saved by a miracle of God.
--
You are calling God a liar when you deny the Bible.
A. Fallible people wrote, edited and selected Bible stories, not God.
The Bible has many errors, much fantasy, and some valid history.
--
Evolution and the big bang are just theories, never having been proved.
A. Science theories are validated explanations for patterns of observations.
All science models are tentative and approximate.
Science models are never proved, as proof is for math.
Tell us the creation science theory, with physical evidence.
--
Science can not give you eternal life in heaven or prevent eternal life
in hell.
A. Eternal life, heaven, and hell are not detected. Science can give longer,
healthier life on earth.
--
There is no evidence for evolution.
A. Each geological period had different species, starting with the Precambrian
prokaryote bacteria 3.5 billion years ago in the Apex Chert of Australia.
Genetic continuity is a law, which states animals and plants ALWAYS come from
parents/ancestors, after the first cells formed. Physical structure, genetic
and protein similarity of life forms shows common ancestry. The science
community accepts evolution as valid science. Genetic continuity is a law of
biology.
--
God made people.
A. Humans evolved over millions of years. They have fossils and tools of the
intermediate stages. People always come from two parents, male and female.
Adding God to science never improves science and only adds complexity.
--
God invented science.
A. Science is a process for solving mysteries. Supposedly God already knows
everything and would not have any use for science.
Curious people developed science over the centuries.
--
Everything can be explained by Intelligent Design.
Design is not observed in nature. Design stories assume a Designer.
Intelligent Design is just another way of saying God did it.
--
It is logical to believe in God. You can not disprove God exists.
A. Proof is for math. All gods are equally based on faith. All gods are silent
and invisible, unless you consider physical things like planets and volcanoes as
gods.
The Bible and other Holy Books vary greatly on the nature and will of God(s).
People invent gods and they are as variable as the human imagination.
The logical process suffers from the fact of Garbage In Yields Garbage Out.
I meet many experts on God and the Bible. They differ.
Atheism, taken as lack of belief in gods, is rational, as no gods are observed.
Gods can not be disproved. They can be outgrown.
Any gods can be supported by faith, social popularity, and emotions.
--
The laws of probability refute life starting on its own, without God.
A. Since the chemical steps leading to life are unknown, mathematics can not be
applied in any scientifically useful fashion. The best scientists can state,
with any degree of science certainty is they do not know these processes yet.
--
Everything had to be caused, so the big bang was caused. It had to be God.
A. No known science is known to apply to the big bang itself.
It is beyond all known science laws so far.
The May 2004 Scientific American discussed possible origins of the bb.
What causes atomic decay and virtual particles?
Adding God to science models never improves the value of any science model
and only adds complexity. What caused God?
--
Pasteur disproved life coming from non-life.
A. Pasteur showed only that nutrient broth shielded from bacteria laden dust
remains sterile. This experiment does not apply to the origin of life on the
Precambrian earth over millions of years. See Pasteur in unsorted files.
--
They found fossils on mountain tops, proving Noah's flood occurred.
A. Mountains are old ocean beds, with marine fossils, pushed up by continental
plate collisions, like the Himalayas and Andes. Fossils are extinct life forms.
Modern floods do not deposit marine limestone with fossils of extinct species.
Mature sea life could not establish a colony in one year and get entombed in
thick layers of marine limestone.
--
The geological column exists nowhere on earth. it is fiction.
A. Each place on earth has a unique history, with different formations, with
different periods, depths and compositions. There are about 25 places where
members of all periods are found. This column/period system was developed long
before Darwin wrote.
--
Scientists once thought the earth was flat.
A. Aristotle and other ancient Greeks knew the earth was spherical, by noting
the shadow of the earth on the moon was always a circle. Eratosthenes measured
its actual size. Name any flat earth scientists.
--
Science claims everything occurred by chance.
A. Science explains things by action of natural laws. Chance is a measure
of human ignorance, not lack of laws in operation.
--
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
- A. Einstein
A. The religion of Einstein had no personal gods.
He did not mention any particular religion as required for valid science.
The religious opinions of scientists have no particular authority.
Scientists can have religious delusions too.

"I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His
children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself
can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could
excuse Him. -A. Einstein (Letter to Edgar Meyer, Jan. 2, 1915)
========================
 After promising themselves they would not make any more end time predictions,
the Jehovah's Witnesses fell off the wagon and proclaimed 1994 as the
conclusion of an 80 year generation - the year 1914 was the starting point.

The Watchtower has made many predictions about important events that failed
to come true. Will this zero percent accuracy rating continue?

The Watchtower Bible Tract Society, the organization for the Jehovah's
Witnesses, has made many prophecies. The accuracy rating for the predictions
of the Watchtower has been a solid zero percent.

The Biblical test for a false prophet only matters to Fundamentalist and
Evangelical Christians, but the bizarre prophecies that failed to come true
are interesting by themselves. These predictions announced the dates of
Armageddon, the Second Coming, and the Resurrection.

When Did Armageddon Happen?

The Watchtower issued a prophecy that the battle of Armageddon would be in 1914
and in 1915. Both dates passed without any major battle being fought on that
ancient site in the Middle East. The Watchtower failed in this prediction and
continues a zero percent accuaracy rating. Jehovah's Witnesses now believe
that Armageddon could happen at any minute, which is in line with the standard
Christian belief about the battle that will take place on the end of the world.

The Failed Watchtower Propehcies of the Second Coming

Many Christians eagerly await the return of Christ that will usher in a new
era of peace and prosperity. Most Christian denominations are careful not to
give dates and keep the expectations high. The Watchtower made confident
predictions to its followers about when Christ would return. These dates came
and the prophecies failed to come to pass.

The dates that Watchtower has given Jehovah's Witnesses for the Second Coming
are 1874 and 1914. The start of World War I may have been considered the last
great War at the time, but the war itself did not usher in 1,000 years of
peace and prosperity that should have accompanied the Millennium.

The Failed Watchtower Prophecies of the Resurrection of Ancient Prophets

The Watchtower continued its practice of making spectacular prophecies that
failed has told the Jehovah's Witnesses to expect the resurrection in 1874 and
again in 1926. Evidence of dead people returning to life, stories of
reincarnation notwithstanding, has not been found. This belief also had to
return to a less definitive statement about the possibility of it happening at
any time.

Do the Failed Prophecies of the Watchtower Matter?

The zero percent accuracy rating of the Watchtower Prophecies only matter for
people who are concerned about the state of the souls of the Jehovah's
Witnesses. Because no one can prove with absolute certainty that there is an
afterlife, the real test should be the actions of the religion itself and
whether or not the practice of the faith makes Jehovah's Witnesses better
people.

Failed Watchtower Prophecies are interesting for those who like the strange
and bizarre, but the predictions themselves will stop, or the Watchtower will
change to making predictions based on the directions of current events. The
latter move will result in the Watchtower at least making some accurate
predictions.

Sources:

Prophecy Blunders.
http://www.bible.ca/jw-prophecy-blunders.htm
http://64.226.233.122/discus/messages/5368/949.html?981326442
http://www.christianissues.com/blunders.html

Prophecies of the Watchtower Society of Jehovah's Witnesses
 
==
Such passages are stirring and have the glow of victory about them, but Jesus
can be confounding, and he forced the early believers to become masters of
theological improvisation. First the Kingdom failed to materialize at the time
of the Passion, forcing the disciples at least the male ones into hiding. Next
came the initially mystifying Resurrection. Then came ... nothing. A central
prophecy preached in Jesus' name, his Second Coming on clouds of glory,
failed to happen. Truly, I say to you, Jesus tells his disciples in Mark,
there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the
kingdom of God come with power.
==
Josephus, Flavius, (translated by William Whiston, A.M.)
The Complete Works of Josephus, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI, p. 27,
1981.
==
Later, there are differing Gospel accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb
and the appearances of the risen Jesus. Sometimes he appears as flesh and
blood; at others, he can walk through walls. Sometimes he is instantly
recognized; at others, even close followers fail to understand whom they are
speaking with until Jesus identifies himself. Most likely the post-Resurrection
stories represent different traditions within the nascent faith. The
contrasting details do not help the Christian case on logical grounds.
==
If you know whether it was 28 or 43 generations between David and Jesus, and
why the two lists have only 5 names in common (two of them being
Jesus and David)
==
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, during the trial of Galileo, 1615
==
Dimitrakos: Lexicon of all the Greek language, p. 2,688 (In Greek)
==
There has been numerous revisions of the KJV since 1611.
The first was in 1615 which contained hundreds of corrections.
In 1629 the Apocrypha was omitted.
Another revision was made in 1638.
In 1701 the chronology of Bishop Ussher (which dates the creation in 4004
B.C. was added.
There was another edition in 1762 with 383 marginal note and other changes.
And then a 1769 another edition came out with 76 changes and corrections
dealing with weight, measurements, and money.
It is the 1769 version which has become the standard version of the King James
Bible and is the version which is commonly used by people who believe that they
are reading the 1611 version.
==
Things cannot be other than they are... Everything is made for the best
purpose. Our noses were made to carry spectacles, so we have spectacles.
- Dr. Pangloss, from Candide by Voltaire
==
The End Of Faith Sam Harris
==
Jesus, according to Christian theology, was born of a union between a Human
woman and God, rather than two HUMAN parents, as was Hercules, and Dionysis, as
well as many other pagan gods.
==
Deu23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off,
shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD. (KJV)
==
Latter-day bibliolatry stems from the rebellion against sacerdotal authority
that was mounted by Luther and Calvin. In order to supplant apostolic
authority, they came up with the long-rejected notion of sola scriptura, the
doctrine that all valid doctrine must be based on scripture. Moreover, they
redacted the canon so that all references to Jews praying for their dead were
removed from it (which is why Protestant Bibles usually only have 66 books
compared to 74 in RCC Bibles and 76 in Orthodox Bibles. Moreover, by making
the BIBLE the highest authority, they are establishing as doctrine, the
principle of sola scriptura, which fails its own test of authenticity. All of
this was discussed by the Church in the 4th century.
But since the end of the 18th century, there have been sects springing up,
mostly on American soil, whose ideas about the bible take sola scriptura to an
even greater level of absurdity, not only treating the text as the sole source
of doctrine but claiming that it is an infallible oracle (of course it must be
read correctly by them, but they have utter confidence in their
interpretation). To the traditional Church, this kind of book-worship is
actually a form of idolatry. It's interesting that Protestants see idolatry in
the RCC's veneration of statues of saints, etc. but fail to see it in their own
outright worship of their own interpretations of scripture.
Of course not all protestant denominations are into it as deep as the more
flagrant cases. I call the full-blown heresy by the latin name sola scriptura
ad litteram, since the main insistence is not only that all doctrine must be
founded in scripture (the 66-book canon) but that it must be takes as literally
as possible. This results in some rather strange propositions, such as the
claim that the tree of knowledge of good and evil is an actual tree with
wooden branches and fruits, instead of the metaphor it was intended to be.
==
Leading Scientists Still Reject God. Nature, 1998; 394, 313.
==
Here is just a few gods of revelation to choose from:

Allah, Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Aton, Babaluaye, Bacchus,
Baldur, Bast, Bellona, Brahma, Brigid, Ceres, Cupid, Cerridwen,
Demeter, Diana, Dione, Dionysus, Eris, Eos, Eleggua, , El Shaddai,
Elohim, Eshu, Ereshkigal, Frigga, Frey, Freya, Gaea, Lord Genesa,
Hades, Hebe, Hera, Helios, Hel,Hephaestus,Hermes, Hestia, Horus,
Ibeji, Ifa, Inanna, Indra, Ishana, Ishtar,Isis, Janus, Juno, Jehovah,
Jove, Jupiter, Kali. Krishna Kronos, Korravai,Loki, Lugh, Lord Indra,
Manitou, Mars, Mercury, Minerva, Mercurius,Morrigan,Nahuiquiahuitl,
Nanahuatzin, Nephthys, Neptune, Obatala, Odin, Ogun,Oshosi, Oshun,
Osiris, Oya, Orunmila, Olokun, Olodumare, Pluto,Persephone, Poseidon,
Proserpina, Quetzalcoatl, Ra, Lord Rama, Rhea,Saturn, Set,Selene,
Shango, Lord Siva, Tammuz, Thor, Tir, Tiw, Uranus, Venus, Vesta,
Vishnu,Vesta, Vulcan, Wotan, Yahweh, Yemaya, Zeus .
==
But which of you having a slave ploughing or
feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from
the field, Go and sit down to meat.? And will not rather say unto
him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and
serve me, til I have eaten, and drunken, and afterwards thou
shalt eat and drink.? Luke 17:7-8<p>

Colossians 3:22
Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched
and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.
==
Laws requiring the Ten Commandments, the Lords Prayer, and daily Bible study
in public schools are still the law in Kentucky. There's still a state law
against working on Sunday.
==
In 1961, the court decided that Maryland couldnąt require public officials
to declare a belief in God, even if Marylandąs constitution says they must.

In 1962, the court decided that New York couldnąt require public school
students to recite an official prayer, even if students who object are excused.

In 1963, the court decided that a local school board could not require
students to read the Bible or recite the Lords Prayer, even if no one
- not one student or parent or teacher - objects to the requirement.
==
Mark9:44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Rev14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and
they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and
whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. (KJV)
==
The Midianites
Numbers 31:13
And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the
congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains
over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of
Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and
there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every
woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him,
keep alive for yourselves.
==
Though there is some doubt about Stalin's atheism as relatives claim that
he prayed throughout the war.
==
Job 7:9 and Is. 26:14 say that nobody ever comes back to life,
1 Cor. 15:52 says that everyone comes back to life.
==
The basic element of Zoroaster's belief system is the duality between good
and evil. This separation is the result of a choice initiated by Ahura
Mazda, the world's creator. According to Zoroastrian cosmogony, one of the
twin spirits engendered by Ahura Mazda, named Spenta Mainyu (Beneficent
Spirit) chose good and life, while the other, Angra Mainyu (Destroying
Spirit, or Ahriman, as he is known in the later documents) chose evil and
death. As a result, humans must make the same choice, and will be judged
accordingly upon their death, the just rewarded with entrance into paradise,
or the House of Song, the wicked condemned to the House of Evil. In an
ancient hymn, Zoroaster declares,
Truly, there are two primal Spirits, twins renowned to be in conflict. In
thought and word, in act they are two: the better and the bad. And
those who act well have chosen rightly between these two, not so the
evildoers. (Yasna 30:3).
Zoroaster was not a strict monotheist. He posited a Divine Heptad consisting
of Ahura Mazda and six lesser deities whom he created to help him, called
the Amesha Spentas (Holy Immortals). These subordinate divinities
Zoroaster associated with the idealization of Right Law, Good Thought or
Purpose, Noble Power or Government, Health, Devotion, and Immortality, all
of which he saw as embodiments of aspects of God's nature.
The Zoroastrian duality between good and evil should not be confused with
the opposition of matter and spirit that drives Christian theology and plays
as that of Manichaeism, a Gnostic-influenced religion initiated in the 3rd
century CE by the Persian prophet and ecstatic Mani, who saw spirit as good
and matter as evil. Fasting and celibacy, for instance, are forbidden in
Zoroastrianism, except during the rituals of purification that all young
members must go through, and are actually condemned as evil.
Of the various Zoroastrian systems that developed since the founder's death,
including Zurvanism, the only coherent one is called Mazdaism. According to
its teachings, history, which consists of the ongoing struggle between good
and evil in which overmatched evil will lose, is divided into four
3,000-year periods. The first was a period of creation; during the second
and third, Mazda and Ahriman ruled in succession. In the final period, which
began with Zarathustra's ministry and in which we still find ourselves, good
and evil do battle. With the help of the Messiah, or Saoshyant (He who will
save the world), the God of Light will be victorious. According to this
plan, history will end in 2401 CE, and Ahura Mazda will reign in bliss
forever on a perfected earth.
RE: http://www.myss.com/worldreligions/Zoroastrianism.asp
==
And the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the
males...and the children of Israel took all the women of Midian
captive, and their little ones... And Moses said unto them, Have
ye saved all the women alive?... Now therefore kill every male
among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man
by lying with him. But all the women children that hath not known
man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Numbers 31:1-18

Deut 20:10-18 When you march up to attack a city, make its
people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the
people in it shall be subject to *** forced labor*** and shall work for you.
v:12 If they refuse ...lay siege to that city...put to the sword all
the men in it... the women, the children, the livestock and
everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed
at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the
man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he
is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who
broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges
for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl,
but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and
then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or
fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these
three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.
> (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)
--
Leviticus 25:44-46: Your male and female slaves are to come
from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.
You may also buy some of the temporary residents living
among you and members of their clans born in your country,
and they will become your property. You can will them to your
children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life,
but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly. (NIV)
==
We are told that Mark was written some time after the year 70, Luke about 110,
Matthew about 130, and John not earlier than 140 A.D. Let me impress upon you
that these dates are conjectural, and that they are made as early as possible.
The first historical mention of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, was made
by the Christian Father, St. Irenaeus, about the year 190 A.D. The only earlier
mention of any of the Gospels was made by Theopholis of Antioch, who mentioned
the Gospel of John in 180 A.D.
==
Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition,
and Other Confusions of Our Time, Owl Books; 2nd Rev edition (September 1,
2002)
Robert T. Carroll, The Skeptic's Dictionary, Wiley; 1st edition (August 15,
2003)

Carroll. Robert Todd, Robert T. Carroll, Kas Salazar, Becoming a Critical
Thinker
- A Guide for the New Millennium, Prentice Hall; 1 edition (January 1, 2000)

Natalie Angier, My God Problem, Free Inquiry magazine, 24(5), 2004.

Ali Sina, James Randi, Brent Meeker & Aparthib, Debate on Rationalism,
Mukto-Mona Yuktibaadi, An Indian Skeptic's explanation of miracles
Mukto-Mona
==
The four gospels were written by persons unknown. The names that you
know them by were attributed hundreds of years after they were
written. The earliest of the gospels, Mark, was written by someone
unfamiliar with the geography of Palestine, Galilee, Jerusalem, in
fact the entire region known as the holy land. He was probably
Greek. Matthew, the second gospel, was written by someone who
plagiarized half of Mark's text in order to make a story, so he
couldn't possibly have been an eye witness. Luke copied from Mark and
from a fifth gospel known to scholars as the 'Q' document which was
either lost or destroyed. John just cobbled together bits and pieces
from here there and everywhere. The last bit, the bit about Jesus
forgiving the woman caught in the act of adultery, wasn't interpolated
until the end of the fourth century.
==
Matthew 18:25: But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord
commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all
that he had, and payment to be made.
--
Colossians 4:1: Masters, give unto your servants that which
is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
===
If you look at Exodus 20, you may notice that there are not actually
ten distinct commandments there. There are about 17 distinct commands
comprising 9 separate topics, and you have to arbitrarily divide them
up in order to make them come out to ten.
==
If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years.
Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his
freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married
afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was
married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with
him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they
had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year,
but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the
slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my
children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his master
must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the
door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave
will belong to his master forever. > (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)
==
I will incite the wild beasts of the field against you, and they will bereave
you, utterly destroy your livestock and diminish you, and your roads will
become desolate
===
Within days of being sworn in as President in January, 2000, George W.
Bush signed a series of Executive Orders to create wide sweeping
reforms that allow the government to fund religion-based social
services. George Bush has bypassed Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court in
directing over a billion dollars into the coffers of religious groups.
==
2Pet. 1:20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of
Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation.
2Pet. 1:21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but
men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
==
In sin did my mother conceive me (Psalm 51:5)
==
It has long been recognized that there were a few problems with the
traditional view of Moses as author. The text reports the death of
Moses--how could Moses have written of his own death? It also
describes Moses as the most humble man who ever lived--how could
Moses write that about himself? But these are minor issues. Some say
Moses' successor Joshua wrote the few lines that describe the death
of Moses; others say that Moses himself was commanded to write that
text before it happened. None of this represents a serious challenge
to Mosaic authorship.
As time went on, however, scholars became increasingly skeptical of
the idea of Moses as single author. Among their objections:
Several stories are repeated, with different characters or different
emphasis (called doublets). For instance, there are two creation
stories (Gen 1 and Gen 2). There are three stories of a patriarch
traveling among pagans and pretending his wife is his sister. There
are two stories of Moses striking a rock to produce water. There are
two versions of the Ten Commandments (one in Exodus, one that Moses
recaps in Deuteronomy) with slightly different wording. There are, in
fact, a lot of these doublets.
There are internal inconsistencies. The number of days of the Flood
story don't add up right. At one point, Noah takes two of each
animal; at another point, he takes two of some, seven of others.
Joseph is sold into slavery to Ishmaelites in one verse, to
Midianites a few verses later. The Mountain of Revelation is
sometimes called Sinai and sometimes Horeb. Moses' father-in-law is
sometimes called Yitro and sometimes Ruel, and so on.
===
Malachi 2:3 -- Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon
your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you
away with it.
==
On Nov. 1, 1755, a great earthquake struck offshore of Lisbon. In that city
alone, some 60,000 perished, first from the tremors, then from the massive
tsunami that arrived half an hour later. Fires consumed much of what remained
of the city. The tidal waves spread death along the coasts of Iberia and North
Africa.
===
Other pagan cultures contributed to the syncretist result. From Egypt
came the ideas of a divine trinity, the Last Judgment, and a personal
immortality of reward and punishment; from Egypt the adoration of the
Mother and Child, and the mystic theosophy that made Neoplatonism and
Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian creed; there, too, Christian
monasticism would find its exemplars and its source. From Phrygia came
the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria the resurrection drama of
Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps the cult of Dionysus, the dying and saving
god. From Persia came millenarianism, the ages of the world, the
final conflagration, the dualism of Satan and God, of Darkness and
Light; already in the Forth Gospel Christ is the Light shining in the
darkness, and the darkness has never put it out. The Mithraic ritual so
closely resembled the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian
fathers charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead
frail minds. Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient
pagan world. [Will and Ariel Durant, _The Story of Civilization_]
==
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 states: If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son,
which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother....
all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die. Tough love
==
The Council of Trent (1545-1564) placed the Bible on its list of prohibited
books, and forbade any person to read the Bible without a license from a
Roman Catholic bishop or inquisitor.
The Council added these words: That if any one shall dare to read or keep in
his possession that book, without such a license, he shall not receive
absolution till he has given it up to his ordinary.

Pope Leo XII called the Protestant Bible the Gospel of the Devil in an
encyclical letter of 1824. Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846) railed against the
publication, distribution, reading, and possession of books of the holy
Scriptures translated into the vulgar tongue. Pope Leo XII, in January 1850,
condemned the Bible Societies and admitted the fact that the distribution of
Scripture has long been condemned by the holy chair.
==
The Lost Religion of Jesus by Keith Akers
==
The Testimonium Flavianum is not to be found in early copies of the works
of Josephus and was not quoted by any Christian until the 4th century,
even though it was written around 93CE. Origen, an early Church Father,
quotes freely from Josephus yet never mentions it.
The first person to mention the passage was Bishop Eusibus, who said it
was permissible for Christians to lie to further Christianity, in the 4th
century.
==
According to the 2004 Newsweek Poll, 93% of Americans think Jesus Christ
was an historical personality, and 82% claimed he was God or the son
of God. Fifty-two percent believed in the Second Coming (only 21%
disbelieving), and 15% saying that Jesus would return in their lifetime.
==
The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to
revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve
and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It
regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the
family as the basis of national life. Adolph Hitler, My New World Order,
Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933

The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on
which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection
to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today
Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our
culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the
recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in
the press-- in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality
which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of
LIBERAL excess during the past years. A. Hitler

The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in
his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially
of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word
be desecrated.
For God's will gave men their form, their essence, and their
abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's
creation, the divine will. Therefore, let every man be active, each in
his own denomination if you please, and let every man take it as his
first and most sacred duty to oppose anyone who in his activity by
word or deed steps outside the confines of his religious community and
tries to butt into the other.
... Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will
of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am
fighting for the work of the Lord.\
- Adolf Hitler, \Mein Kampf\
I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so...
- Adolf Hitler
My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a
fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded
only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and
summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest
not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the
passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and
seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and
adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.
Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more
profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had
to shed his blood upon the Cross.
As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I
have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice...\
And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting
rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I
have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see
them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they
have only for their wages wretchedness and misery.
When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their
queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no
Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not,
as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom
today this poor people are plundered and exploited.
- Adolf Hitler, My New Order
==
The laws of uncleanness are also instructive. In Leviticus 12, the
period of ritual uncleanness for bearing a girl was twice that for
bearing a boy. Having marital sex automatically conferred uncleanness on
both man and woman, and the menstrual period made the woman unclean on a
regular basis every month. She was considered so unclean, in fact, that
if a man should sit on something she had sat on, he became unclean! Read
Leviticus 15.

If a man raped an unpromised girl, she was forced to become his wife. And he
couldn't divorce her, either. Deuteronomy 22:28-29.

The story is told about a man who traveled with his concubine. He went into a
house to have a restful night, and left his concubine outside to entertain the
men of the town and ensure his safety. When she died as a result, he chopped
her up into twelve parts and sent them throughout Israel and started the
Benjamite war.

Christ taught that if a man divorced
his wife for any reason other than unfaithfulness, she could not remarry
without committing adultery. Even if she was the faithful one, and he
unfaithful, divorce and remarriage for her was a sin thrust upon her
(Matthew 5). Yet in Matthew 19 we find that a man could remarry if he
divorced an unfaithful wife without sin being acquired. Get the double
standard? Note that the wife couldn't divorce her husband for any reason.

Women in that culture were not allowed to teach,
to pray in the Synagogues, or to study the Torah. Most were uneducated.
Attendance at the Rabbinical schools was exclusively for the men.
As such, the women did not have the theological background to teach, and
Paul commanded them to be silent in the church. If they wished to learn
anything they should ask their husbands at home (1 Corinthians
14:26-40). They were to cover their hair as a sign of submission to
their husband (1 Corinthians 11:2-16), and Paul plainly declares,
Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
Peter declares that the woman is the weaker vessel (1 Peter 3:1-7) and
commands that women be in subjection. Paul expressly gave government of
the church to the men (1 Timothy 3:1-16 and Titus 1-2). Since the women
were uneducated, how could they teach? And in the one church we have
record of a woman leading (Thyatira, Revelation 2:18-29) she stands
accused of false doctrine and sexual immorality. Her children were to be
sentenced to death for her misdeeds (so much for Ezekiel 18:19-20)!
Now it is true that the New Testament says that there is neither Jew
nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor
female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). But such
niceties did not undo the distinctions between any class. Slaves were
not freed, and women were not given the privilege of teaching. 1 Timothy
2:11-15 makes this plain: Let the woman learn in silence with all
subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority
over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the
transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if
they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
So then why do our women today enjoy the freedoms and status they
possess? It was not because of preachers in the pulpit! Sermons by the
hundreds decried giving women the vote. Every advance that woman have
made in society have been opposed by the pulpit, preachers decrying that
women have left their place. Yet with each advance, time has brought a
measure of acceptance, and a corresponding change in theology and a
difference in how women are portrayed from the pulpit. Culture does have
a lot to do with one's theology! It is notable that the cults which
reject the popular culture generally relegate women back to the status
of servitude and unobjecting submission to male authorities.
The commandments concerning women in the Bible may well have been to
provide a measure of protection against the much harsher realities in
the world around them. Yet women were lightly regarded, generally, and
such disrespect for women has been justified by preaching from the Bible
for generations. Women actually had a lot higher status in many heathen
nations, such as Rome, than were found in Israel or in the churches.

And a man will choose...any wickedness, but the wickedness of a
Ecclesiasticus, 25:18, 19 & 33. 1
for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a
perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman
comes from defect in the active power.... Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologica,Q92, art. 1, Reply Obj. 1
And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares
and nets, and her hands as bands: whose pleaseth God shall escape from
her; but the sinner shall be taken by her. Ecclesiastes 7:26, from
the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament)
http://www.religioustolerance.org/fem_bibl.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ofe_bibl.htm

==
2 Th 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that
they should believe a lie: (KJV)
==
Americans are three times as likely to believe in the
Virgin Birth of Jesus (83 percent) as in evolution (28 percent).
==
The bible says to put disobedient children to death, Exodus 21:15,17
==
Among Christians, doubters are treated as traitors, and inconvenient facts are
the work of the Devil  because facts can lead to questioning, and questioning
undermines faith. And that would be blasphemy, which leads to eternal hell
fire.
==
Top ten signs that you are a Fundamentalist...
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other
religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and dehumanized when scientists say that people evolved
from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we
were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune
God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the atrocities attributed to
Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered
all the babies of Egypt in Exodus and ordered the elimination of entire
ethnic groups in Joshua -- including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods
sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit
impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to
life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the
scientifically established age of Earth (4.55 billion years), but you find
nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in
their tents and guessing that Earth is a couple of generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of
those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects -
will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your
religion the most tolerant and loving.

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to
convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in
tongues may be all the evidence you need to prove Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a high success rate when it comes to answered
prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that
the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the
Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.
==
There might be a genetic basis for spirituality. There's an interesting book
out called, The God Gene by Dean Hamer. Basically he posits our brains evolved
in such a way that the capacity for spiritually
or God, had a positive evolutionary benefit. Our ancestors who lacked
this ability to think spiritual thoughts were at a disadvantage and were
killed off/bred out of the population. This is why 98% of humanity believes
in something that doesn't exist--it made sense way back when. Especially
because things like earthquakes, floods, lightning, death, reproduction and
famine certainly didn't.
==
Thomas Frank's What's The Matter With Kansas? In one of the later chapters,
Frank talks about how religious nut jobs--who are apparently real common in
Kansas--are not only taking over the state's political apparatus, but are
doing so without economic compensation.. These folks' insane love of Jesus
(and all-consuming hatred of evolution) is causing them to work very hard to
redistrict the political landscape, And the kicker is, THEY DON'T CARE. The
deeply religious don't want any money for their efforts because there is no use
for money in heaven! Insanity, pure and simple insanity, and it is brought
about, fostered and trumpeted by religion.
==
Cruel and Unusual, by Mark Crispin Miller

Freethinkers, by Susan Jacoby
==
There was no OFFICIAL canon of any kind, either in Judaism or Christianity,
until 94 AD. And that one was Pharisaic. The first OFFICIAL Christian canons
are from the 4th Century.
==
Creation is fine in a comparative religion class, fine, but not a science
class. We do not simply toss any old superstitious garbage into a science
class. Science class material must first be published, peer reviewed, and
become established consensus science before it may be summarized and printed in
a public school science textbook.
==
the Lemon Test, is derived from a 1971 Supreme Court decision
(Lemon v. Kurtzman): first, a statute [or public policy] must have a
secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect
must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the
statute [or policy] must not foster `excessive government entanglement with
religion.'
==
When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord
thy God hath delivered them into thine hands and thoust has taken
them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and
have a desire unto her, that though would have her to be thy wife,
then though shalt bring her home to thine house . . . and after that
you may go into her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
But if though have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go.
Deuteronomy 21:10-14
==
Similarly while creationists want their kooky religious nonsense
taught in the science classroom they don't want other kooky ideas
taught as science. Ask YECers if numerology, astrology, alien
abduction, psychism or alchemy should be taught as valid science.
==
The letter that Paul wrote to the slave owner was appealing to the
owner's will to release the slave, not because it was right, but
because the slave was a fellow Christian. I interpret this as not
necessarily an appeal to release all slaves, but releasing all
Christian slaves. See the difference? The slaves who refuse
Christianity are out of  luck.
==
Some creationists would say that you are doing the same thing - that is if
you also believe that the Earth is a sphere or if you do not believe in
geocentrism.
As one of many examples that I could give you, you might like to visit the
web site site http://www.truechristian.com/03.html. At that site you will
read these words written by someone named Pastor Jim Nicholls who runs The
True Christian Church of Christ in Blytheville, Arkansas:
The Earth IS flat! If you disregard the dome, the essential flatness of
the earth's surface is required by verses like Daniel 4:10-11.
He goes on to mention a half-dozen other Biblical verses that require a
flat earth unless someone means to reinterpret Scripture to fit with
popular scientific views.
==
Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins

God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory
Niall Shanks, Richard Dawkins
==
Mark 9:43
And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to
enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into
the fire that never shall be quenched:
--
Ex. 21:5 But if the slave declares, 'I love my master and my wife and
children and do not want to go free,'
Ex. 21:6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to
the door or the door post and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he
will serve his master for life.
==
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth... (Isaiah 40:22,
NIV). (By the way, the Hebrew language at that time did not have a
word for sphere, only for circle.)

He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends
the earth over nothing (Job 26:7, NIV).
===
Yet even highly respected CHRISTIAN Biblical Scholars like Bruce
Metzger teach that the Gospels are NOT independent accounts; that they
were not written until at least a generation after the supposed death
of Christ; and that their contents evolved to meet the needs of the
early church.
See: http://ptet.dubar.com/misc-facts.html#NT
===
Sir Leslie Stephen, Essays on Freethinking and Plainspeaking (1905)

Aroup Chatterjee, an atheist lawyer and author originally from India,
his book The Final Verdict, about Mother Teresa
==
As Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court explained,
the Bible teaches and Christians believe that
government derives its moral authority from God. Government is the
minister of God with powers to revenge to execute wrath,
including even wrath by the sword.
==
Leviticus 20:9:
For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely
put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood
shall be upon him.
==
Any human has the capacity to lie, no one here has
ever denied this. But physical evidence does NOT lie (though it may
be misinterpreted). This is precisely why science does NOT depend
upon the assertions of humans, but upon the independent examination
and analysis of the actual physical evidence. The entire edifice of
Christianity, by contrast, relies SOLELY on the assertions of these
fallible humans. Furthermore, the creationist subset among these
Christians not only blindly accepts the assertions of these ancient
humans but they actively reject the objective physical evidence before their
very eyes- which, ironically, they insist was made by their God!
==
The Rapture (or a pre-tribulation Rapture) was invented in 1830
by an Irvingite seeress named Margaret McDonald, and was publicized
by Rev. Darby, of the Plymouth Brethren. It was never taught before 1830
==
The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness by
Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore.
==
Evolution vs. Creationism : An Introduction by Eugenie C. Scott
Creationism's Trojan Horse by Barbara Carroll Forrest, Paul R. Gross
--
The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, James VanderKam and Peter
Flint. Harper (San Francisco) 2002.
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity,
Carsten Peter Thiede, Palgrave (for St. Martin's Press), 2001.
The Ancient Near East, Volume I, An Anthology of Texts and
Pictures, Ed. James B. Pritchard, Princeton University Press
(Princeton) 1958. (Abridged version.)
==
Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their
little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes.
Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking
hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount
of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot
down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on
helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children.
(Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)
==
1 Kings 22:21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said,
'I will entice him.'
1 Kings 22:22 'By what means?' the LORD asked. 'I will go out and be a
lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,' he said. 'You will succeed
in enticing him,' said the LORD. 'Go and do it.'

Lord did not know and had to ask.
Did the Lord encourage lying?
==
John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke: A Fresh Assault on the
Synoptic Problem (Downers Grove, Ill.:

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
==
Quotations of Papias' work show how destructive this 'preference for oral
tradition' was, since Papias apparently recorded the most outlandish claims
as if they were true, such as the fact that Judas' head bloated to greater
than the width of a wagon trail and his eyes were lost in the flesh, and that
the place where he died maintained a stench so bad that no one, even to his
own day, would go near it
The situation evident in Papias is that there is little regard for any written
Gospels, in contrast with nearly complete faith in oral tradition, with little
critical thought being applied. More importantly, the context seems to be one
where there were perhaps no set written Gospels in his day, but an array of
variously-worked texts.
==
Religious experiences are like those induced by drugs, alcohol,
mental illness, and sleep deprivation: They tell no uniform or
coherent story, and there is no plausible theory to account for
discrepancies among them. --[Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical
Justification, (Philadelphia:Temple University Press, 1990), p. 159.]
==
Kersey Graves  'Sixteen Crucified Saviours'
==
Deu28:27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors,
festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. (NIV)
==
Candide
by Voltaire. Published in 1759, Candide was banned by the Catholic Church.
Bishop Etienne Antoine wrote: We prohibit, under canonical law, the printing
or sale of these books...
==
In a talk with someone who runs the local Sunday school I said that if
someone could provide irrefutable proof that God existed, then I would
hold my hands up and say 'Well then, I am wrong there is a God'.
I then asked them if there were irrefutable proof that God DID NOT
exist, would they accept it.
They said NO they would not accept that there was no God.
What hope is there for reality and rationality ?
==
NATURE SURVEY -- LESS AND LESS BELIEF
The follow-up study reported in Nature reveals that the rate
of belief is lower than eight decades ago. The latest survey
involved 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences; half
replied. When queried about belief in personal god, only 7%
responded in the affirmative, while 72.2% expressed personal
disbelief, and 20.8% expressed doubt or agnosticism. Belief
in the concept of human immortality, i.e. life after death declined
from the 35.2% measured in 1914 to just 7.9%. 76.7% reject the
human immortality tenet, compared with 25.4% in 1914, and 23.2%
claimed doubt or agnosticism on the question, compared with
43.7% in Leuba's original measurement [Dr. James Leuba,
Psychology Professor at Bryn Mawr University conducted the
original study]. Again, though, the highest rate of belief in
a god was found among mathematicians (14.3%, while the lowest
was found among those in the life sciences fields -- only 5.5%.
==
Charles Kimball's insightful book When Religion Becomes Evil
==
So how exactly are nonbelievers supposed to become believers?
As far as I can tell you are saying:
1:We need the Holy Spirit to tell us to believe.
2:The Holy Sprit only talks to people who believe in it in the first place.
Catch 22!
==
Deu28:28 The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of
mind. (NIV)
==
The then-current requirement to enter Oxford or Cambridge was you had to
profess to be a believing adherent to the Church of England. Being a Catholic,
Methodist, Jew, Muslim was not acceptable. There was a big fuss made when a
new university was founded that needed no religious test at all to enter. And
it was a requirement in the 19th C. that to be a member of Parliament you
had to be a Christian (which was, I believe, the main reason Disraeli
converted).
==
The eight elements of the Buddhist Eightfold Path are right intention, right
views, right speech, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration,
right livelihood, and right action.
==
Things I have never heard from a preacher.
Slavery is an evil system.
It is evil to invade lands of another people and kill/enslave the owners.
It is evil to smash a baby against a rock.
Teachers have civil rights, particularly science teachers.
==
Inquisition and the witch hunters. The pain and fire didn't purify them. Only
sincere repentance and disavowal of their heresy, and the administration of
the sacraments of the Church, through which flowed God's grace, was
able to accomplish this (according to Medieval Church doctrine).
My understanding is that, once they had been tortured, once they had
confessed, once they had repented, once they were brought back into
communion with the Church, then they were usually let loose to live
their lives. If they *again* fell into heresy, then the process was
repeated all over again, except that instead of being let loose to
live their lives, they were put to death. This was (according to
Medieval Church doctrine) for their own good, and for the good of the
community.
If you want to learn about the theological rationale they used to
justify this policy, Look up the relevant text
from Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica.
==
We (the Popes) hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.
Pope Leo XIII, THE GREAT ENCYCLICAL LETERS OF POPE LEO XIII,
page 304
The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not a
mere man, but as it were God, and the vicar of God. 'The Pope is
as it were God on earth. - Lucius Ferrais,Papa, article 2
in his PROMPTA BIBLIOTECA (Handy Library), Volume 6, pages 26-29.
==
The reason why majority vote rules is not because a majority is more likely
to reach a correct decision than a minority, or because a majority is more
likely ot possess better and more varied information upon which to
base its decision or anything like that --- it is based on the simple
fact that a majority has the strength to enforce its collective
==
Literalists are willing to spend their life looking for little
loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth
(4.55 billion years), but you find nothing wrong with
believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting
in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few thousand years old.
==
Deu28:27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors,
festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. (NIV)
==
Does pretending that everyone who ever disagreed with you is in Eternal
Torment make Christians feel good about themselves?
==
In the late 1800's and early 1900's in Australia, you could be arrested and
tried for not attending church on a Sunday)
==
: Gopher wood is a misreading and scribal error. Kopher wood is correct
and means wood (any wood) that is covered with Kopher. Kopher is bitumen. In
the Genesis text (6:14), the context is clear. The GPR wood used, (a scribal
error) is to be covered in KPR. G and K in Hebrew are so similar that
inexperienced Hebrew scholars, such as those translating the King
James Version of the Bible, could have been prone to such errors
==
THE FLOATING AX HEAD 2 KINGS 6:1-7
==
We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so
as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry
on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that
sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually
on a battlefield. --George Orwell, 1946, Under Your Nose
==
Let me get this straight, you say that the contention that you have
got to believe in it before you can see the 'proof' of it, is
false... and claim that the real issue is trust. Can you explain to
me how this trust is not based on belief? In other words, if you did
not firmly believe in God in the first place, how could you trust him?
And what exactly is this direct experience of which you speak? Is it
a *real* experience (like meeting or speaking to someone) or just a
state of mind?
==
Let me ask you something... if an avowed atheist was given a drug that
altered his mind permanently to believe in, and lovingly worship God,
exactly as you do... would he be saved? Is salvation just a state of
mind, or is it a matter of how well you have lived your life through
interaction with others?
==
: Genesis, Chapter No. 4, Verse No. 12, it says 'God told Cain: you will
never be able to settle you will be a wanderer.' Few Verses later on Genesis,
Chapter No.4, Verse No.17, says 'Cain built up a city' - unfulfilled prophecy.

Jeremiah, Chapter No.36, Verse No.30, it says that 'Jehoiachin the father of
Jehoiachin no one will be able to sit on his throne - The throne of David, no
one will be able to sit after Jehoiachin.' If you read later on, II Kings,
Chapter No 24, Verse No 6, it says that 'Jehoiachin after he died, later on
Jehoiachin sat on the throne' - Unfulfilled prophecy.

Ezekiel chapter 26, it says that 'Nebuchader, he will destroy Tyre.' We come
to know that Alexander the great was the person who destroyed Tyre ...
Another UNFULFILLED PROPHECY in the bible
==
*All* extra-biblical societies (which is, the majority of all
societies in human history) have concepts of right and wrong. Those
concepts arise out of a simple fact: if you don't follow them, you die.
Not in the sense that others will kill you, but in the very simple sense
that if you do wrong in or to the community, your very environment is
sufficient to kill you off.
People who don't protect their children usually don't get to
pass on their genes. Even if you don't believe in evolution (after all,
I don't believe in evolution; I simply conclude that it is best explanation
for all the facts available), you have to accept that ultimately any
population will settle down into a majority capable of understanding and
accepting the list of behaviors that suffice to make the community
viable; that list is what we call morals.
The Chinese had morals before Christianity; so did the
Egyptians. Morals are what works for their particular society.

The difference between theist morality and atheist morality is that
the theist relies upon God to tell him what is immoral, while the
atheist understands why something is immoral. Atheists understand
that it is wrong to force something upon someone, child or adult. We
would not like to have this done to us, so we shouldn't do it to
others. Atheists also understand that interactions between
individuals should be consensual. Children are not mature enough to
make adult decisions. That's the short version anyway.
--
Kohlberg's theory on the stages of moral development suggests that
there are six stages.
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/moral_development.html
Christians who rely upon God to tell them what is good and moral,
seldom develop past the third or fourth stage. Atheists, however,
cannot rely upon an authority figure, such as God, to justify their
moral beliefs. Atheists must understand why some things are moral or
immoral; good or bad. Thus, atheists reach the fifth stage of moral
development far more often than Christians do. Few people reach the
sixth stage.

Morals are the collection of behaviors that suffice to make a
community of individuals into a functional and viable community.
Natural selection has resulted in human beings capable of
understanding and mostly gratified by the acceptance of the community
and, by extension, its morals.
==
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/04/28/rasputin.shtml
Russian evil holy man
=====
I want as much knowledge as I can pack into
my brain in a single lifetime. I don't think my curiosity is going to lead
me to evil, but it may just lead me to a greater understanding of the world
around me, and the people that populate it. Since I'm not bundled with
baggage from some archaic Bronze Age worldview, or with a distinctly
anti-intellectual streak, I see no problem. I think if people put the
pursuit of knowledge a little more highly on their scales, the world might
be a better place, and our species are wiser, more capable one.
==
The argument you were trying to make was that if I cannot prove that
God does not exist, then I must believe that God does exist. But
there are many things that may exist in the Universe that I cannot
prove do not exist. Are you suggesting that I should believe in all
of them? How many things aren't there in the Universe that you cannot
prove do not exist? Do you believe in all of them?
==
The method used in writing the historical works of the Bible does not
correlate to our modern historical method. In fact, it doesn't even
correlate to the methodology of the Greek or Roman history writers. It
is a book of faith, and holds value there. It is a book on the
relationship of man to God, and holds value there as well. But given
our understanding of the historical method today, the Bible is not an
adequate source for historical education.
==
I'm not sure why you think lying is appropriate to children. The Bible
is neither accurate nor comprehensive in its treatment of history. To
suggest otherwise is just absurd.
==
(Interlinear Bible) Joshua 10:12-13:
Then Joshua spoke to Jehovah in the day when Jehovah gave the
Amorites up before the sons of Israel: and he said, Sun, stand still
before the eyes of Israel in Gibeon! And, Moon, stand still in the valley
of Aijalon! And the sun stood still, and the moon stood still, until the
nation was avenged on its foes. Is it not written in the Book of the
Upright? Yea, the sun stood still in the middle of the heavens,
and did not hasten to go down for a full day.
==
Inside Scientology by Robert Kaufman
==
The founders certainly were from a background in which religion was important.
Eighteenth-century America was largely Christian and overwhelmingly Protestant,
and the dominant Protestant denominations (Congregationalism in New England,
the Anglican Church in the South) even enjoyed state subsidies. 
 In other words, young America may have been a
Christian nation, but it wasn't a very tolerant one.
But the founders were also children of the great intellectual ferment known as
the Enlightenment. In the debate over the place of God in public America, few
framers are cited more often than Ben Franklin. In the summer of 1787, with the
Constitutional Convention haggling over the nation's fate, Franklin proposed
opening the day's meetings with a prayer, a proposal often cited by
public-prayer advocates. But these advocates leave out the rest of the story.
After Franklin's motion, Alexander Hamilton argued that if people knew that the
delegates were resorting to prayer, it would be seen as an act of desperation.
Then Hugh Williamson of North Carolina pointed out that the convention lacked
the money to pay for a chaplain, and there the proposition died. Franklin later
noted, The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers
unnecessary.
Alongside Franklin's doomed proposal, George Washington's religious fervor is
often cited. The father of our country was a regular churchgoer, but what's
left out of the story is that he usually left services before Communion. He was
a deist who called on Providence, an amorphous power he referred to as it.
Nominally Episcopalian, Washington was also a Freemason, along with many other
founders. A semisecret society, Organized Freemasonry was formed in London in
1717 by a group of anticlerical free thinkers dedicated to the ideals of
charity, equality, morality and service to the Great Architect of the Universe.
Then there is Jefferson, who inveighed against every form of tyranny over the
mind of man, by which he meant organized religion. In 1786, his Statute for
Religious Freedom was approved by the Virginia Legislature through the efforts
of James Madison, a chief architect of the Constitution and later an opponent
of the practice of paying a Congressional chaplain. This statute guaranteed
every Virginian the freedom to worship in the church of his choice and ended
state support of the Anglican Church.
But more important than the founderąs private faith was the concept that they
all embraced passionately: the freedom to practice religion, as well as not to.
They had risked their lives to free America from a country with an official
religion and a king who claimed a divine right. They believed that government's
purpose was to protect people's earthly rights, not their heavenly fates. As
for Jefferson, he wrote that it made no difference to him whether his neighbor
affirmed one God or 20, since, he added, It neither picks my pocket nor breaks
my leg.
It was this concept  that the government should neither enforce, encourage or
otherwise intrude on religion  that found its way into the godless
Constitution in the form of the First Amendment. Even the presidential oath of
office, which is laid out in the Constitution, does not mention the deity.
George Washington ad libbed the So help me God at his inaugural ceremony.
Every president since has added this personal oath. They choose to say it; the
Constitution does not compel it.
==
Isis was walking about in the evening and Thoth appeared before her and told
her that she would bear a child that she would call Horus. But my husband is
dead this long time, she answered. Nevertheless this shall come to pass said
Thoth the god of magic and writing and medicine.
==
Into this fold of Jesus Christ no man may enter unless he be led by the
Sovereign Pontiff, and only if they be united to him can men be saved. Pope
John XXIII
==
Lu 22:36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take
it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his
garment, and buy one.

Mt 26:52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place
for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
==
2Deu 20:17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the
Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites;
as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:
==
Paul knew nothing about any appearance to women---he states that Jesus first
appeared to Peter....he clearly did not know the gospel accounts at all.
==
God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism
and Polytheism, by Jonathan Kirsch, 2004, 336 pp. New York: Penguin.
==
When things are known, that is to say, we conceive them as natural, on
Man's level; when they are unknown, we call them divine -- as if our
ignorance of a thing were the stamp of its divinity.
Henry Drummond The Ascent of Man
==
http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Secret/letter-engl.html
Clement writes... And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the
evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And
he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the
kingdom of God.
==
Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his
mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation
that she carried out with the sun. When he frowned, his father, the
sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed
whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with 10,000 gallons of
human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten
Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother Tezcatilpoca.
Tezcatilpoca was almost as powerful; he consumed 25,000 virgins a year.
==
Religious Zealots aren't allowed to believe
in evolution because you're entire FAITH is based on a perfect Bible
and you having the perfect interpretation of it. You cannot change
your mind about your stances because, if you do, you're entire faith
would come crumbling down. One little mistake in your Dogma means
it's no longer perfect, which is what it's ALL based on... perfection.
==
Hyper-religion and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
V. S. Ramachandran, in Phantoms in the Brain : Probing the Mysteries of
the Human Mind
describes a personality type associates with temporal lobe epilepsy. The
seizures themselves are interpreted by the patient as deeply and
profoundly religious, perhaps because of the proximity to the emotional
limbic system. But there also are often permanent effects on
personality. Victims attribute deep significance to everything, tend to
be pedantic, argumentative, egocentric, and garrulous. Also obsessed
with abstract thoughts, and writing, especially detailed diaries. I
once asked a certain GS whether he might have temporal lobe epilepsy,
but received no response. He seems obsessed with himself.
==
The underlying assumption of creationists seems to be that if one thing is
wrong, everything must be wrong. I find this particular brittleness of
truth notion to be characteristic of certain sorts of conservative
faiths; it is foreign to science and observation. (It's found, for
example, in the fundamentalist claim that if a single contradiction is
found in the Bible, or a single biblical story can be found to be
false, then faith must crumble; hence the vehement and absurd
insistence that every single thing in the bible must be literally true
-- hence YECism.) If new data shows that a given model of a given
phenomenon is wrong, we replace that one model with something that
fits the new data. Phenomena that aren't related to that data don't
have to be revised.

Fundamentalists try to practice science the same way they practice their
sectarian conflicts. This by uncritical reliance on quotes as final authority,
without considering they could be taken out of context or be based on obsolete
data. The do not separate the philosophical comments of scientists from those
based on peer reviewed hard data.
==
Why was Margaret Sanger jailed in 1917?
Margaret Sanger was jailed for a month in a workhouse for founding
a clinic that dispensed contraceptives.
==
I believe I have located the source of the phrase God of the gaps
which previously we have assigned to Bonhoeffer.
In 1894, Henry Drummond published _The Ascent of Man_, on page 426 of
There are reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of Nature and
the books of science in search of gaps---gaps which they will fill up
with God. As if God lived in gaps.
Drummond had previously published _Natural Law in the spiritual world_
in which he had argued in just this way. He had come a long way, and
called himself a foolish man for arguing that God existed only in the gaps.
This can be found on pages 182f of James Y Simpson's _Landmarks in the
struggle between science and religion_, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925.
God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain
those things that you do not understand. Now, when you finally discover
how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from
God; you don't need him anymore.- R. Feynman
The interesting thing is that people are always *demanding* that
you fill these gaps. They're extremely uncomfortable with I don't
know. So they feel compelled to make up just-so stories and gods to
fill in the gaps in our knowledge and expect you to do the same. That
seems to be the situation here. Both evolution and creationism are ways
of filling gaps in our knowledge. When you say I don't know you're
accused of avoiding the issue. There seems to be no way to honestly deal
with gaps in our knowledge that will satisfy everyone.
In my opinion, this is a basic characteristic of human intelligence
and human consciousness. Our brains do this all the time, as pointed out
by many studies. Our minds take what information it has and then fills
in the blanks so as to create a rational image. There's no reason why
human minds should not deal with gaps in knowledge in the same way.
==
Joel 3:9 Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty
men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:4 (King James Version)
==
Gallup polls in the 1990s found that 53 percent of American adults said
they had had a moment of sudden religious awakening or insight.
==
It's because they are sold a solution to an intrinsically concocted and
manufactured problem. Like most sales techniques, it frequently requires
the Salesman to create a need in the consumer. How many people end up
buying things they would not have dreamed of; or unsold items they don't
need, by a good salesman?
Religious hucksters manufacture a problem, all men are sinners, and thus
guilty and going to Hell; then the religious-salesman offers his mesmerized
audience a solution, forensic freedom from guilt via a substitute for sin
and eventually heaven as a final reward.
==
When you get sick, do you advise your doctors to reject their
materialistic naturalistic atheistic secularist biases, and to look
for non-materialist non-naturalistic non-secularist causes for your
illness, such as, say, evil spirits or demon possession or witchcraft
or curses or The Evil Eye? Or do you ask your materialist secularist
naturalist doctors to use materialistic naturalistic secularist
antibiotics to treat your materialistic naturalistic secularist
diseases by killing your materialistic naturalistic secularist germs.
Are you just a secularist materialistic naturalistic atheist at heart,
==
Lot's wife
Gen 19:26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a
pillar of salt.
===
Job 9:6 Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof
tremble.

Job 26:11 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.

Psa 75:3 The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved:
I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.
==
Christopher Caudwell: Illusion and Reality; Lawrence
& Wishart Ltd., London and International Publishers, New York;
1973/1977; SBN 85315 263 2].

Bruno Bauer, BRUNO BAUER AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY
==
So far, the inquiry into biological life has failed to show that the limits
to naturalistic explanations have been reached, despite the
clamoring noise of those who cannot read their Bibles in any other
fashion but the most literal possible. Their book says that God
commanded the sea and the land to bring forth life in various and
abundant forms, yet when science tries to describe HOW these commands
were obeyed, the literalists start a campaign of vilification, lies,
misquotes, and innuendoes in direct, defiant, flagrant violation of God's
express commandments. And they do this in God's name, taking it in vain.
Apparently they believe these sins will make their deity happy.
Personally, I can think of only one deity who would be made happy by such
behavior in a Christian and that is the false deity sometimes spoken of
as the father of lies.
==
What was life expectancy like in the early days of America?
People did not generally live long. In George Washington's day, average life
expectancy for men was just 34 years and only 36 years for women. A hundred
years and modern medicine can make a lot of difference!
I wonder if prayer would have helped them live longer.
==
Pro 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I [was] there: when he set a
compass upon the face of the depth: Flat earth?
====
A Poll taken in 2003 found that 52 percent of Americans would be reluctant to
vote for a candidate without religion, and 41 percent would not vote for an
atheist.
==
Origen quoted the Gospel of Peter, as did Tertullian.
==
It is miraculous that Jesus could SHOUT in a loud voice from the cross.
The cross kills by making it nearly impossible to EXHALE !!!
==
There's a tale from cuneiform tablets from the 1st millennium BC which
attributes a similar tale to Sargon, King of Agade in Southern
Mesopotamia (2371-2316 BC):
My mother conceived me and bore me in secret.
She put me in a reed basket made watertight with pitch.
She left me to the river from which I could not escape.
==
Genesis 30:37-39 ~ Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane,
and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the rods. He set the
rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks at the watering troughs where
the flocks came to breed. Because they bred in front of the rods, the flocks
brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted offspring. Mendel was wrong.
==
_Lost Christianities, the battles for scriptures and the faiths we
never knew_ by Bart Ehrman
==
Why did God demand a bloody, nasty death in order to forgive mankind's sins?
Is he bound by some higher authority that requires such bloodshed?
===
The oldest complete manuscript that contains all of our present New Testament
also contains two additional writings---the Epistle of Barnabas and the
Didache---Codex Vaticanus.
==
Bishop John S. Spong (Episcopal Bishop of Newark)
Paul's words are not the Words of God. They are the words of Paul-
a vast difference. (Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, p. 104,
Harper San Francisco, 1991)
==
In Protestant thinking, the Bible tends to
be considered supreme. In order to maintain its supremacy, it must
be considered inerrant, so anything that might detract from that
inerrancy must be removed. Catholic rites, on the other hand, vest
supremacy in the sacrament of Holy Orders, the Roman rite in their
Pope, others in their bishops or, in the case of conciliarists
in the decisions of ecumenical councils.
==
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion.
Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom
they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less
easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
- Aristotle (ca. 384-322 B.C.E.) Greek philosopher
2000 Years of Disbelief, James A. Haught, ed.

We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of
truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and
superstition ... In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal
liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not
forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of
attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the
United States.
- George Washington (1732-1799) The first President of the United States
(1789-1797)

The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will
cease to be free for religion -- except for the sect that can win
political power.
- Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
(1941-1954)
dissenting opinion, Zorach v. Clauson, (April 28, 1952)

The mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free
government, even if no one is forced to participate.... When the
government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a
message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored
beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all
persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some.
- Harry Andrew Blackmun (1908-1999) Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
(1970-1994)
Majority Opinion, Lee v. Weisman, 1992

The lessons of the First Amendment are as urgent in the modern world
as the 18th Century when it was written. One timeless lesson is that
if citizens are subjected to state-sponsored religious exercises, the
State disavows its own duty to guard and respect that sphere of
inviolable conscience and belief which is the mark of a free people.
- Anthony M. Kennedy (b. 1936) Supreme Court Justice, appointed by Reagan,
confirmed 97-0 for the majority, Lee v. Weisman (1992)
==
It appears that the Mesopotamian origins of Israel are reflected in
such narratives as the Creation, the Flood, and the Tower of
Babel, and are transformed or repudiated in the biblical versions.
What in the older culture appears arbitrary and chaotic has
been changed in the Bible into stories that stress morality and
order. Further, human beings in Genesis Chapters I-II, despite
their failure to live up to God's expectations, are nevertheless
considered capable of doing so, in contrast to the Mesopotamian
view that humankind was created merely to be slaves to the gods.
This nicely illustrates the Bible as having evolved (descent with
modification) from pre-existing ideas.
==
_Lost Christianities, the battle for scriptures and the faiths we never
knew_ by Bart Ehrman
==
Here is a snippet from J.S. Mill:
It is not too much to say that every indication of Design in the
Kosmos is so much evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer. For
what is meant by Design? Contrivance: the adaptation of means to an end.
But the necessity for contrivance -- the need of employing means -- is a
consequence of the limitation of power. Who would have recourse to means
if to attain his end his mere word was sufficient? The very idea of means
implies that the means have an efficacy which the direct action of the
being who employs them has not. Otherwise they are not means, but an
encumbrance.
==
Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on
susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent
among those inclined by temperament or upbringing toward religious pursuits.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of
spiritual devotion. And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination,
all bets are suddenly off. Anything can happen. Absolutely anything. Common
sense is no match for the voice of God...
Jon Krakaurer Under the Banner of Heaven
==
Cursed be he who does the Lords work remissly, cursed he who holds back his
sword from blood. (Jeremiah 48:10 NAB)
==
Gregory XIII (1572-85) said it was not homicide to kill an embryo of
less than 40 days since it wasn't yet human.
Gregory XIII's successor, Pope Sixtus V disagreed. His Bull of 1588 made all
abortions for any reason homicide and cause for excommunication.
==
Smallpox is estimated to have killed 200 million people.
==
Mark.5 Verses 2 to 5
[2] And when he had come out of the boat, there met him out of the tombs a man
with an unclean spirit,
[3] who lived among the tombs; and no one could bind him any more, even with a
chain;
[4] for he had often been bound with fetters and chains, but the chains he
wrenched apart, and the fetters he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength
to subdue him.
[5] Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying
out, and bruising himself with stones.
==
It strikes me that religion has never been able to deal effectively with
two things: the idea of a fallibilist epistemology, and the unreasonable
success that science, using that fallibilism, has been able to achieve
where they could not.
Religion relies on infallibility of some kind, and so defines knowledge
as certainty. One has to be certain in order to know. Science does not
require this, but religionist critics of science have this sneaking
suspicion that it really is infallibilist, underneath the hood
somewhere. This is pure projection, of course - their own tradition has
suffered badly from science, and it is inconceivable that an
infallibilist tradition of certainty could be undermined by a
fallibilist tradition of pragmatic virtue.
==
Matthew Fontaine Maury is on record as having said that the scriptures
clearly indicate that the six days of the Genesis creation were not
literal days. He was a pioneer on studying ocean currents.
==
The theory of ID (every unsolved problem in biology is the result of an
Unknown Cause acting in an unknown manner for unknown reasons -- but we're
really, really sure that that Cause is intelligent, and purposeful, although of
course what that purpose might be is beyond our purview, wink, wink) taught in
public schools, it will be due to political, not scientific or philosophical
causes.
==
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
American Journal of Sociology
--
Margaret Wertheim is the author of Pythagoras' Trousers, a history of the
relationship between physics and religion
==
The Virgin Mary is an interesting prism through which to examine
America's emphasis on faith because most Biblical scholars regard the
evidence for the Virgin Birth, and for Mary's assumption into Heaven
(which was proclaimed as Catholic dogma only in 1950), as so shaky that
it pretty much has to be a leap of faith. As the Catholic theologian
Hans Kung puts it in On Being a Christian, the Virgin Birth is a
collection of largely uncertain, mutually contradictory, strongly
legendary narratives, an echo of virgin birth myths that were
widespread in many parts of the ancient world.
Jaroslav Pelikan, the great Yale historian and theologian, says in his
book Mary Through the Centuries that the earliest references to Mary
(like Mark's gospel, the first to be written, or Paul's letter to the
Galatians) don't mention anything unusual about the conception of Jesus.
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke do say Mary was a virgin, but internal
evidence suggests that that part of Luke, in particular, may have been
added later by someone else (it is written, for example, in a different
kind of Greek than the rest of that gospel).
Yet despite the lack of scientific or historical evidence, and despite
the doubts of Biblical scholars, America is so pious that not only do 91
percent of Christians say they believe in the Virgin Birth, but so do an
astonishing 47 percent of U.S. non-Christians.
--
Americans believe, 58 percent to 40 percent, that it is necessary to
believe in God to be moral. In contrast, other developed countries
overwhelmingly believe that it is not necessary. In France, only 13
percent agree with the U.S. view.
The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is
becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time. The percentage
of Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth actually rose five points
in the latest poll.
==
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims
may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons
than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who
torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with
the approval of their own conscience. C. S. Lewis
==
Christianity has many traditions and practices, and has since its
very inception. Those who garner political power and become able
to force their views on others become orthodox.
==
If we were to accept Genesis as a model of accuracy....
a number of other religious books come up to the mark, some even surpass it.
==
...Roberto Franesco Romolo Bellarmine, Italian Cardinal and
Theologian (1542-1621). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1560. He
studied theology in the school of St. Thomas Aquinas. Became an
ordained priest in 1570 and began lecturing on theology. He rejected
the Augustinian doctrines of grace and free will and was chosen by
Gregory XIII to lecture his interpretation of theology in 1576,
resulting in the acceptance of an uncompromising, Anti-Protestant
Catholic doctrine by 1592.
scientific evidence would be objectively considered by the ruling
Catholic clergy which proved to be false.
According to the French theologian Bossuet, Bellarmine was an
ultra-Papalist who asserted in his 1610 publication De potestate
summi pontificis in rebus temporalibus that the Pope had a direct
responsibility to depose unworthy (not following Papal dictates)
rulers. Bellarmine's doctrines served to validate the Catholic
inquisitions into the 19th century.
Bellarmine was beautified on May 13, 1923 and his feast is kept on May
13 by Jesuit churches. He was canonized in 1930...
In as much as Bellarmine encapsulates official religious bias of the
Catholic church in favor of the absolute authority of the Pope,
==

Advantages of being an atheist.

A. Free of superstitions. Free to make own decisions about origins,
purpose, historical issues, scientific theories that are explained
in the bible.

B. Free of rules imposed by religion or God. Free to choose among many
sets of possible rules for behavior.

C. Free of imposed morality from religion or God. Free to examine, consider,
and ultimately choose a moral code. Not only liberating, but more authentic.

D. Free of limited worldview. Free to evaluate many different ideas of
meaning, ways of educating, civilizing, punishing, etc. Free to say I
don't know.

E. Free of limited scientific view. Free to choose scientific theories
or facts that differ from Bible or other religious works. Don't take the
easy answer God did it.
==
The idea of respect for people of other religions has no basis in the
Scriptures.
==
http://guam.org.gu/hemplo/
IN THE BEGINNING there was a god named Puntan. He had lived long, long
before the sky and the earth were made. Puntan had a sister who lived
long after he died. Before Puntan died, he gave his sister all his
powers. The sister decided to make something of her brother:

WITH HIS BODY, SHE MADE THE EARTH;
WITH HIS BREAST, SHE MADE THE SKY;
WITH THE RIGHT EYE, SHE MADE THE SUN;
WITH THE LEFT EYE, SHE MADE THE STARS and the MOON;
AND WITH HIS EYEBROWS, SHE MADE THE RAINBOWS.
This works for the Guam natives.
==
Maybe you would prefer the Egyptian version of the Big Bang,
in which the God Atun creates the universe by whacking off.
==
What is a scapegoat?
The term is now used to refer to a person who is inappropriately
blamed for the sins or behavior of a group of people. In the
Bible, in Leviticus 16, it refers specifically to the practice of
presenting two goats at the alter of the tabernacle. The casting
of lots determined which goat was sacrificed to the Lord and
which was set aside for an evil spirit. The high priest would
transfer the sins of the people onto this unfortunate goat and
send it into the wilderness.
==
there are 25 modern English words that translate from the
ancient Hebrew word, day.
==
Read Job again. What God told Satan to do was cruel, the equivalent of
killing innocent people over a bet. A test of Job, the outcome of which
an omniscient God would already know.
==
_Higher Superstition_ by Gross and Levitt.
==
The earliest writing in south Asia is the (undeciphered)
Indus Valley writing (Harappa and Mohendjo-Daro). That's about
2500 BCE. Although there have been some recent claims about very
ancient Chinese writing, the conventional date for the earliest
Chinese is about 1200 BCE.
==
Many religious people ask how Atheists can be happy without God. For me and
for many Atheists I know, the realization of our Atheism has been extremely
freeing and has opened us to our own happiness.
a.. Atheism gives us the ability to see the universe as it actually is,
without the mental filters of dogmatism and superstition preventing us from
directly experiencing it.
a.. Atheism allows us to experience our selves, without the debasing idea
that we are innately sinful.
a.. Atheism gives us the freedom to think for ourselves, to construct our
own meanings.
a.. Atheism allows us to experience true interpersonal love, without any
supernatural intervention.
a.. Atheism lets us see that we have to make choices about our future. No
big daddy god is going to protect us from bad decisions.
a.. Atheism teaches us to treasure this moment, this life, and this world -
because we realize that its all we have.
==
A New Kind of Christian by Brian Mclaren

Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society
by David Sloan Wilson
==
The 1631 KJV contained a typo that read Thou shalt commit adultery
==
Kids are naturally stupid and ignorant. Developmental psychologists have found
that they start off failing to distinguish between themselves and the rest of
reality. They slowly come, via learning and through mind-brain development,
to realize that the rest of the world is NOT simply an extension of their
minds and feelings. They leave behind their initial TOTAL EGOCENTRISM.
Humans generally, in their non-scientific thinking, are still much given to
perceiving and understanding the world in similar ANTHROPOCENTIC and
ANTHROPOMORPHIC terms. The fact is that just because the world displays an
order AS IF it were designed, it does not follow that it was the product of
a human-like designer. Blind natural processes CAN produce orderly results!
Rain fall from the sky in a natural orderly manner. One does not HAVE to
invoke a Rain Maker God to explain that order.
==
Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in the midst of you and
sons shall eat their fathers...I will send famine and wild beasts
against you and they shall rob you of your children; pestilence and
blood shall pass through you; and I will bring a sword upon you. I,
the Lord, have spoken. Ezekiel 5:10, 5:17
==
We have allowed rampant secularism We have insulted God at the
highest levels of government. Pat Robertson
==
The Midianites?
Numbers 31:
13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the
congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains
over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of
Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and
there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every
woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him,
keep alive for yourselves.
==
I do not admit that my doctrine can be judged by anyone, even the angels.
He who does not receive my doctrine cannot be saved
-- Martin Luther
==
Part of the problem with religion is that the emotional stakes keep getting
higher the longer you've been at it. Asserting something once and then having
to admit you were wrong hurts a little bit. Once you've been asserting
something for years in an ever-escalating cascade of nonsense, then
there's more and more you'd have to take back if you ever change your mind.
==
The Gospel and the Greeks by Ronald T. Nash

Author of THE ORIGINS OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES by David Ulansey
(Oxford University Press, 1991)

I suggest you read When Prophecy Fails, by Lawrence Festinger (who,
by the way, was the founder of the concept of 'cognitive dissonance').
doesn't come to pass, the faith of the cult is not damaged, in fact it
is increased. In general these groups just select another date and
wait for that new rapturous moment. He entered a UFO cult to study
these matters directly.
==
The reason why atheists put more faith in science is because science is a
process open to verification by anybody. As opposed to religion which puts
its faith in a select few of so-called adepts or priests or clerics or
whomever. Even though they may claim that their faith is based on a book,
this claim comes not from the book itself but from the hierarchy of potentates
surrounding the text. These rulers usually are in a position of material
wealth, power and prestige in their community who use their power to enforce
belief in something greater than individual reason. In fact, individual reason
would require rebellion against such nonsense. They manipulate the community
against its free will by using their power to castigate anybody who opposes
their self-righteous hegemony. Atheism is basically a belief that truth is not
mysterious or mystical but instead can be explained rationally. If an
assertion can not be verified by independent means then it is bogus. This is
simply being honest.
==
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed., 5:168) states: Every five years the
Romans enumerated citizens and their property to determine their liabilities.
This practice was extended to include the entire Roman Empire in 5 B.C.
==
I will pray for you.
Christians think there is no finer thing they can do for a person about whom
they are genuinely concerned. Atheists take it as ultimately insulting
and patronizing, and meant to imply the superiority of the theistic POV.
As an atheist, when I hear a Christian is telling me this, I hear, you
are badly broken, I will set about trying to fix you with magical incantations
to my deity.
==
Science adds complexity when that adds accuracy.
Religion never adds accuracy with added complexity.
==
A preacher is the blind leading the blind.
It fascinates me that somewhere deep in the bones of religious
fundamentalists is the urge to ban. Over the centuries that has not been
bred out: it's hard-wired.
==
If your religion requires you to deny reality, then you can hardly be all hurt
and surprised when you have limited success in reality.
==
http://www.visi.com/~markg/atheists.html
Anaxagoras, Greek philosopher (500?-428? BCE).
. . . probably the first freethinker we know of to be condemned for
his beliefs. He regarded the conventional gods as mythic
abstractions endowed with anthropomorphic attributes. His writings
led him to a dungeon, charged with impiety, probably about the year
450 B.C.E. Only the intervention of the great statesman and orator
Pericles saved Anaxagoras from a death sentence. He had to pay a
fine and, according to some accounts, was banished. He lived his
final years in exile.

Diagoras the Atheist of Melos, Greek poet, (5th cent. BCE).
Threw a wooden image of a god into a fire, remarking that the deity
should perform another miracle and save itself. The uproar this
caused in Athens prompted Diagoras to flee for his life. Athens
outlawed him and offered a reward for his capture dead or alive. He
lived out his life in Spartan territory.

Protagoras, Greek philosopher (481?-411 BCE).
As to the gods, I am unable to say whether they exist or do not
exist

Democritus, Greek philosopher (460?-357 BCE).
The father of Materialism. Argued that mechanical relationships or
arrangements of the atoms account for various characteristics of
nature, the intimation here being that the natural order of the
world resulted from chance. Even morality, the soul, and all mental
life are reducible to mechanistic terms with physical imperceptible
atoms as their basic structure. Spiritual reality does not exist;
what appears to be spiritual is attributed simply to subperceptible
atomic structure or else to mere superstition. Hence, the Democritan
philosophy of mechanistic Materialism is complete, self-sufficient,
and self-contained. [History of Philosophy] [Visit The Philosophy
Garden]

Epicurus, Greek philosopher (341-270 BCE).
As a Materialist, Epicurus accepted the idea that the soul consists
of atomic material which disintegrates at death, at which time all
sensation ceases. Consequently, he said, death need not be a matter
of anxious concern, inasmuch as it is merely the state in which all
sensation ceases. [History of Philosophy] [Visit The Philosophy
Garden]

Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher
(106-43 BCE).

Lucretius, Roman philosopher and poet (96?-55 BCE).
Chief proponent of atomism. In On the Nature of Things he
wrote human life lay foul before men's eyes, crushed to the dust
beneath religion's weight. Leah Kronenberg tells me that Lucretius
was a dedicated Epicurean, and thus gods do exist, but have no
interest in human affairs. His writings are full of invective
against religion. [Visit The Philosophy Garden]

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, Roman stoic philosopher,
writer, and politician (4-65).
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as
false, and by rulers as useful.
==
The Emperor Constantine, who made his famous civil edict in A.D. 321
that men refrain from working on the first day of the week, Sunday is the
venerable day of the Sun, declared at the Council of Nicaea:
Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews,
who are our adversaries.... A.D. 325
==
Here are some quotes from our founding fathers:

Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm
morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one
another. -Benjamin Franklin

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. -Benjamin Franklin

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches. -Benjamin Franklin

I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a
legal ascendancy of one sect over another. -Thomas Jefferson

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and
do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming
feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology.
-Thomas Jefferson

All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall
any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.
-Thomas Jefferson

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity
been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride
and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both,
superstition, bigotry and persecution.- James Madison

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one
has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater
purity, the less they are mixed together.-James Madison

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous
debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting
vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more
consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God.
It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize
mankind.- Thomas Paine

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or
Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and
enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.-Thomas Paine

The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.
-Thomas Paine

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatalexample of
the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the
Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!--John Adams
==
Jainism is not Atheism
Jainism, one of the oriental philosophies is considered atheism by
many people. But Jainism is not atheism because they believe in God.
According to Jainism God is not creator of the Universe. There are
many Gods and anyone can become a God by destroying his karmas.
A detailed description is available at:
http://www.dd-b.net/~raphael/jain-list/msg01226.html
Also visit http://rightfaith.tripod.com
==
The simple believeth every word. - Proverbs 14:15
There was a time when religion ruled the world.
It is known as the dark ages. - Ruth Hurmence Green
==
The Christian church did not invent the idea of moral laws and
have not yet perfected it.
==
Of eighty popes in a line from the thirteenth century
on, not one of them disapproved of the theology and apparatus of
Inquisition. On the contrary, one after another added his own cruel touches
to the workings of the deadly machine.
(cf Peter de Rosa, Vicars of Christ, Corgi Books, 1989, p. 244)
==
It is irrelevant what Christians believe. We're in the real world
outside their religion. The fact that there is zero evidence, So it remains
merely part of your religion UNTIL YOU DEMONSTRATE OTHERWISE.
==
30% of American Nobel prize winners in science and 25% of all
American Nobel winners are Jewish.
==
The United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian
Religion- Treaty of Tripoli, 1797, ratified by Congress
==
I am an atheist because I know that no god ever described to
me exists. I know this is the case, not because I have been everywhere
to check, but because all gods, as described are either (1) not powerful
enough for me to accept giving them the designation god, or (2)
logically inconsistent, and therefore their existence is impossible, or
(3) meaningless (literally, without meaning or unknowable.
A man of integrity recognizes that truth is not always what you would like it
to be, and he accepts Truth whether he likes it or not.
It was useless to talk about things that didn't and couldn't happen
Atheist simply means no belief in god or gods. There is a myriad of ways
to describe such. My view is that the world has a ton of religions, most of
which are mutually exclusive, yet none of them have anything to offer that
others don't in terms of believability. Unless one pops up that has a decent
shred of evidence to its name, I'll remain on the sidelines and very skeptical,
and I'm quite content with where I am now, so I'm in no hurry to adopt a
religion. I agree that the Christian god's success is the comfort that such
a notation gives, at least to those that only hear the warm lovey-dovey
parts of the Bible at church.
Ideas about fairness, justice etc. come from people. People then invent
religions, and incorporate their ideas into their religions. Hence the ideas
would still exist, regardless of whether religion existed or not.
==
He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be
made on with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation.
- NO this isn't John 6:53-54. Its actually an inscription to Mithras.
==
2 1Ki 8:12 .. The LORD said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.
=
Anything can be investigated by science if it has testable consequences.
The problem with many things called supernatural is that they have no
testable consequences because they are not well enough characterized to
make any inferences possible. But this is not an insuperable problem. We
can't ask Does god exist? because god is not well defined. But we can
ask a form of Did god create the universe 6000 years ago?, or if you
prefer Did the universe come into existence 6000 years ago?, which is
close enough.
==
Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities and companion volume Lost Scriptures.
==
Zion definition follows:
above it was built a temple and later the name extended to the whole
hill; finally it became a synonym for the city of Jerusalem;
the inhabitants of Jerusalem are personified as `the daughter of Zion'
==
(Gen 38:8-10)
038:008 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and
marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
038:009 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.
038:010 And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he
slew him also.
==
RUSSELL D. GRAY AND QUENTIN D. ATKINSON
Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland
1020, New Zealand
Languages, like genes, provide vital clues about human history. The origin of
the Indo-European language family is the most intensively studied, yet still
most recalcitrant, problem of historical linguistics. Numerous genetic studies
of Indo-European origins have also produced inconclusive results. Here we
analyze linguistic data using computational methods derived from evolutionary
biology. We test two theories of Indo-European origin: the 'Kurgan expansion'
and the 'Anatolian farming' hypotheses. The Kurgan theory centers on possible
archaeological evidence for an expansion into Europe and the Near East by
Kurgan horsemen beginning in the sixth millennium BP. In contrast, the
Anatolian theory claims that Indo-European languages expanded with the spread
of agriculture from Anatolia around 8,0009,500 years BP. In striking agreement
with the Anatolian hypothesis, our analysis of a matrix of 87 languages with
2,449 lexical items produced an estimated age range for the initial
Indo-European divergence of between 7,800 and 9,800 years BP. These results
were robust to changes in coding procedures, calibration points, rooting of the
trees and priors in the bayesian analysis.
Note- No Babel story was involved.
==
The mentalities that denounce cloning and playing God have
consistently opposed technological progress, especially in medicine. They
objected to anesthesia, smallpox inoculations, contraception, heart
transplants, in vitro fertilization-on the grounds that these innovations
were unnatural and contrary to God's will. To let them cripple
biotechnological progress by banning cloning would be a moral abomination.
==
A.O. Schnabel Has God Spoken.
==
http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/spinoza.htm
Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632, into a family of Jewish emigrants
fleeing persecution in Portugal. He was trained in Talmudic scholarship, but
his views soon took unconventional directions which the Jewish community -
fearing renewed persecution on charges of atheism - tried to discourage.
Spinoza was offered 1000 florins to keep quiet about his views, but refused.
At the age of 24, he was summoned before a rabbinical court, and solemnly
excommunicated.
==
A document that accurately, and consistently reflects history.
This document must be internally consistent.
It must be externally consistent.
It must stand up to rigorous scrutiny.
It must be consistent with a reasonable extrapolation backwards from
the present.
It must NOT contain obvious errors.
It must not be open to multiple interpretations.
This does not describe the Bible.
==
Some folks live whom we expected to die, some folks die whom we expected to
live. The difference is that when someone unexpectedly dies, we are not
usually treated to religious folks running around claiming it was a miracle.
==
So much blood has been shed by the Church because of an omission from the
Gospel: Ye shall be indifferent as to what your neighbor's religion is.
Not merely tolerant of it, but indifferent to it. Divinity is claimed for many
religions; but no religion is great enough or divine enough to add that new law
to its code.- Mark Twain, a Biography
==
When religion encounters a mystery, whether it is equipped to address that
mystery or not, it does one (or many, or all) of the following: dismisses it
as God's sovereign choice, guards it against all who would solve it,
worships it, proclaims ownership of it, seeks to honor it by refusing to
solve it, encourages the faithful to walk in the tension of paradoxical
teachings, ostracizes any who cannot simply let a mystery pass without
trying to solve it.
==
More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell

The Creation Hypothesis, Meyer

The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein
and Neil Silberman. Dr. Finkelstein is the director of archeology at Tel
Aviv University. Archeology confirms the historicity of some of the Bible
but shows that a lot of it isn't historical.
==
Job 22:14 Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he
walketh in the circuit of heaven.
and he walketh in the circuit of heaven; within which he keeps himself,
and never looks down upon the earth, or takes any notice of what is done
there;
==
Mat27:51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to
the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
Mat27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept
arose,
Mat27:53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the
holy city, and appeared unto many. (KJV)
==
The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and his messenger and
strive after corruption in the land will be to be killed or crucified, or have
their hands and feet and genitals cut off, or to be expelled out of the land.
Such will be their humiliation in the world, and in the next world they will
face an awful horror. (Koran, 5:33-34)
==
There is not one, solid Christian dogma or faith. According to the Catholic
Encyclopedia there is close on 34,000 separate denominations, each insisting
that their interpretation is the right one and having discussed religion with
many theists most of them cannot answer the most simple inconsistencies in
their belief systems. Most of them make great sacrifice for their belief
systems and therefore undergo dissonance when confronted with ideological
impasses. This leads to a inclination to not think about the inconsistencies,
it's better to bury the dissonance and use avoidance behavior rather than
confront the dissonance and move your belief system accordingly, which may
cause much extra dissonance. However, ardent followers of one religion or sect
have no difficulties in seeing and pointing out the absurdities of other
religions while remaining totally oblivious to the absurdities of
their own. If the could apply the same reasoning and logic to their own beliefs
there would be a lot more atheists.
Church teachings are sexist, judgmental, arrogant, inconsistent, homophobic,
filled with authoritative commands rather than rational explanations and are
therefore not conducive to learning or a good life philosophy.
The Bible has literally thousands of ambiguities, inconsistencies, falsehoods,
and ascription to God of horrific, puerile behavior. Anyone who does not
acknowledge that this is true really is not reading the Bible seriously or has
a major mental block in the way of them seeing it. Besides that there are
multiple versions of this book. It is constantly being updated to suit the
leaders of the church responsible for the particular version that produce it.
Most of the times various Churches change the contents of the Bible
by false and/or inaccurate translations, but sometimes it's done
outright, such as the Nicaea Ecumenical Council circa 300 CE.
==
The God of the Old Testament looks a great deal like the people who invented
Him. He has a face, hands, feet, nostrils, bowels, likes the smell of burnt
offerings. He has the same human desires and emotions: He hates, loves, feels
anger and compassion, has a chosen people and plays favorites. He's often
angry, gets enraged easily, swears, pouts, destroys thing, shouts, deceives
and often rests. He had the same world outlook and the same beliefs about
nature as the people who made Him.
==
Isaiah 14:21 NAB:
Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest
they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world
with tyrants.

Hosea 9:11-16 NLT:
The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird, for your children will
die at birth or perish in the womb or never even be conceived. Even
if your children do survive to grow up, I will take them from you.
It will be a terrible day when I turn away and leave you alone. I
have watched Israel become as beautiful and pleasant as Tyre. But
now Israel will bring out her children to be slaughtered. O LORD,
what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that
don't give birth and breasts that give no milk. The LORD says, All
their wickedness began at Gilgal; there I began to hate them. I will
drive them from my land because of their evil actions. I will love
them no more because all their leaders are rebels. The people of
Israel are stricken. Their roots are dried up; they will bear no
more fruit. And if they give birth, I will slaughter their beloved
children.

Ezekiel 9:5-7 NLT:
Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, Follow him through the
city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy;
have no pity! Kill them all  old and young, girls and women and
little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your
task right here at the Temple. So they began by killing the seventy
leaders. Defile the Temple! the LORD commanded. Fill its
courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go! So they went
throughout the city and did as they were told.

Exodus 12:29-30 NLT:
And at midnight the LORD killed all the firstborn sons in the land of
Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to
the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon. Even the firstborn
of their livestock were killed. Pharaoh and his officials and all
the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was
heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house
where someone had not died.

Jeremiah 51:20-26:
You are my battle-ax and sword, says the LORD. With you I will
shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms. With you I will shatter
armies, destroying the horse and rider, the chariot and charioteer.
With you I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young
men and maidens. With you I will shatter shepherds and flocks,
farmers and oxen, captains and rulers. As you watch, I will repay
Babylon and the people of Babylonia for all the wrong they have done
to my people in Jerusalem, says the LORD. Look, O mighty mountain,
destroyer of the earth! I am your enemy, says the LORD. I will
raise my fist against you, to roll you down from the heights. When I
am finished, you will be nothing but a heap of rubble. You will be
desolate forever. Even your stones will never again be used for
building. You will be completely wiped out, says the LORD.
(Note that after God promises the Israelites a victory against
Babylon, the Israelites actually get their butts kicked by them in
the next chapter. So much for an all-knowing and all-powerful God.)

Leviticus 26:21-22 NLT:
If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey, I will
inflict you with seven more disasters for your sins. I will release
wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so
your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted.

Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT:
Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their
little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes.
Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking
hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount
of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot
down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on
helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children.

Romans 1:18
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the
godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their
wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them,
because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of
the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine
nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been
made, so that men are without excuse.
==
Thomas Aquinas
As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the
active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in
the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the
active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external
influence.
==
Genesis 2:19
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of
the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to
see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living
creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the
livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
Make a list of all species. It will be millions of species long.
==
All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have
another, birds another, and fish another. 1 Cor. 15:39
People are animals.
==
Paul didn't find it important that Jesus was born of a virgin,
or that the Pentecostal event in Acts 2 happened......
==
When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers or Partners by Ian Barbour

William Graham Scroggie's A Guide to the Gospels
==
Ps.93
[1] The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty;
the LORD is robed, he is girded with strength.
Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved;

Ps 104:5 Thou didst set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never
be shaken.

Proof of geocentric astronomy.
==
there are no references to the gospels prior to 186 CE.
The consensus date for those documents is usually 195 or later.
==
A national poll of 1,000 adults conducted by Barna Research Group found
76 percent of Americans believe heaven exists and 64 percent believe they're
headed for the Pearly Gates, reports the Los Angeles Times. 2003
==
Judas Iscariot
There is no such word in any language.known to man as Escargot, it