B2-BibleB.txt

Graham L. Kendall
Email grahamkendall74135@yahoo.com
Modified 5/12/2008
I am found on IRC Efnet/Undernet/Dalnet as glk
http://www.grahamkendall.net/
Disclaimer: Any errors in spelling, tact, or fact are transmission errors.
That makes it the fault of somebody else.
All are free to use any of this material without limit.
http://snipurl.com/yt8o my url
http://tinyurl.com/ydjvt3 my url
**
*******************************************************************************
==
Dawkins compares religion to a virus: religious ideas are memes that
infect vulnerable minds, especially those of children. Biological
metaphors may have their uses - the minds of evangelical atheists
seem particularly prone to infection by religious memes, for example.
==
http://www.atheistthinktank.com/
==
2Cor4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image
of God, should shine unto them. (KJV)

How many gods are there?
==
According to Greek mythology, Atlas fought in a war against Zeus and, as
punishment, was doomed to hold the heavens aloft for eternity. 
==
Scientists who rejected Bible claims.

Galileo believed in God, but not in the validity
of the Biblical history. He once said, "The Bible
was written to show us how to go to heaven, not
how the heavens go."

Albert Einstein didn't believe in the validity
of the Biblical history.

Marie Curie was an outright atheist.

Almost all of the Nobel Prize winners in the
scientists say that they are atheists or
agnostics. Here are some that you may have
heard of:

Paul D. Boyer (1918): American biochemist and
Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 1997.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (19101995): Indian
American astrophysicist known for his theoretical
work on the structure and evolution of stars.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983.

Paul Dirac (19021984): British theoretical
physicist, founder of quantum mechanics, predicted
the existence of antimatter; won the Nobel Prize
in Physics in 1933.

Richard Feynman (1918-1988): American theoretical
physicist, best known for his work in renormalizing
Quantum electrodynamics and his path integral
formulation of Quantum Mechanics . He won the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.

Vitaly Ginzburg (1916): Russian theoretical
physicist and astrophysicist who was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003. He was
also awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1994/95.

Frederic Joliot-Curie (1900-1958): French physicist
and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 1935.

Harold Kroto (1939): 1996 Nobel Laureate in
Chemistry.

Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956): American biologist, sexologist and
professor of entomology and zoology.

Peter D. Mitchell (1920-1992): 1978-Nobel-laureate
British biochemist.

Jacques Monod (1910-1976): French biologist
who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
in 1965 for discoveries concerning genetic control
of enzyme and virus synthesis.

Hermann Joseph Muller (1890-1967): American
geneticist and educator, best known for his
work on the physiological and genetic effects
of radiation (X-ray mutagenesis) . He won
the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
in 1946.

Linus Pauling (1901-1994): Nobel Laureate in
Chemistry (1954) and Peace (1962)

Richard J. Roberts (1943): British biochemist
and molecular biologist. He won the Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine in 1993 for the discovery
of introns in eukaryotic DNA and the mechanism
of gene-splicing.
-
Michael Smith (1932-2000): British-born Canadian
biochemist and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 1993.

Alan Turing (1912-1954): English mathematician,
logician, and cryptographer. Turing is often
considered to be the father of modern computer
science. The Turing Award, often recognized as
the "Nobel Prize of computing", is named after
him.

James D. Watson (1928): 1962-Nobel-laureate
co-discover of the structure of DNA.

Steven Weinberg (1933): American theoretical
physicist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics
in 1979 for combining electromagnetism and the
weak force into the electroweak force.
==
God created all things good, except for a few bad things that he put around to
trick the people who existed, then when they were tricked and he had known
they would be he threw a fit and punished everyone forever.
==
http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CH400-CH599  refute Bible
==
Question: How can an omniscient being take an action that he will
later repent? 
==
"Secular" does mean "godless," and its neutral meaning
has always fought with the more negative one;
recently, though, the word has taken on a lot more
freight. Like the words "feminist" and "liberal,"
"secular" and its derivatives have come to mean
extreme versions of themselves. They are code in
conservative Christian circles for "atheist" or even
"God hating"they conjure, in a fresh way, all the
demons Christian conservatives have been fighting for
more than 30 years: liberalism, sexual permissiveness
and moral lassitude. The Fox News star Bill O'Reilly
frequently frames the culture war as "traditionals
versus secular-progressive s." Ann Coulter accused "the
liberals and the secularists and atheists" of using
religion as a wedge. In a speech last year, Newt
Gingrich decried the "growing culture of radical
secularism," and in a new book the diplomat John
Bolton critiques "the High Minded elite who worship at
the altar of the Secular Pope." In politics, where it
is efficacious to unite people against a common enemy,
"secularism" has become that enemy's new name.

To be fair, battles in the war against secularism have
been fought for about 150 years, dating back to a time
when discoveries in science (especially those of
Charles Darwin) and a disenchantment with organized
religion led a critical mass of mostly European
intellectuals to declare that one could lead a moral
life independent of God. By the middle of the 20th
century, their heirs had coined the term "secular
humanism," to mean a concern with values but not with
religion, and the Rev. Jerry Falwell took particular
aim at them. In 1986, he proclaimed that secular
humanists "challenge every principle on which America
was founded," including "abortion on demand,
recognition of homosexuals, free use of pornography,
legalizing of prostitution and gambling, and free use
of drugs." Pope Benedict XVI speaks out frequently
against the dangers of secularism.
==
Sir Bedevere: "What makes you think she's a witch?" Peasant 3: "Well, she
turned me into a newt!" Sir Bedevere: "A newt?" Peasant 3: [meekly after a
long pause] "I got better." Crowd: [shouts] "Burn her anyway!"--
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail," 1975
==
ACLU of Tennessee Fights for Religious Freedom in Wilson County Public School
NASHVILLE - Acting on behalf of a Wilson County family, the American Civil
Liberties Union of Tennessee today asked a federal court to end practices by
teachers and other officials that put pressure on students to engage in
religious activities at Lakeview Elementary School.
The ACLU said it is bringing the lawsuit after repeated attempts by the family
to end the school-sponsored religious activities, which they believe interfere
with their right to religious freedom.
It is unfortunate that we had to go to court to protect religious freedom but
we had no other choice. We are pursuing this lawsuit so that Wilson County
residents can decide for themselves whether or not they want to practice a
particular religious faith, said ACLU of Tennessee Executive Director Hedy
Weinberg.
School administrators repeatedly disregarded the familys requests and
continued to promote and sponsor activities like Prayer at the Flag Pole and
Praying Parents, whose members enter classrooms and tell students that they
have prayed for them. Rather than taking the familys requests seriously, the
school administrators encouraged the family to withdraw their child from the
school.
In the lawsuit, the ACLU of Tennessee argues that the pattern and practice of
promoting and endorsing religious activities by the Wilson County public
school system is unconstitutional. In addition to Praying Parents and Prayer
at the Flag Pole, the Wilson County school system promotes a range of
religious activities, including a National Day of Prayer event and teacher-led
classroom prayers, according to the lawsuit.
Families have the right to decide for themselves whether to pray, when to
pray, how to pray, and where to pray. It is the role of the family not the
public school to make those very personal decisions, added Weinberg. By
promoting their own personal beliefs, Lakeview officials are broadcasting a
divisive message to the religiously pluralistic community of Wilson County.
The ACLU filed todays lawsuit, John Doe and Jane Doe v. Wilson County School
System, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of
Tennessee. The family wishes to remain anonymous because they fear for their
childs safety. The ACLU said the fact that the family does not want to be
identified for fear of reprisals further demonstrates the divisions created in
a community when the government takes sides on religious issues.

==
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Walter Jones has re-introduced his "Houses of
Worship Free Speech Protection Act" which would insulate religious
groups from IRS scrutiny and permit churches to openly endorse and
campaign for partisan candidates.
==
http://WWW.SNAKESINTHEPULPIT.COM/
==
Genesis 1:26 Wayamar elohym nashah adam betselemnu 
kedemuthnu.. ..."And God(s) said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness" This text is ancient and goes back to when YHWH had a 
wife...Asherah. At that time, YHWH was depicted as a bull with a big $%&&# 
and Asherah was a heifer.
==
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are
caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate
and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. -George Washington, letter to
Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792
As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of government to
protect all conscientious protesters thereof, and I know of no other business
government has to do therewith. -Thomas Paine, the Rights of Man
Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are
mixed together. -James Madison
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every
noble enterprise. -James Madison
...our civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, any more than
our opinions in physics and geometry. -Thomas Jefferson
The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for
enslaving mankind ... to filch wealth and power to themselves. [They], in
fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ. -Thomas Jefferson
Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained
without religions. -George Washington
I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to
establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and
every species of religious persecution. -George Washington, to United Baptists
Churches of Virginia, May, 1789
Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and
irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. -George
Washington, letter to Sir Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792
...the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense,
founded on the Christian religion... -Treaty of Tripoli
==
The pope gave at the same university as a cardinal in 1990 -- claimed he
condones the 1633 trial and conviction of the scientist Galileo for heresy.
The astronomer had argued that the Earth revolved around the Sun, in
contradiction to church teachings at the time, and he was forced to renounce
his findings publicly.
In comments made 15 years ago when he was still a cardinal, Pope Benedict is
reported to have called the trial "reasonable and just."
During his speech, the pope -- then Cardinal Ratzinger -- quoted an Austrian
philosopher Paul Feyerabend, saying, "At the time of Galileo, the church
remained more loyal (or faithful) to reason than Galileo himself.
==
Genesis 11:7
Go to (Come), let us go down, and there confound their language,
that they may not understand one another's speech.

1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not a God of confusion ...
==
The fundies usually argue that the "plural" god
represents the Trinity -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
in one. Alas, there are three problems with that ---
(1) the Jews who wrote Genesis never believed in any
Trinity, (2) neither did many Christians (until it was
forced upon them by later Christian councils --- and a
sizeable number still reject the idea of a Trinity),
and (3) there are many other places where god is
referred to in the singular.
==
 Rev 14:10  The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is
poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be
tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in
the presence of the Lamb: 
 
mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me,
ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

mal 4:1 "Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the
arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will
set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be
left to them.

Zephaniah 1:18 Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them
on the day of the LORD's wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world
will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth."

mar 9:46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

I know the plans that I have for you, for welfare and not for calamity, to
give you a future and a hope. You will seek Me and find Me when you search
for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13

rev 20:10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of
burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.
They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
==
There is a proposed House Resolution 888, which designates
the first week of May as "American Religious History Week.

mar 9:45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee
to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into
the fire that never shall be quenched:  [offend...: or, cause thee to offend]
==
"The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no
basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our
Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were
strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters
of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete
with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's
hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment
was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church
like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life."
--Ron Paul, 12/03
==
2ki 2:23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road,
ome youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!"
they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!"
niv 22ki 2:24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a
curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods
and mauled forty-two of the youths.
==
"And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was
produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was
crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound
nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons
of Jupiter." (Justin Martyr--CHAP. XXI.--ANALOGIES TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST )
==
Nasb Mathew 27:53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they
entered the holy city and appeared to many.
===
Five days after the tornado tore through the state, this city of 10,000 lay in
ruins. The cyclone destroyed an office building, a bank, a pharmacy and 70
other businesses. The electricity was out. The National Guard patrolled the
streets. Six people were dead. In Little Rock, GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee was
reviewing a disaster insurance measure that he intended to support when he
became troubled: The bill, drawing on centuries-old legal terminology,
referred to natural disasters as "acts of God." In a time of emergency,
Huckabee would hold up the measure for more than three weeks to press his
personal objection that the Almighty could not be blamed for the region's loss.
 Baptist minister and 2008 presidential
candidate Mike Huckabee, who delivered a sermon of more than 20 minutes on how
to be part of "God's Army" in the middle school cafeteria where the
congregation meets. "When we become believers, it's as if we have signed up to
be part of God's Army, to be soldiers for Christ," Huckabee told the
enthusiastic audience. 

Mike Huckabee, a Republican relying on support from religious conservatives in
Thursday's hard-fought presidential caucuses, on Sunday stood by a decade-old
comment in which he said, "I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this
nation back for Christ." In a television interview, the ordained Southern
Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor made no apologies for the 1998
comment made at a Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Salt Lake City. "It
was a speech made to a Christian gathering, and, and certainly that would be
appropriate to be said to a gathering of Southern Baptists," Huckabee said on
NBC's "Meet the Press." He gave the speech the same year he endorsed the
Baptist convention's statement of beliefs on marriage that "a wife is to
submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church
willingly submits to the headship of Christ." Huckabee and his wife, Janet,
signed a full-page ad in USA Today in support of the statement with 129 other
evangelical leaders. The former governor, who rallied Christian evangelicals
to make him a surprise force in Iowa, has put his faith front and center in
his campaign. His stump speech sounds like a pastor's pitch from a pulpit.
Campaign ads emphasize faith and call him a Christian leader. He frequently
quotes Bible verses.
==
Jesus is portrayed as a child murderer.
"I will kill her children with death"    Revelation 2:22-23
==
http://stupidevilbastard.com/index/seb/comments/god_vs_science/
==
The preachers control the people. The people vote in the school board.
The school board hires and fires teachers. That explains the poor education
students get in the US.  glk
==
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_bibl.htm  Bible errors
==
exo 33:23  then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back;
but my face shall not be seen."

kjv exo 33:23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my
back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
==
amo 9:2 "Though they dig into hell, From there my hand shall take them;
Though they climb up to heaven, From there I will bring them down;
===
Children raised in strict religious families are more likely to have sex
earlier than otherwise.
==
Institutions for kids in atheist families also includes Camp Quest , a 
group of sleep-away summer camps in five states plus Ontario , and the 
Carl Sagan Academy in Tampa , Fla. , the country's first Humanism-
influenced public charter school,
==
"I cannot prove to you that there is no personal
God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a
liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who
rewards good and punishes evil. My God created
laws that take care of that. His universe is
not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws."

W. Hermanns, "Einstein and the PoetIn Search
of the Cosmic Man" (Branden Press, Brookline
Village, Mass., 1983), p.132.
==
The role of science isn't to provide
spiritual support in moments of crisis. Neither
gravity nor evolution were discovered & shown valid in
order to fulfill this function. That's the realm of
belief systems, not the way of learning about the
natural world. Science & religion meet different
needs of human existence. I wish you & everyone else
would figure out how to separate them.
==
Eccl.3:19,20 "There is an eventuality as respects the sons of mankind and an
eventuality as respects the beast, and they have the same eventuality. As one
dies, so the other dies; and they all have but one spirit, so that there can
be no superiority of the man over the beast, for everything is vanity. All are
going to one place. They have all come to be from the dust, and they are all
returning to the dust."
==
Eccl. 9:5,10: "The living are conscious that they will die; but as for
the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all ... All that your hands find
to do, do with your very power, for there is no work, nor devising, nor
knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol
==
ThisNovember5th.com was created in memory of Guy Fawkes' failed
Gunpowder Plot in England in 1608. Fawkes planned to blow up Parliament
and kill King James I to restore the Catholic Church in Protestant
England.
==
The Episcopalians burned Edmund Champion, and beheaded Thomas More.
==
"Overall, translators know that the Bible is the product of cultures whose
modes of life and thought were very different from ours. In some cases, the
Bible's philosophy is so barbaric and violent that it defies explaining why
anyone would consider it sacred at all." - Bible Scholar Hector Avalos
==
Both sheep and goats are clean animals.
==
1st Timothy 2:11  A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire
submissiveness. (NAS)
==
It was on reflection of the behaviour of
some people during war, that, as an atheist, I started to study the
weird behaviour of those who have been affected. It seems to me
that fear is the key motivator in religion, especially when that
fear brings to the surface indoctrination from an early age. Fear
drives most people into herds/tribes and the need to seek
a "leader". The Gurus of religions may be the end result of this
need. Let's face it, the details set out in parts of the Bible
under the heading of Joshua, more that reflect the gullibility of
tribes, when the fear of a god's wrath stimulates their beliefs
centre. All rational thought appears to leave man when under its
influence. In the light of recent studies in Epilepsy, a brain lobe
thought to be a remanent of our early evolution, has been dubbed by
some partaking scientists, as the "God centre" for, when stimulated
by electro/magnetic signals, people, many of whom have no religious
affiliation (but not atheist), will reach a state of ecstacy
remininscence of religious people under the influence. Only those
who were atheist, showed little or no response to the stimulous.
I therefore consider that many of those who argue for creationism,
have not yet reached a stage in evolution when they have the ability
to use the reasoning side of the brain to overcome the adverse
influence of this brain lobe, which has been shown to be the part
responsible for causing hallucination and other adverse effects that
may be seen in Epilepsy.
==
"Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is
simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, "atheism" is a term that
should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a
"non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist. " We do not have words for people
who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the
galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing
more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of
unjustified religious beliefs. An atheist is simply a person who
believes that the 260 million Americans (87 percent of the population)
claiming to "never doubt the existence of God" should be obliged to
present evidence for his existence -- and, indeed, for his benevolence,
given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in
the world each day. An atheist is a person who believes that the murder
of a single little girl -- once in a million years -- casts doubt upon
the idea of a benevolent God."
-- Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation pp 51-2
==
Vatican music
"Boys were castrated between the ages of 7 and 9 years, and underwent a long
period of voice training. A small number became international opera stars, of
whom the most famous was Farinelli, whose voice ranged over three octaves. By
the end of the 18th century, fashions in opera had changed so that the
castrati declined except in the Vatican, where the Sistine Chapel continued to
employ castrati until 1903. The last of the castrati was Alessandro Moreschi,
who died in 1924 and made gramophone recordings that provide the only
direct evidence of a castrato's singing voice."
Pope Sixtus V issued a papal Bull in 1589 which approved the recruitment of
castrati for the choir of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Castrati were later
widely employed by opera companies.
===
ATLANTA What to do when the rain won't come? If you're Georgia Gov.
Sonny Perdue, you pray. The governor will host a prayer service next week
to ask for relief from the drought gripping the Southeast.
==
2329 chuwg khoog from 2328; a circle:--circle, circuit, compass. <heb>02328
2328 chuwg khoog a primitive root (compare 2287); to describe a circle:
--compass. <heb>02287
==
DANIEL 12:2 "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will
awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace {and}
everlasting contempt. -NASB
==
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

The Aramaic says "yahwewh of the gods" (yy-el-ohim) not "god" (el)
or "gods" (el-ohim) nor "the god of this place"(elohe). And it
appears to be in the present tense: "In the beginning the yahweh
of the gods is preparing the heavens and the Earth...." The older
version has just "the gods" doing that job.

"The Interlinear Literal Translation of the Hebrew Old Testament
(Genesis-Exodus)"
==
Matthew 24:38 Jesus believed in the flood. There was no Noah flood.
For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying
and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.
==
An estimated 31,912 heretics were burned at the stake, 17,659 were burned in
effigy and 291,450 made reconciliations in the Spanish Inquisition.
In Portugal, about 40,000 cases were tried, although only 1,800 were burned,
the rest made penance.
In the beginning, the Inquisition dealt only with Christian heretics and did
not interfere with the affairs of Jews. However, disputes about Maimonides'
books (which addressed the synthesis of Judaism and other cultures) provided a
pretext for harassing Jews and, in 1242, the Inquisition condemned the Talmud
and burned thousands of volumes. In 1288, the first mass burning of Jews on the
stake took place in France.
==
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_virgin_births

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reports_of_unusual_religious_childbirths
==
Mat24:38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into
the ark, (KJV)
==
Time
10:12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the
Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,
Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had
avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of
Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go
down about a whole day

The second passage, from 2 Kings, describes Hezekiah's request that God move
the sun ten degrees backwards as confirmation of his promise that Nezekiah
would be delivered into Heaven:

20:8 And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the LORD will
heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the LORD the third day?
20:9 And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the LORD, that the LORD
will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten
degrees, or go back ten degrees?
20:10 And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down
ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.
20:11 And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and he brought the shadow
ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.
[NOTE: All passages above are quoted from the King James Version.]
==
It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than
they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and
four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world,
and the pillar and ground of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life;
bartimaeos: St. Irenaeus
ChuckWaqon: it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out
immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is
evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sitteth upon the
cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given.
Irenaeus (c. 180), Against Heresies, 3:11:8
==
ecc 9:5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing,
and they have no more reward; but the memory of them is lost.
===
"Science of God" by Gerald Schroeder
===
Num 31
"But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him,
keep alive for yourselves. "
==
mat 21:19 And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing
on it but leaves, and said to it, "Let no fruit grow on you ever again."
Immediately the fig tree withered away.
"Let no fruit grow on you ever again."
The potential problem here is that Matthew says the fig tree withered
immediately, while Mark says the withered tree wasn't seen by the disciples
until the next day
==
http://www.homestead.com/philofreligion/files/Theisticarguments.html god proof
===
The Church has never repudiated the Syllabus of Errors, which condems freedom
of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly.
==
Joshua 10:11-13 reads: And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel,
and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones
from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died...Then spake Joshua to the
Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of
Israel, and He said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon;
and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon
stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this
written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven,
and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Donald Patten, Ronald Hatch, Lorenc Steinhauer, The Long Day of Joshua and Six
Other Catastrophies, Baker Book House, Michigan, 1973

John C. Whitcomb, Joshuas Long Day, Brethren Missionary Herald, July 27,
1963

'The Earth is not Moving' by Marshall Hall
==
To an evloutionary psychologist, the universal extravagance of religious
rituals, with their cost in time, resources, pain and privation, should suggest
as vividly as mandrill's bottom that religion may be adaptive. -- Mark Kohn.

Elaborate religous ritual is extravagant and wasteful. It's an attempt to
explain (from a darwinian perspective) why human animals waste so many
resources on a behaviour that brings them no obvious benefit.

I think the evolutionary advantage of relgiousity is that it enforces social
strata, and tribal cohesiveness. It's herd instinct run amok.
==
Deuteronomy 4 32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before
thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and [ask] from the
one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been [any such thing]
as this great thing [is,] or hath been heard like it? (KJV)

We have heros (people who've put the interests of the herd ahead of their own
interests in extravagant ways).
===

TULSA, Okla. - Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was
reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8 million
for Roberts' university, or else he would be "called home."
Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is
speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that
threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.
Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political
campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home
remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip
to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife,
Lindsay.
She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding
nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text
messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as
"underage males."
At a chapel service this week on the 5,300-student campus known for its
60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, Roberts said God told him: "We
live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against
another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This lawsuit ... is
about intimidation, blackmail and extortion."
San Antonio televangelist John Hagee, a member of the ORU board of regents,
said the university's executive board "is conducting a full and thorough
investigation."
Colleagues fear for the reputation of the university and the future of the
Roberts' ministry, which grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most
successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions of
dollars in contributions a year. The university reported nearly $76 million in
revenue in 2005, according to the IRS.
Oral Roberts is 89 and lives in California. He holds the title of chancellor,
but the university describes him as semi-retired, and his son presides over
day-to-day operations on the campus, which had a modern, space-age design when
it was built in the early 1960s but now looks dated, like Disney's
Tomorrowland.
Cornell Cross II, a senior from Burlington, Vt., said he is looking to
transfer to another school because the scandal has "severely devalued and hurt
the reputation of my degree."
"We have asked and asked and asked to see the finances of our school and what
they're doing with our money, and we've been told no," said, Cross who is
majoring in government. "Now we know why. As a student, I'm not going to stand
for it any longer."
The allegations are contained in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by three former
professors. They sued ORU and Roberts, alleging they were wrongfully dismissed
after reporting the school's involvement in a local political race.
Richard Roberts, according to the suit, asked a professor in 2005 to use his
students and university resources to aid a county commissioner's bid for Tulsa
mayor. Such involvement would violate state and federal law because of the
university's nonprofit status. Up to 50 students are alleged to have worked on
the campaign.
The professors also said their dismissals came after they turned over to the
board of regents a copy of a report documenting moral and ethical lapses on
the part of Roberts and his family. The internal document was prepared by
Stephanie Cantese, Richard Roberts' sister-in-law, according to the lawsuit.
An ORU student repairing Cantese's laptop discovered the document and later
provided a copy to one of the professors.
It details dozens of alleged instances of misconduct. Among them:
A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend of
Mrs. Roberts could have his position.
Mrs. Roberts who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to as
ORU's "first lady" on the university's Web site frequently had cell-phone
bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages sent between
1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided phones at university
expense."
The university jet was used to take one daughter and several friends on a
senior trip to Orlando, Fla., and the Bahamas. The $29,411 trip was billed to
the ministry as an "evangelistic function of the president."
Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico's clothing store alone in
less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. She also
repeatedly said, "As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off." The
document cites inconsistencies in clothing purchases and actual usage on TV.
Mrs. Roberts was given a white Lexus SUV and a red Mercedes convertible by
ministry donors.
University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts' home
to do the daughters' homework.
The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusive use by
the Roberts' children.
The Roberts' home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years.
Tim Brooker, one of the professors who sued, said he fears for the
university's survival if certain changes aren't made.
"All over that campus, there are signs up that say, `And God said, build me a
university, build it on my authority, and build it on the Holy Spirit,'"
Brooker said. "Unfortunately, ownership has shifted."

==
Tibetan Buddhist Goddess Altar Includes:
White Tara: Goddess of compassion and patron goddess of Tibet
Vasudhara: Goddess of prosperity
Kurukulla: Goddess of attracting and influencing all beings through
love and passionate desire
Vajrayogini: One of the highest yoga tantra deities
Tibetan Buddhist Altars Includes:
Shakyamuni Buddha: Helps to develop morality, meditation, and wisdom
Padmapani Avalokiteshvara: Patron diety of Tibet, also known as the
Bodhisattva of great compassion
Green Tara: Goddess of developing compassion and protects from all
fears. Also known as the Mother of all Buddhas
Manjushri: Boddhisattva of supreme wisdom and the gentle voice.
Hindu Altars Includes:
Lakshmi: Goddess of prosperity, abundance, fame, beauty, purity, and
grace
Shiva: Goddess which annihilates all delusions and false views
Durga: Goddess which annihilates all defilements, protects from all
fears, and grants success
Ganesha: Bestows wisdom, courage and confidence to start a new
enterprise. Also known as the remover of obstacles
===
Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over
them, bring hither, and slay them before me. Jesus
==
Fatima's facelift
Portugal's shrine of Fatima (one of the Catholic Church's better known money
making scams) has received a "facelift" to attract even more gullible pilgrims
than the 800,000 or so who flock there every year. The whole project cost an
unbelievable 80 million euros, all of which was thrown away on absolutely
nothing:
Fatima's revamped Holy Trinity church will be inaugurated next week in a
massive ceremony conducted by the papal envoy Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone to
mark the 90th anniversary of the supposed last appearance of the Virgin Mary
to three shepherd children.
Fatima's new church, big enough for 9,000 seated worshippers, is low and oval,
built without internal columns so TV cameras can sweep unobstructed over
services for live broadcasts.
The facelift is also intended to smarten up the sanctuary's image and
eliminate what its rector, Luciano Guerra, calls "exaggerations in the
devotion to Fatima". Pilgrims from the impoverished north of Portugal often
make the stony final approach crawling on their hands and knees, with cloths
to bind their bleeding wounds. Such extremes of zeal lend the sanctuary an
atmosphere of medieval fanaticism that church authorities seek to discourage.
==
Deu 7:16 "And you shall destroy all the peoples whom the LORD your God delivers
over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their
gods, for that [will be] a snare to you.
==
The Bible is very clear on what me must do.

Kill People Who Don't Listen to Priests
Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the
priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death.
(Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

Death to Followers of Other Religions
Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed.
(Exodus 22:19 NAB)

Kill Fortunetellers
A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to
death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their
death. (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)

Death for Hitting Dad
Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus
21:15 NAB)

Death for Cursing Parents
1) If one curses his father or mother, his lamp will go out at the
coming of darkness. (Proverbs 20:20 NAB)
2) All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They
are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)

Death for Adultery
If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and
the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)

Death for Fornication
A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and
thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death.
(Leviticus 21:9 NAB)

Kill Nonbelievers
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their
fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not
seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether
small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

Kill False Prophets
If a man still prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall say
to him, "You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name
of the Lord." When he prophesies, his parents, father and mother,
shall thrust him through. (Zechariah 13:3 NAB)

Kill the Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God
Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you
that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens
astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases,
you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can
prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must
attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well
as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the
middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as
a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin
forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has
been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his
fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you
and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your
ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him
and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is
pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)
==
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity. "  Ann Coulter

"[Since 9/11] I am often asked if I still think we should invade their
countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. The answer
is: Now more than ever!"  Ann Coulter

"God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the
trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"
Ann Coulter, on Hannity & Colmes, 6/20/01
==
Scandal Brewing at Oral Roberts*
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was
reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8
million for Roberts' university, or else he would be "called home."
Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is
speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that
threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.
Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political
campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home
remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior
trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his
wife, Lindsay.
She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding
nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of
text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the
lawsuit as "underage males."
Richard Roberts, president and chief executive officer of Oral Roberts
University, is shown in...
At a chapel service this week on the 5,300-student campus known for its
60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, Roberts said God told him:
"We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit
against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This
lawsuit ... is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion."
San Antonio televangelist John Hagee, a member of the ORU board of regents,
said the university's executive board "is conducting a full and thorough
investigation. "
Colleagues fear for the reputation of the university and the future of the
Roberts' ministry, which grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most
successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions
of dollars in contributions a year. The university reported nearly $76
million in revenue in 2005, according to the IRS.
Oral Roberts is 89 and lives in California. He holds the title of
chancellor, but the university describes him as semi-retired, and his son
presides over day-to-day operations on the campus, which had a modern,
space-age design when it was built in the early 1960s but now looks dated,
like Disney's Tomorrowland.
Cornell Cross II, a senior from Burlington, Vt., said he is looking to
transfer to another school because the scandal has "severely devalued and
hurt the reputation of my degree."
"We
have asked and asked and asked to see the finances of our school and what
they're doing with our money, and we've been told no," said, Cross who is
majoring in government. "Now we know why. As a student, I'm not going to
stand for it any longer."
The allegations are contained in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by three former
professors. They sued ORU and Roberts, alleging they were wrongfully
dismissed after reporting the school's involvement in a local political
race.
Richard Roberts, according to the suit, asked a professor in 2005 to use his
students and university resources to aid a county commissioner' s bid for
Tulsa mayor. Such involvement would violate state and federal law because of
the university's nonprofit status. Up to 50 students are alleged to have
worked on the campaign.
The professors also said their dismissals came after they turned over to the
board of regents a copy of a report documenting moral and ethical lapses on
the part of Roberts and his family. The internal document was prepared by
Stephanie Cantese, Richard Roberts' sister-in-law, according to the lawsuit.
An ORU student repairing Cantese's laptop discovered the document and later
provided a copy to one of the professors.
It details dozens of alleged instances of misconduct. Among them:
- A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend
of Mrs. Roberts could have his position.
- Mrs. Roberts - who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to
as ORU's "first lady" on the university's Web site - frequently had
cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages
sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided
phones at university expense."
- The university jet was used to take one daughter and several friends on a
senior trip to Orlando, Fla., and the Bahamas. The $29,411 trip was billed
to the ministry as an "evangelistic function of the president."
- Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico's clothing store alone
in less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. She
also repeatedly said, "As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it
off." The document cites inconsistencies in clothing purchases and actual
usage on TV.
- Mrs. Roberts was given a white Lexus SUV and a red Mercedes convertible by
ministry donors.
- University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts'
home to do the daughters' homework.
- The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusive use
by the Roberts' children.
- The Roberts' home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years.
Tim Brooker, one of the professors who sued, said he fears for the
university's survival if certain changes aren't made.
"All over that campus, there are signs up that say, 'And God said, build me
a university, build it on my authority, and build it on the Holy Spirit,'"
Brooker said. "Unfortunately, ownership has shifted."
==
The Alhambra Decree, also known as the "Edict of Expulsion," which forced the
Jews to convert or flee Spain, was part of the Spanish Inquisition that began
in 1480. The Spanish Inquisition sought to rid Spain of Jews, Muslims, false
converts, and heretics (although it was also motivated by the desire for
political power and profit). It is interesting to note that on the Jewish
calendar the deadline for the Alhambra Decree was the 9th of Av, also known as
Tisha B'Av. The 9th of Av has become a symbol of all the persecutions and
misfortunes of the Jewish people. It is a day of mourning that marks the
anniversary of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Spanish Inquisition and its counterparts encompass one of the bloodiest
periods in the history of the church. During the Inquisition(s) millions of
people were slaughtered for the crime of "heresy" by Roman Catholic
persecutors. In fact, Pope Innocent III murdered far more Christians in one
afternoon than any Roman emperor did in during his entire reign.
==
Nicaragua became the third country in the world, after Chile and El Salvador,
to criminalize all abortions. There are no exceptions; not for rape, not for
incest, not for threats to the life of the mother.
So far, this law has resulted in the deaths of at least 82 women.
===
A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the
manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is
this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude;
in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. -- Al Einstein
==
I wonder what god meant when he said "i am a vain and jealous god" and then
He gave commandments about jealousy being bad and vanity being a sin.
==
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be
mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not
consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists
in professing to believe what one does not believe. It
is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may
so express it, that mental lying has produced in society.
When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the
chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional
belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared
himself for the commission of every other crime.
- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
==
Laws of God
1. Exodus 22:20: He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord
only, he shall be utterly destroyed.
2. Leviticus 24:16: And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he
shall surely be put to death.
3. Exodus 31:15: Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall
surely be put to death.
4. Exodus 21:15: He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be
surely put to death.
5. Exodus 21:17: He that curseth his father or his mother, shall
surely be put to death.
6. Exodus 22:19: Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to
death.
7. Leviticus 20:13: If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a
woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely
be put to death.
8. Leviticus 20:10: And the man that committeth adultery with another
man's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
9. Mark 16:16: He that believeth not, shall be damned.
==
Do extremism and an unconditional adherence to religious dogma result
from a failure of a portion of the frontal lobe to fully develop or, if
fully developed, to activate? Studies suggest that faithful adherence
to a single reasoning strategy on tests such as the Wisconsin Card
Sorting Test means that parts of the frontal lobes are inactive, have
failed to fully develop, or have even been damaged. Thus, unqualified
disdain for divergent beliefs,for personal interpretation, and for
creative theories like Darwin's theory of evolution, may indeed have,
at least a partial, biological explanation: a reduced utilization of
that section of the brain which has played such a vital role in
humanity's creative advancesthe frontal lobes. By unconditionally
obeying religious tenetsor any dogmasome people may be relying on the
phylo-genetically older, more posterior portions of the brain that
store knowledge and enable consistent or stable behaviors and,
unknowingly, circumventing the portion which has been gifted to humans
alone through evolution.
==
Pascal Boyer Religion Explained
Scott Atran In Gods We Trust.
Hamer The God Gene
===
Ps 107 They saw the works of the LORD, the wonders of God in the deep.
25 He spoke and roused a storm wind; it tossed the waves on high.

Psa58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon
as they be born, speaking lies. (KJV)
==
Freedom of conscience in the military
The Secular Coalition for America opposes discrimination against nontheists
and religious minorities by military leaders.

A number of incidents in 2006 and 2007 indicate that there is a pervasive
misunderstanding among United States military leadership regarding the
required separation of church and state in the armed forces. When taken
together, they have the potential not only to result in lawsuits, but also to
undermine the effectiveness of our nation's interaction with other countries.
The incidents involve attempts to proselytize Christianity, to punish
non-Christians for lack of adherence to the "correct" religion, and to treat
non-Christians differently than Christians in the military.

*	In 2006 the House went along with a small group of military chaplains who
claimed that proselytizing all non-born-again Christians was a requirement of
their free exercise of religion. The House passed an amendment to a Department
of Defense spending bill which would have allowed military chaplains to
proselytize unwilling soldiers. (This amendment was killed in conference
committee.) For more information about this issue, see our Proselytizing by
military chaplains position paper.
*	Pentagon officials inappropriately endorsed the proselytizing organization
Christian Embassy. The Inspector General's Office recently concluded a report
which indicated that a number of officers in the Pentagon had given the
Christian Embassy group inappropriate access to and use of officials'
endorsements (in uniform) for their fundraising video. In the report, some of
these officials expressed the misunderstanding that this evangelical
organization was a "quasi-federal" entity. One officer stated in the video
that his god was more important than his country.
*	Wiccans have been treated unfairly in our military. Roberta Stewart was
initially denied the right to have a Wiccan symbol on her husband's grave
marker in a veterans' cemetery. She was later "inadvertently" left off an
invitation to meet with Pres. Bush which had been extended to the rest of her
family. (Pres. Bush later called to apologize.)
*	Pentagon officials invited individuals to come in to proselytize personnel.
The Pentagon employees were not informed that Christian proselytizers had been
invited to join them in their lunchroom to try to convert them on their lunch
break.
*	At least one atheist soldier in Iraq has been treated unconstitutionally. An
army specialist on active duty in Iraq alleges in a recently filed lawsuit that
a staff sergeant questioned him about why he wouldn't participate in a prayer.
After discovering that it was because the soldier was an atheist, he told him
not to sit with the others enjoying a Thanksgiving meal. Later, this soldier
organized a freethought group for which he obtained all necessary permissions.
However, the meeting was broken up by an army major who threatened punishment
for having the meeting.
*	The family of war hero Pat Tillman was insulted by a lieutenant colonel
based on their lack of belief in a heaven. Because of Tillman's atheism, his
family's concern over the coverup surrounding the true circumstances of his
death was chalked up to their belief that he"s just "worm dirt." The officer
who made the comments was one of the officers who initially investigated
Tillman's death. The investigation disclosed that someone had changed an
eyewitness account prior to its reaching the United States.
These actions come on the heels of rampant proselytizing at the Air Force
Academy in Colorado Springs, disclosed in the 2006 book With God on Our Side:
One Mans War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military by Michael
Weinstein.

==
Thess 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they
should believe a lie:
==
Num 21:8 And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it
upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when
he looketh upon it, shall live.
==
1782 was the last european state-sanctioned witch burning.
==
Mormon church teach, annoint and ordain their faithful male members that they
will have muliple wives in the Mormon celestial heaven. It is through these
multiple wives that Mormons think they will give birth to spirit babies to
populate planets assigned to them to rule.
==
Lightning is not the spear of Zeus.
Rama's monkey army did not
build a bridge to Sri Lanka.
The human species is not 6000 years old.
===
You mean my New International Reformed English King James Contemporary
Living Word Translation isn't the divine word of God? Blasphemer!
==
One Christian wrote, "I just want you to know, if you use physics, if you
understand the laws of physics, bumblebees can't fly. They fly because God
wants them to.
==
Two Popes consecrated tombs to Mary in Jerusalem, which still stand to this
day. But one pope changed his mind and says she ascended bodily to heaven, and
OOPS! those shrines are marked off the tour route
==
A solemn and sad situation
Not long ago the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published an interesting article
entitled Passionate Atheists. This caught my attention immediately.
My first thought was, How do you get passionate about nothing ? If no God
exists, what is there to get passionate about ? Why do professed atheists find
it necessary to convert other people to their unbelief, since there is nothing
of substance there to convince them of ?
My second thought was, Isnt this statement, passionate atheists, close to
being an oxymoron ?
I have been in the ministry many years, and in every one of them the subject
of atheism has reared its head. However, periodically (usually about every
decade ) there is a push to convince people that there is no God. In the
United States, as it has become more liberal in theology, more people have, as
the article stated, come out of the closet and admitted their unbelief, much
in the same way as homosexuals have admitted their sexual preferences.
Both of these are symbols of the moral and spiritual decline of a nation, and
this is happening in the United States with disturbing rapidity.
Contrary to the apparent belief of atheists, their nonbelief is not a danger
to Christianity, nor to individual Christians. Nor does it change the
existence of God. It does pose dangers, however, and the dangers are these:
The first danger is the unbeliever himself. He is left with no god but
himself, no wisdom but his own (except the wisdom of men ) and no hope of a
life beyond this one. Worst of all, he is in danger of facing an eternity
devoid of the God he denied. In short, he wanted it that way, and that is the
way he got it. A solemn and sad situation.
The second danger is that the atheist may be able to persuade others (I knew
of one situation like this where an older man concentrated on young people )
that his unbelief is really true. This might consign those he persuaded to the
same fate that is in store for him.
The third danger lies in what kind of person the atheist may become when he
becomes his own god. If he does not recognize God, he may not recognize any of
the restraints that a belief in God generates. Thus, without restraint, he may
become a pedophile, a murderer, a thief, or any other kind of a deviant you
can think of. Or he might just become one who lives inward, with no concern
for the people or things around him. There are tragic examples of such people.
In the long years of being a minister I think I have known no more than two
dozen people who loudly declared that there is no God. I did not believe in
any of them. I have found that the man who so professes may be just whistling
past the graveyard. In short, because of the life he has lived, he may just be
hoping against hope that there is no God to whom he might someday have to
answer.
I was not raised in a church-going family, yet the name of God was revered in
our home. My parents never used the name of God in vain, nor any of the
by-words popular in those days. So I always believed in a God; I just wanted
him to leave me alone and let me live my life the way I wanted to. In fact, at
an early age I had planned my life, and no god was included in it.
However, my father died of a heart attack when he was 43, and I was 18. I had
just returned home after spending a year-and-a-half in a tuberculosis
sanitarium in Colorado Springs. When my father died he left my mother and me
with six little brothers and sisters to raise.
And, though I did not know God, I became terribly angry with him. In the old
days nearly everything was ascribed to God. If there was a tragedy in the
home, old preachers would declare that it was Gods will. I came to hate that
expression, and have refused to use it throughout my ministry, as it related to
things I just could not understand. I look askance at any preacher who always
seems to know what the will of God is.
Why are atheists coming out of the closet now ? Simple. The country has
become so secularized, and has adopted an anything goes attitude, so deviants
of any nature now feel it is safe to declare themselves. Also, led by many
prominent universities, it has now become politically correct for people to
try to be different. Factually, it does not brand people as intellectual or
brave, but contemptuous of centuries of solid beliefs and traditions.
In the Bible, few people are so chastised as are avowed atheists. In Proverbs
1: 7 are these words: The fear (awe ) of the Lord is the beginning of
knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
So, unless the avowed atheist is prepared to account for the universe, for man
in all of his complexities, and life in general, he certainly is not prepared
to declare that there is no God.
He is revealed, not as an intellectual, but as a gadfly with no answers to
anything. It is even more plain in Psalms 14: 1: The fool has said in his
heart, there is no God.
Ted Turner once said, in speaking of the Lord, I do not need anyone to die
for me. Well, perhaps he doesnt know all of the truth. Personally, I need a
Savior, and I am happy I found out the truth as young as I did. The sad thing
about the atheist is that he may find out the truth after it is too late.
So please dont feel sorry for those of us who believe in God, who build
churches, attend churches, send missionaries, and do every kind of charitable
work known to man. Even if we were wrong in all this, we would still be better
off than the atheist. At least we would have lived lives that helped us, and
more importantly, helped others.
I know that most atheists are probably not bad people. But they are sadly
misguided in their thinking, and in their hearts many of them probably know
it. One should not live his life as a fool when he can live it as a child of
God, and have the promise of everlasting life.
John Terry of Siloam Springs is an economist, minister and veteran.
==
Returning to a topic I feel was left hanging. Please
add this to the list of questions I'd appreciate
answered by creationists:

How did host-specific parasites survive before the
Fall? Please correct me if any of the following
biblical literalist doctrinal assumptions of mine are
wrong. I presume creationists believe that
host-specific insect parasites were made during
Creation Week along with everything else, perhaps on
Day Five or Six, since the Genesis doesn't specify. I
guess further that certainly humans & probably other
animals weren't bothered by blood-suckers & other
parasites until after the Fall. What then did these
insect species live on & how did they reproduce before
the Fall?
Host-specific parasites are legion. Birds, mammals &
other vertebrates have lots of them. Please read
about just one group of flies which has co-evolved
with mammals:

http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Bot_fly
===
Changes in Catholic Doctrine - 850 AD Burning of Holy Candles
998  Good Friday:fish eating-red meat forbidden
1009 Holy water 1022 Penance
1090 Rosary beads
1095 Instrumental music
1123 Celibacy enforced for priests
1160 Canonization of Saints
1190 Sale of Indulgences or "tickets to sin"
1215 Transubstantiation
1215 Auricular confession to Priests
1215 Mass aSacrifice of Christ
1217 Elevation of Host
1230 Ringing bells at Mass
1268 Priestly power of absolution
1311 Sprinkling instead of immersion for baptism
1414 Laity no longer offered Lord's cup at communion
1438 Purgatory
1480 The Inquisition (of Spain)
1845 Immaculate conception of Mary
1870 Infallibility of Pope
1870 Intellectual supremacy of the Pope.
1908 All Catholics should be christened into the church
1950 Assumption of the Virgin Mary.
1995 The use of girls in the traditional alter boy duties
==
"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give
assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." - Lincoln
===
Job 1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered
the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up
and down in it. (KJV) Did God not know the answer?
==
God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America By Hanna Rosin.
Harcourt.
===
The Bible Teaches That Our World Is Relatively Young

1. Jesus said have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made
them male and female (Mt. 19:4). Mark 10:6 Jesus said But from the beginning
of creation God made them male and female. There is no doubt that Jesus was
talking about the beginning of creation.

2. Paul wrote And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul;
the last Adam was made a quickening spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Here Paul was saying
that Adam was the first human being to ever step foot on this planet.

3. Paul wrote For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection
from the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive (1 Cor. 15:21,22). Here Paul was writing about the fall of Adam and Eve
in the garden.

4. The Bible teaches that there were only 20 generations (about 2000 years)
from
Adam to Abraham (Lk. 3:34-38). The Bible teaches that there were only 55
generations (about 2000) from Abraham to Christ (Lk. 3:23-34). Now, from Christ
to present day there are less than 2000 years. All this means that the world is
really less than 6000 years from creation to present day. This means that the
Bible teaches that the world is relatively young (no more than a few thousand
years).
==
James Robinson and Helmut Koester "Trajectories through Early Christianity"
==
The city of Ur, founded in about 4,000 BC, its Sumerian people established
the principles of irrigation, developed agriculture and metal-working.
It was thus founded 4 years before the creation of the universe.
==
Cor4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the
image of God, should shine unto them. (KJV)
==
"Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not
taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." -
- Matthew16:28

"But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall
not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God." -- Luke 9:27

"Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this
generation." -- Matthew 23:36

"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all
these things be fulfilled." -- Matthew 24:34

"Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man
sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of
heaven." -- Matthew 26:64

"Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here,
which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of
God come with power." -- Mark 9:1

"Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all
these things be done." -- Mark 13:30

"And ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power,
and coming in the clouds of heaven." -- Mark 14:62

"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all
be fulfilled." -- Luke 21:32

"Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is
that to thee?" -- John 21:22
==
"The End of Biblical Studies" by Hector Avalos
==
Einstein "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human
mind, am able to recognise, there are yet people who say there is no God. But
what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views."
==
"Through the reading of popular scientific books, I soon reached the conviction
that much of the stories of the Bible could not be true...it was a crushing
impression".
"Einstein, a biogrpahy "Walter Isaccon Pg 20
==
Many seem to think that believing in a God that can't be wrong, means that
they themselves can't be wrong. As if they are confusing God's infallibility
with their own limitations.
==
Contradictions and Improbabilities
Each of the four Gospels contains a large number of descriptions of
events that may be unique to one single Gospel or common to several if
not all of them. When they are unique to one Gospel, they sometimes
raise serious problems. Thus, in the case of an event of considerable
importance, it is surprising to find the event mentioned by only one
evangelist; Jesus's Ascension into heaven on the day of Resurrection,
for example. Elsewhere, numerous events are differently described-
sometimes very differently indeed-by two or more evangelists.
Christians are very often astonished at the existence of such
contradictions between the Gospels-if they ever discover them. This is because
they have been repeatedly told in tones of the greatest
assurance that the New Testament authors were the eyewitnesses of the events
they describe!
==
Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change by Flo
Conway and Jim Siegelman (Paperback - Dec 1995)
==
"All sects of heretics are condemned and various punishments are appointed for
them and their accomplices."
-Pope Alexander IV (1254-61)
(Directory for the Inquisitors p. 135)

Ears bored out
Tongue cut out
Set down (by pulley) into a fire by degrees
Thrown to dogs
Hung up by the heels and choked with smoke
Disembowelled
Sharp instruments forced under nails and into other body parts
Racked until their bowels broke out
Throats cut with butcher knives
Knocked on the head with axes

Torture Chambers
' For 1500 hundred years, the Christian Church systematically operated torture
chambers throughout Europe. Torture was the rule, not the exception. Next to
the Bible, the most influential and venerated book in Christian history was
the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches), which was a step-by-step tutorial
in how to torture "witches' and "sorcerers".

Biblical Basis for Burning:
"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and
men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned"
(John 15:6).

"Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people
shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother."
Isaiah, 9.19

"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring
hither, and slay them before me."
Luke 19.27 *

Breaking on the Wheel.
The naked heretic had each limb and joint broken precisely to avoid any fatal
blows. He was then 'braided' into the spokes of the wheel and hoisted on to a
post. There he was exposed to the elements or left to be twirled by passers
by who wanted to join in the fun.

The Pope's Pears:
The vaginal pear was used on woman who had sex with the Devil or his
familiars. The rectal pear was used on passive male homosexuals and the oral
pear was used on heretical preachers or lay persons found guilty of unorthodox
practices. Inserted into the mouth, anus or vagina of the victim, the pear was
expanded by use of the screw until the insides are ripped, stretched and
mutilated, almost always causing death. The pointed ends of the 'leaves' were
good for ripping the throat, intestines or cervix open.

The Judas Cradle:
The victim is raised up by the rope or chain and then lowered until the
vagina, anus or the coccyx rests on the point. The torturer could vary the
pressure by hanging weights from the victim or rocking or raising and dropping
the victim from various heights.

Iron Spider:
The iron would usually be heated to red-hot and then used to slowly rip the
breasts from the body. It would be used for such crimes as heresy, adultery,
self-induced abortions, blasphemy and other "hideous" crimes.

Strapado:
Designed to dislocate the shoulders of a victim by hoisting him off the
ground, allowing him to fall, and stopping him suddenly before he touched the
ground. To add to the torment, weights (varying from 50 to 500 pounds) were
tied to the victim's body to dislocate a greater number of bones.

Slow Burn
A 16th century device to lift the victim in and out of the fire, roasting him
alive slowly instead of burning him all at once.

Cat's Paw
A clawed rake, used to rip the person's flesh and tear the flesh from the
bones of any part of his or her body.

Extreme Makeover
The rack everybody's favourite. Well, perhaps only of Inquisitors for whom it
was the instrument of choice after the pulley had failed. For the helpless
victim dislocation of every joint in the body and elongations up to 12" were
possible. 'Surgeons' might reset joints to allow the torture to be repeated.
Severe lacerations and loss of blood would result from racking even without
the additional use of red hot pincers to tear off nipples, tongues, ears,
noses, and genitals.

The Holy Trinity:
When a sinner had "blasphemed the holy name of god", or when he had perhaps
told some truth about the local priest, it was customary to apply the holy
trinity. The Iron mask was heated in an open fire until red hot, then put upon
his head. The scourge, also red hot, was then applied to his back. After the
mask had cooled, it was removed from the sinner, taking skin (and usually
eyeballs) with it. The prisoner's mouth was then opened and red hot pincers
were used to remove the prisoner's tongue.
It is interesting to note that the Holy Trinity was designed not to cause
death, so that the maimed, blinded and mute prisoner could live out his days
as a burden to his family and as a testimony to what happens when one lets his
tongue wag too freely.
==
Christians, within their own society, have a long track record of barbarism
towards outsiders, often murdering and pillaging with the serene mind that
comes from confidence that one is acting with the blessing of God.
==
"The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, he is Jesus Christ
himself, hidden under the veil of flesh." Catholic National July 1895.

Roman Catholic Pope states "We hold upon this earth the place of God
Almighty" ...Pope Leo XIII

Documented Roman Catholic source states "For thou art the
shepherd, thou art the physician, thou art the director, thou art the
husbandman, finally thou art another God on earth." Labbe and Cossart's
"History of the Councils." Vol. XIV, col. 109
==
Mussolini and (Cardinal) Gasspari sign historic Roman pact.
DakotaMan: Fact: "The Roman question tonight was a thing of the past, and the
Vatican was at peace with Italy... In affixing the autographs to the memorable
document healing the wound of many years, extreme cordiality was displayed on
both sides" -The San Francisco Chronicle. Feb. 11, 1929
==
Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god."
===
Luke14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life
also, he cannot be my disciple. (KJV)
==
Mat10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not
to send peace, but a sword. (KJV)
==
Th2:11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will
believe the lie
==
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day
is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy
maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy
gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and
all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD
blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it (Exodus 20:9-11).
==
Rev 19:14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen,
white and clean, were following Him on white horses.
==
Mass delusion can be and is contagious and the vast majority of people fear
the unknown.ie:death.
===
A natural combination would be to combine Communism
and Catholicism, since both are top-down models of social control.
==
Revelation 19 15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he
should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he
treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. (KJV)
===
Atheist Universe by David Mills

Dan Barker Losing Faith in Faith

Walker The Decline of Hell

Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from
Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson by Jennifer Michael
Hecht
===
Deuteronomy 5:6-21
21 Neither shall you covet your neighbours wife. Neither shall you desire
your neighbours house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey,
or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
Slavery is assumed.
===
Douglas Krueger _What Is Atheism_

Sir William M. Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the
Trustworthiness of the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1915),

F.F. Bruce ( Jesus and Christian Origins), Edwin M. Yamauchi
Gary Habermas (The Historical Jesus).

Francis A. Schaeffer How Should We Then Live
==
http://www.caseagainstfaith.com/
===
Ugaritic includes not only the original versions of
biblical creation myths & cosmogony, but entire Psalms
& Proverbs virtually identical to those in the Bible,
although written before the Israelites even entered
Canaan, along with parts of many other books, such as
Habakkuk. Many biblical words have been elucidated
only through comparison with Ugaritic. Even
conservative Christian theology schools teach & study
Canaanite (Ugaritic & Phoenician), plus other dead &
living Semitic languages, in order better to
understand the Bible. Some linguists lump Hebrew with
the Canaanite languages, others with Arabic. Three
thousand years ago, Arabic & Hebrew were probably the
same language, or dialects of the same one.
==
Sianatics also has Barnabas and Hermas
(both serious contenders for canon.
==
Philip Jenkins The Next Christendom
==
In a recent CBS News poll, 82 per cent of Americans said they believe in
God 9 percent in a universal spirit. Just 8 percent say they don't believe
in either.
A Gallup poll not long ago found 44 percent of Americans view atheists harshly
and 53 percent said they would never elect an atheist president.
==
Americans gave $97 billion to religion last year, according to the Giving
USA Foundation.
===
The kjv of 1611 consists of 81 books , not the 73 of the Catholic faith or
the 66 of the Protestan.
===
Th 1:7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall
be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
1:8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that
obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
1:9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of
the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
==
One seller of indulgences was robbed of his money as he left town, but the
robbers had signed indulgences that pardoned them of any guilt.
==
If you picked 100 adults out of the population who attended their house of
worship nearly every week or more often, they would have 223 children among
them, on average, according to the 2006 General Social Survey. Among 100
people who attended less than once per year or never, you would find just
158 kids. This 41% fertility gap between religious and secular people is
especially meaningful because people tend to worship more or less like their
parents. According to data collected in 1999 by Gallup, 60% of adults who
were taken to church at least once per month as children grew up to attend
at least this often; only 15% stopped attending as adults.
===
The scientific approach to trying to explain how the universe works is a
useful enterprise because it leads to new ideas. Invoking God as an
explanation of how the universe works does not lead to new ideas (and tends to
impede new ideas). One can believe in God, but still seek a rational
explanation for how the universe works.
==
Astrology promotes the worst thing in the world: uncritical thinking. The more
we teach people to simply accept anecdotal stories, hearsay, cherry-picked data
(picking out what supports your claims but ignoring what doesn't), and,
frankly, out-and-out lies, the harder it gets for people to think clearly. If
you cannot think clearly, you cannot function as a human being. I cannot
stress this enough. Uncritical thinking is tearing this world to pieces, and
while astrology may not be at the heart of that, it has its role.
==
Rev 22:12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give
every man according as his work shall be.
It has been about 2000 years. Quickly?
===
The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews From the Nazis,
by David G. Dalin,
==
Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust (Paperback)
by Robert P. Ericksen (Editor), Susannah Heschel (Editor)
==
In 1987, the [[Federal Election Commission]] fined Falwell US $6,000 for
illegally transferring US $6.7 million in funds intended for his religious
ministry to his political action committees.

In 1972, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched an
investigation of bonds issued by Falwell's organizations. The SEC charged
Falwell's church with "fraud and deceit" in the issuance of $6.5 million in
unsecured church bonds. Falwell claimed that the SEC was "technically"
incorrect as God himself was supposedly underwriting the bonds. Standard and
Poor's declined to confirm Falwell's 'AAA' credit rating of the Almighty - the
court case continues. However, while his church won a 1973 federal court case
prosecuted at the behest of the SEC, thousands of small religious investors
who had bought church construction bonds lost their money through the
bankruptcy and reorganization of Liberty University.
According to Falwell, the survival of the University could be attributed to
the work of Daniel Reber and Jimmy Thomas, as leaders of the non-profit
Christian Heritage Foundation in Forest, Virginia. A secret benefactor was the
South Korean Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial self-proclaimed "messiah."
Covertly, Moon helped bail out Liberty University through one of his front
groups which funneled US$3.5 million to the Reber-Thomas Christian Heritage
Foundation, the non-profit organization that had purchased the school's debt.
-
In 1987, the [[Federal Election Commission]] fined Falwell US $6,000 for
illegally transferring US $6.7 million in funds intended for his religious
ministry to his political action committees.

In 1972, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched an
investigation of bonds issued by Falwell's organizations. The SEC charged
Falwell's church with "fraud and deceit" in the issuance of $6.5 million in
unsecured church bonds. Falwell claimed that the SEC was "technically"
incorrect as God himself was supposedly underwriting the bonds. Standard and
Poor's declined to confirm Falwell's 'AAA' credit rating of the Almighty - the
court case continues. However, while his church won a 1973 federal court case
prosecuted at the behest of the SEC, thousands of small religious investors
who had bought church construction bonds lost their money through the
bankruptcy and reorganization of Liberty University.

According to Falwell, the survival of the University could be attributed to
the work of Daniel Reber and Jimmy Thomas, as leaders of the non-profit
Christian Heritage Foundation in Forest, Virginia. A secret benefactor was the
South Korean Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial self-proclaimed "messiah."
Covertly, Moon helped bail out Liberty University through one of his front
groups which funneled US$3.5 million to the Reber-Thomas Christian Heritage
Foundation, the non-profit organization that had purchased the school's debt.

===
US minister asks followers to pray for deaths of those questioning backing of
Republican
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas: A minister who endorsed Republican Mike Huckabee's
presidential bid is asking his followers to pray for the deaths of those who
are challenging his church's tax-exempt status because of the political
statement.
The Rev. Wiley S. Drake of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park,
California, called for "imprecatory prayer" targeting Barry W. Lynn, Joe Conn
and Jeremy Leaming of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
"The prayer does call for serious, serious punishment on people. But I didn't
call for that, God did," said Drake, who completed a term in June as second
vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Drake used church stationery and an Internet radio program to endorse
Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas who is a Southern Baptist minister.
The Americans United for Separation of Church and State asked the U.S. tax
agency, the Internal Revenue Service, to investigate whether it was proper for
Drake to endorse Huckabee. Churches that endorse candidates are subject to
losing their tax-exempt status.
Drake said in a telephone interview Thursday that neither he nor the church
violated the law and insisted he could use church stationery and the Internet
program to "personally" endorse a political candidate. He said the Bible calls
for imprecatory prayer when someone "attacks the church."
On his Internet show, in a news release on ChristianNewsWire and in an e-mail
to Americans United, Drake called on others to pray that the Americans United
officials be punished.
He gave as examples of imprecatory prayer:
"Persecute them. ... Let them be put to shame and perish."
"Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."
"Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg."
==
Hans Kung Does God Exist?

Philip Jenkins The Next Christendom
===
Michael Shermer in his book "Why People Believe in Weird Things", describes
why smart people believe in weird things. Smart people believe in weird
things because they are very good at defending positions they arrived at
through non-smart reasons.
===
Isaiah
40:22 [It is] he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the
inhabitants thereof [are] as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as
a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
===
Re 19:15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should
smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth
the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty
==
E.O. Wilson wrote, The enduring paradox of [faith] is that so much of its
substance is demonstrably false, yet it remains a driving force in all
societies.
==
According to official Mormon doctrine, in 1820 God chose Joseph Smith, a young
farm boy living in rural New York, as his prophet. He instructed Smith to dig
up a long-buried series of golden plates that related the precepts of the true
Christian faith. Smith's translation of these plates from an ancient language
("Reformed Egyptian") into English was published as the Book of Mormon in 1830.

The Book of Mormon is a religious and secular history of the inhabitants of
the Western Hemisphere from about 2200 BCE to 421 CE. It relates that three
groups were led by God from the Near East to America. Many of the descendants
of these immigrants were Christians, even before Christ was born. Believers
and unbelievers fought many wars from which only the unbelievers -- the Native
Americans -- survived.

The most important event during this long history was the visit of Jesus
Christ to America after his crucifixion, when he ministered to and converted
all the inhabitants. The early Christian church fell from the truth and "in
the latter days" Christ has been restoring it through modern-day prophets,
starting in 1820 with Mormon Church founder Smith.

The Church espoused several controversial beliefs that it has since renounced,
such as polygamy (renounced in 1890) and that African Americans had received
"the Curse of Cain" and could not hold the priesthood (renounced in 1978). It
still espouses other controversial beliefs, such as that the Garden of Eden
was in actually in Missouri, all humanity lived in the western hemisphere
before the Great Flood, and The Ark transported Noah and the other survivors
to the eastern hemisphere.

===
Exodus 15:3 The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
===
Michel Onfray In Defence of Atheism

Richard Swinburne "The Existence of God,"

Coming to Peace With Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology by
Darrel R. Falk

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without
Design by Richard Dawkins

On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson

Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould

Where Darwin Meets the Bible: Creationists and Evolutionists in America by
Larry A. Witham

The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism by Phillip E.
Johnson


God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science by Neil A. Manson
on 4 pages

The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent
Design by William A. Dembski

Jiddu Krishnamurti Freedom from the Known

Coming to Peace With Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology
by Darrel R. Falk

Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction by Eugenie C. Scott

Can a Darwinian be a Christian?: The Relationship between Science and Religion
by Michael Ruse

God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution by John F. Haught


The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S.
Collins
==
Psa18:11 He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him
were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. (KJV)
===
Joshua 10:

12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD
delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the
sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon,
in the valley of Ajalon.

13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people
had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in
the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and
hasted not to go down about a whole day.
==
There is no fixed meaning to the Bible and its imterpretation can change with
the general mood of the people at the time?
==
Voice of Reason: The Truth Behind the Shroud of Turin

While science and scholarship have demonstrated that the Shroud of Turin is
not the burial cloth of Jesus but instead a fourteenth-century forgery, shroud
devotees continue to claim otherwise.
In medieval Europe alone there were more than forty "True Shrouds," although
the Turin Cloth uniquely bears the apparent imprints of a man, crucified like
Jesus in the gospel narratives. Unfortunately, the alleged "relic" has not
fared well in various scientific examinations--except those conducted by
Shroud partisans like those of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP),
whose leaders served on the executive council of the pro-authenticity Holy
Shroud Guild.
The following facts have been established by various distinguished experts and
scholars:
The shroud contradicts the Gospel of John, which describes multiple cloths
(including a separate "napkin" over the face), as well as "an hundred pound
weight" of burial spices--not a trace of which appears on the cloth.
No examples of the shroud linen's complex herringbone twill weave date from
the first century, when burial cloths tended to be of plain weave in any case.
The shroud has no known history prior to the mid-fourteenth century, when it
turned up in the possession of a man who never explained how he had obtained
the most holy relic in Christendom.
The earliest written record of the shroud is a bishop's report to Pope Clement
VII, dated 1389, stating that it originated as part of a faith-healing scheme,
with "pretended miracles" being staged to defraud credulous pilgrims.
The bishop's report also stated that a predecessor had "discovered the fraud
and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested to
by the artist who had painted it" (emphasis added).
Although, as St. Augustine lamented in the fourth-century, Jesus' appearance
was completely unknown, the shroud image follows the conventional artistic
likeness.
The physique is unnaturally elongated (like figures in Gothic art), and there
is a lack of wraparound distortions that would be expected if the cloth had
enclosed an actual three-dimensional object like a human body. The hair hangs
as for a standing, rather than reclining figure, and the imprint of a bloody
foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg to which it belongs.
The alleged blood stains are unnaturally picture-like. Instead of matting the
hair, for instance, they run in rivulets on the outside of the locks. Also
dried "blood" (as on the arms) has been implausibly transferred to the cloth.
The blood remains bright red, unlike genuine blood that blackens with age.
In 1973, internationally known forensic serologists subjected the "blood" to a
battery of tests--for chemical properties, species, blood grouping, etc. The
substance lacked the properties of blood, instead containing suspicious,
reddish granules.
Subsequently, the distinguished microanalyst Walter McCrone identified the
"blood" as red ocher and vermilion tempera paint and concluded that the entire
image had been painted.
In 1988, the shroud cloth was radiocarbon dated by three different
laboratories (at Zurich, Oxford, and the University of Arizona). The results
were in close agreement and yield a date range of a.d. 1260-1390, about the
time of the reported forger's confession (ca. a.d. 1355).
Those who defend the shroud as authentic offer explanations for each damning
piece of evidence, but these often veer toward pseudoscience and
pseudohistory. For example, they offer various objections to the radiocarbon
date, suggesting that it could have been altered by a fire in 1532, or by
microbial contamination, or by imagined medieval repair in the sampled
area--even by a burst of radiant energy from the Resurrection! However, none
of these claims has merit. Clearly beginning with the desired answer, shroud
enthusiasts work backward to the evidence, picking and choosing and
rationalizing to fit their belief--a process I call "shroud science."
Some researchers have even claimed to see--Rorschach-like in the shroud's
mottled image and off-image areas--a plethora of objects that supposedly help
authenticate the cloth. These include "Roman coins" over the eyes, "flowers of
Jerusalem," and such crucifixion-associated items (c.f. John, ch. 19) as "a
large nail," a "hammer," "sponge on a reed," "Roman thrusting spear,"
"pliers," and other hilarious imaginings including "Roman dice."
Also reportedly discovered were ancient Latin and Greek words, such as "Jesus"
and "Nazareth." Even shroud author Ian Wilson (The Blood and the Shroud, 1998,
p. 242) felt compelled to state: "While there can be absolutely no doubting
the sincerity of those who make these claims, the great danger of such
arguments is that researchers may 'see' merely what their minds trick them
into thinking is there."
In contrast, the scientific approach allows the preponderance of objective
evidence to lead to a conclusion: the Shroud of Turin is the work of a
confessed medieval artisan. The various pieces of the puzzle effectively
interlock and corroborate each other. In the words of Catholic historian
Ulysse Chevalier, who brought to light the documentary evidence of the
Shroud's mid-fourteenth-century origin, "The history of the shroud constitutes
a protracted violation of the two virtues so often commended by our holy books,
justice and truth."
==
Hell

De 32:22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the
lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on
fire the foundations of the mountains.

2Sa 22:6 The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death
prevented me;

Job 11:8 It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell;
what canst thou know?

Job 26:6 Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.

Ps 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that
forget God.

Ps 16:10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou
suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Ps 18:5 The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death
prevented me.

Ps 55:15 Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into
hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.

Ps 86:13 For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my
soul from the lowest hell.

Ps 116:3 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat
hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.

Ps 139:8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed
in hell, behold, thou art there.

Pr 5:5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

Pr 7:27 Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.

Pr 9:18 But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests
are in the depths of hell.

Pr 15:11 Hell and destruction are before the LORD: how much more then
the hearts of the children of men?

Pr 15:24 The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from
hell beneath.

Pr 23:14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul
from hell.

Pr 27:20 Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are
never satisfied.

Isa 5:14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth
without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp,
and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.

Isa 14:9 Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy
coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the
earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

Isa 14:15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Isa 28:15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and
with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass
through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge,
and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:

Isa 28:18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your
agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall
pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.

Isa 57:9 And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase
thy perfumes, and didst send thy messengers far off, and didst debase
thyself even unto hell.

Eze 31:16 I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I
cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the
trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water,
shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.

Eze 31:17 They also went down into hell with him unto them that be
slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his
shadow in the midst of the heathen.

Eze 32:21 The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the
midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie
uncircumcised, slain by the sword.

Eze 32:27 And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the
uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war:
and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities
shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in
the land of the living.

Am 9:2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them;
though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:

Jon 2:2 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD,
and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my
voice.

Hab 2:5 Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man,
neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as
death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and
heapeth unto him all people:
===
Robert Minor, a Kansas University professor of religious studies, published a
book titled When Religion is an Addiction.
The Kansas University professors eighth book, When Religion is an Addiction,
may become his most controversial. He suggests that some members of the
religious right have become so addicted to their church activities that they
have to continue advancing their causes to get new highs.
Its like any addiction, he says. At some point, it doesnt do the trick for
you, so you need to strengthen it. Religion wasnt enough for them, so they
entered politics to get a stronger affirmation of righteousness.
A high of righteousness, he adds, is the same as a high of cocaine.
And, before any liberals think theyre off the hook, Minor has a message for
them: Im not really writing it to convince people theyre addicted to religion.
Its more written for people who are liberals, who are enablers.
The book, published by Humanity Works!, came out on Wednesday. Minor is
expecting to rile people on all sides of the political spectrum.
Thats all right, he says. Ive written things that got hate mail before.
Family drunk
Minor has been a professor of religious studies at KU since 1977. His areas of
study and teaching include religions of south Asia, sexuality and religion and
gender.
His previous books include Scared Straight and Gay and Healthy in a Sick
Society.
He says hes been thinking about the concept of religious addiction for years,
and he admits its not a new concept. Religious scholars and authors such as
John Bradshaw and Leo Booth have written about it before.
But Minor hopes to cast it in terms of the rise of the religious right in the
past 20 to 30 years.
He says the high of advancing beliefs through political activism has replaced
the highs of church activity.
Like the family drunk, he writes in the books introduction, they are high on a
bender, and their current drink is political.
The addiction can manifest itself in other ways, Minor says, including winning
a political battle, doing political work, feeling like youre doing the work of
the Lord ... more Bible readings, more studies, more testimonials.
He gives the example of gay unions and marriage as an issue. Passing the
federal Marriage Protection Act wasnt enough, he says. Conservatives then
decided to work for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, or work so
gays cant adopt children.
The fix never lasts, Minor says, so you need another issue.
Why?
Minor doesnt profess to be a psychologist, so he doesnt know the exact cause
of the religious addiction. But he thinks it is connected to low self-esteem
issues, because some fundamental Christians believe they deserve eternal child
abuse from a heavenly father, and that you can only be OK if somebody else
(God) likes you, he says.
And, he says, the media has helped further the right-wing cause. He notes a
study by the watchdog group Media Matters of America that said right-wing
religious leaders were interviewed, quoted or mentioned 3.8 times as often as
other religious issues.
The media thereby define the debate in almost all national discussions as the
religious right-wing on one side and the other side occupied by science,
social science, academics or anything and anyone else, Minor writes in his
introduction. Its as if, for example, debates over stem-cell research pit
science against morality with only a right-wing Christian religio-political
version of morality posed as the other side.
Liberal enablers
Minor blames liberals for enabling conservatives in their religious and
political changes through the years.
Through minimizing the potential power of the religious right-wing, denial,
obsessive positive or negative emotional attachment to it, and even
self-blaming, we often became like abused spouses believing that there must be
something we could do to control, change or save the addicts, Minor writes. Our
focus became changing them. That, we believed, would solve our problems.
Liberals reactions, Minor contends, includes several responses:
Liberal guilt, of not wanting to offend conservatives.
Covering up for explaining to be nice. Its basically like abused spouses
wanting to explain the actions of their abusive husbands, Minor says.
Needing to atone to past mistakes, saying things like I need to understand
them better, to educate them or to love them more.
Theres a liberal guilt, he says. They dont want to offend them.
Psychological take
Though the concept of religious addiction has been around for decades, its
safe to say that field is still in its infancy in terms of scientific and
clinical research, says Steve Ilardi, a KU associate professor of psychology.
Ilardi says chemical or substance addictions tend to activate the same reward
pathways of the brain that process addictions such as gambling or binge
eating also activate.
But, Ilardi says, there is enormous controversy in the literature right now
when it comes to determining what qualifies as a process addiction, which is
the area where Minors idea of religious addiction would fit.
The big factor clinically speaking, Ilardi says, is whether theres harm in
religious involvement.
Religious addiction what does that mean? he asks. Does it mean a person who
spends hours a week in religious practice at church or at meetings, who reads
the Bible daily or prays daily, and its somewhat rewarding to them? Are they
addicted? From a clinical perspective, I would say no, unless its something
thats clearly harmful.
That would include neglecting other relationships, work or other life
responsibilities, Ilardi says.
Is it impairing a persons functioning? Ilardi asks. Thats the question I would
want to see addressed before Id consider labeling something a religious
addiction.
Pastors reaction
Shaun LePage, pastor at Community Bible Church, 906 N. 1464 Road, is among
those questioning Minors logic.
The Journal-World asked LePage to read the introduction to Minors book, which
was posted on his Web site, www.fairnessproject.org.

==
"The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus
Christ Himself hidden under the veil of flesh." -- Pius X
===
Enlightenment values of mental liberty via reason and rejection of blind
adherence to authority and faith gave rise to the free societies of the modern
world
==
Scientists, unlike theologians, produce evidence for their claims.
==

The Twilight of Atheism, by theologian Alister McGrath

Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from
Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson by Jennifer Michael
Hecht

Alien Intrusion by Gary Bates

The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God)
by N. T. Wright

Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life by Alister McGrath

The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine by
Alister E. McGrath

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion by
Dale McGowan

Doubt: A History Jennifer Hecht

The Resurrection of the Son of God
(Christian Origins and the Question of God) by N. T. Wright

Alister McGrath The Dawkins Delusion

The Science Of God: An Introduction To Scientific Theology by Alister E.
McGrath

Wells' Jesus of the Early Christians

Ehrman's Jesus

Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

Price's Incredible Shrinking Son of Man

Gellner's Postmodernism, Reason and Religion
==
Psa 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the
most High.
==
Rev22:5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither
light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for
ever and ever. (KJV)
===
"If you have been healed or saved or blessed through TBN and have not
contributed you are robbing God and will lose your reward in heaven,"
Paul Crouch, co-founder of the Orange County-based network, once told viewers.
Meanwhile, Crouch and his wife, Jan, live like tycoons.
I spent several years investigating TBN and pored through stacks of
documents some made available by appalled employees showing the Crouches
eating $180-per-person meals; flying in a $21-million corporate jet; having
access to 30 TBN-owned homes across the country, among them a pair of Newport
Beach mansions and a ranch in Texas. All paid for with tax-free donor m
One of the stars of TBN and a major fundraiser is the self-proclaimed faith
healer Benny Hinn. I attended one of his two-day "Miracle Crusades" at what
was then the Pond of Anaheim. The arena was packed with sick people looking
for a cure.
My heart broke for the hundreds of people around me in wheelchairs or in the
final stages of terminal diseases, believing that if God deemed their faith
strong enough, they would be healed that night.
Hinn tells his audiences that a generous cash gift to his ministry will be
seen by God as a sign of true faith. This has worked well for the
televangelist, who lives in an oceanfront mansion in Dana Point, drives luxury
cars, flies in private jets and stays in the best hotels.
At the crusade, I met Jordie Gibson, 21, who had flown from Calgary, Canada,
to Anaheim because he believed that God, through Hinn, could get his kidneys
to work again.
He was thrilled to tell me that he had stopped getting dialysis because Hinn
had said people are cured only when they "step out in faith." The decision
enraged his doctors, but made perfect sense to Gibson. Despite risking his
life as a show of faith, he wasn't cured in Anaheim. He returned to Canada and
went back on dialysis. The crowd was filled with desperate believers like
Gibson.
I tried unsuccessfully to get several prominent mainstream pastors who
appeared on TBN to comment on the prosperity gospel, Hinn's "faith healing" or
the Crouches' lifestyle.
Like the Catholic bishops, I assumed, they didn't want to risk what they had.
==
`The Brothers Karamazov' (1880) the last novel
written by Dostoyevksy.

`... The church, out of a deeper concern for humanity, wishes to deny them
freedom, and replaces the curse of freedom with the intellectual and spiritual
opiates of miracle, mystery, and authority. By revering the mystery, believing
and accepting the miracles, and following the dictates and directives of the
church, people can live their lives with the heavy load of accepting
responsibility for their own actions. The majority of people, according to the
Grand Inquisitor, are weak and are likened to sheep. Happiness can only be
achieved by the surrender of human freedom. People may cry out for it, but in
fact they prefer slavery. Only the strong, those few at the top of the power
structure, should have to bear the weight and responsibility of freedom.'
==
The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of
God) by N. T. Wright

Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life by Alister McGrath

The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine
by Alister E. McGrath

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World
(Paperback)
by Alister McGrath (Author)
==
"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of
spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the
divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."
(Martin Luther)
==
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/bible.htm contradictions
==
Natural Atheism by David Eller
The book starts off by refuting classical arguments for the belief in a god
and presents logical arguments against the existence of god. Next, he provides
a brief 'course' on reason which is outstanding because many people use
improper reasoning not just in arguments about religion, but in their everyday
life. Eller then describes atheism in detail and puts to rest many stereotypes
of atheism and atheists. The last part of the book is devoted to the
applications of atheism; such as, the separation of church and state and
living in a disenchanted world.

Dianna Narciso "Like Rolling Uphill
==
Fixed earth
1 Chronicles 16:30: He has fixed the earth firm, immovable.

Psalm 93:1: Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ...

Psalm 96:10: He has fixed the earth firm, immovable ...

Psalm 104:5: Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can
be shaken.

Isaiah 45:18: ...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it
fast...
==
http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm
==
Deut 8:4. Thy raiment, with which thou wast covered, hath not decayed for
age, and thy foot is not worn, lo this is the fortieth year,
==
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/clearair.html deconversions
==
The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel
According to Mark by Morton Smith (Paperback - May 30, 2005)

Jesus the Magician: A Response to Morton Smith (Unknown Binding)
by Frederick W Norris (Author)

Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? by Morton Smith
(Paperback - Sep 1998)
======
Ecc 3:21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit
of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
===
v 2job 12:10 In whose hand is the soul of every living thing,
and the breath of all mankind. Animals have souls?
==
The believer is not burdened with the need for empirical evidence,
therefore his mind is not "available" for changing. One rather sad side
effect of this is willful ignorance.
==
Christopher Hitchens "God Is Not Great:
How Religion Poisons Everything" (2007)
==
1 Kings 22 22 And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go
forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he
said, Thou shalt persuade [him,] and prevail also: go forth, and do so. (KJV)

1Kings 22 23 Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the
mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee
(KJV)
==
The bible was compiled under the direction of the 37th Pope, Damasus about
384 AD. It was then that the Catholic Church determined which writings were
apocryphal and which were the inspired word of God.
==
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no
religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious
foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion
must be derived from faith. . . we need believing people." -From Hitler's
speech, April 26, 1933

"It was only the disintegrating effect of Christianity, and the
symptoms of age which appear in every country, which caused ancient Rome to
succumb to the onslaught of the Germans."
==
The Fifth plague (pestilence, Exodus 9) wiped out the Egyptian livestock,
including horses. Yet, Exodus 14 talks about the Pharaoh pursuing the Jews
with chariots and horsemen.
===
Thunder is the voice of God
"On the third day, as morning dawned, there was thunder (kolot), and
lightning, and a dense cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud blast
(kol) of the shofar, and all the people who were in the camp trembled;
" (Exodus 19:16)

Zechariah 9:14: "And the Lord will manifest Himself to them, And His arrows
shall flash like lightning; My Lord God shall sound the ram?s horn And
advance in a stormy tempest."

Psalm 29:3f:
The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the
LORD is upon many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the
LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars; yea, the
LORD breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.

Psalm 18:13f:
The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail
stones and coals of fire. Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and
he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.

Job 40:9 Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder
with a voice like him?

John 12:29:
Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it,
and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard
it, said that it thundered ...

(Rev 11:19):
And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple
the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and
thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

Psalm 77:18):
The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven (galgal): the lightnings lightened
the world: the earth trembled and shook.
==
Huston Smith The Illustrated World's Religions
==
"Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" God
==
Surely those who disbelieve . . . Allah has set a seal upon their hearts . . .
and there is a great punishment for them (Koran 2:6-7).
Surely those who disbelieve and die while they are disbelievers, these it is
on whom is the curse of Allah and the angels and men all (Koran 2:161).
[W]hen the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In
flaming fire taking vengeance of them that know not God, and that obey not the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord . . . (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9).
[H]e that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God
abideth on him(John 3:36).

2. Whose god orders the most violent plight for nonbelievers while on Earth?
If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the
wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee
secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods . . . thou shalt surely kill
him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards
the hand of all the people . . . If thou shalt hear . . . Certain men . . .
have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve
other gods . . . Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants ofthat city with the
edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the
cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword (Deuteronomy13: 6-15).
Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they
prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion
of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in
acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection (Koran
9:29).
3. Whose god orders the cruelest warfare?
So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite the necks until
when you have overcome them, then make (them) prisoners, and afterwards either
set them free as a favor or let them ransom (themselves) until the war
terminates (Koran 47:4).
And when the Lord thy God hath delivered [a city] into thine hands, thou shalt
smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the
little ones . . . shalt thou take unto thyself . . . But of the cities of
these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou
shalt save alive nothing that breatheth(Deuteronomy 20:13-16).

4. Whose god has the least pity and most contempt for the enemies of his
followers?
And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city,
and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and
young, both males, and little children, and women: but come not near any man
upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the
ancient men who were before the house. And he said unto them, Defile the
house, and fill the courts with the slain: go you forth. And they went forth,
and slew in the city (Ezekiel 9:5-7).
Allah does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you
on account of (your) religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes,
that you show them kindness and deal with them justly; surely Allah loves the
doers of justice (Koran 60:8).
And if they incline to peace, then incline to it and trust in Allah; surely He
is the Hearing, the Knowing (Koran 8:61).

5. Whose god has more contempt for homosexuals?
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have
committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall
be upon them(Leviticus 20:13).
And if two (men) of you commit it, then hurt them both; but if they turn again
and amend, leave them alone, verily, God is easily turned, compassionate (Koran
4:21).
Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind . . . shall inherit the
kingdom of God(1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
"And there shall wait on them young boys of their own, as fair as virgin
pearls" (Koran 52:24). They shall be attended by boys graced with eternal
youth, who will seem like scattered pearls to the beholders" (Koran 76:19).

6. Whose god has prescribed the more vicious physical punishment of sinners?
(As for) the fornicatress and the fornicator, flog each of them, (giving) a
hundred stripes, and let not pity for them detain you in the matter of
obedience to Allah, if you believe in Allah and the last day, and let a party
of believers witness their chastisement (Koran 24:2).
And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge
shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face . . . Forty
stripes he may give him, and not exceed(Deuteronomy 25:2-3).

7. Whose god should you fear most?
What! will you not fight a people who broke their oaths and aimed at the
expulsion of the Apostle, and they attacked you first; do you fear them? But
Allah is most deserving that you should fear Him, if you are believers (Koran
9:13).
But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath
killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him (Luke 12:5).
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but
rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew
10:28).

8. Whose god places the least value on the lives of women?
Allah enjoins you concerning your children: The male shall have the equal of
the portion of two females; then if they are more than two females, shall have
two-thirds of what the deceased has left, and if there is one, she shall they
have the half (Koran 4:11).
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and
sayunto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for
the Lord by thy estimation. And thy estimation shall be of the male from
twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty
shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary. And if it be a female,
then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels. And if it be from a month old
even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five
shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of
silver. And if it be from sixty years old and above, if it be a male, then thy
estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female, ten shekels"
(Leviticus27: 1-7).

9. Whose god puts women in their place with the harshest of restrictions on
their speech?
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" ; (1
Timothy 2:11-12).
"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto
them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the
law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for
it is a shame for women to speak in the church" (1Corinthians 14:34-35).
"Allah has heard and accepted the statement of the woman who pleads with you
(the Prophet) concerning her husband and carries her complaint to Allah, and
Allah hears the arguments between both of you for Allah hears and sees all
things(Koran 58:1).

10. Whose god is the champion of deceit?
Surely Allah is not ashamed to set forth any parable-- (that of) a gnat or any
thing above that; then as for those who believe, they know that it is the truth
from their Lord, and as for those who disbelieve, they say: What is it that
Allah means by this parable: He causes many to err by it and many He leads
aright by it! but He does not cause to err by it (any) except the
transgressors (Koran2:26).
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but
had pleasure in unrighteousness (2Thessalonians 2:11-12).
===
"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want
to. ... If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
want to, he is wicked. ... If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God
really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?" (Epicurus, as quoted
in 2000 Years of Disbelief)
==
I do not claim there is no god, even though that is what I believe.
Since I did not think up a god and no god has introduced itself to
me, I have to analyze the gods of others. I do claim there is not a
god as described in the OT. There are several points that show that
the god of the OT, as described in the OT, cannot exist.

1st. The OT says that the god is omnipotent, yet this god cannot
defeat chariots of iron. If it were omnipotent, it could defeat the
chariots of iron. Please show me how an omnipotent god can ever not
defeat chariots of iron.

2nd. The OT says that the god never changes, yet this god changes
many times in the text. Please show me how a never changing being can
change.

3rd. The OT says that the god is omniscient, yet this god does not
know what will happen on several occasions. Please show how an all-
knowing being can ever not know something.

4th. The OT says that the god is omnipotent, omniscient, and exo-
temporal. This excludes a god from ever wanting, yet this god wants
lots of things. He could not have existed without a thought of
creating the universe and then decide to create the universe. That
would be change. He would have always known he was going to create.
This creates a problem. If he knew he was going to create, would he
then have been able to not create. Would he have been a slave to his
own knowledge?

5th. The god of the OT did his creating in "days", yet this god is
supposed to be outside of time, unconstrained by time.

There are more but this is a good start. These show that the authors
of the OT did not do their homework and think the stories through.
These show a fictional character because the traits ascribed to it
violate the law of non-contradiction.

Many of these same points apply to all gods with similar attributes.
This leaves me believing that there is no god.
==
Here's a source for the Samaritan Pentateuch, which as
you know differs significantly from the Jewish version
given, as you say, a good working over by Ezra & other
writer/editors:

http://www.lulu. com/content/ 186110

Don't know which version of the Samaritan this book
uses for the comparison, since there are so many.

Here's a discussion by a dilettante non-specialist,
but in my opinion a good summary nonetheless:

http://web.meson. org/religion/ torahcompare. php

As for the author of 1 Timothy & the other Pastorals,
some scholars have fingered Polycarp of Smyrna as the
perp, for both stylistic & doctrinal reasons. He also
fits, given the dates of first attestation for those
"pseudepigraphical" (euphemism for faked) works.

Don't know if the good bishop is also a suspect in the
blatant cases of the other phony Pauline epistles,
James letters, 2 Peter & Jude or not, to which list
I'd add 1 Peter, since no way an illiterate,
Aramaic-speaking Galilean fisherman wrote that book,
not even after putative years among Hellenic & Roman
Gentiles.
==
Bible is wrong about Creation, from its assertion that the sun revolves
around the earth to its idea that you can get to heaven by building a really
tall tower.
==
The stories in Genesis 1 and 2 are STORIES, and beautiful ones at that. No
one back then had any idea of how the universe, the world, or the human race
began. The editors of Genesis took two of the more popular yarns and presented
them back-to-back. There is no attempt to be consistant here; God either made
man before the animals or the animals before man. He either created humans
male and female together or He created man first and woman much later.
===
Isaiah 6:2,6 has angels with wings
===
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to
separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and
separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was
so God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there
was morningthe second day." Water above the sky?
==
"On the other hand, I
maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and
noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the
immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer
work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the
strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is
from the immediate realities of life, can issue"
It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological
concept
which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal
outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining
morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should
be based
effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no
religious
basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be
restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
-- Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science," New York Times Magazine, 9
November 1930
==
Without progress, science would be like religion, stuck in the past.
It is only with the recognition of the possible that science can proceed.
It always seems funny to me that religious folks are willing to accept the
existence of God and the "truths" of the Bible without question, but cannot
accept scientific fact that has been demonstrated to be true in all observed
and known instances.
==
Isa 34:14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts
of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also
shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.
==
Jesus wanted them to believe that they would see him before the
generation he was born in passed away. Xtians of today believe this
was a lie because they are still waiting on him. The Xtians of today
are a totally different generation from the one of Jesus' time.

Matthew 24:34
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all
these things be fulfilled."
==
Jesus said Xtians can drink poison (any deadly thing) and not
die. Ask one of them to do this and watch they don't do it. Doesn't
this mean they are denying Jesus?

Mark 16:18
"They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing,
it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they
shall recover."
==
Kjv Jeremiah 51:16 When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of
waters in the heavens; and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends
of the earth: he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind
out of his treasures. God makes storms
==
How could evil exist without his initial creation of it?
How could lucifer become evil if he was created good?
How could god make lucifer the highest of angels if he knew he
would be betrayed?
If god knew there would be evil why could he not work out a single
plan for forgiveness (OT and NT forgiveness are different)?
If he knew he would have to forgive, why did he wish to accept evil?
If he sought worship, why did he allow free will?
Of what importance could free will play besides, creating a state
in which he would lose worship that he craved?
Why did god need to do any of this, what motivated him to the
desire to create that which was imperfect?
Why did he create, calling it good, when in fact it could not be
good without the direct choose to be good?
==
Exo20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the
LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; (KJV)
===
The Bible never states God created darkness, so I think it is safe
to assume that the default settings were not created by God.
==
Why did the alleged LUKE of the NT find the need to trace back
the lineage of Jesus even back to Adam and Eve and not merely to
Abraham or David?
If the Catholic pope is now claiming that Adam and Eve (and the
biblical Genesis) are not factual but mythical, was LUKE a liar then?
If Luke is considered a liar, then Christians will now admit
that their scriptures contain at least this 1 LIE?
If one lie from Luke managed to inch its way into the
scriptures, how many more lies could have been inserted in
those holy books?
==
There are a number of Biblical references indicating that in some way
the stars may actually participate in human battles Numbers 24:17;
Judges 5:20; Revelation 6:13; 8:10
==
http://www.atheistresource.co.uk/jesusandslavery.html

[kjv] Genesis 9:26 2 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem;
and Canaan shall be his servant. Slavery demanded by God

Luke 12:47 And that servant who knew his master's will, but did not make
ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating.
(Revised Standard Version)
Luke 12:48 But he who did not know, and did what deserved a
beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of
him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand
the more.0 (Revised Standard Version)
Luke 12:47 And that servant who knew his master's will,
but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe
beating. (Revised Standard Version)
===
Changes in the Mass
The "old" Mass, which has passages, recited every Good Friday, which say Jews
live in "blindness" and "darkness", and pray "the Lord our God may take the
veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord
Jesus Christ".
The 16th-century Tridentine Mass includes references to "perfidious" Jews -
===
This is the list that Bruno was charged with, and burned for:
1. Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking
against it and its ministers.
2. Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ's
divinity and Incarnation.
3. Holding erroneous opinions about Christ.
4. Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.
5. Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their
eternity.
6. Believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of
the human soul into brutes.
7. Dealing in magics and divination.
8. Denying the Virginity of Mary.
===
The translators of the KJV were appalled by the
innumerable differences, since so many were
substantive, yet they couldn't ignore the Greek
translation (Septuagint or LXX) of the Jewish bible as
it was known in Jesus' time, since that version was
the Apostles' bible, upon which the NT was based.
Nevertheless, like other Protestants, they relied
primarily on the Masoretic Text.
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Masoretic_ Text
The Masoretic Text was compiled over a millennium (7th
to 10th centuries AD) after the Hellenistic Greek LXX
translation of then extant Hebrew & Aramaic biblical
texts (300 BC or a little later).
The Qumran Dead Sea scrolls confirmed that the LXX
wasn't a mistranslation, but accurately reflected the
books that became the OT as they were known around
turn of BC/AD.
About a third of Job is today meaningless gibberish in
the original Hebrew, so even the KJV teams had to turn
to the LXX to try to figure out what the
untranslatable passages might mean
==
The First Babylonians (Akkadians) reworked Sumerian
material into their creation myth featuring Marduk.
The much later Second Babylonians (Chaldeans) adopted
the same story, from whom the Judean exiles picked it
up during their captivity & turned it into the
biblical Seven Day story, with Marduk replaced by
their tribal God (jealous to have no other gods before
Him, however many others His people might worship).
===
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_geocentrism
The three popes who issued decrees on the subject (Paul V, Urban VIII, and
Alexander VII) all ratified the statement: "the Earth is not the centre of the
world and immovable but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is
equally absurd and false philosophically and theologically considered at least
erroneous in faith".

Alexander VII declared in a Papal Bull that "the Pythagorean doctrine
concerning the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun is false
and altogether incompatible with divine Scripture" and the principles
advocated by Copernicus on the position and movement of the earth to be
repugnant to Scripture and to its true and Catholic interpretation".

Scriptural Cosmology

When more than one citation is presented below a descriptive paragraph, their
order on the page is the same as their order in the Bible.

The mobility of the sun

The most important biblical quote supporting a geocentric universe can be
found in the Book of Joshua. This will be used as the startingpoint for our
scriptural cosmology.

Joshua 10:12-13
Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over
to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand thou
still at Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Aijalon." And the sun stood
still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the midst of
heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.

The miracle of Joshua appears again as a reference in The Book of Habakkuk.

Habakkuk 3:11
The sun and moon stood still in their habitation at the light of thine arrows
as they sped, at the flash of thy glittering spear.

The evidence in support of a geocentric model is overwhelming here. Joshua
commanded the sun to stand still. He did not order the earth to cease rotating
nor did he qualify his statement with the divine knowledge that the sun was
merely made to appear stationary. The sun was commanded to stand still because
it is the sun that moves. Descriptions of its motion can be rather poetic.

Psalms 19:4-6
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of
the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a
bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with
joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of
them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.

Ecclesiastes 1:5
The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.

The stability of the earth

On the other side of the geocentric coin, if the sun moves then the earth must
not move. There are a few passages which more-or-less forbid the motion of the
earth.


1 Chronicles 16:30
tremble before him, all earth; yea, the world stands firm, never to be moved.

Psalms 93:1
The Lord reigns; he is robbed in majesty; the lord is robbed, he is girded
with strength. Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

Psalms 96:10
Say among the nations, "The Lord reigns! Yea, the world is established, it
shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity."


In addition, the notion of an earth with a "foundation" is quite common. This
leads one to conclude that the earth is quite stable.


2 Samuel 22:16
Then the channels of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world were laid
bare, at the rebuke of the Lord at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

Psalms 18:15
Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were
laid bare, at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

Psalms 102:25
Of old thou didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the
work of thy hands.

Proverbs 8:27-29
When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the
face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the
fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the
waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of
the earth,

Isaiah 48:13
My hand laid out the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the
heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together.

John 17:24
Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where
I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the
foundation of the world.

The firmness of the earth's foundation is open to some discussion, however.
Earthquakes may or may not be allowed.

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

Job 9:6
who shakes the earth from its place, and its pillars tremble.

Isaiah 24:18
He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit; and he who
climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven
are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.

The earth's geo-architecture is also uncertain. Compare the following passages.

1 Samuel 2:8
He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to
make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the
earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.

Job 9:6
who shakes the earth from its place, and its pillars tremble.

Job 38:4-6
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have
understanding. Who determined its measurements -- surely you know! Or who
stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its
cornerstone?

The shape of the earth

In any case, the earth is not spherical. According to the Scriptures, from a
very high spot (heaven, for example) one could see the entire earth such that
nothing would be hidden. Such a thing is not possible with a spherical earth
as the opposite side can't be seen directly. This implies that the earth is
flat.

Job 28:24
For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens.

Psalms 19:4-6
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of
the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a
bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with
joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of
them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.

Daniel 4:10-11
The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold, a tree
in the midst of the earth; and its height was great. The tree grew and became
strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the
whole earth.

Matthew 4:8
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the
kingdoms of the world and the glory of them;

Isaiah 40:22
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like
grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them
like a tent to dwell in;

From a great distance, a sphere would look like a circle. Perhaps the phrase
"circle of the earth" refers to the outline of the earth? Perhaps. But then
how could one see "all the kingdoms of the world? Those on the back hemisphere
would remain hidden. The next passages should remove this confusion.

Psalms 136:6
to him who spread out the earth upon the waters, for his steadfast love
endures forever;

Isaiah 44:24
Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb; "I am the
Lord, who made all things, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out
the earth -- Who was with me? --

If the earth were spherical, one would use a verb other than "spread out" to
describe its creation (balled up, gathered up, gathered together, anything but
spread out). One might say they "spread out" batter to make pancakes but no one
would ever say they "spread out" hamburger to make meatballs. The earth in the
Bible was "spread out" because it is flat.

This next verse appears to describe an earth that tele-literate humans would
recognize.

Job 26: 7
He stretches out the north over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing.

The highlighted portion reads like a description of the earth as seen from
outer space. The remainder is entirely obscure, however. What void are they
talking about? What does it mean to "stretch out the north"? Help me somebody.

The extent of the earth

Not only is the earth flat, it is also finite.

Psalms 103:12
as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions
from us.

On a spherical earth, one could travel east or west indefinitely. This passage
seems to be saying that there is a limit to the directions east and west. That
is, after some long journey, one would run out of east or west having reached
the end of the earth. This contention is further justified in numerous
passages.

Deuteronomy 28:64
And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to
the other; and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone, which
neither you nor your fathers have known.

Deuteronomy 33:17
His firstling bull has majesty, and his horns are the horns of a wild ox; with
them he shall push the peoples, all of them, to the ends of the earth; such are
the ten thousands of Ephraim, and such are the thousands of Manasseh.

1 Samuel 2:10
The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; against them he will
thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give
strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.

Job 28:24
For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens.

Job 38:13
that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken
out of it?

Psalms 19:4-6
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of
the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a
bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with
joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of
them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.

Psalms 22:27
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the
families of the nations shall worship before him.

Psalms 46:9
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters
the spear, he burns the chariots with fire!

Psalms 48:10
As thy name, O God, so thy praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Thy right
hand is filled with victory;

Psalms 59:13
consume them in wrath, consume them till they are no more, that men may know
that God rules over Jacob to the ends of the earth;

Psalms 61:2
from the end of the earth I call to thee, when my heart is faint. Lead thou me
to the rock that is higher than I;

Psalms 65:5
By dread deeds thou dost answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation,
who art the hope of all the ends of the earth, and of the farthest seas;

Isaiah 41:9
you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest
corners, saying to you, "You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast
you off";

Jeremiah 51:16
When he utters his voice there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he
makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.

Daniel 4:10-11
The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold, a tree
in the midst of the earth; and its height was great. The tree grew and became
strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the
whole earth.

Mark 13:27
And then they will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four
winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

The edge of the earth

The phrase "the midst of the earth" from Daniel implies that not only does the
earth have a boundary it also has a center. Since trees grow only on the
earth's surface, the earth's center must also be on its surface. A sphere has
its center beneath its surface which means that the earth is not a sphere but
some sort of plane geometric figure. This raises another question. What is the
shape of the earth's boundary? The answer is somewhat puzzling.

Job 26:10
He has described a circle upon the face of the waters at the boundary between
light and darkness.

Job 37:3
Under the whole heaven he lets it go, and his lightning to the corners of the
earth.

Proverbs 8:27-29
When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the
face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the
fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the
waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of
the earth,

Isaiah 11:12
He will raise an ensign for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of
Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

Isaiah 40:22
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like
grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them
like a tent to dwell in;

Isaiah 41:9
you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest
corners, saying to you, "You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast
you off";

Ezekiel 7:2
"And you, O son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel: An end!
The end has come upon the four corners of the land.

Revelation 7:1
After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding
back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on the earth or sea
or against any tree.

Revelation 20:8
and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the
earth, that is, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like
the sand of the sea.

The nature of the sky

There is far less confusion when it comes to the heavens. The sky covers the
earth like a tent and we live under it. The is no mention of an atmosphere in
the Bible, nor of the preferential scattering of blue light by nitrogen
molecules (nor any mention of nitrogen nor of molecules). The sky protects us
and keeps us safe not by filtering out ionizing radiation but by its sheer
strength. The sky of the Bible is solid -- a firmament.

Job 22:14
Thick clouds enwrap him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of
heaven.

Job 37:18
Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?

Proverbs 8:27-29
When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the
face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the
fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the
waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of
the earth,

Isaiah 40:22
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like
grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them
like a tent to dwell in;

Isaiah 44:24
Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb; "I am the
Lord, who made all things, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out
the earth -- Who was with me? --

Isaiah 48:13
My hand laid out the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the
heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together.

2 Corinthians 5:1
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a
building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Not only does God walk around on the heavens, so too does the sun, or rather
it runs around on the heavens.

Psalms 19:4-6
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of
the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a
bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with
joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of
them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.

The nature of the stars

The stars are exactly as they appear -- mere points of light fastened to the
sky that would fall to earth were they ever dislodged. Distant suns, far
larger than the earth could not fall to earth but small points of light could.

Isaiah 14:12-13
"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down
to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, 'I will
ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will
sit on the mount of assembly in the far north;

Daniel 8:10
It grew great, even to the host of heaven; and some of the host of the stars
it cast down to the ground and trampled upon them.

Matthew 24:29
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and
the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the
powers of the heavens will be shaken;

Mark 13:25
and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will
be shaken.

Revelation 6:13
and the stars of the sky fell to earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit
when shaken by a gale;

Revelation 12:4
His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the
earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child,
that he might devour her child when she brought it forth;

Saint Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians spells it out more clearly -- the
sun and the stars are different.

1 Corinthians 15:40-41
There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of
the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another, There is
one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the
stars; for star differs from star in glory.

The next verse describes an actual astronomical event.

Acts 19:35
And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, "Men of Ephesus, what
man is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper
of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky?


Today we call these stones meteorites. Note how the contemporary connection
between meteorites and shooting stars is not made. The Bible's authors appear
not to care about its use as a scientific reference by future generations.

The water surrounding the earth

There are some truly odd references in the Bible (beginning on page one, no
less) to there being waters above the heavens and beneath the earth. These
references do not seem to describe rain or ground water as would be
reasonable. Instead, they seem to promote the idea that the firmament of the
heavens are holding back some unbelievably large reservoir and that the solid
earth is floating in the ocean like a dumpling on soup.

Genesis 1:6-9
And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it
separate the waters from the waters." And God made the firmament and separated
the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the
firmament. And it was so.

Psalms 136:6
to him who spread out the earth upon the waters, for his steadfast love
endures forever;

Proverbs 8:27-29
When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the
face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the
fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the
waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of
the earth,

The waters behind the sky are kept in place by the strength of the firmament.
Openings (windows) in the firmament could be the source of the flood that
wiped out humanity in the time of Noah.


Genesis 7:11
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventh
day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth
and the windows of the heavens were opened.

Genesis 8:2
the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain
from the heavens was restrained,

Isaiah 24:18
He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit; and he who
climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven
are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.

The waters beneath the earth are far stranger. I can't say that I've ever seen
them, but the Israelites must have. They were prohibited from worshiping graven
images of the creatures that inhabited this subterranean sea. It wouldn't make
sense to prohibit the worship of creatures that don't exist so therefore they
must exist.

Exodus 20:4
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth;

Deuteronomy 4:16-18
beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the
form of any figures, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast
that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish
that is in the water under the earth.

Deuteronomy 5:8
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or that is in the water under the earth;

The celestial and the terrestrial

Newton's great triumph was the unification of the terrestrial gravitation
described by Galileo with the celestial gravitation described by Kepler. Much
as a falling apple accelerates downward in free fall, so too does the moon
accelerate radially in its orbit. Each body obeys the same law of universal
gravitation. Had Newton read his Bible literally he would have seen the
impossibility and insolence of his actions.

Genesis 11:4-7
Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top
in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth." And the Lord came down to see the
city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, "Behold
they are one people, and they have one language; and this is only the beginning
of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be
impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language,
that they may not understand one another's speech."

Psalm 115:16
The heavens are the Lord's heavens, but the earth is given to the sons of men.

1 Corinthians 15:40-41
There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of
the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another, There is
one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the
stars; for star differs from star in glory.
===
If you see two passages that seem to contradict each other and if your
preconception is that the Bible has no contradictions, then you "interpret"
the Bible so as to eliminate each contradiction.
===
Deu25:11 If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue
her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his
private parts,
Deu25:12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. (NIV)
===
Joel3:9 Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the
mighty men, let all the men of war draw near;
===
"Elhanan killed Goliath,"
The words "brother of" are added in KJV because of the account in 1 Chronicles
20:5 that even gives the NAME of Goliath's brother. "...and Elhanan the
son of Jair killed LAHMI the brother of Goliath the Gittite.
==
Don't Know Much About the Bible: Everything You Need to Know About the Good
Book but Never Learned (Paperback) by Kenneth C. Davis (Author)
==
I've always considered atheism to be a
very positive philosophy in that, by eliminating a very burdensome obligation
to appease a non-existent God, an individual thereby gains maximum freedom to
choose his own goals and ideals for a satisfying life.
==
http://home.insight.rr.com/jkmckee/creaseum.jpg humor
===
In 382 Pope Damasus the first endorsed a 72 book bible that most Christians
of the world use....... but the Protestants only use 66 books
The Ethiopian church has a Bible of 81 books.
http://www.ethiopianorthodox.org/english/canonical/books.html
===
Reason for the Hope Within by Alvin Plantinga

Faith and Reason by Ronald Nash

New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties by Gleason Archer.

I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by
Norman L. Geisler, Frank Turek, and David Limbaugh

William Lane Craig Reasonable Faith
==
A more curious thing is that the census described in Luke 2 never happened.
Historically the first such census as described in Luke occured in 6 AD
(when Quirinius was governer), which is anywhere from four to twelve years
after Jesus was born, since St Matthew says that two years after Jesus was
born, Herod hadall children in the Bethlehem area slaughtered, and Herod died
in 4BC.
(1) http://www.wcg.org/lit/bible/gospels/luke2a.htm
(2) http://www.askdrsears.com/html/1/T010500.asp
===
What puzzles me even more is that while most reasonable people, religious or
not, acknowledge that all these recent religions are clearly bald-faced scams
developed entirely by human minds, they somehow cannot even entertain the idea
that the older ones with a few millenia under their belt could be the exact
same thing. Tell me, is the distant past generally a time of greater wisdom
than the present, or lesser?
==
Biblical cosmology is undeniably Bablyonian, with a
flat, immobile earth above the waters below &
separated from the waters above by a solid dome, hung
with stars, with openings for rain, hail, snow & other
precipitation to fall to earth, & for celestial beings
like the sun & moon to sail across the vault of heaven
before hurrying back to their place of rising outside
of the dome, with storehouses for the precipitation &
dungeons for misbehaving celestial beings.
==
http://www.debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/
==
Overcoming Religion (Paperback) by David Mills

Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to
Christian Fundamentalism by David Mills and Dorion Sagan

George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1980)
==
http://www.bibleandscience.com/meyers.htm#legalism wild religion
==
Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right Is Hijacking Mainstream Religion
by Sheldon Culver (Author), John Dorhauer (Author)
==
Gods exist in the minds of men and when those men die, so do their
imaginations of the gods. The gods are never observed except by their creators
in the imagination. These dreams come out in books and claims of revelations,
acts of faith and such but never in any way that that can be verified. Enjoy
your creation, just don't act so suprised when others choose to
create their own gods or no gods at all.
==
Matthew:37 As it was in the days of Noah, ...38 For in the days before the
flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew
nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.
There was no Noah flood.
===
"There are more differences in our [Greek new testament] manuscripts
than there are words in the New Testament." - Biblical Scholar Bart Ehrman
==
Religion of one kind or another has been used to justify the greatest
outrages in history, and if you read history objectively, Christianity
doesn't distinguish itself as being more humane than any other
religion. Christianity justified crusades, slavery, imperialism, etc.
==
During the last six years, graduates from Pat Robertson's barely accredited
law school have filled our Department of Justice and been peppered as sleeper
cells through the upper level ranks of the federal bureaucracy. The ONLY
reason these people were hired for powerful government positions was because
of their religious beliefs, as they certainly are not the best and the
brightest. In fact, until a recent revamp, the school could hardly get any
type of significant portion of its graduates to pass bar exams.
==
Doubt: A History" by Jennifer Hecht
==
Christ says that the Holy Spirit will guide you in all things.
Christ does not mention scripture will guide you in all things!
==
Proverbs 12:17 states, "A truthful witness gives honest testimony,
but a false witness tells lies.
==
Isa40:22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are
like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads
them out like a tent to live in. (NIV)
====
Ge7:19 The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all
the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. (NAS)
==
http://www.losingmyreligion.com/essays.htm
==
The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of
God) by N. T. Wright (Author)

Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God,
Volume 2) by N. T. Wright

The New Testament and the People of God (Christian Origins and the Question of
God) by N. T. Wright

Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense by N.T. Wright

Paul: In Fresh Perspective by N. T. Wright

The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of
the Authority of Scripture by N.T. Wright
The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the
Divine (Hardcover)
by Alister E. McGrath (Author), Joanna Collicutt Mcgrath (Author)

Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life by Alister McGrath

Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting
Jesus" by Timothy Paul Jones

Is Religion Dangerous? by Keith Ward

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism by
Michael J. Behe
==
According to Jewish tradition Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of
Eden in the fall of 3761 B.C.
===
The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine by
Alister E. McGrath and Joanna Collicutt Mcgrath
==
The differences between science and religion. That science is an empirical
art which looks to elucidate the unknown as opposed to religion which
"worships the gaps"
==
Full-blown Reconstructionists such as Rousas Rushdoony, Gary North and Greg
Bahnsen are truly a wonder to behold. Consider for a few spine-chilling
seconds the implications of applying Mosaic law in contemporary society. Let
us take, for example, the question of the death penalty. As Clarkson (1994)
explains, 'the Biblically approved methods of execution include burning ?,
stoning, hanging and "the sword". Gary North, the self-described economist of
Reconstructionism, prefers stoning because, among other things, stones are
cheap, plentiful and convenient.' Readers may be able to think of some other
Mosaic laws they would prefer not to see applied today. They may even prefer
to live in a democracy rather than a Reconstructionist theocracy, but everyone
to his own taste.
Firstly, while the term 'Reconstruction' is not mentioned directly,
Reconstructionist philosophy is frequently presented in all its naked glory.
For example, in a discussion of abortion (Prayer News, May 1998), Jonathan
Sarfati specifically says that 'Genesis contains the origin of civil
government' and appears to infer from Genesis 9:6 that the penalty for
abortion should be death. This is not quite as extreme as Gary North, who
argues that women who have abortions should be publicly executed 'along with
those who advised them to abort their children', but it's right in the
ball-park.
==
http://www.interacademies.net/Object.
File/Master/6/150/Evolution%20statement.pdf
==
http://home.earthlink.net/~pgwhacker/ChristianOrigins/PaganChrists.html
===
Aine-God of love(Celtic)
Chalchiuhtlicue- God of Love(Aztec)
Cupid-God of love(Roman)
Tlazolteotl- God of love(Aztec)
Xtabay-God of Love(Mayan)
==
Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest
who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be
purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)
==
Bart Ehrman's "Lost Christianities"
==
2 Samuel 24:1 (King James Version) And again the anger of the LORD was kindled
against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and
Judah. 1 Chronicles 21:1 (King James Version) And Satan stood up against
Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
Question: Did The LORD or Satan move/provoke David to number Israel?
==
Bible morality
Numbers 31:7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded
Moses; and they slew all the males.

Numbers 31:14-18 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the
captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the
battle. And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? 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. 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 have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for
yourselves.

There you have an excellent example of the massacres that litter the so-called
ahistorical booksa? (as the New Oxford Bible calls them) of the Bible. It
claims they killed all the men, all the boys and all the non-virgin females in
the name of their god. The remaining women were kept afor themselvesa?.
Itas left to the imagination as to what that means but most likely they were
raped as sex-slaves after witnessing their loved ones and family put to the
sword.

This passage is hardly unusual, as Yahweh offers this advice on how to wage
war:

Deuteronomy 7:2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou
shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with
them, nor shew mercy unto them:

"Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly
destroy them..." (Deut 20

Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let
the weak say they are strong, and he gathered then in the valley of
Jeposophat
===
Hofstater & Dennett's book "The Mind's Eye"
Dennett "Consciousness Explained"
Crick "The Astonishing Hypothesis"
Pinker's "How the Mind Works",
==
Fundie claims
The earth is only 6,000 years old, fossils are the drowned bodies
from Noah's Flood, the craters on the moon came from a battle between angels
and demons, the theory of evolution was given to the hunter Nimrod by the
Devil atop the Tower of Babel).
==
Falwell told employees at Liberty University they had to join his
church or lose their jobs.
==
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

http://www.godvsthebible.com/ anti

Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang: By God As Told to pro
John Shore by John Shore
==
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework_interpretation_%28Genesis%29
==
Guru Nanak Dev Sikhism holy book
==
Why does this make sense? Why would a jealous, possessive, wrathful,
capricious deity make humans in their image, yet punish them for learning
the difference between good and evil from the Tree of Life? Why would this
same deity abandon his righteous servants Moses, Job, and Jesus, but then save
the Divinely Elected? Original sin, total depravity, crucifixion and
resurrection, ascension, turning water into wine, healing the mentally ill,
raising the dead, Virgin birth, eschatological parousia, the kingdom, hating
families, are not values one normally associates with goodness, but of
elites who believe blindly, repent, and get salvation, but only if the
judgment is fair, and Yahweh's judgments are rarely fair or equitable.
Absurdities never make sense, and Tertullian nailed it with his observation.
Thus, an apologist needs to give reasons why he believes Christianity make
sense, not just assert it, because most of Christianity makes no sense, as one
absurdity follows another, and the natural, moral, and political orders are
deliberately inverted. Why?
==
Peter Berger "Hints of Transcendence"

The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the
Authority of Scripture , N.T. Wright

Norman T. Wright Simply Christian

Evil and the Justice of God N.T. Wright

Dallas Willard The Divine Conspiracy

Catherine Crier Contempt: How the Right Is Wronging American Justice

Susan Jacoby Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism.
==
Anthropologist Barbara J. King explains what our distant cousins can tell us
about religion and why it's OK for scientists to believe in God.
"Evolving God:
A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion," King argues that religion
is rooted in our social and emotional connections with each other. What's more,
we can trace back the origins of our religious impulse not just to early cave
paintings and burial sites 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, but much earlier --
back to our ancient ancestors millions of years ago. And today, King says, we
can see the foundations of religious behavior in chimpanzees and gorillas;
watching our distant cousins can do much to explain the foundations of our own
beliefs.
==
Aids is not only Gods punishment of homosexuals, it is the punishment
of the society that tolerates them.
The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely
infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and
practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
-- Jerry Falwell, Finding Inner Peace and Strength

"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be
like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh's
charioteers." - Jerry Falwell

In 2006, Falwell marked the 50th anniversary of his church and spoke
out on stem cell research, saying he sympathized with people with
medical problems, but that any medical research must pass a three-
part test: "Is it ethically correct? Is it biblically correct? Is it
morally correct?"
==
2 Kings 2:24
Melchizede: 24 So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse
on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods
and mauled forty-two of the youths.
===
1Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the
dead in Christ shall rise first:0 (King James Version)
1Thessalonians 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we
ever be with the Lord.0 (King James Version)
==
Matt 24:34 Mark 13:30 Luke 21:32 "Verily I say unto you,
This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled"
==
"Matt 12:30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not
with me scattereth abroad" or
"Luke 9:50 And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him
not: for he that is not against us is for us"
==
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html
==
Judges 1:19 And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of
the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because
they had chariots of iron.
===
MT 16:28, MK 9:1, LK 9:27 Jesus says that some of his listeners will not
taste death before he comes again in his kingdom. This was said almost
2000 years ago.
==
EZ 20:25 God says that He intentionally gave out bad laws.
==
With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's
Military by Michael L. Weinstein and Davin Seay
==
The non-uniqueness of the traditionally-supposed key points of Jesus' life:
He begins by recounting the miraculous birth, life, death and resurrection of
a man but turns out to be Appollonius of Tyana, a mythical miracle worker
whose exploits are chronicled in the "histories" of Philostratus.
Philostratus wrote in the third century.

Miracles are part of the picture, as they were for other charismatic Jewish
teachers of the time (cf. the work of Geza Vermes).
===
A New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical
Jesus Missed (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology) by James D. G. Dunn

The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and Synoptic Problem
by Mark Goodacre

Paul: In Fresh Perspective by N. T. Wright

The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the
Authority of Scripture by N.T. Wright

Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense by N.T. Wright

Catholic, Pheme Perkins, Reading the New Testament

Udo Schnelle The History and Theology of the NT

Bart Ehrmann The New Testament. A Historical Introduction to the
Early Christian Writings

An Introduction to the New Testament (Anchor Bible Reference) by
Raymond E. Brown Father Brown is a Roman Catholic Priest

John Drane's "Introduction to the New Testament"

Udo Schnelle The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings

Questioning Q : A Multidimensional Critique (Paperback)
by N. T. Wright (Foreword), Mark S. Goodacre (Editor),
Nicholas Perrin (Editor)

Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the NT

Michael Azkoul's The Teaching of the Holy Orthodox Church (Catholic)

D. A. Carson Introduction to the New Testament

Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford University Press,
1999)

Professors E.P. Sanders', The Historical Figure of Jesus (Penguin Books, 1993)

Professor Bart D.Ehrman in his excellent book, The New Testament: A Historical
Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.

To understand the Cathars, try Barbara Tuckman's Distant Mirror for
an incredible historical commentary on how the Christian Church has handled
other points of view

W. Schneemelcher's 2 volume New Testament Apocrypha.

Elaine Pagels has 2 books (The Gnostic Gospels 0679724532 and Beyond Belief :
The Secret Gospel of Thomas 0375501568)

Earle Ellis Making of the N.T. Documents

The Lost Books of the Bible (0517277956) includes 26 apocryphal books from the
first 400 years that were not included in the New Testament.

Marvin Meyers' The Secret Teachings of Jesus : Four Gnostic Gospels
(0394744330 ) is a new translation without commentary of The Secret Book of
James, The Gospel of Thomas, The Book of Thomas, and The Secret Book of John.

James M. Robinson's The Nag Hammadi Library in English : Revised Edition
(0060669357) has been around 25 years now and is in 2nd edition. It has
introductions to each of the 13 Nag Hammadi Codices and the Papyrus
Berioinensis 8502.

The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (0140278079) by Geza Vermes has
selected works....a complete work is more difficult to achieve than the
publisher's marketing concept indicates. His commentary generates strong
reactions.
====
The Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano in an editorial wrote, "Attacking the
Church is terrorism. Fueling blind and irrational fury against he who always
speaks in the name of love is terrorism. It is vile and terrorist to throw
stones at the pope, this time directly, while feeling protected by shouts of
approval from an easily excitable crowd," the daily said.
==
Romans 13:1 says the powers that be are ordained of God?
Hitler? Stalin?
==
"Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through
the earth and going back and forth in it."
God had to ask.
===
"The Christian God is a being of terrific character-cruel, vindictive,
capricious and unjust. ... I read the Apocalypse and considered it merely the
rantings and ravings of a maniac. ... What has not meaning admits no
explanation." (Thomas Jefferson author of the Declaration of Independence; 3rd
U.S. President; architect, educator, philosopher, naturalist, scientist,
inventor, musician; materialist humanist; deist.)
==
In the Bible, the earth is an immobile flat surface,
with a hammered metal vault, the firmament, forming
heaven over it, dividing the waters above it from the
waters below, from which vault hang the stars & upon
which walks & sits God, with windows in it through
which rain can fall & through which come & go the sun
& moon, which like stars are celestial beings subject
to punishment by God.
==
Psalms 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the
most High.
==
Newton's Arian beliefs
Newton became an Arian around 1672. First let us explain the Arian doctrine.
It is a Christian heresy first proposed early in the 4th century by the
Alexandrian Arius which, based on a study of the Bible, stated the belief that
Jesus was more than man, but less than God. In other words Arians do not
believe in the identification of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, so
they do not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.

Newton came to believe that the Roman Catholic Church was misguided in its
interpretation of Christianity, and had returned to idolatry. Although he
partly approved of the Protestant Reformation, he felt it had not gone nearly
far enough to return Christianity to its original state. Now if Newton did not
believe in the Trinity, he had to consider the First Epistle of John Chapter 2,
verse 7, which reads (in the King James version):-

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

Now Newton, who felt that his mission was more to study religion than science,
certainly did not stop at reading the King James version of the Bible, but
rather read all original versions he could, learning the necessary ancient
languages. He discovered that the final phrase 'and these three are one' was
not present in any Greek version that he studied. Newton came to the
conclusion that it was a deliberate addition to the text to provide
justification for the doctrine of the Trinity. He wrote down a list of twelve
reasons why he was an Arian. Now of course it was not acceptable for people to
hold views considered heresy by the Church, so after Newton's death this list,
and his other theological writings, were marked "Not fit to be printed". They
were stored and were not read by anyone until Keynes acquired them in 1936.

[See Keynes' Newton]

Here is Newton's list:-

The word God is nowhere in the scriptures used to signify more than one of the
three persons at once.

The word God put absolutely without restriction to the Son or Holy Ghost doth
always signify the Father from one end of the scriptures to the other.

Whenever it is said in the scriptures that there is but one God, it is meant
the Father.

When, after some heretics had taken Christ for a mere man and others for the
supreme God, St John in his Gospel endeavoured to state his nature so that men
might have from thence a right apprehension of him and avoid those heresies and
to that end calls him the word or logos: we must suppose that he intended that
term in the sense that it was taken in the world before he used it when in
like manner applied to an intelligent being. For if the Apostles had not used
words as they found them how could they expect to have been rightly
understood. Now the term logos before St John wrote, was generally used in the
sense of the Platonists, when applied to an intelligent being and the Arians
understood it in the same sense, and therefore theirs is the true sense of St
John.

The Son in several places confesseth his dependence on the will of the Father.

The Son confesseth the Father greater, then calls him his God etc.

The Son acknowledgeth the original prescience of all future things to be in
the Father only.

There is nowhere mention of a human soul in our Saviour besides the word, by
the meditation of which the word should be incarnate. But the word itself was
made flesh and took upon him the form of a servant.

It was the son of God which He sent into the world and not a human soul that
suffered for us. If there had been such a human soul in our Saviour, it would
have been a thing of too great consequence to have been wholly omitted by the
Apostles.

It is a proper epithet of the Father to be called almighty. For by God
almighty we always understand the Father. Yet this is not to limit the power
of the Son. For he doth whatsoever he seeth the Father do; but to acknowledge
that all power is originally in the Father and that the Son hath power in him
but what he derives fro the Father, for he professes that of himself he can do
nothing.

The Son in all things submits his will to the will of the Father, which could
be unreasonable if he were equal to the Father.

The union between him and the Father he interprets to be like that of the
saints with one another. That is in agreement of will and counsel.

Below the list of twelve points, Newton wrote 13. but did not write anything
for this thirteenth point.
==
2th 1:8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that
obey NOT THE GOSPEL of our Lord Jesus Christ:
===
Flat earth verses

Job 38:14: "Daylight makes the hills and valleys stand out like the folds of a
garment, clear as the imprint of a seal on clay." A clay seal is FLAT upon the
parchment in which it is used.
Psalm 24:2, "the world and all that is in it belong to the Lord; the earth and
all who live on it are his. He built it on the deep waters beneath the earth
and laid its foundations in the ocean depths" How many round foundations have
you seen? Especially in in ancient Israel.
Daniel 4:7-8, "I saw a tree of great height at the center of the world. It was
large and strong, with its top touching the heavens, and it could be seen from
the ends of the earth." A tree so tall at the center of the world (I assume
this means Texas?) that it can be seen from all the points on the globe? No,
this is another clear reference that they thought the world was flat.
Matthew 4:8, "The devil took him (Jesus) to a very high mountain and displayed
before him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence..." Just as
above in Daniel 4:7-8, there is no point high enough to see all the Earth,
because it is a sphere.
Genesis 1:6-7, "Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two
separate places... and it was done." So, God made a dome, and it separated the
water under it from the water above it." Think of an onion half with layers an
you'll see the context of the text. Also goes along with Psalm 148:4 (see
below).
Isaiah 40:22 "It is he (God) that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and
the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens
as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." A tent spreads
over the flat ground, Please look up the Hebrew concept of firmament to
understand this more fully and in context.
Prov 8:26-27 "When he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world's first
bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a
circle on the face of the deep" A circle is FLAT, a sphere is round.
Job 38:13 "that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out
of it?" Ok, exactly where does a sphere have edges?
Psalm 93:1 "The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed in
majesty and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot
be moved." It's a good thing the Earth doesn't move either, huh?
Psalm 148:4 "Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the
heavens!"
Water above the Heavens too???
===
A delusion by definition is a fixed, false belief that can not be changed by
the facts. T
==
David Mills "Atheist Universe"
==
Why would God have to sacrifice Himself, to Himself, to free individuals of a
concept (sin) he produced, acquired by violating rules He wrote, in order that
individuals may escape a punishment decreed and administered by Himself
==
Revelation 4:5
Melchizede: 5 And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and
voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the
seven
Spirits of God.

2 Kings 13:21
A dead body is brought to life when it accidentally touches the bones of
Elisha.

2 Kings 2:8
When Elijah needs to cross a river, he just smacks the water with his magic
mantle and crosses on dry land

Numbers 21:6
God sends fiery serpents to bite his chosen people, and many of them die

Luke 11:14
People who cannot speak are possessed with devils.

Luke 13 11-16
Illnesses are caused by Satan
==
My favorite
example has always been the popular claim that everything MUST have a cause,
therefore, if one "regresses" back far enough there must be a "first" cause.
What, it is then asked, if everything "must" have a cause, "caused" the
universe? Well, God of course! This of course is sheer nonsense.If everything
must have a cause then so must "God," whatever "God" is. But this is no good.
Theists insist that God has no cause. Therefore it turns out (they claim)
something CAN exist without being caused. Well, if something can exist
without a cause then we no longer need the concept of God! It might as well
be the universe that's uncaused! Why introduce another variable that also
requires explanation? Why complicate things further?
Dr. Stenger explains why it is unnecessary to posit a god to explain the
existence of the universe or the existence of life. As knowledge of the way
the universe works has increased, there have been fewer and fewer phenomena
that seemed to need a god to explain them. That is why Michael D. Goulder, a
leading New Testament scholar, resigned the priesthood and became an atheist,
saying that he couldn't worship an unemployed God.

God actions
1. Creator of the universe.
2. Author of the laws of nature.
3. Occasionally violates his own laws by performing miracles.
4. Creator of life, especially human life.
5. Provider of immotal souls for humans.
6. Source of morality.
7. Revealer of Truth via Scripture and directly to certain persons.
8. Does not deliberately hide from humans who seek him.
==
Isaac Asimov, in his guide to the Bible, points out that
in the book of Job the problem of evil is discussed for more than 30 chapters.
Yet when God appears he doesn't answer the question. Instead He goes on about
how powerful and all knowing He is and who are we mortals to question Him.
==
In fact, the evolution of
Christianity over the last several centuries is NOT most accurately described
as "progress," as some Christians claim, but rather as "back-peddling" as
Christianity must retract more and more claims, devolving into a hybrid,
sick-bed faith lest believers realize that the religion in its whole untainted
glory is a ludicrous, unsustainable, obsolete amalgamation of nonsensical
mythology.
==
William Dever said,
"Absolutely no trace of Moses, or indeed of an Israelite presence in Egypt,
has ever turned up."
==
As one theist put it recently: "o matter the evidence I will always
side with scripture and always find some fault with mans new discoveries."
==
Stephen Jay Gould Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life

Victor Stenger God: The Failed Hypothesis

Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism
(Paperback)
by David Mills (Author), Dorion Sagan (Foreword)
==
2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie:
==
http://www.secularism.org.uk/
==
Brazoria City Council backs prayer in schools

The Brazoria City Council unanimously passed a nonbinding resolution calling
for prayer to be a part of public schools and urging other Texas cities to
pass similar measures.
"I feel the need (for prayer) is greater now than ever before. It is something
I want to be involved in," Brazoria Mayor Ken Corley said Friday. "My goal is
to just bring God back into the lives of these kids through our school system."
Local civil rights attorney and American Civil Liberties Union member Randall
Kallinen, said he sees nothing wrong with the resolution.
"They are free to express their opinion," he said Friday.
But Kallinen said if a government body passed a legally binding measure
mandating school prayer he would consider it to be unconstitutional.
"And when the government forces a certain religion, that is what the
Constitution forbids," he said.
The prayer resolution marks the second time this year Brazoria city leaders
have tackled a controversial issue.
In January, Corley led an effort to make it a crime to say the "N-word"
anywhere within the city limits. Corley dropped the proposed ordinance after
much opposition.
Now the mayor says prayer should be in American schools and should have never
been removed in the first place.
"I think it was one of the biggest mistakes this country has ever made," he
said. "I strongly believe a day of school should be started with a prayer."
Corley said the council voted 5-0 Tuesday to pass the resolution.
"The city of Brazoria, Texas, strongly urges that prayer be returned to the
public school systems of this nation and invites all cities across the state
to join in an effort to reinstate prayer in public schools by passing similar
resolutions and uniting in a grass-roots movement for that purpose," the
resolution said.
Corley said the measure has no legal power. "Obviously, a city council has no
jurisdiction over a school system."
Texas law does allow some forms of prayer in schools, said Debbie Ratcliffe,
communications director for the Texas Education Agency.
"State law currently recognizes the right of individual students to pray in a
nondisruptive manner," Ratcliffe said. "Generally that means silent prayer."
Ratcliffe said courts have restricted districts from participating in
activities that amount to religious observances.
"A student can lead a public prayer, but a school employee could not," she
said.
Brazoria, with a population of 2,800, is in Brazoria County, south of Houston.
==
Philo of Alexandra was a Jewish historian, philosopher, theologian, and
community leader who lived from 20 BCE to 50 CE in Alexandria Egypt, but
reported on events throughout the Mediterranean world. He specifically wrote
about conflicts between Pontius Pilate and Jews during Pilate's governorship of
Judea.
==
One text has Josiah dying in Megiddo and another has him dying in Jerusalem
(2 Kings 23:29-30 vs. 2 Chronicles 35:24).
===
Citing the psychology and
sociology of fascism and cults, including the work of German historian Fritz
Stern, Hedges draws striking parallels between 20th-century totalitarian
movements and the highly organized, well-funded "dominionist movement," an
influential theocratic sect within the country's huge evangelical population.
Rooted in a radical Calvinism, and wrapping its apocalyptic, vehemently
militant, sexist and homophobic vision in patriotic and religious rhetoric,
dominionism seeks absolute power in a Christian state. Hedges's reportage
profiles both former members and true believers, evoking the particular
characteristics of this American variant of fascism. His argument against what
he sees as a democratic society's suicidal tolerance for intolerant movements
has its own paradoxes.
===
"Higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates
of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen
pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies." - Journal of Religion &
Society, Volume 7)
==
"Monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a
hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a
fabrication of a few nonevents."
==
God on Trial: Dispatches from America's Religious Battlefields (Hardcover)
by Peter Irons

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
==
rev 19: 12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many
crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his
name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white
horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

Only good horses went to heaven.
==
"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldnat do my job."
- George W. Bush, July 16, 2004
==
Ellen White predicted during the Civil War that England would defeat the
USA someday.
==
These errors are usually, though not always, easy to detect, and may actually
be somewhat humorous. For example, a passage in John in which Jesus told his
disciples to "Search the scriptures, for they bear witness against me" could be
misquoted as "Search the Scriptures, for they are sinning against me".
The best known example from the book is the story of the Adulterous woman (with
Jesus famous Let him without sin cast the first stone quote), apparently does
not belong to the Gospel of John, but is a letter addition

Scripture must not be inspired; for if God didn't see to it to preserve
Scripture for later generations He probably didn't bother to inspire it in the
first place either.
==
Rev22:12 "Behold, I am coming soon!
==
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus)
(Paperback) by Bart D. Ehrman (Author)

Mark Allen Powel Jesus As a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View
the Man from Galilee
==
Eze 5:10 Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and children
will eat their fathers. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all
your survivors to the winds. (NIV)
==
'God is Not Great' by Christopher Hitchens
==
rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers,
and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second
death.
==
Pope revises 'limbo' for babies
VATICAN CITY -
Pope Benedict XVI has revised traditional Roman Catholic teaching on so-called
"limbo," approving a church report released Friday that said there was reason
to hope that babies who die without baptism can go to heaven.
Benedict approved the findings of the International Theological Commission,
which issued its long-awaited document on limbo on Origins, the documentary
service of Catholic News Service, the news agency of the American Bishop's
Conference.
"We can say we have many reasons to hope that there is salvation for these
babies," the Rev. Luis Ladaria, a Jesuit who is the commission's
secretary-general, told The Associated Press.
Although Catholics have long believed that children who die without being
baptized are with original sin and thus excluded from heaven, the church has
no formal doctrine on the matter. Theologians have long taught, however, that
such children enjoy an eternal state of perfect natural happiness, a state
commonly called limbo, but without being in communion with God.
Pope John Paul II and Benedict had urged further study on limbo, in part
because of "the pressing pastoral needs" sparked by the increase in abortion
and the growing number of children who die without being baptized, the report
said.
In the document, the commission said there were "serious theological and
liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and
brought into eternal happiness."
It stressed, however, that "these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than
grounds for sure knowledge."
Ladaria said no one could know for certain what becomes of unbaptized babies
since Scripture is largely silent on the matter.
Catholic parents should still baptize their children, as that sacrament is the
way salvation is revealed, the document said.
The International Theological Commission is a body of
Vatican-appointed theologians who advise the pope and the Vatican's
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Benedict headed the Congregation
for two decades before becoming pope in 2005.
==
According to Josephus, Quirinius became governor of Syria only in 6 CE, while
Luke's story is still set in the time of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE.
==
Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the
Universe by Victor J. Stenger (Hardcover - April 2003)

God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by
Victor J Stenger (Hardcover - Jan 25, 2007)

Letters to Doubting Thomas: A Case for the Existence of God by
C. Stephen Layman
===
Religions are the products of (almost exclusively) male minds.
They are linked to self-interested tribal identity
both to bond and identify 'us' and distinguish us from 'them'.
The most obvious point of religion is the promise of immortality. If this is
not self-interested narcissism, a need to believe oneself so special that one
cannot die and will reap great rewards in heaven, then I don't know what is.
"When a leading advocate of Christianity, despite all of his
knowledge and sophistication, fails to make the case for it, one wonders."
Christians ignore the major implication of Darwinism on the explanatory power
of atheism. After Darwin, atheists only need to assume a very simple universe:
we know how complicated life forms can evolve from simplicity. But a theist has
to assume the pre existence of an all powerful creator. Occham's razor is
clearly on the atheist's side.
350 years of the scientific method has taught us-- that when it comes to the
earth, life on earth, and the universe we live in, that there is no need to
call for supernatural explanations for what we experience.
Everything we know and observe can be explained by the present state of
science. Will this change as our knowledge deepens? Probably so, but the
natural explanation will always prevail over the theological traditions.
It is a call for rational, logical thought -- shorn of mysticism and sloppy
thinking.
As soon as the anti-science types come up with something better than science
for learning about ourselves and our universe, then we can take them seriously.
But to date, it's heckling from the bleachers. As confusing and uncertain as we
may find humanity's sometimes fumbling journey of scientific discovery, many
find it much more helpful and accomplished than the strange and wildly
unreliable ways of faith.
==
Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson
to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," boasts that it
has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration. Unfortunately
for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and
president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a
product of the university's law school. She's the former top aide to
Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S.
attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than
testify to Congress on the matter. The infiltration of the federal
government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious
agenda which is very different from simply being people of faith
is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It's also
a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists
are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists. But this conspiracy
is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party
pledges to "dispel the myth of the separation of church and state."
And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their
best to fulfill that pledge.
===
A neuropsychologist, James W. Prescott, has analyzed four hundred pre-
industrial societies. He has found that those in
which great love and affection were devoted to young children were
less violent than the other societies. He also discovered that in
those which were without this tradition of physical fondling and
caressing of youngsters, there was less violence and disorder in
their eventual adult lives if sexual activity during adolescence was
not repressed.
He made some other startling observations. Where there was an
encouragement of physical affection, either during infancy and
childhood, or during adolescence, or in all of the periods of
physical growth, theft was negligible. He discovered also that in
these societies, there was very little of organized religion.
A sad discovery by Dr. Prescott was that in cultures which practice
physical punishment of children, there is much slavery and murder.
Enemies are tortured and mutilated. Along with racism, there is
sexism, a sense of the need to maintain women in an inferior status.
There is the inclination to follow leaders. There is also a general
belief in the existence of a personal and powerfully active god who
hears and answers prayers. This is an accurate portrayal of the
Europe of the Middle Ages, and to a far too great extent, of our own
society today.
==
(2 Thessalonians 2:1).
Immediately after the tribulation of those days
shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not
give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven,
and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
Stars are suns.
===
Actually, what the real problem is is that these guys know for a fact
that their own human ideas cannot stand on their own merits, which is
why they are all the time pretending that their ideas are the ideas
of God, trying to ride on God's coattails.
==
Mahony's most visible achievement was the opening of the monumental Cathedral
of Our Lady of the Angels: a 12-story, $200-million edifice built to replace
the downtown St. Vibiana's Cathedral, severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge
earthquake.
==
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of
the specific Bible laws and how to follow them:

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a
pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors.
They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in
Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair
price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her
period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15:19- 24. The problem is,
how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and
female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A
friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not
Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2
clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to
kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an
abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than
homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have
a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses.
Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair
around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.
19:27. How should they die?

I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me
unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different
crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of
two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends
to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to
all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? -
Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family
affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.
20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident
you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is
eternal and unchanging.
==
The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to dispel the
myth of the separation of church and state. And the Texas Republicans now
running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.
==
http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch/werror.html witches

The favorite neo-pagan term for the period of the Witch Hunts is "the Burning
Times." The most common form of execution, though, was hanging. Admittedly,
burning was important in many of these cases also, since to further protect
against any malevolence from the dead witch, authorities often burned the
remains afterward. Other popular forms of execution for witches included
beheading, drowning, and breaking on the wheel. Witches
were rarely buried alive, boiled alive, impaled, sawed in two, flayed, drawn
and quartered, or disemboweled, as other contemporary criminals were. Other
punishments inflicted on convicted witches included mutilating (cutting off of
a hand or ear for example), branding, whipping, dunking, locking in the the
stocks, jailing, fining, banishing, or selling into slavery. "Before 1400
authorities were unconcerned about witches. Between 1400 and 1800 authorities
saw witches as a real danger, and condemned witches for many crimes against
the community. After 1800 witches were again no longer a concern."
===
Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
by Michel Onfray (Author)
==
"Of all the sects, the most dangerous are the Anabaptists. Their life is
beyond reproach, they neither lie, nor steal, nor commit adultery. Such is
the manner of their life that it would appear that they are truly holy. So
Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (From an early Catholic tract
against the Anabaptists)
In fact, there are documented trials where if you were too "holy", in both
Catholic and Protestant areas, you could be charged for being an Anabaptist
and the only defence was to prove that you had committed a sin like adultery
or theft etc.
==
Hypatia
Socrates Scholasticus described her death thus in his Ecclesiastical History:
Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time
prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was
calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who
prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore,
hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named
Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they
took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her,
and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took
her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair
brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole
Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of
Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that
sort. This happened in the month of March during Lent, in the fourth year of
Cyril's episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius, and the sixth of
Theodosius [AD 415].
==
In the year 710ad the archbishop of Ravenna disobeyed the orders of
Pope Constantine. The Pope ordered his eyes to be gouged out, a common
Christian punishment. In 1766 in Northern France , a young Knight
failed to remove his hat as a religious procession passed by. This was
considered blashemous, his punishment was amputation of both hands and
his tongue was pulled out before being burned alive.
===
The recent Newsweek poll revealed that 91% of Americans believe in deity, half
reject the findings of evolutionary science, and 62% say they would not vote
for an Atheist running for public office.Science can explain frauds
==
The essential tenet of Christianity is "Two thousand years ago a man died,
stayed dead for three days, rose from the dead, then flew into the air above
the clouds, but also he is with you right now as your invisible companion."
This may sound ridiculous, but it is, in fact, exactly what literally millions
of Christians actually believe. My bluntly stated summary is not an
exaggeration or a distortion -- and Christian leaders have confirmed this fact
directly to me. For example, Russell Moore, dean of the not-insignificant
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, once said, "I believe
that a corpse rose from the grave and walked around." And liberal Christian
Rev. Joseph Phelps, also present, agreed that he too believed in the same
actual bodily resurrection. There was no controversy on this matter whatsoever
among any of the Christians at the event.
==
http://www.talkreason.org/
==
Section 295 A of the Indian Penal Code makes it an offence punishable by
three years in jail to "outrage" any group's religion with "deliberate and
malicious intention."

Isn't it quaint! But, laws such as this are what many Christians and
Muslims want here and in other countries.
=========================
"A person is to be punished with a just penalty, who . . . utters blasphemy,
or gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt
for religion or the Church."
Canon Law 1369, enforced by The Catholic League for Religious and Civil
Rights

"The Church does not dictate the policies of the nation. The Church
proclaims the truth of God to which all these policies must conform."
Father Frank Provone of Priests for Life, at a prayer breakfast during the
2000 Republican Convention

"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to
let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good Our goal is a
Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty. We are called by God to conquer
this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."
Randall Terry

"We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism.. .we are
fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation
today...our battle is with Satan himself."
Reverend Jerry Falwell

"This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of
defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves."
Robert G. Ingersoll

"Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is
above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it."
Mark Twain
==
Sociometric studies have proved that in regards to religion
and mythology, cultures that lack intelligence are more adapting to
mythology rather than the other. It's said that one of the leading
factors is due to a need for personal identity and cultural
representation. We all know that the character Odin is of heathen
paganism expressions. Unlike modern christianity, which is supported
not only by personal beliefs, but scientific discoveries in every
area of its study. Of course there are many different personal
interpretations, but the facts wholly out way the discrepancies. I'm
very sure that if this Odin were placed into the mainstream religious
arena today, he would be soon cast out, and placed right back next to
Thor! Man created this Odin, not the other way around!
==
"And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was
produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was
crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound
nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of
Jupiter." (Justin Martyr--CHAP. XXI.--ANALOGIES TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST )
==
Eostre (Easter) and Ostara are the name of a Germanic goddess. The
Venerable Bede described the worship of Eostre among the Anglo-Saxons as
having died out by the time he began writing (in Latin) the first significant
history of the Anglo-Saxons. The name Eostre also bears some resemblance to
the name Ishtar (variant spelling: Eshtar), a Babylonian goddess. Other
variants on Ishtar include Astarte and Ashtoreth.
A distracting apparent early reference to 'Easter' in the King James
Version of the Bible translation of the New Testament, Acts of the Apostles
12:4, is simply an anachronistic mistranslation of the Greek pascha
(Passover), in which the committee of James I of England followed such earlier
translators as William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale. The Acts passage refers to
the seven-day Passover festival (including the Feast of Unleavened Br
The observance of any non-Jewish special holiday throughout the
Christian year is believed by some to be an innovation postdating the Early
Church. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates Scholasticus (b. 380) attributes
the observance of Easter by the church to the perpetuation of local custom,
just as many other customs have been established, stating that neither Jesus
nor his Apostles enjoined the keeping of this or any other festival.
==
"Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept
an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that
it can't be taken on its own merits."
-Dan Barker

"Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
-Mark Twain

"It is only indemonstrable assertions that require
the suspension of reason, and weak ideas that
require faith."
-Dan Barker

"Faith, in the religious sense, means to place one's
trust in an idea irrespective of how little evidence
there is to support it. It is to suppress that part
of the brain which filters fact from fiction, and to
chose fiction because it feels nicer."
-Alan J. Douglas 1942-2005

"Faith is defined briefly as an illogical belief in
the occurrence of the improbable."
-H.L. Mencken

"Faith is often the boast of the man who is too lazy
to investigate."
-F.M. Knowles

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

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence
that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish]
could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have
chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the
non-existence of God. The argument goes something like
this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for
proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway
isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves
you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you
don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and
promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Faith is something that people with a lower I.Q. need because they will
never achieve real enlightenment in their life.
The definition of "believe" is to take someone's word for "real" when you
don't have any real evidence.
God didn't make man but I think that man might sometime in the far distant
future evolve into something close to resembling a God.
==
Are humans hard-wired for faith?
NEW YORK (CNN) -- "I just know God is with me. I can feel Him always," a young
Haitian woman once told me.
"I've meditated and gone to another place I can't describe. Hours felt like
mere minutes. It was an indescribable feeling of peace," recalled a CNN
colleague.
"I've spoken in languages I've never learned. It was God speaking through me,"
confided a relative.
The accounts of intense religious and spiritual experiences are topics of
fascination for people around the world. It's a mere glimpse into someone's
faith and belief system. It's a hint at a person's intense connection with
God, an omniscient being or higher plane. Most people would agree the
experience of faith is immeasurable.
Dr. Andrew Newberg, neuroscientist and author of "Why We Believe What We
Believe," wants to change all that. He's working on ways to track how the
human brain processes religion and spirituality. It's all part of new field
called neurotheology.
After spending his early medical career studying how the brain works in
neurological and psychiatric conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
disease, depression and anxiety, Newberg took that brain-scanning technology
and turned it toward the spiritual: Franciscan nuns, Tibetan Buddhists, and
Pentecostal Christians speaking in tongues. His team members at the University
of Pennsylvania were surprised by what they found.
"When we think of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, we see a
tremendous similarity across practices and across traditions."
The frontal lobe, the area right behind our foreheads, helps us focus our
attention in prayer and meditation.
The parietal lobe, located near the backs of our skulls, is the seat of our
sensory information. Newberg says it's involved in that feeling of becoming
part of something greater than oneself.
The limbic system, nestled deep in the center, regulates our emotions and is
responsible for feelings of awe and joy.
Newberg calls religion the great equalizer and points out that similar areas
of the brain are affected during prayer and meditation. Newberg suggests that
these brain scans may provide proof that our brains are built to believe in
God. He says there may be universal features of the human mind that actually
make it easier for us to believe in a higher power.
Interestingly enough, devout believers and atheists alike point to the brain
scans as proof of their own ideas.
Some nuns and other believers champion the brain scans as proof of an innate,
physical conduit between human beings and God. According to them, it would
only make sense that God would give humans a way to communicate with the
Almighty through their brain functions.
Some atheists saw these brain scans as proof that the emotions attached to
religion and God are nothing more than manifestations of brain circuitry.
Scott Atran doesn't consider himself an atheist, but he says the brain scans
offer little in terms of understanding why humans believe in God. He is an
anthropologist and author of "In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of
Religion."
Instead of viewing religion and spirituality as an innate quality hardwired by
God in the human brain, he sees religion as a mere byproduct of evolution and
Darwinian adaptation.
"Just like we're not hardwired for boats, but humans in all cultures make
boats in pretty much the same way, Atran explains. "Now, that's a result both
of the way the brain works and of the needs of the world, and of trying to
traverse a liquid medium and so I think religion is very much like that."
Atran points to the palms of his hands as another example of evolutionary
coincidence. He says the creases formed there are a mere byproduct of human
beings working with our hands -- stretching back to the ages of striking the
first fires, hunting the first prey to building early shelter. Although, the
patterns in our palms were coincidentally formed by eons of evolution and
survival, he points out that cultures around the world try to find meaning in
them through different forms of palm reading.
Anthropologists like Atran say, "Religion is a byproduct of many different
evolutionary functions that organized our brains for day-to-day activity."
To be sure, religion has the unparalleled power to bring people into groups.
Religion has helped humans survive, adapt and evolve in groups over the ages.
It's also helped us learn to cope with death, identify danger and finding
mating partners.
Today, scientific images can track our thoughts on God, but it would take a
long leap of faith to identify why we think of God in the first place.
A. Chris Gajilan is a senior producer with CNN Medical News.
==
Belief and Unbelief: A Philosophy of Self-Knowledge by Michael Novak
(Paperback - Jan 1, 1994
===
2 Chronicles 8:9 Solomon did not force the Israelites to do his work. Instead,
they were his soldiers, officers, army commanders, and cavalry troops. But he
did make slaves of the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites
who were living in Israel. These were the descendants of those foreigners the
Israelites did not destroy, and they remained Israel's slaves.
==
Deu 20:16 16Whenever you capture towns in the land the LORD your God is
giving you, be sure to kill all the people and animals.
==
Deu 10-15Before you attack a town that is far from your land, offer peace to
the people who live there. If they surrender and open their town gates, they
will become your slaves. But if they reject your offer of peace and try to
fight, surround their town and attack. Then, after the LORD helps you capture
it, kill all the men. Take the women and children as slaves and keep the
livestock and everything else of value.
==
Christians contend all of the following pre-Christian gods are mythological
Hercules, Osiris, Bacchus, Mithra, Hermes, Prometheus, Perseus, and Horus.
Yet, all: (1) allegedly had gods for fathers and virgins for mothers; (2) had
their births announced by stars and celestial music; (3) were born on the 25th
of December (Solstice); (4) had tyrants trying to kill them when they were
infants; (5) met with violent deaths; and (6) rose from the dead.
==
solid firmament (Gen. 1:6-20, 7:11; Ezekiel 1:22-26; Job 9:8, 22:14, etc.)
satyrs (Isa. 34:14, 13:21)
fiery serpents (Num. 21:6)
==
Scan The Lexicon of Jewish Names, which includes names from ossuaries, ancient
texts and every other source available, and you will learn that the names
unearthed in the so-called Jesus Family Tomb were among the most common of that
era. One in every three women listed in the Lexicon was named Mary, for
instance, and, at that time, one in every 20 Jewish men was called Yeshua, or
Jesus.
==
Creationism is not about offering an alternative. Its goal is
the destruction of the core values of the open society--the ability to
think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when
judgment and common sense tell you something is wrong, to be self-critical,
to challenge authority, to advocate for change and to accept that there
are other views, different ways of being, that are morally and socially
acceptable. We are beginning to see the growing intolerance that comes
with the empowerment of these ideologues. There is a bill in the Texas
Legislature to strip all mention of evolution from Texas school
textbooks and institute mandatory Bible classes for all students. This is just
the start. And yet, coming from the modern age, these Christo-fascists cannot
discount science. They employ jargon, methods and data that appear to be
science, to make an argument for creationism. They have created parallel
research and scholarly institutions. They pump out articles in self-published
journals to provide evidence that homosexuals can be cured, that global
warming is a myth, that abortion can cause breast cancer, that something
they call post-abortion syndrome leads to deep depression and suicide and that
abstinence-only education is an effective form of birth control. This
pseudo-science has seeped into the public debate. It is disseminated
by nervous and timid media anxious to give both sides in every argument.
Those who have contempt for facts and truth, for honest research and
inquiry, are given the same platform by the press as those who deal in a
world of reality, fact and rationality. The movement desperately needs
the imprint of science to legitimize itself. It achieves this imprint by
discrediting real science and claiming creationist science as true
science. All attempts to argue the creationists out of their mythical
belief, to persuade them with logic, evidence, scientific inquiry and
fact, will fail. They have created a fundamentalist science. They know
they cannot return to the pre-Darwinian innocence that let them believe
the Bible alone was enough. They need, in the midst of their flight
from reality, to reassure their followers that science, science
not contaminated by secular humanists and nonbelievers, is on their
side. In this they are a distinctly modern movement. They seek the imprint
of science and scholarship to legitimize myth. This is a characteristic
they share with all modern totalitarian movements, which co-opt the
disciplines of law, science, medicine and scholarship to give a
modern veneer to their primitive and superstitious belief systems,
systems that allow the rulers to dictate reality and truth. The
paraprofessional organizations formed by the Christian right, organizations of
teachers, journalists, doctors, lawyers and scientists, mimic the activities
of real professional groups. They seek to challenge the legitimacy and the
power of the traditional organizations. The duplication of the structures and
methods employed by the non-totalitarian world, the use of pseudo-science to
dress up fantasy, is slowly undermining our legitimate scientific and
educational institutions. It is destroying the foundations of our open
society. It is ushering us into a world where lies are true and truth is
punished.
==
Thomas Aquinas said one of the joys of heaven is to see the tortures of the
damned, which would include loved ones, presumably
==
Supernaturalism is contentious. Scientific findings are based on hard evidence,
and scientists can point at the evidence to resolve disputes. People tend to
have different and incompatible ideas of what form supernatural influences
take, and all too often the only effective way they have found for reaching
a consensus is by killing each other.
==
"A dismally unctuous editorial in the British newspaper the
Independent recently asked for a reconciliation between science and
"theology." It remarked that "People want to know as much as possible
about their origins." I certainly hope they do, but what on earth
makes one think that theology has anything useful to say on the
subject?
Science is responsible for the following knowledge about our origins.
We know approximately when the universe began and why it is largely
hydrogen. We know why stars form and what happens in their interiors
to convert hydrogen to the other elements and hence give birth to
chemistry in a world of physics. We know the fundamental principles of
how a world of chemistry can become biology through the arising of
self-replicating molecules. We know how the principle of
self-replication gives rise, through Darwinian selection, to all life,
including humans.
It is science and science alone that has given us this knowledge and
given it, moreover., in fascinating, over-whelming, mutually
confirming detail. On every one of these questions theology has held a
view that has been conclusively proved wrong. Science has eradicated
smallpox, can immunize against most previously deadly viruses, can
kill most previously deadly bacteria. Theology has done nothing but
talk of pestilence as the wages of sin. Science can predict when a
particular comet will reappear and, to the second, when the next
eclipse will appear. Science has put men on the moon and hurtled
reconnaissance rockets around Saturn and Jupiter. Science can tell you
the age of a particular fossil and that the Turin Shroud is a medieval
fake. Science knows the precise DNA instructions of several viruses
and will, in the lifetime of many present readers, do the same for the
human genome.
What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody?
When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is
not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated
against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the
smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or
downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out
tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport
faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture
beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of
theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest
difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and
sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The achievements of theologians
don't do anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What
makes anyone think that "theology" is a subject at all?"
(Richard Dawkins, Published in Free Inquiry, Spring 1998 v18
n2 p6(1)
"A theologian is like a blind man in a darkened room looking for a
black cat that isn't there.... and finding it." ( anonymous )
==
DAVE FIZZGERALD is author of the forthcoming book, "The 10,000 Christs
and the Evaporating Jesus," which examines the historicity of Christ.
==
ORU, founded in 1963 by the televangelist and faith healer Oral Roberts,
demanded "holiness" and required students to sign an honor code pledging not to
drink, smoke, dance, party, have sex, or even think about sex. Engaging in any
of these activities was evidence of bodily and spiritual occupation by demons
that had to be cast out. "
==
In 1976, Jerry Falwell said "The idea that religion and politics don't mix
was invented by the devil to keep Christians from running their own country,"
===
Baubles of Blasphemy (Paperback)
by Edwin F. Kagin (Author)

Kautsky 1908 work Foundations of Christianity

Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making, Vol. 1) by
James D. G. Dunn (Hardcover - Jul 2003)

Seven Theories of Religion by Daniel L. Pals (Paperback - Aug 1, 1996)
===
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without
knowledge, of things without parallel.- Ambrose Bierce)
==
Mat5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (KJV)
--
Eze20:25 Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and
judgments whereby they should not live; (KJV)
--
Eze14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the
LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and
will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. (KJV)
--
Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to
teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed
first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and
became a transgressor.".....Timothy 2:11
==
Let me suggest that the search for "meaning, purpose, and
ultimate truth" is the wrong thing to search for. You may make great
time, but your headed the wrong direction IMO.
My opinion is that many people find their lives so unrewarding, so
inherently meaningless that they have an instinctive feeling that
there must be "something more" to it. Some "higher purpose" about
which they don't have a cosmic "need to know" as the Air Force used
to phrase it to me when I was an active enlisted member. These
people presume that there is some ineffable or inscrutable mystery,
a "plan" that they are not fully aware of.
I think that such feelings are nothing more than a misapplication of
normal social instincts.
For social beings to have an instinctive desire to find purpose and
meaning in society is normal. For social beings to presume that
there must be some meaningful purpose for mankind in the universe is
not sensible. Excuse the reification, but the universe is
apathetic.
For social beings to instinctively desire and strive for justice
within a social context is sensible. Such instinct aids us as a
socially evolved species, much as the Nile Crocodile's instinct to
not gobble its "children" is also an aid to its species.
However, for social beings to presume that there is "cosmic Justice"
where good people and bad people get their just dues, either while
alive or "later", is not sensible, and I suspect this latter "bone
feeling" is nothing more than a misapplication of social instinct
gone awry.
I understand that most theists engage in the False Dichotomy fallacy
by presuming that if they find faults in some scientific theory, it
will somehow bolster a theistic one as an alternative. But, alas,
there can be no indirect proofs regarding members of an open set.
For instance, if Evolution theory of the species as we currently
understand it was proved to be totally wrong, it would not make
anyone's idea of any 'god' come true...not in the slightest.
When we look at the alleged supporting evidence for any supposedly
existing 'god' in our universe, there really isn't any.
Saying "'god' did it" isn't really a comprehensive answer, its just
a "mysterious" claim. And when this invocation of a 'god' is alleged
to have done something in an inscrutable way, we are left to explain
the original explanation PLUS the new mystery of some alleged 'god'-
thingy.
So the invocation of a 'god' only ends up being a superfluous
addition that only serves to complicate the questions to answer and
comprehensively answers nothing.
Such a claim cannot REALLY provide any "meaning and purpose" as it
would only be an empty platitude masquerading as any comprehensive
answer to a comprehensible question.
==
Exo15:3 "The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name. (NAS)

Lev17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for
you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that
makes atonement, by reason of the life. (RSV)
==
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)
==
History of "biblical prophecy." Such as William Miller (1782-1849),
or any of the other thousands of millenialists through the centuries
who have "predicted" daily events using "biblical prophesies" which,
of course, never pan out. It always seems humorous to me when people
make arguments like this, with such bold statements, based on the
immediately false premise of ignoring the actual history of
what "prophecy-mongerers " have already done for many, many centuries.
Judge B. Rutherford (not a judge, that's his first name) published a
book in the early 1900s titled "Millions Now Living Will Never Die,"
just another example of the same kind of "prophesy" nonsense that's
been going on for many centuries. Rutherford was, of course, quite
obviously wrong, since we're here in 2007. Yet now, today, we still
have people like Gabor making statements like "The Bible has about
30% prophetical parts which are beautifully fulfilling daily in our
time" despite the fact that their own failed proclamations (failure
rate: 100%) prove that they don't really know what they're talking
about.

A Brief History of the Apocalypse (2800BC - 1700)
http://www.abhota. info/end1. htm
A Brief History of the Apocalypse (1701-1970)
http://www.abhota. info/end2. htm
A Brief History of the Apocalypse (1971-1997)
http://www.abhota. info/end3. htm
A Brief History of the Apocalypse (1998-1999)
http://www.abhota. info/end4. htm
A Brief History of the Apocalypse (2000 - Now)
http://www.abhota. info/end5. htm
==
"Throughout all of time, there has always been a witch doctor, a Shaman,
a priest or a rabii and now a psychiatrist who will tell you that he
understands you are afriad. he is here to help. but its gonna cost you a
couple of bucks" -Woody Allen)
==
"I am Jesus Christ man," he said in front of our cameras. "The second coming
of Christ."
"In September 2006, the founder of the
"Growing in Grace Ministry" was billing himself as the second coming of Christ.

==
Galileo was formally rehabilitated in 1741, when Pope Benedict XIV authorized
the publication of Galileo's complete scientific works (a censored edition had
been published in 1718), and in 1758 the general prohibition against
heliocentrism was removed from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
===
Hypatia of Alexandria (355-415) Killed by Christian mob.
==
John3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not
is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God. (KJV)
==
The bottom line, according to byproduct theorists, is that children are born
with a tendency to believe in omniscience, invisible minds, immaterial souls
and then they grow up in cultures that fill their minds, hard-wired for
belief, with specifics. It is a little like language acquisition, Paul Bloom
says, with the essential difference that language is a biological adaptation
and religion, in his view, is not. We are born with an innate facility for
language but the specific language we learn depends on the environment in
which we are raised. In much the same way, he says, we are born with an innate
tendency for belief, but the specifics of what we grow up believing whether
there is one God or many, whether the soul goes to heaven or occupies another
animal after death are culturally shaped.
==
Atran wrote in In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion
in 2002
==
When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of
peace. ?11? And it shall come about, if it agrees to make peace with you and
opens to you, then it shall be that all the people who are found in it shall
become your forced labor and shall serve you. ?12? However, if it does not
make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. ?13?
When the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men
in it with the edge of the sword. ?14? Only the women and the children and the
animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for
yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God
has given you. ?15? Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far
from you, which are not of the cities of these nations nearby. [Deut 20:10-15;
NASB]

Consider the terms of surrender to the Ammonites, in 1 Sam 11:
Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh Gilead. And all the men of
Jabesh said to him, Make a treaty with us, and we will be subject to you.
But Nahash the Ammonite replied, I will make a treaty with you only on the
condition that I gouge out the right eye of every one of you and so bring
disgrace on all Israel.
==
Hosea 9:15, "All their evil is at Gilgal; indeed, I came to hate them there!
Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house!
I will love them no more; All their princes are rebels."
==
Joseph Smith
Jesus is the literal spirit-brother of Lucifer, a creation.
(Gospel Through the Ages, p. 15)
==
Our numerals are called Arabic numerals. Astronomy has a large ongoing list of
Arabic names. They all stem from the time period spanning 800-1100 when Arabic
culture where the center of the development of knowledge. However, in the
1100s, an Iman declared that mathematics is evil. Since then the Arabic
intellectual culture has never recovered,
It could happen here.
==
"Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children, and women."
Ezekial 9:6
==
I cannot think of any greater act of arrogance, than requesting that another
individual surrender their ability to think and reason nor any greater offense
than tricking them into doing so out of fear of eternal damnation. The request
is itself an act of cowardice and an attack on liberty.
==
To say "God is good" is really to say "God thinks like I do." It's an
authoritative way to press your morals onto others.
==
The Catholic Church teaches that "it is absolutely necessary for the salvation
of every creature to be united to the Roman Pontiff"
==
The first hand-written English language Bible manuscripts were produced in the
1380's AD by JohnWycliffe, an Oxford professor, scholar, and theologian.
Wycliffe, (also spelled Wycliff & Wyclif), was well-known throughout Europe
for his opposition to the teaching of the organized Church, which he believed
to be contrary to the Bible. With the help of his followers, called the
Lollards, and his assistant Purvey, and many other faithful scribes, Wycliffe
produced dozens of English language manuscript copies of the scriptures. They
were translated out of the Latin Vulgate, which was the only source text
available to Wycliffe. The Pope was so infuriated by his teachings and his
translation of the Bible into English, that 44 years after Wycliffe had died,
he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river!
==
Quotes from the The American Taliban

Ann Coulter
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler
and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians.
That's war. And this is war.
Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.
Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of
Christianity, as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the
lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name
Mohammed'

Bailey Smith
With all due respect to those dear people, my friend, God Almighty does
not hear the prayer of a Jew.

Beverly LaHaye (Concerned Women for America)
Yes, religion and politics do mix. America is a nation based on biblical
principles. Christian values dominate our government. The test of those
values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the bible to guide their
public and private lives do not belong in office.

Bob Dornan (Rep. R-CA)
Don't use the word 'gay' unless it's an acronym for 'Got Aids Yet'

David Barton (Wallbuilders)
There should be absolutely no 'Separation of Church and State' in
America.

David Trosch
Sodomy is a graver sin than murder. Unless there is life
there can be no murder.

Fob James (Governor of Alabama)
Behind this judicial wall of separation there is a tyranny of lies that
will fall... I say to you, my friends, let it fall!
A good butt-whipping and then a prayer is a wonderful remedy.

Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church)
If you got to castrate your miserable self with a piece of rusty barb
wire, do it.
Hear the word of the LORD, America, fag-enablers are worse than the fags
themselves, and will be punished in the everlasting lake of fire!
You telling these miserable, Hell-bound, bath house-wallowing,
anal-copulating fags that God loves them!? You have bats in the belfry!
American Veterans are to blame for the fag takeover of this nation. They
have the power in their political lobby to influence the zeitgeist, get the
fags out of the military, and back in the closet where they belong!
Not only is homosexuality a sin, but anyone who supports fags is just as
guilty as they are. You are both worthy of death.
Gary Bauer (American Values)
We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There's a lot of
talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody's values
will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to
believe.

Gary North (Institute for Christian Economics)
The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive
control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the
eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church's public marks of the
covenantbaptism and holy communionmust be denied
citizenship.
This is God's world, not Satan's. Christians are the lawful heirs, not
non-Christians.

Gary Potter (Catholics for Christian Political Action)
When the Christian majority takes over this country, there will be no
satanic churches, no more free distribution of pornography, no more talk of
rights for homosexuals. After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism
will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the
right to practice evil.

George Bush Sr. (President of the United States)
I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they
be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

George W. Bush (President of the United States)
I don't think that witchcraft is a religion. I wish the military would
rethink this decision.*
God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he
instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to
solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not,
the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.
*Comment about Wiccans in the military

Henry Morris (Institute for Creation Research)
When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted
its data.

J. B. Stoner (White Supremacist)
We had lost the fight for the preservation of the white race until God
himself intervened in earthly affairs with AIDS to rescue and preserve the
white race that he had created.... I praise God all the time for AIDS.
AIDS is a racial disease of Jews and Niggers, and fortunately it is wiping
out the queers. I guess God hates queers for several reasons. There is one
big reason to be against queers and that is because every time some white boy
is seduced by a queer into becoming a queer, means his white bloodline has
run out.

James Dobson (Focus on the Family)
Those who control the access to the minds of children will set the agenda
for the future of the nation and the future of the western world.
State Universities are breeding grounds, quite literally, for sexually
transmitted diseases (including HIV), homosexual behavior, unwanted
pregnancies, abortions, alcoholism, and drug abuse.
Today's children... They're damned. They're gone.

James Kennedy (Center for Reclaiming America)
The Christian community has a golden opportunity to train an army of
dedicated teachers who can invade the public school classrooms and use them
to influence the nation for Christ.

James Watt (Secretary of the Interior)
We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at
hand.*
*Secretary of the Interior in the Reagan Admin. Responsible for National
Policy regarding the Environment

Jay Grimstead (Coalition on Revival)
We are to make Bible-obeying disciples of anybody that gets in our way.

Jerry Falwell
We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism...we
are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation
today...our battle is with Satan himself.
AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be
like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's
chariotters.
The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely
infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as
well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment
for the society that tolerates homosexuals.
If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human
being.

Jesse Helms (Sen. R-NC)
The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals
themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian.
All Latins are volatile people. Hence, I was not surprised at the volatile
reaction.
Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade-school classes that teach
our children that cannibalism, wife-swapping and murder of infants and the
elderly are acceptable behavior.
Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches.

Jimmy Swaggart (Jimmy Swaggart Ministries)
The Media is ruled by Satan. But yet I wonder if many Christians fully
understand that. Also, will they believe what the Media says, considering
that its aim is to steal, kill, and destroy?
Sex education classes in our public schools are promoting incest.
Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact.
Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it...Only atheists
could accept this Satanic theory.

John Ashcroft (Attorney General)
Civilized people Muslims, Christians, and Jews
all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the
Creator.

John Whitehead (Rutherford Institute)
The [Supreme] Court, by seeking to equate Christianity with other
religions, merely assaults the one faith. The Court in essence is assailing
the true God by democratizing the Christian religion.

Joseph McCarthy (Sen. R-WI)
Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between Communistic
Atheism and Christianity.
Joseph Morecraft (Chalcedon Presbyterian Church)
Nobody has the right to worship on this planet any other God than Jehovah.
And therefore the state does not have the responsibility to defend anybody's
pseudo-right to worship an idol.

Joseph Scheidler (Pro-Life Action League)
I would like to outlaw contraception...contraception is disgusting
people using each other for pleasure.*
*I get the distinct impression that Mr. Scheidler's poor wife isn't guilty
of feeling any pleasureE

Kay O'Connor (Kansas Senate Republican)
I'm an old-fashioned woman. Men should take care of women, and if men were
taking care of women today, we wouldn't have to vote.

Keith A. Fournier (Catholic Way)
We need a legal strategy which protects the rights of those of us who hold
Christian convictions which will afford us the opportunity to contend once
again for the mind of this culture.

Laura Schlessinger
I want to coin a phrase here, and I don't mind help. What would be the
communication version of ethnic cleansing? Because that's what in
particular the homosexual activists try to do.

Lester Roloff (Texas Homes for Wayward Youth)
Better a pink bottom than a black soul.*
*Roloff opened a chain of homes for wayward youth in the state of Texas;
he was later jailed in 1973 and again in 1975 for child abuse due to the
punitive punishment techniques used in his homes. He would have been finished
had he not of been specifically given permision to re-open his homes by, you
guested it, Governor George W Bush.

Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin
George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in
the United States, he was appointed by God.

Pat Buchanan (Presidential Candidate)
Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our religion is
Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free.
There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The
negroes of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie
houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours.
Rail as they will about 'discrimination,' women are simply not endowed by
nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to
succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism.

Pat Robertson (Christian Coalition)
The Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put
them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves. Why would the people in
America want to embrace the religion of slavers.
Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now
doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different...More terrible than
anything suffered by any minority in history.
When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here
that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved with Adolph
Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals the two
things seem to go together.
The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a
socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave
their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism,
and become lesbians.
You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the
Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing.
Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.
I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you
have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the
household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is,
period.
[Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church services and
throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of
ministers.
[Planned Parenthood] is teaching kids to fornicate, teaching people to
have adultery, every kind of bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism
everything that the Bible condemns.

Patrick Mahoney (Christian Defense Coalition)
It is deeply troubling to have an appointed, unelected commission remove
an elected official from office [Roy Moore]. The Court of Judiciary has
overturned an election and crushed the democratic process through their
actions.*
*Interesting perspective coming from someone who's President was appointed
by a group of unelected judges, thus overturning a democratic election.

Paul Cameron
I think that actually AIDS is a guardian. That is I think it was sent, if
you would, about forty years ago, to destroy Western civilization unless we
change our sexual ways. So it's really a Godsend.
Homosexuality is a crime against humanity.
Causes of homosexuality include: 'sex with animals'*
Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options
discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.
*Paul Cameron was discharged from the American Psychological Association,
the Nebraska Psychological Association, and the American Sociological
Association due to his unethical practices and biased research regarding
Homosexuals. His research has since been discredited by the scientific
community; however his work is still referenced by many fundamentalist
organizations as credible.

Randall Terry (Operation Rescue)
I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over. I want you to let
a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is a Christian
nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this
country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism.
Our goal must be simple. We must have a Christian nation built on God's
law, on the ten Commandments. No apologies.
I don't think Christians should use birth control. You consummate your
marriage as often as you like and if you have babies, you have
babies.
When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee,
because we will find you, we will try you, and we'll execute you. I mean
every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they
are tried and executed.*
There is going to be war, [and Christians may be called to] take up the
sword to overthrow the tyrannical regime that oppresses them.
*It is interesting to note that Randell Terry's son is Gay

Jerry Vines (Southern Baptist Convention)
They would have us believe that Islam is just as good as Christianity.
Christianity was founded by the virgin-born son of God, Jesus Christ. Islam
was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, the
last one of which was a nine-year-old girl.

Rick Santorum* (Sen. R-PA)
If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [Gay] sex
within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to
polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You
have the right to anything!
*Now known as Rick Santorum Santorum

Robert Simonds (Citizens for Excellence in Education)
As the church watches from the sidelines, the ungodly elect atheists and
homosexuals to school boards and legislatures to enact policies and laws that
destroy our Christian children and discriminate against Christian
families.
Atheistic secular humanists should be removed from office and Christians
should be elected...Government and true Christianity are inseparable.
We'll take away their power and their money. Money comes from students.
We'll break their backs by taking 24 million kids out of the public
schools.

Robert T. Lee (Society for the Practical Establishment of the Ten
Commandments)
Raising your children under Americanism or any other principles other than
true Christianity is child abuse.
You do not have the right to be wrong, regardless of what any man-made or
demonic charter says.
Democracy originated in the mind of a rational being who has the deepest
hatred for God.
Do you realize that the only thing that gives democracy existence is sin?
The absence of democracy is perfect obedience to god.
The best way to insure the earth is never over populated is for sensible
and righteous governments to clear all forms of atheism and heresy.

Ronald Reagan (President of the United States)
For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of
Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.

Roy Moore (Former Alabama Judge)
If they want to get the Commandments, they're going to have to get me
first.*
Worship With Your Vote
*Interesting observation of the Radical Right, Judge Roy Moore commits
peaceful civil disobedience by refusing to remove the Ten Commandments
Monument from the Court. He is considered a Hero. Mayor Gavin Newsom commits
peaceful civil disobedience by issuing same-sex marriage licenses. He is
considered an Anarchist.

Rush Limbaugh
Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the
mainstream of society.
If you commit a crime, you're guilty.*
There is only one way to get rid of nuclear weapons... use them
*Seems logical enough, doesn't it Rush?

Star Parker (Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education)
Anybody that believes in separation of church and state needs to leave
right now.

Tony Evans (Promise Keepers)
The demise of our community and culture is the fault of sissified men who
have been overly influenced by women.

William Rehnquist (Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court)
The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on
bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It
should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.

Michael Savage (Savage Nation)
Oh, you're one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you
pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got
nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have got
nothing to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it.*
*Statement made on live national television
==
Physicist Steven Weinberg: "Those who seek extra-scientific messages in what
they think they understand about modern physics are digging dry wells."
==
GOD: THE FAILED HYPOTHESIS Victor Stenger
==
http://www.evilbible.com/Top_Ten_List.htm

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

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 (few 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 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.
==
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, says: "What is a damned religion? Damned religion is a
religion so weak-willed and unsure of its own capacity to persuade others to
support it or live by its guidance that it seeks the blessing of government.
That it seeks financial aid from government. And that it even tries to convert
its theological beliefs into legislative fiats. This damned form of religion is
a corruption both of faith and of constitutional democracy. And it makes a
mockery of the best in our history...."
===
The following text speaks of strong drink (shekar)as though God approved of
it.
24 And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry
it; or if the place be too far from thee, which the Lord thy God shall choose
to set his name there, when the Lord thy God hath blessed thee:
25 Then shalt thou turn it into money, and bind up the money in thine hand,
and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose:
26 For thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for
oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy
soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt
rejoice, thou, and thine household.
==
http://exchristian.net/
==
Muhammed
"One night, it seemed to him, he was miraculously transported in his sleep to
Jerusalem; there a winged horse, Buraq, awaited him at the Wailing Wall of the
Jewish Temple ruins, flew him to heaven, and back again; and by another
miracle the Prophet found himself, the next morning, safe in his Mecca bed."
An excerpt from a Sahih Muslim hadith describes a buraq:
"In the time it takes for a drop of water to spill from a tipped over jug,
Mohammed flew, in a dream, to El-Aksa (the furthest place). He flew on a winged
horse named El-Buraq which had the face and breasts of a woman and the tail
of a peacock. El-Buraq landed on the rock upon which it was believed Abraham
prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac as G-d's ultimate test of Abraham's
faithfulness."
==
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm dragon in my garage *
==
There is no archeological evidence that Moises spent 40 years in the
desert with 600.000 people (what a logistic nightmare!).
==
God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
(Hardcover) by Victor J Stenger
==
The Council of Valencia in 1229 placed the Bible on the Index of Forbidden
Books and the Council of Trent reaffirmed this decision.
==
It has been historically confirmed that Herod died somewhere between 44 and
45 AD. The Bible states that Paul's conversion took place 17 years prior to
Herod's death, which would have to be 3 years before Jesus's ministry.
Is there an explanation for this?
===
fixedearth.com geocentric *
http://fixedearth.com/HB%20179%20PART%20I%20MODEL.htm proposed law
==
Members of the National Academy of Sciences, 93% of whom reject the idea of
God
==
killing people who worship "false gods" [Deut. 13:6, 8-15], afflicting those
who afflict you, with vengeance and retribution [2 Thessalonians 1:6-9],
slavery [Leviticus 25:44-46 & 1 Timothy 6: 1-4,], and the rights of fathers
to sell their daughters into sexual slavery, [Exodus 21: 7-11]
==
Karen Armstrong "The Battle for God"
Jon Meachum "American Gospel"
Sam Harris "End of Faith."
Robin Morgan FIGHTING WORDS: A TOOLKIT FOR COMBATTING THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

"Crimes Against Logic" Jamie Whyte
===
The doctrine of adult baptism caused the death of thousands
of rebaptisers in the time between 1525-1529.
The catholic church killed them by burning, hanging drowning and starving to
death.
In May, 1527, Sattler was arrested by Roman Catholic authorities, along
with his wife and several other Anabaptists. He was tried and sentenced
to be executed as a heretic. As part of his execution, his tongue was cut
out, and red hot tongs were used to tear two pieces of flesh from his body.
He was then taken outside the city by wagon, and the tongs were used on him
five more times. After that, he was burned at the stake.
That would be a civil trial as heresy in the middle ages was also a state crime

In 1525 a number of rebaptisers were locked in a tower and starved to death
because they rejected doctrines of the catholic church.
Sattler was taken to the town marketplace in Rottenburg and tortured. A piece
was cut from his tongue, although not enough to keep him from speaking, and
glowing tongs ripped pieces from his flesh. At the marketplace he prayed for
his persecutors. He was then taken outside the city and tied to a ladder and a
sack of gunpowder was tied around his neck.
He prayed, "Almighty, eternal God, thou art the way and the truth; because
I have not been shown to be in error, I will with thy help on this day testify
to the truth and seel it with my blood." He was then pushed into a large fire.
As the ropes around his hands were burned away, Sattler gave a signal to his
group to show them he was confident about his fate and prayed, "Father, I
commend my spirit into thy hands."
Two days after his execution, Margaretha Sattler was executed by drowning,
often called "the third baptism" by authorities.
===
if you rely on "faith" instead of science, economics, legal principles, or
just common sense in general, it leads directly to suffering, torture, and
possibly the extinction of races.
==
Dr. Reginald Finger, a thankfully-former member of the CDC's Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices, would consider opposing a hypothetical
HIV vaccine on the grounds that such a vaccine would be a "disinhibition" to
premarital sex. He also expressed reservations about the actual HPV vaccine
against cervical cancer because it would detract from the religous right's
abstinence message.
==
It was possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like
St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be
tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and
John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates,
Jews, and witches.
==
Because religion fills a large gap for a lot of people, there's no way any
degree of associated idiocy, absurdity, or irrationality will end it.
==
"The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth". Historical origin of
this movement
==
The Shroud of Turin contradicts the Gospel of John, which describes
multiple cloths (including a separate "napkin" over the face), as
well as "an hundred pound weight" of burial spices, not a trace of
which appears on the cloth.

No examples of the shroud linen's complex herringbone
twill weave date from the first century, when burial cloths tended
to be of plain weave in any case.

The shroud has no known history prior to the mid-
fourteenth century, when it turned up in the possession of a man who
never explained how he had obtained the most holy relic in
Christendom.

The earliest written record of the shroud is a bishop's
report to Pope Clement VII, dated 1389, stating that it originated
as part of a faith-healing scheme, with "pretended miracles" being
staged to defraud credulous pilgrims.

The bishop's report also stated that a predecessor
had "discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly
painted, the truth being attested to by the artist who had painted
it" (emphasis added).

Although, as St. Augustine lamented in the fourth-century,
Jesus' appearance was completely unknown, the shroud image follows
the conventional artistic likeness.

The physique is unnaturally elongated (like figures in
Gothic art), and there is a lack of wraparound distortions that
would be expected if the cloth had enclosed an actual three-
dimensional object like a human body. The hair hangs as for a
standing, rather than reclining figure, and the imprint of a bloody
foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg to which it belongs.

The alleged blood stains are unnaturally picture-like.
Instead of matting the hair, for instance, they run in rivulets on
the outside of the locks. Also dried "blood" (as on the arms) has
been implausibly transferred to the cloth. The blood remains bright
red, unlike genuine blood that blackens with age.

In 1973, internationally known forensic serologists
subjected the "blood" to a battery of testsfor chemical properties,
species, blood grouping, etc. The substance lacked the properties of
blood, instead containing suspicious, reddish granules.

Subsequently, the distinguished microanalyst Walter
McCrone identified the "blood" as red ocher and vermilion tempera
paint and concluded that the entire image had been painted.

In 1988, the shroud cloth was radiocarbon dated by three
different laboratories (at Zurich, Oxford, and the University of
Arizona). The results were in close agreement and yield a date range
of a.d. 12601390, about the time of the reported forger's
confession (ca. a.d. 1355).
==
"Pagans and Christians" by Robin Lane Fox
==
In theory it is still possible to be an orthodox religious believer without
being intellectually crippled; but it is far from easy, and in practice books
by orthodox believers usually show the same cramped, blinkered outlook as
books by orthodox Stalinists or others who are mentally unfree. The Christian
churches still demand assent to doctrines which no one seriously believes in.
The most obvious case is the immortality of the soul.
[Orwell]
==
The Old Catholic Church has been independent of Rome and the Pope since 1724,
but still maintains the Sacraments, the Deposit of Faith, and Apostolic
Succession.
==
The Christian right has lured tens of millions of Americans, who rightly feel
abandoned and betrayed by the political system, from the reality-based world
to one of magic -- to fantastic visions of angels and miracles, to a childlike
belief that God has a plan for them and Jesus will guide and protect them. This
mythological worldview, one that has no use for science or dispassionate,
honest intellectual inquiry, one that promises that the loss of jobs and
health insurance does not matter, as long as you are right with Jesus, offers
a lying world of consistency that addresses the emotional yearnings of
desperate followers at the expense of reality. It creates a world where facts
become interchangeable with opinions, where lies become true -- the very
essence of the totalitarian state. It includes a dark license to kill, to
obliterate all those who do not conform to this vision, from Muslims in the
Middle East to those at home who refuse to submit to the movement. And it
conveniently empowers a rapacious oligarchy whose god is maximum profit at the
expense of citizens.
The radical Christian right, calling for a "Christian state" -- where whole
segments of American society, from gays and lesbians to liberals to immigrants
to artists to intellectuals, will have no legitimacy and be reduced, at best,
to second-class citizens -- awaits a crisis, an economic meltdown, another
catastrophic terrorist strike or a series of environmental disasters. A period
of instability will permit them to push through their radical agenda, one that
will be sold to a frightened American public as a return to security and law
and order, as well as moral purity and prosperity. This movement -- the most
dangerous mass movement in American history -- will not be blunted until the
growing social and economic inequities that blight this nation are addressed,
until tens of millions of Americans, now locked in hermetic systems of
indoctrination through Christian television and radio, as well as Christian
schools, are reincorporated into American society and given a future, one with
hope, adequate wages, job security and generous federal and state assistance.
==
The Bible Against Itself, by Randel Helms

The Bible Against Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself by
Michael Shermer
==
th 2:10 And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they
receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God
shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying:
===
Rom 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I(God) loved, but Esau have I hated. :
===
if the Bible is the divinely inspired
Word of God, it should reflect the knowledge of that
supernatural being. In that case it should indeed give us
insights into the nature of the universe and of space-time as well as all
other modern science.
===
deu 22:28 If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and
lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;
deu 22:29 Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father
fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled
her, he may not put her away all his days.
===
10 Shvat 5767, Monday, January 29, 2007 Hebrew date system

The names of the months of the Jewish calendar were adopted during the
time of Ezra.
==
2ch 15:13 And if any one, said he, seek not the Lord the God of Israel,
let him die, whether little or great, man or woman.

Luke19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over
them, bring hither, and slay them before me. (KJV)
==
Brian Flemming "The God Who Wasn't There"
===
Exo35:2 For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your
holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be
put to death. (NIV)
==
"and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off
the face of the earth."
"And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills,
that were under the whole heaven, were covered."
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/bseaflod.htm

'Persistent Holocene Outflow from the Black Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean
Contradicts Noah's Flood Hypothesis'
http://www.gsajournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1130%2F1052-
5173%282002%29012%3C0004%3APHOFTB%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Smithsonian's magazine 'Evidence for a Flood'
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2000/april/phenom_apr00.php
which mentions that the black sea flood doesn't coincide with the 'split'
between Indo-European languages which such a flood would have brought about
==
A Layman's Guide to Who Wrote the Books of the Bible? by C., Jack Trickler
(Paperback - Jan 2007). The author is a retired
engineer and a religious person. The 2003 version of his book (there is a 2007
version that just came out) consistently obtained four or five star reviews.
I am about halfway through the Old Testament, and it is clear from Trickler's
detective work that virtually everything in the Bible is fiction. Each of the
many authors had an agenda.

===
The Bible Period by Period
Josiah Blake Tidwell

Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible
Steven W. Holloway

The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of Theory and Practice
Thomas L. Brodie , Dennis R. MacDonaldd), Stanley E. Porte

In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000 Michelle P. Brown

A General Study of the Books of the Bible
Queen Kirkwood-Hatchett

The Bible Really Does Make Sense
Alan Foster

An Introduction to the Books of the Apocrypha
W. O. E. Oesterley

More Lost Books of the Bible: The Book of Jasher
Anonymous

More Lost Books of the Bible: Pistis Sophia
G. R. S. Mead

More Lost Books of the Bible: The Secrets of Enoch & the Apocalypse of Baruch
R. H. Charles

Guide to Understanding Your Bible
Josh McDowell
==
Proof of a flat earth
The earth started out as flat (these things are only possible on a flat earth):

Daniel 4:10-11 Thus were the visions of mine head in my bed; I saw, and behold
a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree
grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the
sight thereof to the end of all the earth:

Mark 13:26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with
great power and glory.

Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain,
and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

Luke 4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him
all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

More specifically, the earth was a flat disk:

Isaiah 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a
curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

Or maybe the earth was more like a pie pan since God could invert it and shake
out its inhabitants like crumbs:

Isaiah 24:1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and
turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

Job 38:13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked
might be shaken out of it?

Or maybe the earth was more like a round table top:

Isaiah 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my
footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of
my rest?

Since biblical authors could reach no clear consensus, God decided to lop off
some of the earth's sides to create four corners:

Ezekiel 7:2 Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD unto the land of
Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.

Revelation 7:1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four
corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind
should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

Squaring the earth got him nowhere, so God returned to the proverbial drawing
board and saw fit to bend the earth into a sphere. What shape he decides on
next is anyone's guess (what about a dodecahedron? -- that would make the
earth look really cool!)

A curious structure called the "firmament" once supported the heavens (the sky
also appeared blue for an entirely different reason -- there used to be a huge
ocean up there):

Genesis 1:7 And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under
the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

Ezekiel 1:22 And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living
creature was as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their
heads above.

Daniel 12:3 And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the
firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and
ever.

Psalm 150:1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the
firmament of his power.

God once sat on a throne atop the firmament:

Ezekiel 1:26 And above the firmament that was over their heads was the
likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the
likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon
it.

Later, God tore down the firmament (perhaps it looked really tacky over the
balled up earth) -- a fact for which NASA is no doubt eternally grateful.
(Interesting note: God's throne sometimes turns up at flea markets.)

The earth once had a foundation and did not move:

Psalm 18:15 Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the
world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy
nostrils.

Psalm 104:5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be
removed for ever.

Job 38:4-6 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare,
if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou
knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations
thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;

Psalm 93:1 The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed
with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished,
that it cannot be moved.

1 Chronicles 16:30 Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be
stable, that it be not moved.

Little know fact: The sun orbited the earth in biblical times:

Joshua 10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people
had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of
Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go
down about a whole day.

Isaiah 38:8 Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is
gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned
ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.

God, the fickle renovator, eventually pulled the earth off its foundation and
set it in orbit about the sun. He probably got the idea from Copernicus;
however, it is unknown whether the Almighty first tested the changeover with
focus groups.

He also made some radical alterations to the universe, such as greatly
increasing the size of stars and planets, which in biblical times were just
tiny little lights a few miles above the earth (Job 22:12, Isaiah 34:4, Daniel
8:10, Mark 13:25, Revelation 6:13, Revelation 12:4), and moving them into deep
space. He probably did this in the daytime so that no one would notice.

As a final touch, God -- shrewd craftsman that he is -- gave the earth and the
universe that antique look, most likely to increase its collector's value.
===
The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History (Hardcover)
by Michael Baigent
===
"Farewell to God: my reasons for rejecting the Christian faith", 1996,
McClellan & Stewart, Inc. (ISBN 0-7710-8508-7)

Quotes from Billy Grahman which perfectly captures the mindset
of a fundamentalist christian:

"I believe the Genesis account because it is in the Bible."

"I don't have the time or the intellect to examine all sides of each
theological dispute, so I've decided, once and for all, to stop questioning
and just accept the Bible as God's Word."
==
Rushdoony proposed the death penalty for an ever-expanding subset of sinners,
starting with gay men and growing to include blasphemers and badly behaved
children.
==
Where We Got the Bible Bishop Henry G. Graham
==
. . .the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is
entrusted, does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the
holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and
honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence'." (Catechism of the
Catholic Church, paragraph 82.)
==
Isa 14:14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will be like the most High
==
The Jews have ha'satan, which is a ROLE played by various members of god's
divine court. It is NOT the name of a particular character.
"The Origin of Satan," by Elaine Pagels
Elain Pagels is professor emeritus of Ancient Westnern History at Princeton
and is internationally renowed for her works
==
Jesus Christ created one Church -- the Catholic Church (Pope Benedict XVI,
current vicar)
==
Isa30:27 Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger,
and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his
Isa30:28 And his breath, as an overflowing stream,
shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of
vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to
err. (KJV)
==
2Th2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they
should believe a lie: (KJV)
==
Scientists dont get Phds and research grants for saying nature did it
Theologian get DDs and collection plate offerings for saying God did it

Naturalism allows us to disregard the superfluous questions and concentrate
on the practical, answerable ones.
==
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)
==
Human Evolution and ReligionA Global Truce through Anthropology
Every religion in the world was created to serve the needs of humans who are
evolutionarily equal, and therefore, have asked the same questions about life.
Anthropologists have identified a number of universal constants of religion,
and have discovered that different religions arent so different from each
other after all.
In the summer of 1987, scientists from both sides of the Iron Curtain met
secretly in Budapest to try to figure out why the threat our own extinction
seemed like such a good idea to so many people. They began studying human
evolution specifically as the Science of How to Not Have a War with Each Other.
Religion and spirituality is a universal constant of humanity. Even though
some individual people dont practice religion or spirituality, in every part
of the world there are people who do.
As Dr. Andrew Newberg and Dr. Eugene DAquili explain in their book Why God
Wont Go Away, every religion in the world is exactly the same as every other
religion in the world. Every religion in the world was created to serve the
needs of Homo sapiens who are evolutionarily equal and have asked the same
questions about life. Every group of people in the world found answers to
those questions that satisfied them, by extrapolating upon what they did
understand about the world to try to explain the things they didnt understand.
If people fighting made a lot of noise, and a thunderstorm made a lot of
noise, then as far as people of 40,000 years ago could tell, that probably
meant there were a couple of people having a really huge fight up in the sky.
The first person to have had that idea might not have completely believed it,
but it was the best explantion he could think of. Then he told it to someone
else, like maybe his kids, or the younger people of his tribe who looked up to
him. Those people thought it made sense, and it was told to them by someone
they looked up to, so they assumed it must be right.
Every religion in the world offers its followers the same basic things, which
include: An explanation for what makes the universe work, some way for people
to escape their physical mortality, ways for people to build healthy families
and strong communities, and ways for people to make themselves feel satisfied
with their lives. Any differences between religions are based on things other
than observable evidence. That means any argument over whose religion is
better than whose is impossible to win, because everything about the two
religions that has observable evidence to support it is identical, and
everything thats different doesnt have any observable evidence to support it.
In effect, in the same way that different sects of Christianity are just
different versions of the same basic religion, every religion in the world is
just a different sect of one universal religion of humanity.
Some religions are practiced in ways that are emotionally or physically
harmful to people, and some people even equate global mass suicide with
eternal salvation. However, the religions are not responsible for that, the
people whose choose to practice their religions that way are responsible for
that. Religion is a universal constant of humanity, but globally
self-destructive religions are not universal constants of humanity.
Dr. Newberg and Dr. DAquili went so far as to hook some neural imaging
equipment up to people from different religions to monitor their brainwave
patterns while they were at rest and while they were engaged in religious
activities. To cut a long story short, the people all showed the exact same
brain activity while they were engaged in their religious activities.
The chain of logic they draw for the evolution of religion goes like this: The
evolution of human intellect made humans the dominant species of the world,
because it gave humans an advantage in hunting that no animal species was
equipped to defend itself against. Humans could remember seeing animals in a
certain place at a certain time of the year, they could imagine seeing them
there again at the same time next year, and they could make plans among
themselves to cooperate in hunting the animals.
Those same abilities that made humans the dominant species of the world also
made them the only species cabable of perceiving their own mortality at all
times. The abilities to imagine, remember, and communicate also gave them the
abilities to remember people dying, to hear about people dying, and to imagine
themselves dying. That posed a permanent and inescapable threat to peoples
survival. That forced them, essentially, to write an escape clause to life, to
give them a way to survive their mortality. Religion was an evolutionary
inevitability, because without it, our entire species wouldve become extinct
due to mass clinical depression.
Those other three universal constants of religion followed close behind the
first. Human intellect gave people the ability to wonder how the universe
worked and how to make themselves happy, so every group of people figured out
ways to answer those questions based on the information they had to work with
at the time. While they were telling stories to answer all of those questions,
it was easy to add in morality by telling stories about what would happen if
people acted in ways that harmed the interests of the group.
Every philosophical ideology that serves in the place of religion also offers
its followers these four universal constants. Take Atheism, for example.
What makes the universe work?
The laws of physics, some of which we understand, some of which we dont, but
we keep searching for more answers.
How can people survive their physical mortality?
Theres a lot of different ways this could be answered, but I think this is the
most profound: Everyone lives forever in the effect that their lives had on the
world. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was recognized as a hero in his life, and
Adolf Hitler was recognized as a villain in his. Now, decades after their
deaths, one of them is still remembered as a hero, and the effects of his life
are still benefiting people. The other is still remembered as a villain, and
people are still trying to erase the effects his life had on the world.
How can people build strong families and healthy communities?
A good place to start is by learning about things like physics, environmental
science, child psychology, and human sciences in general. Then, just act the
way people do on Sesame Street. Its really not that difficult.
How can people make themselves feel satisfied with their lives?
Well thats up to you to figure out. Obeying the laws of physics is always a
good idea. Another good trick is abandoning traditional religious morality
that doesnt serve any purpose anymore. You can drink and have sex all you want
now without undermining society or messing up your life, so long as you do it
responsibly and avoid all those big time negative consequences that can come
with either of those.
Buddhism throws in a couple of unusual twists that at first glance seem to
disprove two of the universal constants of religion, even though they doesnt
really.
What makes the universe work?
Nothing. The universe sprang forth out of nothing, and we are all nothing.
How can people escape their physical mortality?
You cant. When you die, you cease to exist.
While it is true numerically speaking that nothing means the absence of
anything, once you give that nothing a name, it becomes something, because it
becomes an idea that people can think about.
Likewise, the ultimate goal of asking, How can people escape their physical
mortality? is to find an answer to the question. Once you answer the question,
you give the people something they can prepare themselves for. They survive
their physical mortality by learning to accept it. Once you accept that the
force that powers the universe is called nothing, and you accept that when you
die you become nothing, youve accepted that when you die you become one with
the force that powers the universe. Change a couple of words around there and
suddenly were talking about Christianity.
See what I mean about every religion in the world being a different sect of
one universal religion of humanity?
==
Dawkins stands in awe of the human ability to believe in anything, no
matter how absurd, and to validate those beliefs in custom and social
policy. Religious people have no problem recognizing that religions
can be composed of wish-fulfilling myths, Santa Claus-like gods,
fallacious reasoning and paradoxical contradictions; they just believe
their own religion is the exception.
===
2joh 15:6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is
withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are
burned.
==
We cannot deny that the great worlds religions have managed, and quite well,
to reach the masses. Religions success is due to the fact that they offer an
answer to the nightmare of death. Yes, your loved one are dead, and sooner or
later you will also die, but you will meet again in heaven. This is a *very*
powerful meme as the penetration of religion demonstrates. With the coming of
a secular worldview based on science, it seems impossible to continue taking
religion seriously.
==
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host
of the daily Christian radio show The Albert Mohler Program: "Well, I would
have to say as a Christian that I believe any belief system, any world view,
whether it's Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that
matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of satanic power."
[3/17/06]
==
"A History of Christianity" by Paul Johnson.

"A History of the Christian Church" by Philip Schaff. Eight volumes.
===
Eze 9:6 Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children, but do
not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary." So they began with
the elders who were in front of the temple. (NIV)
==
The Moon
We believe that human beings inhabit the Moon. The Mormon Seer and Revelator,
Brigham Young, for whom a University is named, revealed in 1870, that the
Mormon MOON-MEN were similar to earthlings, except that they are much taller.
Moon-men, Young teaches us, dress like Quakers. Brigham Young -- in a vision
-- had visited the inhabitants on the far side of the Moon...
(Journal of Discourses., 1871, p. 27 1)
"...whose hearts leapt with joy and exceeding delectation... and dwelt into
the cliffs of the orb of the basin named Hertz-sprung in the sight of all
splendor.."
Our great Mormon apostle, the late Bruce R. McConkie, reminds us that in
Mormon theology God created "worlds without number". He also reminds us that
Mormons believe that "there live aliens on other planets unknown to us".
McConkie tells us that these planets are "inhabited by male and female
humanoids who are redeemed with immortality and offered eternal life through
the power of Heavenly Father."\
The Planet KOLOB
Mormon Theologians agree that God lives on a distant planet, the planet KOLOB.
It's located in the constellation Cancer, sector 2813. Kolob means "the first
creation" -- which is "nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God", as
McConkie assures us.
"Our scriptures say that God told Moses only about this planet," said LDS
apostle Neal A. Maxwell in a recent television interview. "But we're not
worshiping a one-planet God." (Salt Lake Tribune Aug 1996 Vol. 252 No. 118)

Brigham Young said
"Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an
evening called the moon? ...when you inquire about the inhabitants of that
sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the
ignorant of their fellows. So it is in regard to the inhabitants of the sun.
Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any
life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain," (Journal of
Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 271).
==
They let me out of the hospital if I promised to stop cursing fig trees
and turning water to wine, contrary to state laws.
==
There are so very many different - and contradictory - messages
that devout Christians take from the Bible that anyone
who claims to KNOW the right message can only
do so if they consider themselves to be infallible.
==
A few ancient non-Christian sources. Tactus was born after Jesus died and
wrote about Christian beliefs approximately 85 years after Jesus lived. He was
obviously not a primary source and merely reported what others believed.
Josephus also was born after Jesus' death and wrote 60-65 years later.
Furthermore it is almost universally recognized by scholars that Josephus'
writings about Jesus were doctored or "interpolated" by later Christians.
Despite all this, Habermas claims Josephus corroborates the Gospels. Pliny the
Younger simply recorded the beliefs of early Christians 80 years after Jesus
lived. None of these Roman or Jewish sources were contemporary. They provide
no historical corroboration for the actual events, especially for the
resurrection.
==
Ancient Evidence for the Life of Jesus: Historical Records of His Death
and Resurrection (The Verdict of History: Conclusive Evidence for the Life
of Jesus) by Gary R Habermas (Paperback - 1988)

"The New Teastament Documents: Are They Reliable?" by F.F. Bruce
"The Historical Reliability of the Gospels" by Craig Blomberg.
Paula Fredericksen "Jesus of Nazareth:"
==
If a man marries, then decides that he hates his wife, he can claim she wasn't
a virgin when they were married. If her father can't produce the "tokens of her
virginity" (bloody sheets), then the woman is to be stoned to death at her
father's doorstep.
If a betrothed virgin is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough,
then "the men of the city shall stone her to death."
==
The Roman Catholic Church considered his teachings heretical, and Hus was
excommunicated in 1411, condemned by the Council of Constance, and burned at
the stake.

Charlemange slaughtered about 7,000 people because they refused to convert.
He only wanted one religion in his empire.

Many people were put to the torch by Torquemada during his 20 years as head of
the Spanish Inquisition. The Britannica puts the number at about 2,000.
==
Genesis 10:31 These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their
tongues, in their lands, after their nations.0 (King James Version)

Genesis 11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
(King James Version)

(Genesis 10:31) These were the sons of Shem according to their families,
according to their tongues, in their lands, according to their nations.
===
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and
the earth shook, and the rocks were split;the tombs also were opened, and many
bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the
tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
==
"Holy Writ as Oral Lit" by Alan Dundes.
==
That's what it looks like. There's no doubt that the God who created
the universe and life has quite a physical, tangible presence in
Genesis.

1:3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
(God speaks)
2:2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing;
so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. (God gets tired)
2:7 the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life... (God physically
manipulates dust; God breathes)
2:8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east (God plants a
Garden)
3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he
was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from
the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (God walks, has legs,
makes noise when he walks. And in the remainder of the Chapter
carries on a conversation with Adam and Eve)
==
Leviticus 20:10 If a man commit adultery with
the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress
shall be put to death.
Deuteronomy 22:22 If a man is found lying with the wife of
another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman,
and the woman; so shall you purge the evil from Israel.

Leviticus 20:9 For every one who curses his
father
or his mother shall be put to death; he has cursed his father or his
mother, his blood is upon him.
Matthew 15:4 For Yahveh commanded, "honor your father and
your mother", and "He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him
surely die."
Deuteronomy 21:18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son,
who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his
mother.... Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death
with stones...
Proverbs 23:13-14. Withhold not
correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he
shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver
his soul from hell.

Exodus 31:14-15 You shall keep the sabbath,
because it is holy for you; every one who profanes it shall be put to
death; whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from
among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is
a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to Yahveh; whoever does any work on
the sabbath day shall be put to death.
Exodus 35:2 Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh
day you shall have a holy sabbath of solemn rest to Yahveh; whoever
does any work on it shall be put to death; you shall kindle no fire
in all your habitations on the sabbath day.
==
Exodus 20:8, Deuteronomy 5:12
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor,
and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to Yahveh
your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your
daughter, or your male slave, or your female slave, or your
livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days
Yahveh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and
rested the seventh day; therefore Yahveh blessed the seventh day and
hallowed it.
==
2 Chronicles 15:13 ...whoever would not seek
Yahveh, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or
old, man or woman.
Exodus 22:20 Whoever sacrifices to any god, save to Yahveh
only, shall be utterly destroyed.
Deuteronomy 13:6-9 If your brother, the son of your mother,
or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as
your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, 'let us go and serve
other gods', ... you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor
shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you
conceal him; but you shall kill him; your hand shall be first against
him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

Exodus 32:27 Thus says Yahveh God of Israel, put
every man his sword on his side, and go to and fro from gate to gate
throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man
his companion, and every man his neighbor.

Leviticus 24:16 He who blasphemes the name of
Yahveh shall be put to death; all of the congregation shall stone him.
==
Ge30:37 And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut
tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was
in the rods.
Ge30:38 And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the
gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should
conceive when they came to drink.
Ge30:39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle
ringstraked, speckled, and spotted. (KJV)
==
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and
woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.'
the massacre of Jericho --Joshua 6:21. Following up in Joshua, we have Ai
(8:24-26), Makkedah (10:28), Libnah (10:30), Lachish (10:32), Gezer (10:33),
Eglon (10:35), Hebron (10:37), Debir (10:39), Hazor (11:11), and Anab (11:21).
===
1.Judges 5:20
They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
==
Martin Luther.
"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the
good and for the Christian church...a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a
helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."
==
Why is it that the US population is so reactionary? The rejection of
science by the American people is a phenomenon which, I would have
thought, would be looked at by the policymakers as dangerous to
America's future.
The rest of the world including China and South America embrace
scientific knowledge and educating their populations accordingly.
US capitalism is heading towards spending more time and effort making
money out of the fear of God than out of scientific advancement.
The majority of Americans are starting to see science as a bad thing
and, as the Amish have already done, could start to reject scientific
progress which could lead to demonizing more than Darwin but other
branches of science.
I am surprised that Americans don't see this as a problem, especially
the leaders of the country.
==
Luke19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over
them, bring hither, and slay them before me. (KJV)
==
"There was a genetic bottleneck with Noah and the Flood, where the
human race was reduced to only 8 people."
Half of whom were related as father/mother and son, so it effectively the
bottleneck was smaller than 8 individuals. A maximum of only 10 versions of any
gene would be avalable after the Flood; the sons would have had the same
versions as their parents. Only their wives added anything new.
==
"keep alive the little girls for yourselves.. ." (Numbers 31:18)
==
Mythology is only taken literally by the uninformed population.:
Once it's seen to be fiction, it becomes a vehicle for sublime truths.
==
Hosea 13:16 -
Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they
shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their
women with child shall be ripped up.
===
Television evangelist Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution
for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed.
"He was dividing God's land, and I would say, 'Woe unto any prime
minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the
[European Union], the United Nations or the United States of
America,'" Robertson told viewers of his long-running television
show, "The 700 Club."
"God says, 'This land belongs to me, and you'd better leave it
alone,'" he said.
Robertson's show airs on the ABC Family cable network and claims
about 1 million viewers daily.
Sharon, 77, clung to life in a Jerusalem hospital Thursday after
surgery to treat a severe stroke, his doctors said.
The prime minister, who withdrew Israeli settlers and troops from
Gaza and parts of the West Bank last summer over heated objections
from his own Likud Party, was breathing with the aid of a ventilator
after doctors operated to stop the bleeding in his brain.
==
Randall Balmer, author of "Thy Kingdom Come: How the
Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America."
==
Obviously your religious beliefs enrich your life. That's
great. Congratulations.
But because those beliefs make you feel good and they
comfort you, doesn't make them true.
==
Woman Fatally Bitten By Snake At Church
LONDON, Ky. -- A southeastern Kentucky law enforcement officer said a woman
was bitten by a snake during church and died.
She was 48-year-old Linda Long. The Laurel County Sheriff's Office reported
that she died Sunday at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.
Detective Brad Mitchell said Long died about four hours after the bite was
reported.
Officials said Long attended East London Holiness Church. Neighbors of the
church told the newspaper the church practices serpent handling.
Lt. Ed Sizemore of the Laurel County Sheriff's Office said friends went with
Long to a local hospital Sunday afternoon.
"She said she was bitten by a snake at her church," Sizemore said.
Sizemore said he thinks the woman was bitten by a timber rattlesnake.
Handling reptiles as part of religious services is illegal in Kentucky. Snake
handling is a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of $50 to $100. Police said
they had not received reports about snake handling at the church.
Snake handling is based on a passage in the Bible, in the Gospel of Mark, that
said a sign of a true believer is the power to "take up serpents" without being
harmed.
A woman who lives near the church told the Lexington-Herald leader that she's
witnessed snake handling at the church.
"I don't have no dealings with those snakes," Opal Wagers said. "But they seem
to handle them pretty good."
She told the paper that people handle snakes at the church at least one Sunday
each month. Wagers said the snakes are taken to the church by members from
Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.
Church officials could not be reached for comment.
==
Pascal Boyer _Religion Explained_

Stanford University biologist Joan Roughgarden has just come out with
Evolution and Christian Faith, which provides what she calls
a "strong Christian defense" of evolutionary biology.

Moral Minds, Harvard biologist Marc Hauser explores the nondivine origins of
our sense of right and wrong

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast by self-described
"atheist-reductionist-materialist"
biologist Lewis Wolpert, religion is one of those impossible things;

Victor Stenger, a physicist-astronome r, has a book coming out titled
God: The Failed Hypothesis.

Archbishop Spong "The Sins of Scripture."

Holy Writ as Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore (Paperback)
by Alan Dundes

The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging

Randal Helms' Gospel Fictions

Sense And Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism by Richard
Carrier

The God Who Wasn't There DVD ~ God Who Wasn't There

Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?
by Robert M. Price

Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History by
David Klinghoffer (Paperback -
==
Hermann Detering in The Journal of Higher Criticism that Mark 13 doesn't refer
to the destruction of Jerusalem at all, but the Bar Kochba revolt in 132 CE.
==
Mark 12:35-37 dismisses the Davidic descent of the Messiah. If these words were
really said by Jesus, Matthew's and Luke's (different and irreconcilable)
genealogies tracing Jesus back to David are untrue. In any event, the
geneologies are through Joseph, not Mary, but Joseph is not the proposed
father.

Mark 8:11-12 rules out miracles by Jesus. If he really said this, we must
dismiss all the miracles of the other gospels.

Romans 1:4; Acts 2:36, 3:26 state that Jesus became the Messiah as of the
resurrection. If these verses are true, all references claiming messiahship
during his ministry are in error.

Mark 16:1-8 rules out any resurrection appearances. If it is true, then the
resurrection appearances in the other three gospels cannot be believed.

I Corinthians 15:45, 50 is the earliest written resurrection story, in which
Jesus was raised as a spirit. If this is true, physical resurrection stories in
three of the gospels must be dismissed.
==
Deu25:11 If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue
her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his
private parts,
Deu25:12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. (NIV)
==
The Japanese Emperor traces his ancestry to the Sun
God, Amaterasu Omikami.
==
Robert M Price's superbly researched book, Deconstructing Jesus and
Incredible Shrinking Son of Man
Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled by Acharya S
Doherty "Jesus Puzzle"
"The Christ Conspiracy."
"The Jesus Mysteries"
Leidner's "Fabrication of the Christ Myth"
John Meier "A Marginal Jew
George A. Wells "The Jesus of the Early Christians" (1971)
==
Dawkins writes in The God Delusion, "As
long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected
simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect
from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers."
==
Joh 5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all
judgment unto the Son. Jesus sends people to hell.
==
"When we dropped bombs on the villages I knew that many innocent women and
children would die a terrible death; they would be burned alive by napalm,
maimed, or buried alive. I come from a very religious family and I often
thought of my own wife and children back in Massachusetts. I wondered how I
would manage to live with the guilt for the rest of my life. The knowledge
that God was with me and that our padre had done everything for my soul's
salvation was a constant comfort in these terrible times. Even today I could
not survive without the certainty my faith gives me."
Flight Lieutenant McCallum
==
The Reason Driven Life by Robert M.Price,PhD
===
When faced with some form of scientific inquiry that questions
their worldview, the ID/YEC movement consistently lies regarding the
reliability of physical constants as basic as the speed of light or
the constancy of rates of radiometric decay, and reviles those who
stand up for science, calling them "atheistic" or "anti-Christian" and
threating them with damnation,
===
Deu 23:2 A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to
his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

Deu 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off,
shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
==
Irenaeus person used realy good judgement while vallidating the texts.. like
for example, it was very obvious there only could be 4 gospels, because there
are 4 corners to the world, and because the world is held by 4 pillars..
==
Jesus, A Likely Story, a scathing, and downright irreverent, critique of
the Gospel of Matthew.
===
"Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit
"no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent.
--1st Timothy 2:11"

"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not
permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under
obedience as also saith the law.
And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands
at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
--I Corinthians 14:34-35
==
God in Numbers 16 kills people for
1/ Misinterpeting scripture
2/ Heresy- rejecting the ministeral priesthood
3/ schism and offering sacrifes as non priests
3/ the strange incense of Aaron's sons resulted in their deaths
4/ rejecting the Authority of Moses
==
"We are at fault for not slaying them [the Jews]." - Luther.

Drive them [Jews] like mad dogs from our land...let not one of them live..."
Martin Luther

"I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our
Almighty Creator. By
fighting the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work."
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
"The National Government 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."
Adolf Hitler, Berlin, 1933, first radio address
after coming to power

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such
a school has no
religious instruction and a general moral
instruction without a religious
foundation is built on air; consequently, all
character training and
religion must be derived from faith . . . We need
believing people."
Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made
during negotiations
leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always
remain so."
Adolf Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941
==
Mat 22:31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read
that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
Mat 27:53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection,
and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
===
"Whether the Belief that there are such Beings as Witches is so Essential
a Part of the Catholic Faith that Obstinacy to maintain the Opposite Opinion
manifestly savours of Heresy" -- The Malleus Malleficarum(Witch's Hammer)
==
What effect will logic have upon a religious gentleman who firmly believes
that a God of infinite compassion sent two bears to tear thirty or forty
children in pieces for laughing at a baldheaded prophet? Robert Ingersoll
==
The beliefs of some people
are amazing! Everything from believing in a God who rewards martyrs that
kill Christians (Islam) - to believing that the distant stars have some
influence over our lives (Astrology). Everything from believing in some
mystical messiah (New Age) - to believing that cows are sacred animals
(Hinduism). Everything from believing that God only speaks through the Pope
(Catholicism) - to believing that God only speaks through the Watchtower
Society (Jehovah's Witnesses). Everything from believing that everything is
God (Pantheism). WHY would ANY rational-thinking person accept a religion
that has NO valid substanciated evidence to support it?
==
Gen 18:21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether
according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

Then God is not everywhere and does not know everything,
==
Crimen Sollicitationis was enforced for 20 years by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
before he became the Pope.
Crimen Sollicitationis was written in 1962 in Latin and given to Catholic
bishops worldwide who are ordered to keep it locked away in the church safe.
It instructs them how to deal with priests who solicit sex from the
confessional. It also deals with "any obscene external act ... with youths of
either sex."
It imposes an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the
allegation and any witnesses.
Breaking that oath means excommunication from the Catholic Church.
==
Christians and all people of good will would do well to ponder how easily
the best and brightest can commit the worst and darkest acts under the
progressive banner of ABSOLUTE TRUTH and LOVE OF GOD.
==
It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into
numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is
the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where
people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes
of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done
by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge,
with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do
when they aspire to the knowledge of gods (374). - Jacob Bronowski
http://skepdic.com/science.html
==
Sam Harris
"The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason."
===
2Th 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they
should believe a lie:
2Th 2:12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth,
but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (KJV)
==
http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=article&view=143&lay_quiet=1

The witchcraft hysteria was *always* aimed predominantly
at the lower classes. Nobles and churchmen and others at
the top of society were nearly always exempt. If a poor soul
while being tortured ever accused the local bishop or noble
as someone he or she saw at a sabbat, all they got was even
*more* torture.
The witchcraft trials at Salem started going awry for the
prosecution when Reverend George Burroughs, a non-ordained
pastor (and hence a threat to the Puritan establishment)
on the gallows recited the Lord's Prayer before his
execution--which set the crowd watching aghast, as Cotton
Mather and the Puritan establishment itself had maintained
that a real witch could *not* do this. The crowd was on the
verge of rushing forward to save Burroughs when Mather himself
intervened and quieted the crowd to the point that the
execution could continue. The next blow came when octagenarian
Giles Corey refused to plead guilty (pleading guilty and
naming other witches would result in one's life being spared)
witches) and died under torture without naming anyone else.
Afterwards, all the remaining accused witches, who figured
that their case was hopeless, also refused to plead guilty.
Simple acts of courage on these and others, like Reverend
Francis Dane, are what eventually swung public opinion
against the trials. These are all real heros.
The anthropologist Marvin Harris constructed what I think
is a convincing explanation for the witchcraft trials. He
mentioned that witchcraft had *not* always been a mainstay of
Christianity; indeed, in 1000 AD the Church's position was
that witchcraft did not exist, it was an illusion created
by the Devil. By 1480, however, it was heresy to believe
that witches *weren't* real. So why the reversal?
Harris believed that the late medieval/early modern period
was a period of great social upheavel and distress, and that
state and church were beset with peasant revolts, religious
schisms, and other forms of protest from below. Harris called
witchcraft the upper classes "magic bullet" which allowed
them to defuse all by:
1) getting the poor to believe that their misfortune was
being caused by witches rather than by nobles and churchmen
(indeed, witches were accused not only of causing peoples'
cows and infants to die, but also for bringing about droughts,
crop failures and even wars);
2) related to the above, splintering possible resistence
from below by sowing suspicion among the lower classes and
dividing them against one another. Resistence movements
and revolts need the people to trust one another, to fight
for each other, to be ""brother and sister" or "comrades"
for each other. You aren't likely to trust your neighbor
as your "comrade" if a belief that he or she might actually
be a witch is being actively encouraged;
2) making themselves (state and church) indispensible for
fighting the 'menance' of witchcraft. You could see that
prince and bishops were "doing something" about the problem
as you saw witches being hanged or carbonized alive in the
town square.
Harris believed that cultures create their own 'collective
dreamwork', as he put it, that serves to further real,
tangible, ends that its participants might not be aware
are being served. He was famous for his explanations of
Hindu cow love (that the prohibition against killig cows
arose as a means of preventing people in times of agricultural
failure from eating their tractor factories, so to speak).
Harris would not have denied that people like Cotton Mather
and the judges did not honestly believe in witches themselves;
however, he would have maintained that this did not mean that
witchcraft was *not* a means of social control back from
the 15th-17th centuries.
==
Crusades
Radulph of Caen wrote explicitly how: "In Ma'arra our troops boiled pagan
adults alive in cooking-pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured
them grilled."
==
Constitution of the Confederate States of America
http://www.usconstitution.net/csa.html#Preamble
Preamble
We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its
sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent
federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity --
invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God -- do ordain and
establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.
==
2Chr15:13 That whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put
to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (KJV)
==
Col3:22 Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not
with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the
Lord. (RSV)
==
Bob Jones University is unaccredited and can't award recognised degrees.
==
Kevin Phillips
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and
Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury by Kevin Phillips
==
"In the Bhagavad-Gita, we learn that Krishna created everything and sustains
all things by his glory. Chapter 9 teaches that the entire material universe is
created, prevaded, maintained and sustained by him.
In Chapter 10 we learn that he is the source of everthing and that all
existence is because of Lord Krishna. '... I am the seed of all creatures;
nothing animate or inanimate could exist without me.'
==
Rev. Louis Sheldon of the
Traditional Values Coalition is so in favor of torture he told McCain that
the senator either supports the torture bill or he can forget about the
evangelical Christian vote.
==
George Bush has just vetoed a bill, approved by both Houses of Congress, which
would have allowed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
==
There was a comprehensive article in the Washington Post this past weekend
describing those who originally got contracts to rebuild Iraq. There were two
criteria: an unconditional support of George Bush and a Christian agenda. One
of the questions asked to all was whether they support Roe vs. Wade.
A 24-year-old unemployed Christian with not one bit of financial education or
experience was given the leadership of the Baghdad stock exchange. When he
told the people who hired him he had no experience, they laughed and said it
was okay. He had worked on Bush's 2000 campaign and is a devout Christian.
The person put in charge of rebuilding the Iraqi health sector had only one
aspect of health experience: he represented his church in talking to civic
groups and advocating they should not have their members have abortions or use
birth control.
==
"Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris

"The God Delusion" "The End of Faith", "Breaking the Spell"
by Richard Dawkins
==
Here is Justice John Paul Stevens in Santa Fe Independent School
District v. Doe (2000):

For many [students] ... the choice between whether to attend these games or to
risk facing a personally offensive religious ritual is in no practical sense an
easy one. The Constitution, moreover, demands that the school may not force
this difficult choice upon these students for "[i]t is a tenet of the First
Amendment that the State cannot require one of its citizens to forfeit his or
her rights and benefits as the price of resisting conformance to
state-sponsored religious practice."

Even if we regard every high school student's decision to attend a home
football game as purely voluntary, we are nevertheless persuaded that the
delivery of a pregame prayer has the improper effect of coercing those present
to participate in an act of religious worship. For "the government may no more
use social pressure to enforce orthodoxy than it may use more direct means."
==
Sam Harris "The End of Faith"
==
Iron Age in Palestine is 1200 BCE - 1000 BCE (Iron I) and 1000 BCE -
586 BCE (Iron II).
==
And slay these transgressors wherever you meet them and drive them out from
where they have driven you out; for persecution is worst than slaying (Quran
2:191)
==
Thanks to President Bush and his plan to Christianize the nation's
provision of social services, one's relationship with Jesus Christ has
become a real resume booster. As author Michelle Goldberg reports in
her new book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Bush
has ushered in affirmative action for the born- again.
In 2005 alone, more than $2-billion in federal tax money went to
faith-based programs for such services as job placement programs,
addiction treatment and child mentoring. Overwhelmingly, this money
went to groups affiliated with Christian religions.
This reallocation of social service money from secular agencies to
religiously affiliated programs has also resulted in shifting
employment opportunities. But some of these new employers have a
shocking job requirement -- only Christians need apply.
==
2Ki17:25 And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they
feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some
of them. (KJV)
==
2deu 3:6 And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon,
utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.
==
The Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black, the Thracians that
theirs have light blue eyes and red hair." Xenophanes, 5th century BCE
==
The God Delusion (Hardcover) by Richard Dawkins
===
ORLANDO, Fla. _Rep. Katherine Harris said this week that God did not intend for
the United States to be a nation of secular laws and that a failure to elect
Christians to political office will allow lawmaking bodies to legislate sin.
==
Luke19:27 But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over
them--bring them here and kill them in front of me.'" (NIV)
==
BOGOTA, Colombia-A leading Cardinal said the Vatican will excommunicate
the doctors who performed Colombia's first legal abortion on an 11-year-old
girl who allegedly was raped by her stepfather.
Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, President of the Vatican's Pontifical
Council for the Family, made the announcement in an interview with
RCN television.
==
MIRACLE IS SUNK
A PRIEST has died after trying to demonstrate how Jesus walked on water.
Evangelist preacher Franck Kabele, 35, told his congregation he could repeat
the biblical miracle.
But he drowned after walking out to sea from a beach in the capital Libreville
in Gabon, west Africa.
One eyewitness said: "He told churchgoers he'd had a revelation that if he had
enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus.
"He took his congregation to the beach saying he would walk across the Komo
estuary, which takes 20 minutes by boat.
"He walked into the water, which soon passed over his head and he never came
back."
==
Deu21:18 "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the
voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they chastise him,
will not give heed to them, (RSV)
Deu21:20 and they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This our son is
stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a
drunkard.'
BibleBot: Deu21:21 Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with
stones; so you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel shall hear,
and fear. (RSV)
Deu21:18 "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the
voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they chastise him,
will not give heed to them, (RSV)

Exo35:2 Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a
holy sabbath of solemn rest to the LORD; whoever does any work on it shall be
put to death; (RSV)
Exo31:14 You shall keep the sabbath, because it is holy for you; every one who
profanes it shall be put to death; whoever does any work on it, that soul shall
be cut off from among his people. (RSV)

1Cor14:35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at
home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. (KJV)
==
"Faith and Mental Health" by Harold Koenig)
==
Ad Abolendam was established in the 12th century by Pope Lucius III
and used to later justify the Spanish Inquisition.
==
"Salvation for Sale: An Insider's View of Pat Robertson," by Girard
Thomas Straub, is a moving account of one man's journey from
Catholicism through televangelism to Secular Humanism.
==
Rep. Harris Condemns Separation of Church, State
Orlando Sentinel
ORLANDO, Aug. 25/06 -- Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) said this week that God
did not intend for the United States to be a "nation of secular laws" and
that the separation of church and state is a "lie we have been told" to keep
religious people out of politics.
"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to
legislate sin," Harris told interviewers from the Florida Baptist Witness,
the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention. She cited
abortion and same-sex marriage as examples of that sin.
Harris, a candidate in the Sept. 5 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, said
her religious beliefs "animate" everything she does, including her votes in
Congress.
Witness editors interviewed candidates for office, asking them to describe
their faith and their positions on certain issues.
Harris has always professed a deep Christian faith. But she has rarely
expressed such a fervent evangelical perspective publicly.
Political and religious officials responded to her published remarks with
outrage and dismay.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said she was "disgusted" by the
comments "and deeply disappointed in Representative Harris personally."
Harris, Wasserman Schultz said, "clearly shows that she does not deserve to
be a representative."
Ruby Brooks, a veteran Tampa Bay Republican activist, said Harris's remarks
"were offensive to me as a Christian and a Republican."
"This notion that you've been chosen or anointed, it's offensive," Brooks
said. "We hurt our cause with that more than we help it."
Harris told the journalists "we have to have the faithful in government"
because that is God's will. Separating religion and politics is "so wrong
because God is the one who chooses our rulers," she said.
"And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men
and women," then "we're going to have a nation of secular laws. That's not
what our Founding Fathers intended, and that certainly isn't what God
intended."
Harris campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Marks would not answer questions about
the Harris interview. Instead, she released a two-sentence statement.
"Congresswoman Harris encourages Americans from all walks of life and faith
to participate in our government," it stated. "She continues to be an
unwavering advocate of religious rights and freedoms."
==
It was Papias living in the second century who was the first to say that it was
Matthew, Mark, Luke. and John.
But papias' witness is not found anywhere until Eusebius' writings of the 4th
Century!
==
Marlene Winell, Ph.D., author of Leaving the Fold: a Guide for Former
Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion,
==
Psychiatrists make exceptions for religion when it comes to delusions,
and I don't exactly understand why. Technically belief in the
supernatural should qualify as a delusion. But I guess they want to
distinguish between people who have a mostly harmless delusion about
wine turning into Christ's blood during communion, versus a person who
believes his neighbors are making the television talk about him.
==
Tammuz was born of a virgin (Semiramis had him after Nimrod died and claimed
he came down as the sun and impregnated her.
Tammuz died for the sins of all mankind and rose from the dead 3 days later.
Same thing with Osiris
==
I read in the paper that doctors are going to conduct another
experiment to see if prayers heal. There have been many experiments of
this kind in the past and they have all been negative. I suppose these
experiments will go on forever until the last experimenter drops dead.

I don't know how much this experiment will cost or how much time it
would take. I have a simple experiment that would cost hardly
anything. Choose twenty Christian families who believe in the efficacy
of prayers who have children who are seriously ill. Let us tell these
parents they have one of two choices to make. They can choose a room
with the latest medical technology staffed by the top doctors in there
fields. The other choice they have is to put their child into a room
with a bed and a room full of praying Christians (excluding those who
suffer from the mental disorder called Christian Science) and let us
see which room would they select?. I am reminded of this quote by
Robert Ingersoll "The hands that help are far better than the lips
that pray" Of course this experiment would be immoral for obvious reasons
www.atheistfellowship.com
==
2005, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the
month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many
Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged
horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem,
and then to heaven and back (cf Koran XVII.1).
==
2 co 2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God. Science is the wisdom of man.
===
Names and Titles of Jesus Christ with the
scripture reference: BTW Yeshua is his name in Hebrew.

Advocate (1 Jn. 2:1)
All & in All (Col. 3:11)
Almighty (Rev. 1:8)
Altogether Lovely One (Song of Sol. 5:16) Amen (Rev. 3:14)
Anchor (Heb. 6:19)
Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:9-11 with Rev. 1:13-16)
Angel [of the Lord](Gen. 16:9-14; Gen. 48:16)
His Anointed (Ps. 2:2). See also Messiah.
Apostle (Heb. 3:1)
Arm of the Lord (Isa. 53:1)
Alpha & Omega (Rev. 1:8; 21:6)
Author (Heb. 12:2)
Balm of Gilead (Jer. 8:22)
Beginning (Col. 1:18)
Begotten (One and Only - John 3:16)
Beloved (Eph. 1:6) Bishop of your souls (1 Pet. 2:25)
Blessed and only Potentate (1 Tim. 6:15)
Branch (Isa. 11:1; Jer. 23:5; Zech. 3:8; 6:12; Rev. 11:1)
Bread (John 6:32-33; 6:35)
Bridegroom (Mt. 9:15; Jn. 3:29; Rev. 21:9)
Bright & Morning Star, see Star. Brightness of His (God's) glory (Heb. 1:3)
Captain of their salvation (Heb. 2:12; Josh. 5:4)
Carpenter['s son] (Mt. 13:55; Mk. 6:3)
Chief[est among ten thousand] Song of Sol. 5:10)
Child, [the young] (Isa. 9:6; Mt. 2:8-21)
Chosen of God (Lk. 23:35)
Christ (Mt. 1:17; Mk. 8:29; Jn. 1:41; Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:23)
Comforter (Isa. 61:2; Jn. 14:16)
Commander (Isa. 55:4)
Consolation of Israel (Lk. 2:25)
Corn of Wheat (Jn. 12:24)
Cornerstone (Eph. 2:20; see also Isa. 28:16)
Counsellor (Isa. 9:6; Isa. 40:13)
Creator of all things (Col. 1:16)
Daysman (Job 9:33)
Dayspring from on high (Lk. 1:78)
Day Star (2 Pet. 1:19). See also Bright & Morning Star.
Deliverer (Rom. 11:26)
Desire of all nations (Hag. 2:7)
Door [of the sheepfold] (Jn. 10:7, 9)
Emmanuel (Mt. 1:23; see also Isa. 7:14; 8:8)
End, see Beginning & the End. End of the Law (Rom 10:4)
Express image of His (God's) person (Heb. 1:3)
Faithful Witness (Rev. 1:5; 3:14; 19:11)
Faithful & True (Rev. 19:11)
Father of Eternity (Isa. 9:6)
Fellow of God (Zech. 13:7)
First & the Last (Rev. 1:17)
First begotten of the dead (Rev. 1:5)
Firstborn Firstfruits [of them that slept] (1 Cor. 15:20, 23)
Foundation (Isa. 28:16; 1 Cor. 3:11)
Fountain (Jer. 2:13; Zech. 13:1)
Forerunner (Heb. 6:20)
Friend of sinners (Mt. 11:19; Lk. 7:34)
Fulness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9)
Gift of God (Jn. 4:10; 2 Cor. 9:15)
Glory of God (Isa. 60:1)
God (Jn. 1:1; Mt. 1:23; Rom. 9:5; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 1:8)
Good Master (Mt. 19:16)Governor (Mt. 2:6)
Great High Priest (Heb. 4:14)
Guide (Ps. 48:14)
Head (even Christ) (Eph. 4:15)
Heir of all things (Heb. 1:2)
Helper (Heb. 13:6)
Hiding Place (Isa. 32:2)
High Priest (Heb. 3:1; 7:1)
Holy Child (Acts 4:30)
Holy One [& the Just] (Acts 2:27; 3:14)
Hope of Israel (Jer. 17:3)
Horn of salvation (Ps. 18:2; Lk. 1:69)
I AM (Jn. 8:24, 58)
Image of [the invisible] God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15)
Intercessor (Heb. 7:25)
Jehovah (Isa. 26:4; 40:3)
Jesus (Mt. 1:21) or Yeshua
Judge (Micah 5:1; Acts 10:42)
Just One (Acts 7:52)
King (Zech. 14:16)
Kinsman (Ruth 2:14)
Lamb [of God] (Jn. 1:29, 36; 1 Pet 1:19; Rev. 5:6, 12; 7:17)
Last, see First. (Rev. 22:13)
Lawgiver (Isa. 33:22)
Life (1 Jn. 1:2)
Light (Jn. 12:35)
Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5)
Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5)
Merciful High Priest (Heb. 2:17)
Mercy Seat (Rom. 3:24-25)Messiah (Dan. 9:25; Jn. 1:41; 4:25)
Mighty God (Isa. 9:6; 63:1)
Minister of the Sanctuary (Heb. 8:2)
Nazarene (Mk. 1:24)
Nobleman (Lk. 19:12)
Offering (Eph. 5:2; Heb. 10:10)
Passover (1 Cor. 5:7)
Peace, our (Eph. 2:14)
Physician (Mt. 9:12; Lk. 4:23)
Plant of Renown (Ezek. 34:29)
Prophet (Acts 3:22-23)
Propitiation (1 Jn. 2:2; 4:10)
Power of God (1 Cor. 1:24)
Priest (Heb. 4:14)
Quickening (life-giving) Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45)
Rabbi (Jn. 3:2; Mt. 26:25; Jn. 20:16)
Ransom (1 Tim. 2:6)
Redeemer, Redemption (Isa. 59:20; 60:16; 1 Cor. 1:30)
Refuge (Isa. 25:4)
Resurrection & the Life (Jn. 11:25)
Righteousness (Jer. 23:6; 33:16; 1 Cor. 1:30)
Rock [of offence] (Deut. 32:15; 1 Cor. 10:4; Rom. 9:33; 1 Pet. 2:8)
Rod (Isa. 11:1)
Root (Rev. 22:16)
Rose of Sharon (Song of Sol. 2:1)
Sacrifice (Eph. 5:2)
Same, the (Heb. 1:12)
Sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30)
Saviour [of the world] (Lk. 1:47; 2:11; 1 Jn. 4:14)
Seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16, 19)
Seed Servant (Isa. 42:1; 49:5-7; Mt. 12:18)
Shadow of a great Rock (Isa. 32:2)
Shepherd ( 1 Peter 5:4)
Shiloh (Gen. 49:10) Son (Isa. 9:6; 1 Jn. 4:14)
Sower (Mt. 13:37)
Star (Num. 24:17)
Stone (Psalm 118:22)
Sun of Righteousness (Mal. 4:2)
Surety (Heb. 7:22)
Teacher (Mt. 26:18; Jn. 3:2; 11:28). See also Master.
Tender Plant (Isa. 53:2)
Testator (Heb. 9:15-17)
Truth (Jn. 14:6) Vine (Jn. 15:1, 5)
Way (Jn. 14:6) Wisdom [of God] (1 Cor. 1:24, 30)
Word (Jn. 1:1)
==
Different names and titles of the Devil with the
Biblical scripture references.

Abaddon (Revelation 9:11).
Accuser of our brethren (Revelation 12:10).
Adversary (1 Peter 5:8).
Angel of Light (2 Corinthians 11:14).
Angel of the bottomless pit (Revelation 9:11).
Antichrist (1 John 4:3).
Apollyon (Revelation 9:11).
Beelzebub (Matthew 12:24).
Belial (2 Corinthians 6:15).
Crooked serpent (Isaiah 27:1).
Devil (Matthew 4:1).
Dragon (Isaiah 27:1; Revelation 12:3; 20:2).
Enemy (Matthew 13:39).
Father of lies (John 8:44).
God of this World (2 Corinthians 4:4).
Leviathan (Isaiah 27:1).
Liar (John 8:44).
Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12).
Lying spirit (1 Kings 22:22).
Murderer (John 8:44).
Old serpent (Revelation 12:9; 20:2).
Piercing serpent (Isaiah 27:1).
Power of darkness (Colossians 1:13).
Prince of the devils (Matthew 12:24).
Prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2).
Prince of this world (John 14:30).
Roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8).
Ruler of this world (John 12:31; 16:11).
Satan (1 Chronicles 21:1; Job 1:6; John 13:27; Acts 5:3; 26:18; Romans 16:20).
Serpent (Genesis 3:4, 14; 2 Corinthians 11:3).
Son of the Morning (Isaiah 14:12).
Spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2).
Swine (Matthew 7:6).
Tempter (Matthew 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 3:5).
Unclean spirit (Matthew 12:43).
Wicked one (Matthew 13:19, 38).

The Devil is also known by other names in Judaism and Islam.
==
2rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast
into the lake of fire.
==
http://wayofthemind.dehumanizer.com/2006/08/15/16-common-myths-about-atheists/
==
Matthew 27:52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had
fallen asleep were raised,0 (English Standard Version)0
==
Non-Christians need not apply

By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published August 13, 2006

Thanks to President Bush and his plan to Christianize the nation's provision
of social services, one's relationship with Jesus Christ has become a real
resume booster. As author Michelle Goldberg reports in her new book, Kingdom
Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Bush has ushered in affirmative
action for the born- again.
In 2005 alone, more than $2-billion in federal tax money went to faith-based
programs for such services as job placement programs, addiction treatment and
child mentoring. Overwhelmingly, this money went to groups affiliated with
Christian religions.
This reallocation of social service money from secular agencies to religiously
affiliated programs has also resulted in shifting employment opportunities. But
some of these new employers have a shocking job requirement - only Christians
need apply.
Goldberg cited the publicly funded Firm Foundation of Bradford, Pa., as a
blatant example. The group provides prison inmates with job training,
something one would think any trained professional could do. Well, think
again. According to Goldberg, the group posted an ad for a site manager. It
said that the applicant must be "a believer in Christ and Christian Life
today, sharing these ideals when the opportunity arises." Apparently,
experience and qualifications are secondary.

Transforming social welfare into conversion therapy was Bush's design when he
made faith-based initiatives the priority of his administration's domestic
agenda. And his success has been astounding.

Before Bush upended things, religious groups had always been enlisted by
government as providers of social services. They just had to wholly separate
their religious mission from their government-funded services. Under Bush,
there has been substantial blurring of the line.

As to hiring, the law always allowed religious groups to discriminate on
religious grounds - so that the Catholic Church could hire Catholic priests,
for example - but that exemption did not extend to employees hired with public
funds to provide social welfare. It was a simple, clear rule. If you took
public money, you hired on the basis of merit, not piety.

But Bush wiped away this calibrated distinction by issuing a series of
executive orders early in his presidency approving taxpayer financed religious
discrimination.

Some of the resulting collateral damage has been tragic. Just talk to Anne
Lown. She worked for 24 years for the Salvation Army in New York City before
resigning due to the hostility she felt toward her non-Christian beliefs. The
office she ran had hundreds of employees with an annual budget of $50-million,
almost all of which came from public sources. Lown oversaw foster care
placements, day care services, residential services for the developmentally
disabled and many other programs.

In Lown's experience, the Salvation Army had always in the past been
meticulous about keeping its evangelical side from mingling with its provision
of social services, but all that changed in 2003. She attributes the change
directly to Bush's policies. A lawsuit filed by Lown and another 17 current
and former employees of the Salvation Army alleges that religion suddenly
pervaded the agency's personnel decisions.

Lown says she was handed a form that all employees were expected to complete,
asking for list of churches she attended over the last 10 years and the name
of her present minister. Lown says she was told that indicating "not
applicable" was not an option. A lawyer for the Salvation Army says the form
was modified after complaints were received.

But Lown said that atmosphere was fear-inducing for the professional staff.

She pointed to a mission statement that all employees were required to support
as a condition of employment. It stated that the organization's mission "is to
preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Margaret Geissman, who is also part of the lawsuit, claims that she was asked
by a supervisor to point out gay and non-Christian employees, with the overt
suggestion that there would eventually be a purge of sorts. The Salvation Army
denies this.

Despite the Salvation Army's disclaimers, Goldberg cites an internal Salvation
Army document describing a deal struck in 2001 with the White House. In
exchange for the administration passing regulations protecting faith-based
groups from state and local antidiscrimination regulations relative to gays,
the Salvation Army agreed to promote the administration's faith-based agenda.

Forget the proverbial wall. Here it is, church and state working
hand-in-glove, with tax money and the government-sanctioned intolerance as the
prize.

Meanwhile, money is flowing into religious coffers without anyone watching. A
June report from the Government Accountability Office found that few
government agencies that award grants to faith-based organizations bother to
monitor whether the recipient is improperly mixing religion into their
programs or discriminating against clients on the basis of religion. A few
organizations contacted by the GAO even admitted to praying with clients while
providing government-funded services. As to kicking out non-Christians on the
staff, the Bush Justice Department says that it is perfectly okay.

Just another example of how, under this president, I hardly recognize my
country anymore.

==
Jehovah's Witnesses II: Controversial and Polemical Pamphlets
(Cults & New Religions) (Hardcover) by Jerry Bergman
==
Deu23:2 A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to
his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.(KJV)
==
"It has been observed that, ON THE OCCURRENCE OF GREAT EVENTS, AND OF
MIGHTY CHANGES IN TERRESTRIAL THINGS, such stars are wont to appear,
indicating either the removal of dynasties or the breaking out of wars,
or the happening of such circumstances as may cause commotions upon the earth."
[Origen, Against Celsus, 1.58]
==
The book of Mormon is more correct than the Bible, (History of the Church,
4:461.)

The Devil was born as a spirit after Jesus "in the morning of pre-existence,"
(Mormon Doctrine, page 192.)

Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers and we were all born as siblings in heaven
to them both, (Mormon Doctrine, p. 163.)

God used to be a man on another planet, Mormon Doctrine, p. 321. Joseph Smith,
Times and Seasons, Vol 5, pp. 613-614; Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, Vol
2, p. 345, Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 333.

Finally, Joseph Smith asserted that the golden plates were translated by the
power of God and produced the most correct of any book on earth. Joseph F.
Smith, the sixth president of the Mormon Church, went so far as to say that
the words were not only correct but every letter was given to [Smith] by the
gift and power of God
==
Islam
Before sunrise prayer is fajr, noon time is zohor, mid afternoon asr, and
sunset magreb then late night isha.
In muslim prayer, it is act of worship (bowing face to the ground) facing the
qiblah and saying the dawa or wishes and thanking God.
(qiblah= square building in Mecca, center of worship)
==
According to Roman Catholic doctrine and the traditions of the Roman Catholic
Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary (Mary, the mother of Jesus) "having completed
the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory."
This means that Mary was transported into Heaven with her body and soul united
Mary's passage into Heaven is called the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
by Roman Catholics. This doctrine was dogmatically and infallibly defined by
Pope Pius XII on 1 November 1950 in his Apostolic Constitution
Munificentissimus Deus.
==
2Chr15:13 That whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put
to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (KJV)
==
Rome says, "(Mary) by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts
of eternal salvation. Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church
under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress and Mediatrix.". The Bible
says, "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the
truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus;

Rome says, "She (Mary) cooperated . . . in the Savior's work of restoring
supernatural life to souls.". The Bible says, " Who is he that condems? It is
Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right
hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." (Romans 8:34).
==
July 29, 2006
Families Challenging Religious Influence in Delaware Schools
By NEELA BANERJEE
GEORGETOWN, Del. After her family moved to this small town 30 years ago, Mona
Dobrich grew up as the only Jew in school. Mrs. Dobrich, 39, married a local
man, bought the house behind her parents home and brought up her two children
as Jews.
For years, she and her daughter, Samantha, listened to Christian prayers at
public school potlucks, award dinners and parent-teacher group meetings, she
said. But at Samanthas high school graduation in June 2004, a ministers prayer
proclaiming Jesus as the only way to the truth nudged Mrs. Dobrich to act.
It was as if no matter how much hard work, no matter how good a person you
are, the only way youll ever be anything is through Jesus Christ, Mrs. Dobrich
said. He said those words, and I saw Sams head snap and her start looking
around, like, Wheres my mom? Wheres my mom? And all I wanted to do was run up
and take her in my arms.
After the graduation, Mrs. Dobrich asked the Indian River district school
board to consider prayers that were more generic and, she said, less
exclusionary. As news of her request spread, many local Christians saw it as
an effort to limit their free exercise of religion, residents said. Anger
spilled on to talk radio, in letters to the editor and at school board
meetings attended by hundreds of people carrying signs praising Jesus.
What people here are saying is, Stop interfering with our traditions, stop
interfering with our faith and leave our country the way we knew it to be,
said Dan Gaffney, a host at WGMD, a talk radio station in Rehoboth, and a
supporter of prayer in the school district.
After receiving several threats, Mrs. Dobrich took her son, Alex, to
Wilmington in the fall of 2004, planning to stay until the controversy blew
over. It never has.
The Dobriches eventually sued the Indian River School District, challenging
what they asserted was the pervasiveness of religion in the schools and
seeking financial damages. They have been joined by the Does, a family still
in the school district who have remained anonymous because of the response
against the Dobriches.
Meanwhile, a Muslim family in another school district here in Sussex County
has filed suit, alleging proselytizing in the schools and the harassment of
their daughters.
The move to Wilmington, the Dobriches said, wrecked them financially, leading
them to sell their house and their daughter to drop out of Columbia University.
The dispute here underscores the rising tensions over religion in public
schools.
We dont have data on the number of lawsuits, but anecdotally, people think it
has never been so active the degree to which these conflicts erupt in schools
and the degree to which they are litigated, said Tom Hutton, a staff lawyer at
the National School Boards Association.
More religion probably exists in schools now than in decades because of the
role religious conservatives play in politics and the passage of certain
education laws over the last 25 years, including the Equal Access Act in 1984,
said Charles C. Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, a
research and education group.
There are communities largely of one faith, and despite all the court rulings
and Supreme Court decisions, they continue to promote one faith, Mr. Haynes
said. They dont much care what the minority complains about. Theyre just
convinced that what they are doing is good for kids and what America is all
about.
Dr. Donald G. Hattier, a member of the Indian River school board, said the
district had changed many policies in response to Mrs. Dobrichs initial
complaints. But the board unanimously rejected a proposed settlement of the
Dobriches lawsuit.
There were a couple of provisions that were unacceptable to the board, said
Jason Gosselin, a lawyer for the board. The parties are working in good faith
to move closer to settlement.
Until recently, it was safe to assume that everyone in the Indian River
district was Christian, said the Rev. Mark Harris, an Episcopal priest at St.
Peters Church in Lewes.
But much has changed in Sussex County over the last 30 years. The county, in
southern Delaware, has resort enclaves like Rehoboth Beach, to which outsiders
bring their cash and, often, liberal values. Inland, in the area of Georgetown,
the county seat, the land is still a lush patchwork of corn and soybean fields,
with a few poultry plants. But developers are turning more fields into tracts
of rambling homes. The Hispanic population is booming. There are enough Reform
Jews, Muslims and Quakers to set up their own centers and groups, Mr. Harris
said.
In interviews with a dozen people here and comments on the radio by a
half-dozen others, the overwhelming majority insisted, usually politely, that
prayer should stay in the schools.
We have a way of doing things here, and its not going to change to accommodate
a very small minority, said Kenneth R. Stevens, 41, a businessman sitting in
the Georgetown Diner. If they feel singled out, they should find another
school or excuse themselves from those functions. Its our way of life.
The Dobrich and Doe legal complaint portrays a district in which children were
given special privileges for being in Bible club, Bibles were distributed in
2003 at an elementary school, Christian prayer was routine at school functions
and teachers evangelized.
Because Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I will speak out for him, said the
Rev. Jerry Fike of Mount Olivet Brethren Church, who gave the prayer at
Samanthas graduation. The Bible encourages that. Mr. Fike continued:
Ultimately, he is the one I have to please. If doing that places me at odds
with the law of the land, I still have to follow him.
Mrs. Dobrich, who is Orthodox, said that when she was a girl, Christians here
had treated her faith with respectful interest. Now, she said, her son was
ridiculed in school for wearing his yarmulke. She described a classmate of his
drawing a picture of a pathway to heaven for everyone except Alex the Jew.
Mrs. Dobrichs decision to leave her hometown and seek legal help came after a
school board meeting in August 2004 on the issue of prayer. Dr. Hattier had
called WGMD to discuss the issue, and Mr. Gaffney and others encouraged people
to go the meeting. Hundreds showed up.
A homemaker active in her childrens schools, Mrs. Dobrich said she had asked
the board to develop policies that would leave no one feeling excluded because
of faith. People booed and rattled signs that read Jesus Saves, she recalled.
Her son had written a short statement, but he felt so intimidated that his
sister read it for him. In his statement, Alex, who was 11 then, said: I feel
bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy. I do not want to move away from the
house I have lived in forever.
Later, another speaker turned to Mrs. Dobrich and said, according to several
witnesses, If you want people to stop calling him Jew boy, you tell him to
give his heart to Jesus.
Immediately afterward, the Dobriches got threatening phone calls. Samantha had
enrolled in Columbia, and Mrs. Dobrich decided to go to Wilmington temporarily.
But the controversy simmered, keeping Mrs. Dobrich and Alex away. The cost of
renting an apartment in Wilmington led the Dobriches to sell their home here.
Mrs. Dobrichs husband, Marco, a school bus driver and transportation
coordinator, makes about $30,000 a year and has stayed in town to care for
Mrs. Dobrichs ailing parents. Mr. Dobrich declined to comment. Samantha left
Columbia because of the financial strain.
The only thing to flourish, Mrs. Dobrich said, was her faith. Her children,
she said, have so much pride in their religion now.
Alex wears his yarmulke all the time. He never takes it off.
==
"Skepticism," as a coherent philosophical and scientific posture, has always
dealt with religious questions, and it professed to find little scientific or
philosophical justification for belief in God. Philosophers in the ancient
world such as Pyrrho, Cratylus, Sextus Empiricus, and Carneades questioned
metaphysical and theological claims. Modern philosophers, including Descartes,
Bacon, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, have drawn heavily on classical
skepticism in developing their scientific outlook. Many found the "God
question" unintelligible; modern science could proceed only by rejecting
occult claims as vacuous, as was done by Galileo and other working
scientists-and also by latter-day authors such as Freud and Marx, Russell and
Dewey, Sartre and Heidegger, Popper and Hook, Crick and Watson, Bunge, and
Wilson.
==
In an apparent endorsement of astrology, God places the sun, moon, and stars
in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is
exactly what astrologers do: read "the signs" in the Zodiac in an effort to
predict what will happen on Earth.
==
(1) The author of the Gospel of Mathew is unknown.
(2) The author of the Gospel of Mark is unknown.
(3) The author of the Gospel of Luke is unknown.
(4) The author of the Gospel of John is unknown.
(5) The jewish family name of Jesus Christ is unknown.
(6) The jewish famliy name of his mother Mary is unknown.
(7) The jewish family name of her husband Joseph is unknown.
(8) The jewish family names of his twelve (12) decipels is unknown.
(9) The jewish family name of Mary Magdelene is unknown.
(10) The jewish family names of many of the other characters in the
story of Jesus Christ are unknown.
==
The prohibition against atheists serving in public offices remains in the S.C.
constitution to this day, just the same. There are about six or seven other
states which still have such religious tests for office in their constitutions.
==
"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, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1952

"A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created
equal when it asserts that God prefers some."
Harry A. Blackmun, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, majority opinion in Lee v.
Weisman, 1992
==
Superstition, born of paganism and adopted by Judaism, invested
the Christian Church from earliest times. All the fathers of the
Church, without exception, believed in the power of magic. The
Church always condemned magic, but she always believed in it: she
did not excommunicate sorcerers as madmen who were mistaken, but as
men who were really in communication with the devil.
--Voltaire [Philosophical Dictionary, 1764
==
The Texas insanity-defense law requires that a delusional person acting under
"orders" from God be judged not guilty by reason of insanity, but that a
delusional person acting under "orders" from Satan be considered sane,
according to prominent forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz
==
Lev21:9 "'If a priest's daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute,
she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire. (NIV)

Lev21:9 'Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry,
she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire. (NAS)
==
Sir James Frasier's _The Golden Bough_ about mythology
==
job 40:9 "Or do you have an arm like God, And can you thunder with a voice
like His? Thunder is God's voice?
==
There is huge belief in psychics, astrology, UFOs, dowsing, faith
healing, appearances of the Virgin Mary--even on cheese sandwiches!--
stone statues that burst into tears, in exorcism, ghosts and things
that go bump in the night, homeopathy, crop circles, hidden codes in
the Bible, body meridians, laying on of hands, foot-ology, past
lives, future lives, raptures, tarot cards, palm reading,
nostradamus, alien abductions, feng shui, magnetic bracelets--all
stuff related to supernaturalisms---the list of irrational nonsense
is endless. We are in an age of belief in silly things. Many are
relatively harmless, but it is a sign of an unhealthiness in our
society. And, this is, I think, related to fear and insecurity.
==
You worship this god-image of your own making, an idol carved out of
your own emotional wants.
===
The story of the infant Moses being set adrift in a basket bears
remarkable similarities to an old Babylonian myth about a great King
called Sargon who was discovered as a baby in a basket in a river.
[~2200 bc -]
Between 600 and 300 BC, Jewish scribes in Jerusalem set out to record
all the old tales of their people, handed down from generation to
generation. What if the scribes had wanted to add a bit of spice to
their tales to make them more interesting? Could they have used the
myth of Sargon and made up the tale of Moses? It's certainly possible
as we know the Jews were captured by the Babylonians in 587 BC and held
in exile in Babylon (modern Iraq) for some time. They could have picked
up the Sargon legend there.
Egyptologist Jim Hoffmeier studied the original Hebrew text. He found
that key words in the story - bulrushes, papyrus, Nile, riverbank -
were all ancient Egyptian words, and not Babylonian.
But what about the name 'Moses'? It is an Egyptian name meaning 'One
who is born'. It uses the same root as 'Ramses' It's hard to believe
that a Hebrew scribe, one thousand years later, could have come up with
a story using authentic Egyptian words.
Egyptologist Jim Hoffmeier claims:
Well actually there are many stories of babies being put in baskets
and exposed or put in water. This was an ancient way of putting a child
out to the fate of the gods. Today people put babies in baskets and put
them on church doorsteps.
There are many such stories about gods doing
miraculous things, at least 16 saviors thought to be Christ have
existed. The flood story in one version or another has also been around
a long time. There is one from S. America where a goatherd overhears
his talking llama that tells him to climb up to the top of a nearby
mountain. He takes his family along with 2 of every kind of animal and
a flood comes and destroys everything else in the world. It
It is just as someone has said too. If a Jesus had not existed it would
have been necessary to create one. In a way, the Jesus story was a play
with the outline found in the OT awaiting the right players to bring
the story to life. Still, what people have written about Jesus does not
quite fit the outline. He was supposed to be a military leader and not
have to come back again. Since some of the OT myth involves some
specific tales, you have people like Matthew telling us that Jesus rode
on both a Donkey and a horse colt AT THE SAME TIME, because Matthew
misinterpreted Zaccharia and thought the entry into Jerusalem was
supposed to be 2 animals, when in fact the donkey and colt are supposed
to be one and the same animal. It would have been interesting though to
see how Jesus would ride both animals at the same time in any case.
===
It is also funny that out of the 12 apostles there was not a peep,
nothing was written or quoted. They just disappeared.
Jesus preached to them to start the religion but they faded out and
nothing was written until Paul, who gave them *no credit* for
spreading the word.
===
Among the more important discoveries at Ugarit are tablets from the
14th cent. Written in a cuneiform script, in a hitherto unknown
language, Ugaritic, they record the poetic works and myths of the
ancient Canaanites. They are written in an alphabet that is one of the
earliest known. Ugaritic has been identified as a Semitic language,
related to classical Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, and
these tablets, the first authentic specimens of pagan Canaanite
literature, have been of great importance to students of language and
of the Bible. They offer evidence that the stories of the Old Testament
were based on written Canaanite documents as well as being passed down orally.
===
In order for a sin to be mortal, it must meet three conditions:
Mortal sin is a sin of grave matter
Mortal sin is committed with full knowledge of the sinner
Mortal sin is committed with deliberate consent of the sinner
==
Religion was wonderful back when we didn't understand our world -- back
when absurd stories of gods with magical powers could answer our
questions. In the modern world, these stories don't make any sense.
Sure, religion still offers morals and social support, but it isn't the
only source for those things.

==
[drv] Exodus 20:5 2 Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord
thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:
==
Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian
-----
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 (few 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 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.
==
The Twilight of Atheism, by Alister McGrath

The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer and John Bowden
(Paperback - Jun 2001)
===
The Bible calls for stoning to death women who are not virgins at marriage.
==
Ezekiel 32:7-8,15
7) And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars
thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall
not give her light.
8) All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee,
and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD.
15) When I shall make the land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be
destitute of that whereof it was full, when I shall smite all
them that dwell therein, then shall they know that I am the LORD.
===
A popular "explanation" for an earthquake near Boston in 1755 was the
lightening rods invented by Benjamin Franklin. "Lightning rods meddled with
God's usual mode of reprimand, went this line of thinking, causing God to reach
for another, more terrible weapon in his arsenal."
==
The Dalai Lama writes of his long fascination with science and of a mutually
beneficial relationship between science and religion. Of Buddhism and science,
he says: "If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will
have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth
and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of
reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism
enriches its own worldview."
===
The founder of one of China's biggest Christian sects has been sentenced to
death along with two of his acolytes for the murder of about 20 followers of a
rival apocalyptic group.
In a case that has revealed the violent competition for souls in this nominally
atheist country, a court ordered the execution of Xu Shuangfu, 60, the head of
the Three Grades of Servants, and his followers, Li Maoxing and Wang Jun.
Fourteen other members of the sect, which claims millions of adherents, were
given suspended death sentences or prison terms of up to 15 years.
===
Children Must Worship God at School -- Whatever Their Conscience Dictates,
Says Education Minister
Collective worship provides an opportunity for pupils to "worship God," says
the new education secretary, Alan Johnson -- whether they want to or not.
In a letter to the National Secular Society, Mr. Johnson makes clear that he
has no intention of addressing the question of legally enforced worship in
schools. "Our view remains that there are benefits associated with collective
worship in schools," Mr. Johnson wrote. "It can provide an opportunity not
only to worship God but also to consider spiritual and moral issues and to
explore their own beliefs. Collective worship can also help to develop
community spirit, promote a common ethos and shared values and reinforce
positive attitudes."
The Minister was responding to a letter from the NSS which was sent after it
emerged that "faith leaders" were applying pressure on the Department to
enforce collective worship more vigorously. Keith Porteous Wood, Executive
Director of the NSS, wrote to Mr. Johnson.
Wood wrote "In the 60 years since Collective Worship became a statutory
requirement, religious belief and adherence have fallen dramatically. Anglican
membership, for example, has dropped by more than half. For this reason we are
convinced that the Government should not be responding to church leaders'
requests to increase compliance with the law on Collective Worship. On the
contrary, the government should be taking steps to remove the compulsion, and
making it easier for pupils themselves to opt out of any Collective Worship
that takes place."
==
How is atheism a religion itself? It has no creed (other than "I do not
believe in the existence of God"), it obviously has no deity, it has no
scripture, no ministers, no services, ceremonies or festivals and no temples
or churches. It requires nothing from its followers other than the rejection
of a Supreme Being.
==
"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is
withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they
are burned." (John 15:6)
===
If our laws dictate that children are not capable of making responsible
decisions about drugs, alcohol, pornography, violence , politics and
even driving a vehicle. Why then do they force them into an institution
which they have no hope of comprehending, with their limited life experience.
==
Natural Atheism by David Eller
==
You certainly don't get Jews spontaneously appearing among Inuit
populations, Hindus being born of Roman Catholic parents in Mexico or indeed
Christians being created by God amid aboriginal tribes unreached by
Christianity. You'd have thought that God would find it fairly simple
to do that. After all, how can somebody have the "freedom to choose" unless
they know what their choice is?
===
Job
God asked him where he'd been...
Satan answered..roaming about in the earth.
God had to ask?
===
British researchers are upset that the
Catholic Church has decided it will excommunicate scientists who are
involved in embryonic stem cell research. The Vatican says the research,
which relies on the destruction of human life to obtain stem cells, is
just as bad as abortion.
Last week, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical
Council for the Family, told an official Vatican magazine that embryonic
stem cell research was "the same as abortion."
"Destroying human embryos is equivalent to an abortion. It is the same
thing," he said.
"Excommunication will be applied to the women, doctors and researchers
who eliminate embryos [and to the] politicians that approve the law,"
the cardinal said in an interview.
However, British scientists are calling this "religious persecution."
Dr. Stephen Minger, leading stem cell expert at Kings College, told the
BBC, "Having been raised a Catholic I found this stance really outrageous."
"Are they going to excommunicate IVF doctors, nurses and embryologists
who routinely put millions of embryos down the sink every year
throughout the world?" he asked.
Professor Allan Templeton, president of the Royal College of
Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, told the BBC that the cardinal's
comments were "insensitive and unhelpful."
Meanwhile, Professor Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in practical ethics
at the University of Oxford, blasted the Catholic church saying the
excommunication views amount "to religious persecution of scientists
which has no place in modern liberal societies."
An Italian cloning scientist wants to be the first excommunicated from
the Catholic Church.
Professor Cesare Galli of the Laboratory of Reproductive Technologies in
Cremona, the first scientist to clone a horse, said last week that the
position makes the Catholic church like the Taliban in Afghanistan.
==
The pre-Christian, Persian-origin religion of Mithraism has a Saviour
God, Mithra, born to an immaculate virgin mother, Anahita.
He had twelve followers with whom he had shared a last sacramental meal.
He had sacrificed himself to redeem mankind.
Descending into the underworld, he had conquered death and had risen to
life again on the third day.
The holy day for this sun god was, of course, Sunday
His many titles included 'the Truth,' 'the Light,' and 'the Good Shepherd.'
For those who worshipped him, invoking the name of Mithras healed the
sick and worked miracles.
Can Christians convincingly argue that their Jesus was anything but a
myth, copied wholesale from existing 'pagan' myths?
==
[niv] Isaiah 40:26 2 Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all
these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by
name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is
missing. [niv] Isaiah 40:26 2 Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who
created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls
them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of
them is missing.
==
Leviticus 15:19 " 'When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the
impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who
touches her will be unclean till evening. 20 " 'Anything she lies on
during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be
unclean. 21 Whoever touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe
with water, and he will be unclean till evening. 22 Whoever touches
anything she sits on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he
will be unclean till evening. 23 Whether it is the bed or anything she
was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till
evening. 24 " 'If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him,
he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean.

Deuteronomy 21:18 - "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who
does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when
they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him
and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say
to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will
not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of
his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among
you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid."

The heavens will roll back like a scroll and depart with a great noise
(Revelation 6:14;
==
Atheist Acquitted on Assault Charges After Being Harassed by Local Christians

Is America the sort of country where Christians can harass an atheist
girl in school, assault her father, then blame the father for the
assault and file criminal charges against him? Is America the sort of
country where the father can be told to leave the state if he wants
the charges dropped? Yes, America is that sort of country because
American Christians can be exactly that sort of person.
Fortunately, America is also the sort of country where real justice
is possible despite some Christians' best efforts. Chester
Smalkowski, an atheist living in Hardesty, Oklahoma, was found not
guilty by a jury who heard all manner of nonsense from Christians who
seem to have wanted nothing more than to run him and his family out
of town. American Atheists reports:
Nicole Smalkowski was kicked off of the girls' basketball team after
refusing to stand in a circle with her teammates on the gymnasium
floor of the Hardesty public High School and recite the "Lord's
Prayer." After school officials learned that she and her family were
Atheists, lies were created about her as grounds to take her off of the team.
Nicole's father Chuck made the mistake of going to the home of
principal Lloyd Buckley to talk about it. Even if atheists didn't
have to worry about physical violence, I'd still say that it was a
mistake going to a person's home in the evening in such a situation
just isn't very appropriate. On the other hand, Hardesty evidently
has a population of just a few hundred people and in such small
communities it may be that doing such a thing is much more common.
Still, the consequences indicate that Smalkowski probably should have
just made a phone call:
Outside of his front fence, the principal struck Chuck, who blocked
the blow. Both men fell to the ground and Buckley sustained minor
injuries, the provable origins of which were strikingly contrary to
his under oath trial testimony. Buckley then took out misdemeanor
criminal assault charges against Chuck. After Smalkowski rejected the
offer to drop the charges if he and his Atheist family left the
state, the charges were raised to a felony. Chuck called American
Atheists for help.
The jury acquitted Smalkowski after just two hours of deliberation
and that time span included eating dinner. American Atheists'
description of the jury selection is interesting:
Edwin [Kagin] introduced himself to the jury as National Legal
Director for American Atheists and asked the prospective jury in the
Oklahoma panhandle if they could accept the testimony of an Atheist
over that of a professed Christian. When the jury looked at him
blankly, the judge asked the prospects if they understood the
question. One woman spoke for many in the group by asking "What is an
Atheist?" Edwin explained that an Atheist was a person who did not
believe in a god or gods or in a supernatural world, and that the
defendant and his entire family were such persons. Many of the
prospects said they could not believe such a person over a Christian
and were struck for cause. To their credit, many members of the jury
panel, including two ministers' wives, told the judge they could not
be fair to an Atheist in such a situation and were excused.
I don't know if I should feel more depressed over the fact that so
many people were unable to believe the word of an atheist over a
Christian, or optimistic about the fact that two ministers' wives
were willing to admit that they couldn't believe an atheist's word
over a Christian's.
At Democratic Underground, Smalkowski describes the series of events
in his own words:
Hardesty has labeled us as devil worshippers. ...Teachers watched as
students said she was gay because she voted for Kerry, only
homosexuals vote for Kerry, we are Christian we vote for Bush. They
persecuted my daughter. They called her a half-breed. Made fun of
northerners and Yankees. Teachers said they hated her. Having other
students follow her around to catch her on the littlest infraction.
No teacher ever tried to enlighten these misguided children. Instead
the school encouraged more of the same.
The entire high school only has a couple of dozen students, and
that's in all classes, so the harassment being described here would
have been very intense and completely inescapable.
I turned myself in within 2 hours of an arrest warrant. Bail was set
high at $5000 for a misdemeanor. When I paid it, it was switched to
$15,000. A man that turns himself in and owns land is not a flight
risk. I am not charged with two charges; the misdemeanor was brought
along because of the excessive bail! The Sheriff Benji Fuentes and
policeman Guy Cook, who are this mans friend, live within a few doors
of each other, have wives and relatives on the school board, never
took both sides of the story, though they heard it. If they had it
would have stopped right there. Instead they knowingly shaped the
evidence to hopefully stop the lawsuit I said I was going to file.
They even went so far as to hindering us in obtaining evidence that
would prove my innocence and my daughter's civil suit. [...]
The D.A. was willing to drop the charges if I left the county. The
charges were switched from a misdemeanor to a felony when I refused.
My local lawyer from Guymon was more than compromised and the DA knew
it, yet she allowed him to continue until I found out and dropped
him. He admitted it himself.
The entire community turned against the Smalkowskis and those who
knew the truth were pressured into keeping quiet. Local reporters
were pressured to not print the truth and reporters from outside
the area appear to have followed suit. Few news outlets even have the
story; those that do fail to mention most of the relevant facts, like
how Nicole Smalkowski was punished for not participating in a
religious exercise in a public school.
KFDA in Texas, for example, has as short piece which doesn't mention
the harassment of the entire family for being atheists. Apparently
stories about atheists being persecuted aren't important, but stories
about a parent accused of assaulting a school official are important
enough to mention.
==
Carl sagan said some interesting stuff, here is some of what I consider
to be his best quotes.

1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. [Carl Sagan]

2. Such reports persist and proliferate because they sell. And they
sell, I think, because there are so many of us who want so badly to be
jolted out of our humdrum lives, to rekindle that sense of wonder we
remember from childhood, and also, for a few of the stories, to be
able, really and truly, to believe--in Someone older, smarter, and
wiser who is looking out for us. Faith is clearly not enough for many
people. They crave hard evidence, scientific proof. They long for the
scientific seal of approval, but are unwilling to put up with the
rigorous standards of evidence that impart credibility to that seal.
[Carl Sagan]

3. In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a
really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually
change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again.
They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because
scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens
every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened
in politics or religion. [Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address]

4. The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard
who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous.
But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the
universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally
unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of
gravity. [Carl Sagan]

5. (When asked merely if they accept evolution, 45 percent of
Americans say yes. The figure is 70 percent in China.) When the movie
Jurassic Park was shown in Israel, it was condemned by some Orthodox
rabbis because it accepted evolution and because it taught that
dinosaurs lived a hundred million years ago--when, as is plainly stated
at every Rosh Hashonhan and every Jewish wedding ceremony, the Universe
is less than 6,000 years old. [Carl Sagan, _The Demon-Haunted World:
Science as a Candle in the Dark_, p. 325]

6. Many statements about God are confidently made by theologians on
grounds that today at least sound specious. Thomas Aquinas claimed to
prove that God cannot make another God, or commit suicide, or make a
man without a soul, or even make a triangle whose interior angles do
not equal 180 degrees. But Bolyai and Lobachevsky were able to
accomplish this last feat (on a curved surface) in the nineteenth
century, and they were not even approximately gods. [Carl Sagan,
Broca's Brain]

7. We should be teaching our children the scientific method and the
reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility
and community spirit. [Carl Sagan, on secular morality]

8. One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world
would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and - whole the events
of that year were certainly of some importance - the world did not, at
least so far as I can see, seem to have ended. There are at least three
responses that an organized religion can make in the face of such a
failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, Oh, did we say
'1914'? So sorry, we meant '2014'. A slight error in calculation. Hope
you weren't inconvinenced in any way. But they did not. They could have
said, Well, the world would have ended, except we prayed very hard and
interceded with God so He spared the Earth. But they did not. Instead,
the did something much more ingenious. They announced that the world
had in fact ended in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that
was our lookout. It is astonishing in the fact of such transparent
evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are
tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or
they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions
can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of
their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the
tough- mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a
demonstration was needed, that near the core of the religious
experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry. [Carl
Sagan, Broca's Brain]
===
Vorhilon claims that in December, 1973, he was in a volcano near
Clermont-Ferrand, France, when a radiant being emerged from an unidentified
flying object, and named him Rael, which means ''messenger.''
In 1975, he claims he was taken in a flying saucer to the planet of the Elohim
- the true creators of the world - where he met his half-brother Jesus. Elohim
residents are to return to Jerusalem in 2025, he says.
In putting the column in context, the judge noted that Vorhilon condemns Jews
for believing in "an imaginary god" when they should realize they come from
"the loins of Elohim, their true creators."
Vorhilon is also cited for "vehemently criticizing" the Christian church for
trying to understand the true message of Jesus, instead of attacking
"humankind's mistakes."
Vorhilon is "clearly provocative," in "openly attacking" Judaism and
Christianity, Laramee observed.
"You cannot avail yourself of freedom of religion to say just about anything
and demand to be above criticism, even if it's severe," the judge added.
These attacks are part of the context in which Gratton's column must be read,
Larame noted.
Claiming that eternal life will be possible through human cloning, Vorhilon's
creed is fair game for criticism, the judge said.
In the doubts surrounding a Raelian follower's claim to be the mother of a
cloned baby, the judge cited Vorhilon's comment that, "true or false, and even
more so if it is not true, it enabled us to get our message out to the entire
world."
===
2 Samuel 24:9 says Five Hundred Thousand
I Chronicles says 21:5 says Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand.

(a) One - a colt (Mark 11:7; cf Luke 19:3 5). And they brought the colt to
Jesus and threw their garments on it; and he sat upon it.
(b) Two - a colt and an ass (Matthew 21:7). They brought the ass and the colt
and put their garments on them and he sat thereon.
==
The Engel ruling was expanded upon in the Abington School District v
Schempp case two years later. The Abington case was actually a
consolidation of two different cases which dealt with the same
question --- Bible readings in public schools. The Pennsylvania
Abington case involved a requirement to read ten Bible verses daily
at the beginning of the school day; the Murray v Curlett case
involved a Maryland school requiring a passage from the Bible or the
Lord's Prayer daily.
In its ruling, the Court cited the Establishment Clause principle
laid out in the Engel case, and concluded "In light of the history of
the First Amendment and of our cases interpreting and applying its
requirements, we hold that the practices at issue and the laws
requiring them are unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause,
as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment." (Supreme
Court, Abington v Schempp, 1963) The Court then went on to specify
the "secular purpose" and "primary effect" tests to be used in
Establishment Clause cases: "The test may be stated as follows: what
are the purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is
the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds
the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution.
That is to say that to withstand the strictures of the Establishment
Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary
effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion." (Supreme Court,
Abington v Schempp, 1963) The Court continued:
"It is insisted that unless these religious exercises are permitted a
"religion of secularism" is established in the schools. We agree of
course that the State may not establish a "religion of secularism" in
the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion,
thus "preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do
believe." We do not agree, however, that this decision in any sense
has that effect. In addition, it might well be said that one's
education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or
the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of
civilization. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of
study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said
here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when
presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may
not be effected consistently with the First Amendment. But the
exercises here do not fall into those categories. They are religious
exercises, required by the States in violation of the command of the
First Amendment that the Government maintain strict neutrality,
neither aiding nor opposing religion. Finally, we cannot accept that
the concept of neutrality, which does not permit a State to require a
religious exercise even with the consent of the majority of those
affected, collides with the majority's right to free exercise of
religion. While the Free Exercise Clause clearly prohibits the use
of state action to deny the rights of free exercise to anyone, it has
never meant that a majority could use the machinery of the State to
practice its beliefs." (Supreme Court, Abington v Schempp, 1963)
The "purpose" and "effect" tests laid out in Abington v Schempp were
expanded upon in the 1971 Lemon v Kurtzman case, in a ruling which
has served ever since as the principle guideline for Establishment
Clause cases.
==
John5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto
the Son: (KJV)
==
Schools are for education not venues for religious indoctrination. The
Founding Fathers were well aware of what happens when religion becomes
involved with government. You get lots of bloodshed and atrocities.
Think back to your history classes and what was going on in England-the
purges, the imprisonment, the torture and executions. The Founding
Fathers endeavored to keep that misery from our shores.
Consider also when the Church ran things. It was a thousand years of
misery, and horror. It's called The Dark Ages for a reason.
I was pointed to this link in response to a question I asked. It
compares the Ten Commandments of Moses to the Ten Commandments by Solon
the Athenean centuries before.
==
The Babylonian Captivity was 49 years, not 70.
==
Jun 23, 2006
Congressional Hopeful Blames Troubles On The Devil
SALT LAKE CITY Republican congressional hopeful John Jacob believes the devil
is impeding his efforts to unseat five-term Representative Chris Cannon.
He says there's another force that wants to keep him from going to Washington
and the devil is what it is.
Jacob says that since he decided to run for Congress, Satan has disrupted his
business deals, preventing him from putting as much money into the race as he
had hoped.
Jacob said during a Wednesday immigration event that the devil was working
against him, then reiterated his belief yesterday in a meeting with The Salt
Lake Tribune editorial board.
He says there's been a lot of adversity, and there's no question he has had
experiences that believes are due to an outside force.
===
Gods which were mentioned in the bible:

Adrammelech II Kings 17:31 Sepharvite God.
Anammelech II Kings 17:31 Sepharvite God.
Ashima II Kings 17:30 Samaritan Moon Goddess.
Ashtoreth I Kings 11:05 Canaanite Goddess.
Baal I Kings 18:19 Canaanite God ("Lord") of
fertility, vegitation, and storms.
Baal-berith Judges 8:33 A regional variation/aspect of Baal.
Baal-peor Numbers 25:03 Moabite regional variation/aspect of Baal.
Baal-zebub Luke 11:19 Philistine/Ekronian regional
variation/aspect of Baal.
Baalim I Kings 18:18 Canaanite Gods ("Lords"), a
collective of the different
aspects of Baa.
Bel Isiah 46:01 Assyrian/Babylonian/Sumerian God
("Lord").
Chemosh I Kings 11:07 Moabite war God.
Dagon I Samuel 05:02 Philistine/Ekronian/Babylonian God
of agriculture.
Diana of the Ephesians Acts 19:35 Ephesian moon and nature Goddess,
("Divine/Brilliant").

Jupiter Acts 14:12 Roman God (possibly derived from
'Zeus-pater', Father Zeus).
Lucifer Isiah 14:12 ("Light-Bearer")
Mercurius Acts 14:12 Otherwise known as the Roman God
Mercury, God of communication and
travel, and messenger of the
Gods...which is probably why Paul
was called this at Lystra.
Milcom I Kings 11:05 Ammonite God
Molech I Kings 11:07 Ammonite God, also called Moloch,
most probably Baal-Hammon of
Carthage.
Nebo Isiah 46:01 Assyrian/Babylonian/Chaldean God of
wisdom and writing, also called Nabu.
Nergal II Kings 17:30 Cuth/Assyrian/Babylonian war and
underworld God, also called Meshlamthea.
Nibhaz II Kings 17:31 Avites God
Nisroch II Kings 19:37 Assyrian God
Rimmon II Kings 05:18 Babylonian/Syrian storm God
involved (as Ramman) with the
Deluge, according to Hebrew texts;
also known as Ramman/Rammon.
Succoth-benoth II Kings 17:30 Babylonian fertility Goddess ("She
Who Produces Seed"), also known as
Zarpanitu/Zerpanitum.
Tammuz Ezekial 8:14 Assyrian/Babylonian God
Tartak II Kings 17:31 Avites God
==
One who kills a heretic is afforded a tremendous mitzvah for removing a
stumbling block to the pious. Rabbi Moses Maimonides, Hilchos Mamrim 3:2
==
The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes
God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the
political behaviour of Western Civilization.a
Robert Anton Wilson Religion Exposed!
==
Though there are myriad interpretations of how it will play out, the basic
Christian apocalyptic countdown as described by the Book of Revelation in the
New Testament is as follows:
Jews return to Israel after 2,000 years, the Holy Temple is rebuilt, billions
of people perish during seven years of natural disasters and plagues, the
antichrist arises and rules the world, the battle of Armageddon erupts in the
vicinity of Israel, Jesus returns to defeat Satan's armies and preside over
Judgment Day.
==
Wala, a sun goddess in Australian Aboriginal mythology
==
<http://ffrf.org/day/img/0229_schempp.gif
Bible Reading in Public Schools Halted

On this date in 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Abington
Town School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, barring bible reading in
public schools. The case, brought by Ed Schempp and his family, challenged a
Pennsylvania law requiring that "at least ten verses from the Holy Bible
shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each
school day. Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading, or attending
such Bible reading, upon the written request of his parent or guardian." Ed,
with his wife Sidney and two of their three children, brought suit. (The
eldest, Ellory, graduated from high school so was dismissed from the case,
but was the original instigator of the complaint.) The religious exercises
were broadcast into each class through a public address system, and were
conducted under the supervision of a teacher by
students. The broadcasts concluded with a recitation of the Lord's Prayer,
with students asked to stand and repeat the prayer in unison, following a
flag salute. Joined to the Abington case was Murray v. Curlett, challenging
a similar practice adopted by the Baltimore school board requiring
reading, without comment, a chapter from the "Holy Bible" and/or the Lord's
Prayer to open the school day. The Abington decision followed the 1962 Engel
v. Vitale Supreme Court decision, ruling classroom prayer unconstitutional
in public schools. Ed Schempp, who died in 2003, was a longtime member of
the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and an honorary officer.
"The place of religion in our society is an exalted one, achieved through a
long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable
citadel of the individual heart and mind. We have come to recognize through
bitter experience that it is not within the power of government to invade
that citadel, whether its purpose or effect be to aid or oppose, to advance
or retard. In the relationship between man and religion, the State is firmly
committed to a position of neutrality." -- Justice Clark, delivering the
majority opinion in Abington Town School District v. Schempp (1963). For more
about the legal status of prayer in school, see the Foundation's brochure, The
Case Against School Prayer.
http://ffrf.org/nontracts/schoolprayer.php
==
The Existence and Attributes of God by Charnock
==
Nobody in the Old Testament ever heard of Job until after the Babylonian
Captivity, it mentions no characters or places from the lands and times known
to the Patriarchs, the places and characters mentioned in it are unknown to
anybody in the Bible prior to the Babylonian Captivity and its theology
has a decidedly Persian flavor to it.
==
Most irrational dogmas can be traced to the need for infallibility. Whether
that infallibiliity is invested in a human or a book. But you will note that
the claimed infallibility is somehow always supposed to invest the believer
with the property of infallibility. It's less work to listen to an infallible
preacher reading an infallible text or an infallible encyclical than it is to
think for yourself.
==
Over 400 years ago, the Protestant reformer Martin Luther said, "I am much
afraid that schools will prove to be the very gates of Hell unless they
diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the
hearts of youth. Every institution in which men are not unceasingly occupied
with the Word of God must become corrupt."
==
Senator Davis a leading senator of Rhode Island and a Democrat has annouced
that he will introduce a constitutional amendment that will prohit any atheist
from holding federal office.
===
"In Genesis 1:24-27, God creates the animals of the Earth, and then man in
his own image, producing male and female simultaneously. But in Genesis
2:15-25, God creates Adam first, then the animals, and finally forms
Eve out of Adam's rib.
==
"[God] is the chairman of this party."
-- Texas GOP leader Tina Benkiser, at state convention
The party platform declares "America is a Christian nation"
and affirms that "God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our
freedom." "We pledge to exert our influence toward a return to the original
intent of the First Amendment and dispel the myth of the separation of church
and state," it says.
====
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, once wrote,
"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and all of which
facilitates the execution of mischievous projects. Religious bondage
shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble
enterprise, every expanded project." Those are strong words that could
justifiably be leveled at the Religious Right today.
===
The Pope and God are the same, so he has all power in Heaven and earth."
Pope Pius V, quoted in Barclay, Chapter XXVII, p. 218, "Cities Petrus
Bertanous".

We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty..." Pope Leo XIII, in
Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae (The Reunion of Christendom), Encyclical
promulgated on June 20, 1894.
==
And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit
adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is
he justified.
-- Joseph Smith's 1831 revelation on marriage and polygamy as currently
published in the mainstream Mormon Church's Doctrine and Covenants, Section
132, Verse 62 The 12 million-strong Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints is desperately seeking to disassociate itself from its uncomfortable
polygamist underpinnings. The mainstream Mormon church has been thrust into
the spotlight worldwide because of the unlawful flight from justice of
polygamist leader Warren Steed Jeffs, and church leaders in Salt Lake City
are emphasizing loud and long that they have no connection to the fugitive.
Earlier this month, Jeffs, 50, was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list
for fleeing from Arizona and Utah prosecutors who have filed criminal
charges related to his performing so-called spiritual marriages of underage
girls to already-married men in his fanatical sect -- the 10,000-member
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints based in Colorado
City, Arizona, and adjoining Hildale, Utah. The FBI's action has generated
international interest in the practice of polygamy by the fundamentalist
Mormons scattered across the Rocky Mountain West, from Canada to Mexico.
That both branches of the Mormon religion share the same polygamist roots is
something the LDS leaders would rather not see exposed. Both the LDS and the
FLDS are based on the spiritual "revelations" of Mormon Church founder and
prolific polygamist Joseph Smith. Smith's bedrock religious principle is
polygamy, which is described in detail in Section 132 of the Doctrine and
Covenants.
One verse of Section 132 is printed above. Others are directed at Smith's
first wife, Emma. She is warned that if she doesn't accept Smith's plural
wives, "she shall be destroyed." The admonition to Emma is considered by
anti-polygamy activists as a warning to all Mormon women that, if necessary,
they must accept polygamy or face hellfire. The fact that Section 132
remains official Mormon doctrine has been a rallying point for anti-polygamy
groups whose leaders bitterly complain that the LDS has provided no support,
financial or otherwise, in their efforts to assist women and children who
have been victimized by fundamentalist Mormons.
"[LDS] Mormons are trying to present a picture of the traditional family
and yet they still have Section 132 in their scripture," notes Vicki Prunty,
executive director of the Salt Lake City-based Tapestry Against Polygamy.
"They
have not denied the belief system that propagates polygamy. Until they do so
and treat women as equals, we are going to continue to have the same fallout
and abuses." The LDS has provided little, if any, financial assistance to
youth discarded by the polygamists, known as the "Lost Boys," or to
desperate mothers who frequently face difficult and expensive legal battles
to secure custody of their children. Instead of providing help to people
who, like its members, were brought up on the teachings of Mormon founder
Joseph Smith, the LDS do not officially admit that fundamentalist Mormon
polygamists even exist. "There is no such thing as a 'Mormon
fundamentalist,' nor are there 'Mormon sects,'" the LDS states in its May 10
press release.
The mainstream LDS renounced polygamy in 1890, but the disavowal came only
under severe duress. At the time, the United States government was
threatening to destroy the financial foundation of the church by seizing
church assets. The widespread practice of polygamy was also preventing Utah
from gaining long-sought-after statehood. The church's fourth president and
prophet, Wilford Woodruff, issued a "manifesto" asking members to abide by
the civil laws of marriage that required monogamy. Woodruff's declaration
created a huge controversy within the LDS because it was seen by some
members as a direct challenge to the teachings of Joseph Smith and to his
immediate successor and fellow polygamist, Brigham Young. It was also viewed
with suspicion by non-Mormons who believed that the church was only paying
lip service to the government to get the feds off their backs. Woodruff's
manifesto accomplished the desired outcome: Utah's statehood was achieved in
1896, and the church survived without the LDS'
deleting Section 132.
==
A former SBC president, The Rev. Bailey Smith, said, at the 1987 SBC
convention, words to the effect that "God does not hear the prayer of a Jew."
He was given a standing ovation. In 1994, during a talk before 15,000 people at
a Religious Roundtable meeting in Dallas TX, he said: "With all due respect to
those dear people, my friend, God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew."
==
Isa: 40:22 "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people
are like grasshoppers. to point out that the earth is a globe, but the Hebrew
word here for circle is hug. If Isaiah really wanted to emphasize the earth
is a globe rather than perhaps a circular disk, he could have used the Hebrew
word for ball, which is dur, as in Isa. 22:18 He will roll you up tightly
like a ball and throw you into a large country
==
Eccl1:4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the
earth abideth for ever. (KJV)

Heaven and earth will pass away.
==
Religions can be seen as a form of parasite. There is a particular parasite
that infests the brains of ants and makes them act in ways that will benefit
the parasite's, rather than the ant's, survival. Religions themselves are the
actors, impressing themselves on our brains and making us act in ways that
benefit their survival (their replication into other brains).
There is scores of anthropological evidence that bolsters the claim that
religion was created (and has been so succecssful) due to its ability to put a
wildly complex world into 'human' terms.
==
George Smith's "Atheism"
Pacal Boyer's "Religion Explained."
==
memes (self-propagating units of cultural evolution)
==
Dennett puts forward this connection between belief in belief and fitness as a
hypothesis to be tested, not as a scientifically established fact. He regrets
that little of the relevant research has yet been done.
The title "Breaking the Spell"
==
"Evolutionary biologists have identified at least four ways in which
religion might be of benefit in terms of evolutionary fitness. The
first is to give sufficient explanatory structure to the universe to
allow us to control it, perhaps through the intercession of a spirit
world.
"The second it to make us feel better about life, or at least esigned
to its worst vagaries -- Marx's 'opium of the masses.'
"A third is that religions provide and enforce some kind of moral
code, so keeping social order.
"Finally, religious belief might bring a sense of communality, of
group membership."
Religion really does make you feel better. Recent sociological
studies have shown that compared with non-religious people, the actively
religious are happier, live longer, suffer fewer physical and mental
illnesses, and recover faster from medical interventions such as surgery. All
this is bad news for those of us who are not religious, but it might at least
prompt us to ask why and how religion imparts its feel-good factor.
Now, though, we know more about how
this works. Religions bond societies because they exploit a whole suite of
rituals that are extremely good at triggering the release of endorphins,
natural opioids in the brain. Endorphins are part of the body's pain-control
system, a slow-acting mechanism that takes over when the various neurological
systems of pain control have peaked in their effectiveness. Endorphins come
into their own when pain is modest but persistent - then they flood the brain,
creating a mild "high". Perhaps that is why religious people often seem so
happy. What's more, and here's the rub, endorphins also "tune up" the immune
system, which probably explains why religious people are healthier.
This may be why religious rituals so often involve activities that are
physically stressful - singing, dancing, repetitive swaying or bobbing
movements, awkward postures like kneeling or the lotus position, counting
beads, and occasionally even seriously painful activities like
self-flagellation. Of course, religion is not the only way to get an endorphin
fix. You will also get a high from jogging, swimming or pumping iron, but
religion offers something more. When you experience an endorphin rush as part
of a group, its effect is ratcheted up massively. In particular, it makes you
feel very positive towards other group members. It creates a sense of
brotherhood and communality.
Religion is not just about ritual, it also
has an important cognitive component - its theology. The endorphin-based
group-bonding effects of the rituals only work if everyone does them together.
Which is where the theology comes in - it provides the stick and the carrot
that make us all turn up regularly. But to create a theology our ancestors
needed to evolve cognitive abilities that far exceed those found in any other
animal species. It is these psychological
mechanisms that have been exploited down the ages by political elites in
various attempts to subjugate the rest of the community.
Our ancestors did not always have religion, yet many religious practices seem
to have very ancient origins. So when did religion first evolve?
Archaeologists have long been fascinated by this question. One indication is
burial. Some experts believe this began as far back as 200,000 years ago with
the Neanderthals, but the motivation for such cacheing of bodies is ambiguous.
So most archaeologists more cautiously define the appearance of religion by
looking for evidence of grave goods in burials, since these at least
unequivocally imply belief in an afterlife. Deliberate burials of this kind do
not occur much before 25,000 years ago. Such burials imply a sophisticated
theology, so we can safely assume that these were preceded by a long phase of
less sophisticated religious belief. But without evidence on the ground, can
we see any further back than this?
There is another way to get an unexpected insight into
the question. It comes from asking what kind of mind is required to hold
religious beliefs. Take the statement: "I believe that god wants..." To grasp
this an individual needs theory of mind - the capacity to understand that
another individual (in this case, god) has a mind of his own. Philosophers
call this "second-order intentionality" because such statements contain two
notions of intent: I believe and god wants. But we need more than this to
build a religion.
Third-order intentionality allows me to state: I believe that god wants us to
act with righteous intent. At this level, I have personal religion. But if I
am to persuade you to join me in this view, I have to add your mind state: I
want you to believe that god wants us to act righteously. That's fourth-order
intentionality, and it gives us social religion. Even now, you can accept the
truth of my statement and still it commits you to nothing. But add a fifth
level (I want you to know that we both believe that god wants us to act
righteously) and now, if you accept the validity of my claim, you also
implicitly accept that you believe it too. Now we have what I call communal
religion: together, we can invoke a spiritual force that obliges, perhaps even
forces, us to behave in a certain way.
So, communal religion requires fifth-order intentionality, and this also
happens to be the limit of most people's capacity as indicated by research
done by myself and my colleagues. I think this is no coincidence. The majority
of human activities can probably be dealt with using second or third-order
intentionality. The two extra layers beyond this undoubtedly come at some
considerable neural expense. Since evolution is frugal, there must be some
good reason why we have them. The only plausible answer, so far as I can see,
is religion. And that's where this line of reasoning can throw light on the
origins of religious belief.
Scientists also found a
relationship between the size of the brain's neocortex and social group size
in primates. Interestingly, this "social brain hypothesis" predicts that
around the time our ancestors evolved the capacity for fifth-order
intentionality their community sizes would have exceeded about 120
individuals. Religion may have evolved to provide the mechanism for bonding
them into a coherent social unit.
First and foremost is the fact that to benefit, you have to know you are
being treated - the placebo effect won't kick in if a sham medication is given
covertly. Similarly, praying for yourself or knowing that family and friends
are praying for you seems to produce some positive results, while being
secretly prayed for does not (The Lancet, vol 366, p 211).
In healthy brains
there is a back and forth between believing the old and accepting the new. The
left hemisphere, he maintains, tries to impose consistency, whereas the right
hemisphere plays devil's advocate, trying to get us to question our beliefs in
the light of new evidence. In people with anosognosia, he suspects that brain
damage caused by the stroke somehow impairs the right hemisphere's natural
scepticism. The left hemisphere is left on its own to uphold the status quo no
matter what - even at the risk of becoming delusional.
Belief - be it in God, medicine or
whatever - slightly alters our emotional state. Just as feeling joy has
chemical consequences in the brain, so, he speculates, does feeling faith.
"Belief," he suggests, "is changing the tenor of the brain." Hamer thinks that
belief is mediated by the same neurotransmitters - for example, dopamine and
serotonin - that mediate other emotions. He has found, for instance, that
there is a variant of a gene called VMAT2 that may be associated with greater
spirituality. The VMAT2 protein seems to control the flow in the brain of
monoamines, a class of neurotransmitters that includes serotonin and dopamine.
Perhaps belief is both a rational process and an emotional one. The picture is
still very hazy but, at the very least, attempts to discover the biological
underpinnings of belief highlight the fact that it is real: it does have
measurable physical effects in our brains. More intriguingly, these effects
have the potential to influence the outcome of events. This may even go some
way towards explaining the role that self-belief has in helping us achieve our
goals in life. If belief in our own abilities can actually bring success, then
belief becomes a virtuous circle, a self-fulfilling prophesy. No wonder people
are often so often so eager to believe in the first place.
==
I happen to think that Christian rhetoric, which has a two thousand year
history, is stronger and more powerful as a tool for influencing than atheism.
Most atheists just aren't persuasive and one reason is that their message is
too negative: it's more about being against than articulating a viable option
to Christianity. Christianiaty can offer forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
Scientists can offer many useful things but not that.
==
Victor J. Stenger _Has Science Found God?
==
Flew wrote
"The original text of _God and Philosophy_ contains at page 28 a
substantial reference to Einstein which I want to quote in concluding,
now. It is that 'Albert Einstein was once asked - ' to settle an
argument' - whether he believed in God. He replied that he believed in
Spinoza's God...No doubt many orthodox Christians and Jewish readers
were reassured to think the great physicist was at one with them on
this most fundamental matter.' But of course, in Spinoza's usage 'God'
and 'Nature' were synonyms. Of course there is for retired
professional philosophers such as me and Bradley a quite fundamental
difference between an Aristotelian God who is the First Cause and
Einstein's Spinozistic 'God or Nature'. But I don't see why anyone
else should be much interested in that question just so long as any
God who is believed to exist is not Himself interested in human behavior."
===
The bible calls for the death penalty for eight out
of the ten (most popular) commandments. Imagine if our government executed
people who worked on Sunday (or Saturday if you are Jewish). Imagine people
being executed for taking the name of an alleged god in vain or not honoring
their parents. This is what religious laws call for. The Bible condones slavery
in one of the so-called commandments (that part is conveniently left out).
==
The Mary mix-up was made official by Pope Gregory the Great in 591: "She whom
Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary [of Bethany], we believe to
be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark," Gregory
declared in a sermon. That position became church teaching, although it was not
adopted by Orthodoxy or Protestantism when each later split from Catholicism.
==
If you are a religious believer, and you wish to kill Indians or oppress women
or keep slaves, all you have to do is persuade yourself that God approves. This
seems not to be hard. After all, God has never popped up to tell any believer
that they were wrong. Sincere believers have been on both sides of every
ethical dispute in history. People show an amazing ability to believe they are
favored by God, and are therefore exempt from ordinary rules. The Golden Rule
is supported worldwide by many religions, but rarely practiced. Believers
always have some rationale for doing what they wish to do.
Religious ethics are inherently subjective and relative, because they
depend crucially on faith. Clerics can declare anything at all to be
mandatory, even the slaughter of children, if it is alleged to be
divinely commanded. Anything at all can be declared to be an
abomination worthy of the death penalty if God is alleged to forbid
it, even gathering wood to cook food on the wrong day. As a basis for
ethics, atheists have only the objective experience of living in this
world that we see in front of us, while religious believers stand on
the solid rock of believing what they are told, about an invisible
world that they never see.
==
"Christianty Through The Ages" (Revised and Evangelical Edition).Cairns author.
==
Bush, a Republican, has openly acknowledged his Christian faith
informs his decisions as president. He says, for example, that he
prayed to God for guidance before invading Iraq.
In her book, "The Mighty and the Almighty," Albright recalls how Bush, while he
was governor of Texas, told Christians he believed God wanted him to be
president.
Earlier this year, for example, a 1946 instruction from Pope
Pius to the French bishops was unearthed that ordered them not to
hand over Jewish children they had been sheltering to Jewish
charities now the conflict was over. According to the outspoken
Harvard historian Professor Daniel Goldhagen, Pius was guilty in this
instance of "having given the order to take [Jewish] children away from their
parents and should be regarded as little better than a war criminal."
in 1933 as Vatican representative in Germany, the future Pius XII had agreed a
treaty with Hitler, whose authoritarian tendencies he admired, to
close down the Catholic -dominated Centre Party, one of National
Socialism's staunchest opponents. This treaty was based on the
Vatican's 1929 agreement with Mussolini, the Italian fascist leader.
On being elected Pope in 1939, Pius's first act was to suppress a
document denouncing Hitler, entitled Mit Brennender Sorge ("With deep
anxiety ...") that his predecessor had been writing on his deathbed.
And throughout the war, Pius XII made no public condemnation of the
Holocaust, save for a single ambiguous sentence in a 26-page
Christmas message of 1942.
==
"*all liars*, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with
fire and brimstone: which is the second death." Rev 21:28
==
Mays, J. L., Harper & Row, P., & Society of Biblical Literature. (1988).
Harper's Bible commentary. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
==
Celibacy as a Christian ideal wouldn't become law until the Council
of Elvira (300-306) decreed (Canon 33): It is decided that marriage be
altogether prohibited to bishops, priests, and deacons, or to all clerics
placed in the ministry, and that they keep away from their wives and not
beget children; whoever does this, shall be deprived of the honor of the
clerical office.
Christian scholars explain the reason: The Church wanted to insure that the
wealth of its leadership would not be dissipated by way of family inheritance.
A non-married clergy would always return their possessions to Rome.
Historians have pointed out the chilling effects of this doctrine. The "best
and the brightest" were invariably encouraged to enter the prestigious life
of the priesthood. That effectively condemned their genes to hereditary
oblivion. Jews, on the other hand, turned those with the greatest
intellectual potential to rabbinic lives of learning and teaching combined
with an emphasis on large families. That, claims Will Durant in his classic
The Lessons of History, is what in all probability accounts for the
statistically unbelievable preponderance of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and
achievements.
More troubling for Christians, a married Jesus is far too much a human
figure instead of a god to be worshipped. Christianity can't conceive of
their object of divine reverance as a sexual being -- or even as one
conceived by the sexual act. It is a troublesome relationship with physical
pleasure that turned Christian teachings away from their Jewish biblical
source. But Jews have no problem with a married Moses. It is the Torah that
Moses brought to us that not only commands marriage but calls it Kiddushin
-- an ideal state of holiness.
Here is the crux of a crucial concept that has separated Judaism from
Christianity throughout the centuries. Jews spared no effort to insure that
their greatest leader never be confused with God; Moses was always to be
viewed as human, mortal, less than divine, even capable of sin for which he
was punished and denied entry into the Promised Land. His very burial site
was to remain hidden so that it not become revered beyond measure. The
greatness of Moses rests precisely on his human qualities. He represents
mankind's potential. In him we see what we fellow human beings are capable
of becoming.
Christians, on the other hand, insisted that Jesus be viewed not as man but
as god; his human form could never be allowed to overshadow his divinity.
Jesus was not elevated man but a god descended to earth. Physical frailties
and human weaknesses couldn't possibly be part of his makeup.
==
One of the things that is overlooked by many Christians is that there is a
wrathful Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus comes out and condemns whole towns
to fates worse than Sodom and Gomorrah for not liking his preaching. You can
find Jesus in some very foul moods.

The sacred texts themselves are very poor guides to morality. The only way you
find goodness in good books is because you recognize it. They're based on your
own ethical intuitions. In the New Testament, Jesus is talking about the Golden
Rule--a great, wise, compassionate distillation of ethics. You're doing that
based on your intuition.

Interpersonally, we don't challenge everyone's crazy beliefs about medical
therapies or alien abduction or astrology or anything else. Yet if the
president of the U.S. started talking about how Saturn was coming into the
wrong quadrant and is therefore not a good time to launch a war, one would hope
that the whole White House press corps would descend on him with a
straitjacket. This would be terrifying--to hear somebody with so much power
basing any part of his decision-making process on something as disreputable as
astrology. Yet we don't have the same response when he's clearly basing some
part of his deliberation on faith.
==
It was announced at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention
that 88 percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at the
age of 18, never to return.
==
In chimp society, everyone does what the dominant male wants them to do, or he
beats them up. In early human society, everyone does what the king wants
him to do, or he beats them up. God is just a super-dominant who supports the
king (or at least that's what the organized priests say), and will beat up
anyone who doesn't do what the king wants them to do.
Coincidentally, one of the things that God wants everyone to do (at least
according to the priests) is work really hard, and give part of what they
produce to the king and the priests. After all, they are too busy communing
with God to actually do any work.
==
Just as with all religions, they are built on myth, fable, and folklore,
Mormonism is no exception. Read WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF MORMON by two
ex-Mormons.The Book of Mormon was copied from an idealistic novel of an
itinerant preacher by the name of Solomon Spaulding. Spaulding wanted his
novel to be believed as true history so he used the language of the bible,
King James Version. It was Spaulding's idea to give the reason for the
American Indians as coming from the Middle East. To give credibility to his
story he often used the phrase "and it came to pass". Many people around him
were in on his secret of wanting his book to pass as the very word of God.
Spaulding sent his manuscript to Cincinnati to be printed and it disappeared
from sight until it surfaced in the hands of Joseph Smith some years latter
as the book of Mormon. Joseph Smith purloined the manuscript and gave the
impression that "his" manuscript was given to him by an angel from magical
golden plates that he found in upstate New York.
There are people who have been so brainwashed as children they
can't see the mythological character of the book of Mormon. Angels indeed.
Angels should be a tip off of myth unless of course you were brainwashed to
believe in angels since childhood. Mormonism like all new religions of at
least the past 10,000 years were built on myth, fable and folklore and
Mormonism is not any different.
==
Hebrew calender 16 Iyar 5766, == Sunday, May 14, 2006
==
1 Samuel 13:1 How old was Saul when he became king, and how long did he reign
over Israel? According to the NIV (New International Version), Saul was thirty
years old when he became king but according to the ASV (American Standard
Version), he was forty years old. The KJV (King James Version) does not mention
his age and the GNB (Good News Bible) has omitted this verse entirely. In fact,
the original Hebrew text states that Saul was one year old when he became king,
which is impossible. It has been suggested that the original numbers in this
verse have been lost in transmission

2 Samuel 15:7 How many years went by before Absalom spoke to King David?
According to KJV and NIV, it was forty years. According to the GNB, it was four
years. In Kiel and Delitzschs Commentary on the Old Testament, four years is
argued for, simply because King David only ruled for just over forty years, and
it is improbable that Absaloms rebellion took place in the final weeks of
Davids rule.
Judges 14:15 When did the Philistines speak to Samsons wife? According to
the KJV and NIV, it was on the seventh day. According to the GNB, it was the
fourth day. The Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge says the following:

The LXX reads on the fourth day; with which the Syriac and Arabic agree. This
. . . is certainly right; for it appears from Jdg 14:17, that she wept the
remainder of the seven days; for which there could have been no time, if they
did not threaten her till the seventh.
==
Matthew 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came
not to send peace, but a sword.

Blessed are the peacemakers.
He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.
==
Secular Web (Internet infidels): www.infidels.org
Atheist Alliance: www.atheistalliance.org
http://www.religioustolerance.org/
http://www.beliefnet.com/
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/191/story_19107_2.html
http://atheism.about.com/
http://www.humanist-society.org/
http://www.americanhumanist.org/
http://humaniststudies.org/
http://www.samharris.org
http://www.atheists.org/
http://www.positiveatheism.org/
http://www.infidels.org/
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/
http://www.americanatheist.org/columns/rm6-01.html
http://www.theatheistmama.com/
http://www.flamewarrior.com/slocum.htm
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/
http://www.alabamaatheist.org/awareness/index.htm
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Debate.html
http://www.ffrf.org/index2.php
http://www.tompaine.com/
http://www.secularceremonies.com/
==
Greek gods prepare for comeback
It has taken almost 2,000 years, but those who worship the 12 gods of ancient
Greece have finally triumphed. An Athens court has ordered that the adulation
of Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Athena and co is to be unbanned, paving the way for a
comeback of pagans on Mount Olympus.
The followers, who say they "defend the genuine traditions, religion and
ethos" of the ancients by adhering to a pre-Christian polytheistic culture, are
poised to take their battle to the temples of Greece.
==
Science keeps hypothesizing and testing results. Its theories succeed or fail
with the discovery of new evidence. Religion emanates from authority and can
thus appear arbitrary and ill-informed in the realm of policy making.
For this reason, religion linked directly with state power tends to be
repressive and exclusionist.
==
The following state constitutions discriminate against
atheists:

http://atheistempire.com/main.html

Arkansas
"No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the
civil departments of this State, nor be competent to
testify as a witness in any court."
Article 19, sect. 1 of the 1874 constitution

Maryland
"That as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as
he thinks most acceptable to Him, all persons are equally
entitled to protection in their religious liberty... nor shall any
person, otherwise competent, be deemed incompetent as a witness,
or juror, on account of his religious belief; provided, he believes in
the existence of God, and that under His dispensation such person will be
held morally accountable for his acts, and be rewarded or punished
therefore either in this world or in the world to come."
Bill of Rights: Article 36

Massachusetts
"As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of
civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and
morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a
community, but by the institution of the public worship of God, and
of public instructions in piety, religion and morality: herefore, to
promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation
of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to
invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the
legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the
several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious
societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the
institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance
of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, in all cases
where such provision shall not be made voluntarily." Declaration of Rights:
Article III

North Carolina
"The following persons shall be disqualified for office:
First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God...."
Constitution
Article 6 Section 8

Pennsylvania
"No person who acknowledges the being of God and a future state of rewards and
punishments shall, on account of his relifious sentiments, be disqualified to
hold any office or place
of trust or profit under this Commonwealth".
Declaration of Rights Article 1 Section 4

South Carolina
"No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor who denies the
existence of the Supreme Being..."
Article 4 Section 2

Tennessee
"No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards
and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of
this state." Bill of Rights: Article 9 Section 4

Texas
"No religious test shall ever be required as a ualification to any
office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded
from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided
he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being." Article 1 - Bill of
Rights: Section 4
====
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/history/forgery
Forgeries of the Medieval Church
Taken as a whole, *medieval monks and clerics were probably the most
prolific forgers of all time*. For centuries they controlled access to
official documents, placing them in a perfect position to alter or forge
those documents, should they so desire. And judging by the volume of
their output, they evidently did so desire. What's more, their superiors
could be counted on to overlook, or even approve, any textual inventions
that benefitted the Church.
Papal bulls were a frequent object of forgery. In one notorious case, a
count of Armagnac bribed a papal official to produce a fake papal bull
allowing him to marry his sister. Letters, church histories, lives of
saints, and deeds to land were other common creations of clerical forgers.
Almost all of these forgeries went undetected for centuries until the
revival of historical scholarship that began during the Renaissance. As
the vast scope of the deception gradually became evident, some scholars
began to wonder whether there were any medieval church documents whose
authenticity could be trusted. In 1675 the Jesuit scholar Daniel van
Papenbroeck published his conclusion that all ancient deeds were
falsifications created by eleventh-century monks. His announcement
brought the wrath of the Church down upon him, and a few years later he
humbly begged forgiveness for his doubt. Another seventeenth-century
scholar, Jean Hardouin, became convinced that the majority of classical
Greek and Roman literature, as well as all extant Greek and Roman coins,
had actually been forged by medieval Benedictine monks. Hardouin
declared that when he died he would he would leave behind a scrap of
paper on which was written the reason why the monks had committed this
forgery. Unfortunately, Hardouin's mysterious scrap of paper was never found.
The Donation of Constantine
A forged document that became the legal basis for 1200 years of Papal rule.
==
St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Miami began three days of
solemn prayer to keep hurricanes away.
==
Tennessee Code Annotated,
Article 9, Section 2:
Sec. 2. No atheist shall hold a civil office.
No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards
and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State.
==
What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use
to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably
true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them,
debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything
of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously
obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists
were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors,
no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no
agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the
achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone
notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of
scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The
achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't affect anything,
don't mean anything. What makes anyone think that "theology" is a
subject at all?" --Richard Dawkins, Spring 1998 issue of "Free Inquiry"
==
In the Germanic languages, the word "God" is derived from the Indo-European
verb "ghew" which means "call upon" or "to invoke". "God" means something like
"that which has been prayed to". The Romance languages use a different word,
derived from the Latin "Deus". The Germanic cognate of this, "Tiu" or "Tyr,"
can still be found in the English "Tuesday."
==
Josh11:12 Joshua took all these royal cities and their kings and put them to
the sword. He totally destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the LORD had
commanded. (NIV)

Josh6:21 They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every
living thing in it--men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
(NIV)

Josh6:21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and
woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
(KJV)

Josh11:12 And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did
Joshua take, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and he utterly
destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. (KJV)
==
The Church of England officially abolished Hell by an Act of Synod in the
1920s and St Paul's strictures on the place of women in church (which was
that they are to sit at the back in silence, with heads covered) are now
so far ignored that there are now women vicars.
==
Psa 18:13 The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his
voice; hail [stones] and coals of fire.
Thunder is the voice of God?

Psa 18:7 Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills
moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.
God gets mad and makes earthquakes?

God_comple: Psa 18:10 And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly
upon the wings of the wind.
God rides around on a cherub.???
==
Can a Smart Person Believe in God? by Michael Guillen Poor book

Barr's "Modern Physics and Ancient Faith."

Christianity & Science: A list by David B. Swanson
==
On March 23rd, 2006, is the day the Georgia State
Legislature, by a resounding vote of 151 to 7, approved a bill to allow the
teaching of the Bible in the schools. Not only did the bill pass without
debate, but Republican and Democratic lawmakers practically leapt over each
other to get it approved. The Georgia State Department of Education is now
mandated to establish electives in both the New and Old Testaments, with
options for students to use the prescribed text or the text approved by their
religious tradition. Presumably, this is code for "Catholic" vs. "Protestant"
Bibles.
==
Charlemagne's conquest of the Saxons in Germany is sometimes called
the 1st religious war of European history. He very much used the sword on
them to force conversion to Christianity.
==
"One Nation Under God" by Vince Wales. A novel which seems too close to
reality for comfort about a future theocracy.

"Landmines Of The Mind: One Thousand Asseverations, Surmises, And
Questions About The Design Of The Universe And The Meaning Of Life" by
Manfred Weidhorn.

"Our Almost Impossible Universe - Why the Laws of Nature Make the
Existence of Humans Extraordinarily Unlikely" by R. Mirman. (It's not a
creationist book)

"The Person Of The Millennium: The Unique Impact Of Galileo On World
History" by Manfred Weidhorn.
==
http://www.voiceoffreedom.com/patrickhenrycollege/whatphpbeleives.html
creed of Patric Henry College
==
"Scientists Who Believe" by Eric C. Barrett & David Fisher-
ISBN 0802476341
==
IS TESTIMONY (part 1) - John 5:31
"If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid."

JESUS ON TRUTH OF HIS TESTIMONY (part 2) - John 8:14
"Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid."

JESUS ON TRUTH OF HIS TESTIMONY (part 3) - John 8:18 [So, which is it?]
"I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent
me."
==
Lightning kills 5 Mexican children in prayer
Youths between 9 and 16 die praying at metal cross in central Mexico.
Maybe they were praying to go to heaven.
==
Atheists have observed that the deeper the religious belief the more there
is a lack of intellectual integrity.
Whereas atheists would change their position the minute there was evidence
for a god or for the supernatural, religionists are so hard-wired and
vacuum-sealed in their beliefs that they freely admit that their position is
not even open for discussion.
Morality has been shown to be a product of human development over thousands of
years; no deity is necessary to counsel us about right and wrong.
Atheists are continually amazed that Americans can reason with such clarity
and critical thinking on most aspects of life except when it comes to God
and religion.
God, faith, religion, and the supernatural are, in the atheist's world view,
the causes of the delusional wishful thinking that has at best, wasted man's
time and at worst, been responsible for his most awful behaviors.
==
Although Ussher produced a considerable number of religious works, his
most famous was the Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine
deducti (Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins
of the world), published in 1650. In this work, he claimed,
infamously, that the earth was created on the evening preceding October
23, 4004 BC. This work established what has become known as the
Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar. It is a work that is still referenced by
Young Earth Creationists (who believe that the Earth is approximately
6,000 years old).
==
The Jesus who was called Christos,"Anointed," took his title from
Middle-Eastern savior-gods like Adonis and Tammuz, born of the Virgin
Sea-goddess Aphrodite-Maria (Myrrha), or Ishhtar-Mari (Hebrew Mariamne.
Earlier biblical versions of the same hero were Joshua son of Nun (Exodus
33:11), Jehu son of Nimshi, who Elijah anointed as a sacred king (1 Kings 19:16
and Yeshua son of Marah. The book of Enoch said in the 2nd century B.C. that
Yeshua or Jesus was the secret name given by God to the Son of Man (a Persian
title). And that it meant "Yahweh saves."1
In northern Israel the name was written Ieu.2 It was the same as Leud or Jeud,
the "only-begotten son" dressed in royal robes and sacrificed by the god-king
Isra-El.3 Greek versions of the name were Iasion, Jason, or Iasus-the name of
one of Demeter's sacrificed consorts, killed by father Zeus after the
fertility rite that coupled him with his Mother.4 Iasus signified a healer or
Therapeuta, as the Greeks called the Essenes, whose cult groups always
included a man with the title of Christos.5 The literal meaning of the name
was "healing moon-man," fitting the Hebrew version of Jesus as the son of
Mary, the almah or moon-maiden.(see Virgin Birth)
It seems Jesus was not one person but a composite of many. He played the role
of the sacred king of the Jews who periodically died in an atonement ceremony
as a surrogate for the real king. "The Semitic religions practiced human
immolations longer than any other religion, sacrificing children and grown men
in order to please sanguinary gods. In spite of Hadrian's prohibition of those
murderous offerings, they were maintained in certain clandestine rites."9 The
priesthood of the Jewish God insisted that "one man should die for the
people.that the whole nation perish not" (John 11:22)
Middle-Eastern traditions presented a long line of slain and cannibalized
Saviors extending back to prehistory. At first kings, they became
king-surrogates or "sacred" kings as the power of the real monarchies
developed. The Gospels' Jesus was certainly not the first of them, though he
may have been one of the last. One passage hints at a holy man's
understandable fear of such brief, doomed eminence:" When Jesus therefore
perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him king, he
departed again into the mountain himself alone") John 6:15)
This Jesus seems to have made little or no impression on his contemporaries.
No literate person of his own time mentioned him in any known writing. The
Gospels were not were not written in his own time, nor were they written by
anyone who ever saw him in the flesh. The names of the apostles attached to
these books were fraudulent. The books were composed after the establishment
of the church, some as late as the 2nd century A.D. or later, according to the
church's requirements for the manufactured tradition.10 Most scholars believe
the earliest book of the new Testament was 1 Thessalonians, written perhaps 51
A.D. by Paul, who never saw Jesus and knew no details of his life story.11
The details were accumulated through the later adoption of the myths attached
to every savior-god throughout the Roman Empire. Like Adonis, Jesus was born
of a consecrated temple maiden in the sacred cave of Bethlehem. " The House of
Bread."12 He was eaten in the form of bread, as were Adonis, Osiris, Dionysus,
and others: he called himself the bread of the God (John 6:330). Like
worshipers of Osiris, those of Jesus made him part of themselves by eating
him, so as to participate in his resurrection: "he that eateth my flesh, and
drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him' (John 6;56).
Like Attis, Jesus was sacrificed at the spring equinox and rose again from the
dead on the third day, when he became God and ascended to heaven. Like Orpheus
and Heracles, he Harrowed hell" and brought a secret of eternal life,
promising to draw all men with him up to glory (John12:32). Like Mithra and
all the other gods, he celebrated a birthday nine months later at the winter
solstice, because the day of his death was also the day of his cyclic
re-conception.
==
The thing about Moses commandments from god that amaze me the most is the worst
thing one man can do to another [slavery] is not addressed once in the 10
commandments. Tends to make me think god is more interested in me ogleing my
neighbors wife more than if I owned her. Humans are as a rule very
superstisious and ignorent race.
==
The doctrine of Purgatory established by Pope Gregory the Great in 593 CE.
==
In the 1902 book "The Varieties of Religious Experience," William James gave
what he considered the broadest and most general definition of religion:
"The belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies
in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto."
==
If a person really believes that calling a god by the right name can spell the
difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes
quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly.
==
Bible passages as proof texts only demonstrate the creativity of the
one using the text, not the truth of the text itself.
==
The US schools are generally Christian controlled and thus do not dare
teach students to detect and reject religious fantasy. glk
==
American Humanist Association
Atheist Alliance International
Freedom From Religion Foundation
Institute for Humanist Studies
Secular Student Alliance
Secular Web / Internet Infidels
Society for Humanistic Judaism
==
"While the Israelites were camped at Acacia, some of the men defiled
themselves by sleeping with the local Moabite women. These women
invited them to attend sacrifices to their gods, and soon the
Israelites were feasting with them and worshiping the gods of Moab.
Before long Israel was joining in the worship of Baal of Peor,
causing the LORD's anger to blaze against his people. The LORD
issued the following command to Moses: "Seize all the ringleaders and
execute them before the LORD in broad daylight, so his fierce anger
will turn away from the people of Israel." So Moses ordered Israel's
judges to execute everyone who had joined in worshiping Baal of
Peor. Just then one of the Israelite men brought a Midianite woman
into the camp, right before the eyes of Moses and all the people, as
they were weeping at the entrance of the Tabernacle. When Phinehas
son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest saw this, he jumped
up and left the assembly. Then he took a spear and rushed after the
man into his tent. Phinehas thrust the spear all the way through the
man's body and into the woman's stomach. So the plague against the
Israelites was stopped, but not before 24,000 people had died."

"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."
==
Intellectual superiority comes naturally with atheism it is in the
same class as being literate. Religion restrains freedom of thought
and imagination because it is limited by writings of people with
limited or no education living during an era of ignorance.
==
Christian books

A Shattered Visage:The Real Face of Atheism R.
Zacharias
Can Man Live Without God R. Zacharias
God, Are You There? W. Craig
Why Isn't God More Obvious P. Moser
The Case For Faith Lee Strobel
Faith of the Fatherless Vitz
Warranted Christian Belief Alvin Plantinga
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics Norman
Geisler
Is the Bible True? Jeffery Sheler
That's Just Your Interpretation Paul Copan
When Skeptics Ask Geisler/Brooks
Christian Apologetics N. Geisler
Reason for the Hope Within Michael Murray
Handbook of Christian Apologetics Kreeft/Tacelli
Know Why You Believe P. Little
Classical Apologetics Sproul/Lindsley/Gerstner
Scaling the Secular City J.P. Moreland
Five Views on Apologetics S. Cowan
God in the Dock C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis
Reasonable Faith W. Craig
ed. Five Views on Apologetics Steven B. Cowan
Searching for Truth Joe Boot
I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be an Atheist Norman
Geisler and Frank Turek
The Twilight of Atheism Alister McGrath
Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today John G.
Stackhouse, Jr.
The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer Francis A.
Schaeffer
==
Dawkins book on religion, The God Delusion, is to be published autumn 2006.
==
Let's look at the religious mindset.
People want to gain points with their god so they get rewards and hope
they won't be punished when they die.
This is not an altruistic mindset but a fear of retribution. The
mindset also requires you to evangelize and getting converts to gain
more heaven reward points (I think it's triple points for a conversion.)
==
NEW YORK (AP) -- In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that
having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their
recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly
higher rate of complications.
==
Let me put something out there to ponder regarding Jesus Christ -
--
WHO WAS HE?
Born of a Virgin
His father was a carpenter.
His birth was attended by angels, wise men and shepherds, and he was
presented with gold, frankincense and myrrh.
- He was persecuted by a tyrant who ordered the slaughter of thousands of
infants. He was of royal descent.
- He was baptized in a river.
- He worked miracles and wonders.
- He raised the dead and healed lepers, the deaf and the blind.
- He used parables to teach the people about charity and love.
- "He lived poor and he loved the poor."
- He was transfigured in front of his disciples.
- In some traditions he died on a tree or was crucified between two thieves.
- He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.
- He is called the "Shepherd God" and "Lord of lords," and was considered
"the Redeemer, Firstborn, Sin Bearer, Liberator, Universal Word."
- He is the second person of the Trinity, and proclaimed himself the
"Resurrection" and the "way to the Father."
- He was considered the "Beginning, the Middle and the End," ("Alpha and
Omega"), as well as being omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. - His
disciples bestowed upon him the title "Jezeus," meaning "pure essence."
- He is to return to do battle with the "Prince of Evil," who will desolate
the earth

HE WAS... KRISHNA
====
WHO WAS HE?
He contributed the name of Jesus Christ. He and his once-and-future
Father, are frequently interchangeable in the mythos ("I and my Father are
one").
- He was born of the virgin Meri on December 25th in a cave/manger, with his
birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise men.
- He was a child teacher in the Temple and was baptized when he was 30 years
old. He was also baptized by "Anup the Baptizer," who becomes "John the
Baptist."
- He had 12 disciples.
- He performed miracles and raised one man, el-Azar-us, from the dead.
- He walked on water.
- He was transfigured on the Mount.
- He was crucified, buried in a tomb and resurrected.
- He was also the "Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God's Anointed
Son, the Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Word" etc.
- He was "the Fisher," and was associated with the Lamb, Lion and Fish.
- His personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever-becoming son" of "Ptah," the
"Father."
- HE was called "the KRST," or "Anointed One," long before the Christians
duplicated the story.
- In the catacombs at Rome are pictures of Him as a baby being held by his
virgin mother.
HE WAS... the Egyptian God HORUS
==
WHO WAS HE?

- God was his father
- He was born in a cave or cowshed.
- A human woman, a virgin, was his mother.
- His birth was prophesized by a star in the heavens.
- At a marriage ceremony, he performed the miracle of converting water into
wine.
- He was powerless to perform miracles in his hometown.
- His followers were born-again through baptism in water.
- He rode triumphantly into a city on a donkey. Tradition records that the
inhabitants waved palm leaves.
- He had 12 disciples.
- He was accused of licentious behavior.
- He was killed near the time of the Vernal Equinox, about MAR-21.
- He died "as a sacrifice for the sins of the world."
- He was hung on a tree, stake, or cross.
- After death, he descended into hell.
- On the third day after his death, he returned to life.
- The cave where he was laid was visited by three of his female followers.
- He later ascended to heaven.
- His titles: God made flesh. Savior of the world Son of God.
- He is "God made man," and equal to the Father.
- He will return in the last days.
- He will judge the human race at that time.
- Humans are separated from God by original sin. The god man's sacrificial
death reunites the believer with God and atones for the original sin.

HE WAS... OSIRIS-DIONYSUS
==
WHO WAS HE?
- He was born on December 25th
- He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.
- He had 12 companions or disciples.
- He performed miracles.
- He was buried in a tomb.
- After three days he rose again.
- His resurrection was celebrated every year.
- He was called "the Good Shepherd."
- He was considered "the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the
Savior, the Messiah."
- He was identified with both the Lion and the Lamb.
- His sacred day was Sunday, "the Lord's Day," hundreds of years before the
appearance of Christ.
- He had his principal festival on what was later to become Easter, at which
time he was resurrected.
- His religion had a Eucharist or "Lord's Supper."

HE WAS... MITHRA
====
WHO WAS HE?
- He was born of the virgin Maya, who was considered the "Queen of Heaven.
He was of royal descent.
He crushed a serpent's head.
- He performed miracles and wonders, healed the sick, fed 500 men from a
"small basket of cakes," and walked on water.
- He abolished idolatry, was a "sower of the word," and preached "the
establishment of a kingdom of righteousness."
- He taught chastity, temperance, tolerance, compassion, love, and the
equality of all.
- He was transfigured on a mount.
- He was crucified in a sin-atonement, suffered for three days in hell, and
was resurrected.
- He ascended to "heaven."
HE WAS...BUDDHA
==
Ancient gods who died and were resurrected include:
Mithras (Roman)
Dionysius/Bacchus (Greco-Roman)
Osiris (Egyptian)
Inanna (Sumerian goddess)
Lugh, Cernunnos, Arawn (Celtic)
==
"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them
is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and
hallowed it."
(Exodus 20:11 KJV)

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it
divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the
waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the
firmament: and it was so."
(Gen 1:6-7 KJV)

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the
day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days,
and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give
light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the
greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made
the stars also.
(Genesis 1:14-16 KJV)

This verse says that the Sun, Moon, and Stars are IN the firmament. Therefore,
applying the rules of grammar and logic, those waters that are above the
firmament must be above the Sun, Moon and Stars. That means, these waters are
above the visible cosmos. Now, for some, this is a hard pill to swallow, but
that is exactly what the Bible is saying.

"Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that [be] above the heavens."
(Psalms 148:4 KJV)
==
Everything was created in six days (Exodus 20:11).
==
'Do you think I have to come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you,
but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five
divided, three against two and two against three; they will be
divided, father against son and son against father, mother against
daughter and daughter against her mother, mother- in-law against her
daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in- law.'
..........Luke 12:51

'And that servant who knew his master's will, but did not make ready
or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating.'
..........Luke 12:47

'But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over
them, bring them here and slay them before me.'
..........Luke 19:27
==
Gods and religions
--
Baha'i Faith
Buddhism
Adventist
Jehovah's Witnesses
British Israelism
Southern Baptists
American Baptists
Christian Science
Amish
Brethren
Mennonites
Quakers
Shakers
Plymouth Brethren
Fundamentalists
Twin Oaks
Confucianism
Hinduism
Islam
Jainism
Judaism
Shinto
Sikhism
Taoism
Vodun (Voodoo)
Neopagan Religious Faiths
Asatru (Norse Paganism)
Druidism
Goddess Worship
Wicca
Witchcraft
Caodaism
Damanhur Community
Druse
Eckankar
Elian Gonzalez religious movement
Gnosticism
Gypsies
Hare Krishna - ISKCON
Lukumi
Macumba
Mowahhidoon
Native American Spirituality
Rom, Roma, Romani, Rroma, (a.k.a. Gypsies)
Santeria Elian Gonzalez religious movement
Satanism; The Church of Satan
Scientology
Unitarian-Universalism
The Creativity Movement
Zoroastrianism

Gods:

Ahura Mazda, Allah, Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, 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, XodA.

African gods:

Abassi [Sky]
Abonsam [Evil]
Abora [Supreme]
Abzu [Water]
Acoran [Supreme]
Adaheli [Sun]
Adro [Sky]
Adroa [Sky]
Agassou [Panther]
Agbe-Naete [Water]
Age [Animals]
Aigamuxa [Monster]
Ajalamo[Unborn Children]
Aje [Wealth]
Ajok [Supreme]
Akonadi [Oracle]
Akongo [Supreme]
Akuj [Supreme]
Ala [Earth/Fertility]
Alatangana [Creator]
Amma [Creator]
Anansi [Trickster]
Anyiewo [Snake]
Aondo [Creator]
Apa [Creator]
Apedemak [War]
Arawa [Moon]
Arebati [Sky]
Arom [Contracts]
Arsan Duolai [Underworld]
Asase Ya [Earth]
Ashiakle [Wealth]
Asis [Sun]
Astar [Sky]
Ataa Naa
Nyongmo
[Creator]
Ataokoloinona [Supreme]
Atete [Fertility]
Avrikiti [Fishermen]
Ayabba
[Ayaba] [Hearth]

Bacax [Cave]
Bagba [Wind]
Balubaal [Earth+]
Bandara [Superior Gods]
Banga [Clear water]
Behanzin [Fish]
Beher [Sea]
Bera Pennu [Vegetation]
Bo [Warriors]
Bomazi[Ancestors]
Buadza [WInd]
Buck[River]
Buku [Sky]
Bumba [Creator]

Cagn [Creator]
(!Kaggen)
Cghene [Creator]
Chiuke
(Chuku) [Creator]
Chiata [Supreme]
Chwezi [Hero]
Col [Rain]
Chikara [Sky]

Danh
(Dan Ayido Hwedo) [Snake]
Deng [Sky]
Deohako [Beans+]
Dii Mauri [Moorish Gods]
Dongo [Outer Space]
Dugbo [Earth]
Dxui [Creator]

Emeli-hi [Supreme]
Eranoranhan [Protector]
Eshu (Elegba) [Trickster]

Fa [Destiny]
Famien [Fertility]
Faro [Sky/Water]
Fidi Mukullu [Creator]

Garang and Abuk [First Humans]
Gbeni [Chief]
Gei (Gou) [Moon]
Gu [War/Smiths]
Gua [Sky]
Gulu [Supreme]
Gunab [Evil]
Guruhi [Evil]
Gurzil [Bull]
Gwalu [Rain]
Hammon [Setting Sun]
Harun and Haruna [Water Spirits]
Heitsi-Eibib [Sorcerer]
Hevioss [Thunder]
Huntin [Tree]
Huvean [Creator]

Ifa [Oracul]
Ikenga [Supreme]
Imana [Creator]
Iruwa [Sun]
Juok [Creator]
Kalumba [Creator]
Kalunga Supreme]
Katavi [Demonic]
Ka Tyeleo [Supreme]
Khebieso [Lightening]
Kho-dumo-dumo [Demon]
Kholomodumo [Monster]
Khuzwane [Creator]
Kibuka [War]
Kokola [Guardian]
Kwammang-a [Supreme]
Kwoth [Spirit]
Kyala [Creator]

Legba [Trickster]
Leza [Chief]
Libanza [Supreme]
Lisa [Chameleon]
Lyangombe[Chief]
Macardit [Demon]
Mantis [Creator]
Massim-Biambe [Creator]
Mawu [Sky]
Mawu-Lisa [Supreme Couple]
Mbotumbo [Supreme]
Medr [Earth]
Moomb [Creator]
Mon [?]
Mugasa
Mugu [Sky]
Mujaji [Rain]
Mukasa [Supreme]
Mula Djadi [Creator]
Muluku [Supreme]
Mulungu
Mungu [Creator]
Mungo (Mungu) [?]
Musa (Teaching]
Musisi [Supreme]
Mwari [Supreme]

Nampa [Personal]
Nana-Bouclou [First Gods]
Nana Buluk [Creator]
Ndjambi [Sky]
Ndriananahary [Supreme]
Nduru [Jungle]
Nenaunir [Storm]
Nesshoue [River]
Ngai ('Ngai) [Creator]
Ngewo-wa [Creator]
Ngworekara [Demon]
Niamye [Supreme]
Nkosi Yama'kosi [Supreme]
Nommo [Elemental]
Nommo [Spirit]
Nyama [Animal]
Nyambe [Supreme]
Nyambi (Nyambe) [Supreme]
Nyame
Nyami-Nyami [Guardian]
Nyankopon (Ashanti:Nyame) [Supreme]
Nyamia Ama [Supreme]
Nyasaye [Supeme]
Nzambi (Nzambi)
Mpunguo) [Supreme]
Nzame [Supreme]

Obassi Osaw [Supreme]
Obatala [Sky]
Oduduwa (Odudua) [Earth]
Ogun (Ogoun) War]
Olokula [Sea]
Olorun [Supreme]
Omumbo-Rombonga [Tree of Life]
Orahan [Supreme]
Orisa Nla [Creator]
Orishako [Agriculture]
Orunjan [Midday Sun]
Orunmila [Compassion]
Oshalla [?]
Osun [Beauty and Love]
Oya [Passion and Power]

Pemba (Bemba) Mother]
Qandisa [Demon]
Qamata[Quamta] Supreme]

Rock-Sene [Supreme]
Ruwa [Supreme]
Sagbata [Smallpox]
Sakarabru [Medicine]
Sakpata [Smallpox]
Sango [Thunder]
Shango [Thunder]
So [Lightening]

Tano [River]
Tore [Forest]
Trowu[Spirits]
Tsui'goab [Rain]
Twe [Lake]

Umvelinqangi [Creator]
Unkulunkulu [Supreme]
Unumbotte [Creator]

Waka [Rain]
Wele [Supreme]
Wulbari [Supreme]
Wuni [Supreme]

Xewioso [Thunder]
Yemaja [Creation]
Yo [Impersonal]

Zin [Water]

Table of Asian Gods:

BUDDHIST

Abhijnaraja [Physician]
Abhimukhi [One of the Bhumis]
Acala [?]
Adhimukticarya [One of the Bhumis]
Adhimuktivasita [One of the Bhumis]
Adibuddha [First]
Adidharma [Primeval]
Aizen Myo-o [Protective]
Ajaya [?]
Akasagarbha(Tibetan Nam-mkhai
Aksayajnana-Karmanda [Literature]
Aksobhya (Japanese Ashuku, Chinese A-Chu'u) [One of the Dhyani]
Amida [Savior]
Amitabha [A Dhyani]
Amitayus [Longevity]
Amoghapasa [see Avalokitesvara]
Amoghasiddhi [A Dhyani]
Anantamukhi [Literature]
Arapacana [Book and Sword]
Arcismati [Bhumis]
Arhat [A Saint]
Arthapratisamvit [Logical Analysis]
Arya-Tara [Sakti]
Asokakanta [avatar Marici]
Asokottamasri [Physician]
Astabhuja-Kurukulla [avatar Kurukulla]
Asura [Group of Demons]
Avalokitesvara(Avalokita, Lokesvara) [Dhyani Present Age]
Ayurvasita[One vasitas]

Balaparamita [Philosophy]
Bhaisajyaguru(Sman-bla, Otaci,Yao-shih-fo, Yakushi)[Physician]
Bhima[Attendant]
Bhrkuti[Female]
Bhrkuti-Tara [Mother]
Bhumi [Spiritual Spheres]
Bhutadarma [Demon Controller]
Bi-har [Protector]
Bodhidharma [Monk]
Bodhisattva (Chinese Pu-sa) [Born to be Englightened]
Buddhabodhiprabhavasita [Vasitas]
Buddhalocana [Female Buddha]
Budha [Mercury]
Butcho [?]

Chandarosana [Mahayana]
Charcika (Carcika) [Mahayana]
Chakravartin [World Ruler]
Chattrosnisa [An Usnisa]
Chaturmaharajas (Caturmaharajas) [Four Great Kings]
Chittavista [Vashitas]
Citipati [Graveyard Demons]
Cunda [Literature]
Da-shi-zhi [Bodhisattva]
Dadimunda [Temples]
Dainichi' [Purity/Wisdom]
Dakini [Demons]
Dala Kadavara [Demon]
Devaputra [Gods of Lower Rank]
Dhanada [avatar Amoghasiddhi]
Dharani [Mystical Texts]
Dharmadhatuvagisvara [Dharma]
Dharmakirtisagaraghosa [Physician]
Dharmamegha [Bhumis]
Dharmapala ,Chinese Fu Ha [Protective Dieties]
Dharmapratisamvit [Nature Analysis]
Dharmavasita [Vasitas]
Dhritarashtra (Pali Dhatarattha) [One of the 4 World Guardians]
Dhupa [Mother]
Dhupatara [Mahayana]
Dhvajagrakeyura [avatar Aksobhya]
Dhyanaparamita [Philosophy]
Dhyani-Bodhisattvas [Five Bodhisattvas]
Dhyani-Buddhas [Five Meditators]
Di-zang [Bodhisattvas of Hell]
Dvarapala [?]

Ekajata [Terrible]
Emma-o [Judges the Dead]

Fudo [WIsdom]

Guan Yin [bodhisattva]

Hariti [Ate Children]
Hayagriva [Protection]
Heruka [Protection]
Hevajra [Protection]

Ida-Ten [Law/Monestaries]

Jambhala [avatar Vausravana]
Janguli [Snakebite cure]
Jian Lao [Earth/Permanence]
Jizo [Compassion]
Juichimen [Mercy]

Kali devia [avatar Lha-mo]

Kannon [Japanese bodhisattva]
Khasarpana(Khasarpana-Lokesvara) [Indian bodhisattva]
Ki Fudo [avatar Fudo-Myo-o]
Krodhadevatas [Inspire Terror]
Ksitigarbha [One of 8 bodhisattva]
Kuan-yin (Kwannon) [Mercy]
Kujaku Myoo [Esoteric]
Kurukulla [?]

Locana [?]

Mahasthamaprata [Chinese bodhisattva]
Maitreya [Future]
Manjughosa [Nepalese bodhisattva]
Manjusri [bodhisattva]
Mara [Evil]
Marici [Sun]
Mi-lo Fo (Pu-Sa) [Chinese bodhisattva
Miroku [Japanese bodhisattva
Mo-Li [Protects Temples]

Padmanartesvara [avatar Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara]
Pancaraksa[5 Goddesses]
Pandara [?]
Paramasva [?]
Parnasavari [?]
Prajna [Femaleness]
Prajnaparamita [Buddhist Text]
Ran-deng [Beggar and Future Buddha]
Ratnapani [Dhyani-Bodhisattva]
Ratnasambhava [Dhyani-Buddha]
Remanta [King of the Horse gods]

Sakyamuni [Japanese]
Samantabhadra [Bodhisattvas]
Saptaksara [avatar Heruka]
Shakra [King of the Gods]
Ssu Ta T'ien Wang [Kings of Heaven]
Sumbharaja [Buddhist Krodhadevata]

Tennin (Tennyo) [angels]

Usnisavijaya [?]

Vairocana [Dhyani-Buddhas]
Vaisravana (Pali Vessavana, Chinese Do Wen) [Guards World]
Vajrabhairava [?]
Vajrapani [Bodhisattvas]
Vajrasattva [Nepal Dhyani-Buddha]
Vajravarahi [?]
Vajrayogini [Initiation]
Vajrayogini [Riches]
Vidyadharas [?]
Vidyujjvalakarali [?]
Vighnantaka [?]
Virudhaka (Pali Virulha, Chinese Zheng Zhang) [Guards World]
Virupaksa (Pali Virupakkha, Chinese Guand Mu) [Guards Western Heaven]
Visvapani [Dhyani-Bodhisattva]

We-to [Divine General]

Yakushi Nyorai [Healing]
Yama [?]
Yamantaka [Krodhadevatas]

Zhu Dian (Zhu Tian) [Chinese Buddhist gods]

CHINESE GODS

Ao [Sea]
Awun [Destruction]

Ba [Drought]
Ba Gua [Basis of Divination]
Bo Hsian [Taoist]

Cai-Shen [Riches]
Can Cong [Silkworms]
Cao Guo-jiu [Actors]
Chang Fei [War]
Chang Hs'ien [Children]
Chang Kuo-lao [?]
Ch'ang E (Ch'ang-o Huang E) [Moon]
Chang Tao Ling [Afterlife]
Cheng-huang (Ch'eng Huang) [Guardians]
Chen Jen [Spiritual Beings]
Cheng San-Kung [Fishermen]
Cheng Yuan Ho (Ch'ang-o Huang E) [Buskers]
Chih Nu [Weavers]
Chih Sung-Tzu (Chi Sung Tzu) [Rain]
Chih-Yu [Inventor]
Ch'in-Shu-Pao [Guardian]
Chou Wang [Sodomy]
Chu-Chuan Shen [Pigsties]
Chu Jung [Fire]
Chu Lung [Day/Night]
Chung K'uei [Afterlife]
Chung-li Ch'uan [Immortal]
Confucius [Philosopher]

Di Zhang Xia [?]
Dong-yo Da-di [Helps Sky God]

Erh-Lang [Guardian]

Fan-K'uei [Butchers]
Fei Lien (Fei Lian) [Wind]
Feng-Huang (Hoang-female Phuong-male) [Many Meanings]
Feng Po (Feng-Po) [Human form of the wind]
Feng P'o-p'o (Feng-Po-Po) [Female wind]
Fo [Buddha]
Fu His [Taught Humanity]
Fu Hsing [Happiness]
Fu Shen [Happiness]
Fu-Shou-Lu [Collection of Gods]
Fu-xi [Hero]

Gao Yao (Ting-jian) [Judgement]
Gong Gong [Common Workers]
Gou Mang and Ru Shou [Messengers]
Guan Di (Kuan Ti) [War/Fortune Telling]
Gui Xian [Demon]

Han Hsiang [Immortal]
Han Xiang-zi [Immortal]
He Bo (Bing-yi) [Rivers]
Heng E (Change-e) [Moon]
He Xian-gu [Immortal]
Heng-Ha-Erh-Chiang [Temples]
Heng-o [Moon]
Ho Hsien-ku [Immortal]
Ho Po [River]
Hou Chi [Harvest]
Hou I [Archer]
Hou T'u [Earth]
Hsien [Taoists]
Hsi Ho [Sun's Creator]
Hsi Wang Mu [Guardian]
Hsuan-T'ien-Shang-Ti [Dark Heaven]
Hua Hsien [Flower]
Huang-di (Huang Ti) (Shun) [Hero]
Huang Fei-hu (Fei) [Mountain]
Hu-Shen [Hail]

I [Bowmen]
Infoniwoo [Generation]
I-Ti [Wine]

K'ai Lu Shen [Purges Evil]
Kuan Yu [War]
K'uei Hsing [Examinations]

Lan Cai-he [Immortal]
Lao T'ien Yeh [Supreme]
Lao-Tzu (Lao-zi) [Philosopher]
Lei Kung [Storm]
Lei-zi [Thunder]
Li [Fire]
Li Tie-guai [Immortal]
Liu [Crops]
Lu Dong-bin (Lu Yan) [Immortal]
Lu-Hsing [Salaries/Employees]
Lung Wang [Dragon King]
Lupan [Carpenters]

Ma-Mien [Bureaucrat]
Meng (Meng P'o) [Underworld]
Meng-T'ien [Writing Brush]
Men Shen [Doors, includes sometimes Wei Cheng]
Mu Gong [Immortals]

Niu-Y'oun [Police]
Nu Gua (Nu Kua, Nu Wa) [Creator and Marriage]

O-Mi-T'o Fo [Amitabha]

Pa [Drought]
Pa-Cha [Anti-locusts]
Pa-Hsien [Eight Immortals]
P'an-Chin-Lien [Prostitues]
'P'an Ku (Panku, Pangu) [Cosmos]
Pi-Hsia-Yuan-Chun [Childbirth]
Puhsien [Sun]

Ran-deng [Future Buddha]

San Ch'inga [Three Taos]
Shang Di (Shang Ti) [Supreme]
She Chi (Thu) [Earth]
Shen [Spirit]
Sheng Jen [Holy]
Shen-nong(Shen Nung) [Hero]
Shen-T'u [Guardian]
Shen Yi [Sun]
Shiang Ku [Magician]
Shih-Tien Yen-Wang [Committe of Ten]
Shou-Hsing [Longevity]
Shou Lao (Shou Xing Lao Tou-zi) [Long Life]
Shou-Ts'ang [Servant]
Shui-Fu [Water]
Shui-Kuan [Defender]
Ssu Ming [Life and Death]
Sung-Chiang [Theives]
Sun Hou-Tzu [Monkey]
Sun Hou-zi [Apes]
Sun-Pin [Cobblers]

T'ai I [High]
Tai-sui-xing [Time]
Tai-yi [Sky]
T'ai Yueh Ta Ti (Tung-Yueh-Ta-Ti, T'ai-Yo, Ta-Ti) [Peak]
Thu [Earth]
Tian [Sky]
Tian-zhu [Catholic]
Tien (T'ien) [Sky]
Tien-Hou (T'ien Fei) [Heaven]
T'ien-Kuan [Happiness]
T'ien Lung [Dragon]
Tien Mu [Lightening]
Tien-Wang (Mo-Li) [Kings]
Ti-Kuan [Foregiveness]
Ti Nu (Ti-ya) [Earth]
Ti-Tsang-Wang-Pu-Sa [Mercy]
Ti Yu [Afterlife]
Tou Nu [North Star]
Ts'ai-Lun [Stationers]
Ts'ai Shen [Wealth]
Tsan [Demons]
Ts'ang Chien [Hearth]
Tsao Shen [?]
Tsao-Wang [Hearth]
Tu [Earth]
Tung Wang Kung [Ruled Male Immortals]
T'u-ti (Ti-Ti) [Locality]

Wang [Palace Door]
Wang-Mu-Niang-Niang [Guardian]
Wen Ch'ang (Wen-Chang-Ta-Ti) [Literature]
Wen-Shu Yen-K'ung [Manjushri]
Wen Pu [Epidemics]
Wu Ti [Myth]

Xian [Spirits]
Xi-Wang-mu [Immortality]

Yama [Seventh hell]
Yan-lo (Yan Wang) [Underworld Prince]
Yao [Wind Conqueror]
Yao-shi-fo [Physician]
Yao Wang [Medicine]
Yeng-Wang-Yeh [Death]
Yen Wang (Yen Lo) [Underworld Judge]
Yin and Yang [Male and Female]
Yo Fei [War]
Yu-Chiang [Ocean Winds]
Yu-di (Yu Huang) [Supreme]
Yueh Fei [War]
Yu Huang (Yu-Huang-Shang-Ti) [High]
Yun T'ung [Clouds]
Yu-qiang [Sea]
Yu Shih [Rain]
Yu-tzu [Rain]

Zao Jun [Kitchen]
Zhang Guo-lao [Immortal]
Zhong-Kui [Literature and Examinations]
Zhong-li Quan [Immortal]

[Sources: Brief History of Ancient Chinese Mythology]

Finnish Gods:

Ahto [Water]
Akka [Harvest]

Egres [Vegetation/Fertility]

Hiisi [Forest/Evil]

Ilma [Air]
Ilmarinen [Sky]
Inmar [Sky]

Juma [Sky]
Jumala (Mader-Atcha, Ukk) [Thunder]

Kalevanpojat [Demons]
Kalma [Death]
Kekri [Fertility Feast]
Kipu-Tytto [Illness]
Kondos [Sowing Crops]
Kuu [Moon]

Lemminkainen [Hero]
Louhi [Sorcery/Evil]
Loviatar [Disease]
Luonnotar [Creator]

Madderakka [Dwarves]
Maahiset [Dwarves]

Naaki [Water]
Nyrckes [?]

Olmai (Olmay) [Divine properties]

Pajainen [?]
Pajonn [Thunder]
Para [Goblin Like]
Pellonpekko [Barley]

Raudna [?]
Rutu [Devil]

Sampsa [Vegetation]
Seides [Stones]

Rauni [?]

Tapio [Forest]
Tiermes [Thunder]
Tuoni [Underworld
Tursas [Monster]

Ukko (Isainen) [Thunder]

Vainamoinen [Hero]
Veralden-radien [World Pillars]

Waralden Olmai [World]

JAPANESE GODS

Aji-Suki-Taka-Hi-Kone (Aji-Shiki-Taka-Hiko-Ne) [Thunder]
Ama-No-Minakanushi-No-Kumi [Pole Star]
Ame-No-Oshido-Mimi [Refusal]
Ama-No-Uzume [Fertility]
Ama-Tsu-Kami [Heavenly Gods]
Amatsu Mikaboshi [Evil]
Ame-No-Hohi [Disappeared]
Ame-No-Wakahiko [Ruled Earth]

Bimbo-Gami [Poverty]
Bishamon [War]

Chimata-No-Kami [Rain/Sea]

Daikoku [Wealth]

Ebisu [Labor]

Fuchi [Fire]
Fukurokuju (Fukuro kuju) [Wisdom]
Futsunushi [Lightening]

Gozu-Tenno [Plague]

Haya-Ji (Haya-Tsu-Muji-No-Kami) [Whirlwind]
Hikohohodemi [Hero]
Hinokagutsuchi [Fire]
Hiruko [Morning Sun]
Hoderi [?]
Hisa-Me [Devils]
Ho-Masubi (Kagu Zuchi) [Fire]
Hosuseri [?]
Hotei [Laughter]

Inari [Prosperity]
Izanagi [Creator]
Izanami [Mother]

Jikoku [Guardians]
Jimmu Tenno [Founder]
Jurojin (Jorojin) [Longevity]

Kagu-tsuchi [Fire]
Kamado-gami [Hearth]
Kami [Divinities]
Kami-Musubi (Kami-mi-masubi) [?]
Kami-Nari [Thunder]
Kamui [Sky]
Kappa [Water]
Kawa-No-Kami [Rivers]
Kishijoten [Luck]
Kishimojin [Demon]
Komoku [South]
Kompira [Wealth]
Kono-Hana-Sakuya-Hime (Kono-no-hana-saku-ya-hime) [?]
Kono-Hana-Sakuya-Hime Kuni-Toko-tachi [First]
Kuni-Tsu-Kami [Earth]
Kura-Okami [Rain/Snow]

Nai-No-Kami [Earthquakes]
Naka-Yama-Tsu-Mi [Mountain Slopes]
Ningyo [Mermaid]
Ninigi [Ruler Earth]

O-Kuni-Nushi (Okuninushi) [Medicine/Sorcery]
Onamuji [Earth]
Omiwa [Protective]
Oni [Demons]
O-Wata-Tsumi [Sea]
O-Yama-Tsu-Mi (O-yama-tsuni) [Mountain]

Raiden [Thunder]
Ryo-Wo [Sea]
Ryujin (Ryugin) [Thunder/Rain]

Sae-No-Kami [Roads]

Sengen-Sama [Guarded Holy Moutain]
Sennin [Immortals]
Shichi-Fukujin [Luck]
Shiko-Me [Devils]
Shine-Tsu-Hiko [Wind]
Shitatera-Hime [?]
Shi-tenno [Cardinal Direction Guardians]
Shojo [Satyrs]
Soko-No-Kuni [Underworld]
Suitengu [Sea]
Sukuna-bikone (Suku-na-biko) [Hot Springs]
Shoki [Enemy of Devils]
Susanowo (Susanoo, Susa-no-wo) [Storms]
Takamimusubi (Taka-mi-masubi) [Royal Family]
Takemikadzuchi [Thunder]
Take-Mi-Musubi [Sun]
Taki-Tsu-Hiko [Rain]
Tatsuta-hime [Autumn]
Ten-gu (Tengu) [Mountain/Forest]
Tenjin (Temmangu) [Learning/Calligraphy]
Tsuki-Yomi (Tsukiyomi) [Moon]

Uji-gami [Ancestors]
Uke-Mochi-No-Kami (Ukemochi, Waka-Uke-Nomi, Toyo-Uke-Bime) [Fertility and
Food]
Uzume [Mirth]

Wakahiru-me [Rising Sun]\
Wata-tsu-mi [Sea]

Yabune [House]

Zocho [South]

Shinto Amaterasu [Sun]

Ama-Tsu-Mara [Smiths]

Ame-No-Kagase-Wo [Astral]
Ame-No-Mi-Kumari-No-Kami [Water]
Amenominakanushi (Ame-No-Minaka-Nushi-No-Kami) [Supreme]
Am-No-Tanabata-Hime-No-Mikoto [Weavers]
Ame-No-Toko-Tachi-No-Kami [Elemental]
Ame-no-uzume [Dancers]

Benten (Benten-San, Benzaiten, Benzaiten) [Eloquence+]

Fujin [Wind]

Hachiman [War]
Ho-musubi [Fire]

Kami [Idols]

SOUTH ASIAN GODS

Cao Dai(Chinese: Gao-Tai) [Supreme]

Debata [?]

Empung Luminuut [?]

Hainuwele [?]

Hananim [Sky]

Hmin [Ague]

Karei [Supreme]
Kinharingan [Creator]
Kud [Evil]

Laseo [Sun]
Lature Dano [Supreme]
Lowalangi(Lowalani) [World Above]

Mahatala (Mahataral) [Supreme?]
Ma-zu [?]

Nanmata (Namite) [Primeval]
Narbrooi [Woodlands]
Nemu [Primodial]

Palk [Sun]
Puang Matowa [Sky]
Pulug [Thunder]

Reahu [Dark Demon]
Rigenmucha [Supreme]

Silewe Nazarata [?]
Sirao [First]

Ta Pedn [?]
Tnong [Sun]
Tumbrenjak [Original Man]

Upulevo [Sun]

Wunekau [Sun]

CENRAL AND WEST ASIAN GODS

Abyrga [Snake]
Afi [Rain/Thunderstorms]
Aitvaras [Evil]
Alardi [Spirit]
Aralo [Agriculutre]
Armaz [Supreme]
Auseklis (Ausrine) [Stellar]

Baba [Spirit]
Baba Yaga (Jezi-Baba) [Ogress]
Bagvarti [?]
Bangputys [Sea]
Bannik [Baths]
Bagisht [Flood/Prosperity]
Barastir (Barastaer) [Underworld]
Bardha [Elves]
Beg-tse (Cam-srin) [War]
Beng [Satan]
Biegg-Olmai [Wind]
Bogatyri [Heroes]
Boldogasszony (Kisboldogasszony) [Protector Women/Children]
Bolla (Bullar) [Demon]
Buga [Supreme]
Bukura e dheut
[Good Spirit]
Bukuri e qiellit [Jehovah]
Byelobog (Bielbog) [?]
Byelun [?]

Chernobo(Czarnobog, Czerneboch, Cernobog) [?]
Chors [Sun]

Dabog [Sun]
Deive [Stone Spirits]
Dieva deli [?]
Dievini [Less Known Gods]
Dievs [Sky]
Djall [Devil]
Domovoi (Domovoy) [Household]
Donbittir [Water/Fish]
Drag-gshed [Eight Terrible Gods]
Dud [Heavenly Spirit]
Dvorovoi [Courtyard]
Dyavo [Demons]

En [?]
Erlik [King of the Dead]
Es [Sky]

Fatit [Destiny]
Fene [Demon]

Gabija (Gabieta, Gabeta) [Fire]
Gabjauja [Corn]
Giltine [Death]
Guta [Demon]

Hadur [War]
Himavat [Himalayas]
Horagalles [War]

Isdustaya and Papaya [Fate]
Isten [Supreme]

Jagaubis [Fire]
Jarovit (Gerovitus) [War]
Jessis [avatar Jupiter]
Jumis [Fertility]
Juras Mate [Water]

Kaka-Guia [Funerary]
Kalvis [Smith]
Karta [Fate]
Kaukas [?]
Khors [Health/Hunting]
Khyung-gai mGo-can [?]
Kikimora [Household]
K'op'ala [Protective]
Kukuth (Kukudhi) [Sickness]
Kulshedra (Kucedre) [Demon]
Kun-tu-bzan-po [Chief Bon]
Kupala [Water/Magic/Herbs]
Kurdalaegon [Blacksmiths]

Laima [Fate]
Lamaria [Hearth]
Laskowice (Leshcia) [Forest]
Lauka Mate [Fields/Fertility]
Laume [Fairy]
Leshy [Forest]
Lha [Bon Gods]
Lhamo [?]
Ljeschi (Lychie) [Fauns and Satyrs]
Ljubi [Demon]

Manzasiri [Primeval]
Mate [Mother]
Mati Syra Zemlya [Earth]
Medeine (Mejdejn) [Woods]
Meness [Moon]
Menulis [Moon]
Meza Mate [Nature]
Mirsa [Light]
Mokos [Fertility]
Mu (rMu) [Heavenly]
Muma Padura [Wood]
Myesyats (Czarnobog, Czerneboch, Cernobog) [Moon]

Nang Lha [Household]
Nari [Demon]
Nari [Sky]
Num [Sky]

Odqan [Fire]
Ora [Protective]
Ordog [Dark]

Pekar (Pehar) [Demon]
Peko [Barley]
Perendi [Jehovah]
Perit [Mountain Spirits]
Perkons [Thunder]
Perkunas [Thunder]
Perun (Peroun) [Thunder]
Polevik [Field]
Poludnitsa [Field]
Pon [Sky]
Porenutius (Porevit) [?]
Preas Eyn [?]
Preas Eyssaur [Destructive]
Preas Prohm [Primeval]

Prende (Prenne) [Love]
Psezpolnica (Polish Poludnica) [Midday]
Pugu [Sun]

Qormusta (Chormusta) [High]

Rugievit [War]
Rusalki (Rusalka) [Water/Woodlands]

Safa [Weapens]
Sanda [?]
Sarkany [Weather]
Saule [Sun]
Saules meitas [?]
Selardi [Moon]
Shen-Lha-od-dkar [Bon]
Shen-rab [Founder Bon]
Sipe Gyalmo [Bon]
Shiwini [Sun]
Shosshu [Smiths]
Siwini [Sun]
Srat [Demon]
Sri [Demon]
Sridevi [?]
Stribog [Winds]
Svantevit (Svantoveit, Svantovitus) [War/Agriculture]
Svarog [Sky]
Syen [Guardian]
Stihi [Demon]

Teljavelik [Heavenly Smith]
Telyaveli [Smiths]
Tengri [Heavenly Beings]
Tesheba [Weather]
Thab-lha [Hearth]
Triglav (Trigelawus) [War]

Uacilla [Thunder/Rain]
Ulgen [Creator]
Urme [Fate]
Usins [?]

Vadatajs [Evil]
Vampire [Soul of Dead]
Veela [Kindess]
Veja mate [Winds]
Veles (Volos) [Underworld]
Velnias [Devil]
Velu mate [Dead]
Verbti [Fire/North Wind]
Vila [Water]
Vilkacis (Lithuanian Vilkatas) [Werewolf]
Vlkodlaks (Vookodlaks) [Werewolf]
Vodnik [Demon]
Vodyanoi [Water]
Volos (Volusu) [Cattle]

We [Supreme]

Xhindi [Spirits]

Yarilo [Love]

Zaltys [Grass Snake]
Zemepatis (Zemempatis) [Supreme]
Zemes mate [Mother]
Zemyna (Zemyneles) [Earth]
Zorya [Guardian]
Zvezda Dennitsa and Zvezda Vechernyaya [Morning and Evening Star]

SIBERIAN GODS

Ai Tojon [Light]
Ajysyt [Mother]
Anky-Kele [Sea]
Ayi [Creator]

Hittavainen, Hittauanin [Hare-Hunters]
Hinkon [Death Demon]

K'daai [Fire Demon]
Kaltes [The Goddess]
Ke'lets [Death Demon]
Kurkil [Creator]
Kutkinnaku [Good Spirit]

Mayin [Supreme]

Picvu'cin [Hunting/Wild Animals]

Shurdi [Thunderstorms]

Tomam [Bird]
Tomor(Tomorr) [Father Creator]

Xucau [Supreme]

Ye'loje (Pugu) [Sun]
==
A book on archeology and the bible.: "The View from Nebo:
How Archaeology is rewriting the bible and reshaping the middle east."
by Amy docser Marcus. There seems to be strong evidence that the many books in
the bible have been "revised" for local political and other purposes.
==
The Bible of the Greek Orthodox church comprises all of the books accepted
by the Roman Catholic church, plus I Esdras, the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm
151, and Maccabees. The Slavonic canon adds 2 Esdras, but designates I and 2
Esdras as 2 and 3 Esdras.
Eastern churches have 4 Maccabees as well
The Anglican church falls between the Catholic church and many Protestant
denominations by accepting only the Jewish canon and the New Testament as
authoritative, but also by accepting segments of the apocryphal writings in
the lectionary and liturgy. At one time all copies of the Authorized or King
James Version of 1611 included the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments
The Coptic (Bohairic) translation of the collection known as the
Eighty-Five Apostolic Canons concludes with a different sequence of the books
of the New Testament and is enlarged by the addition of two others: the four
Gospels; the Acts of the Apostles; the fourteen Epistles of Paul (not
mentioned individually); two Epistles of Peter, three of John, one of James,
one of Jude; the Apocalypse of John; the two Epistles of Clement
The Ethiopic church has the largest Bible of all, and distinguishes
different canons, the "narrower" and the "broader," according to the extent of
the New Testament
Peshitta is still followed by the Christians in the southern state of Kerala in
India

Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, Dr. Frederic Kenyon, Eyre and
Spottiswoode,
==
MT 1:17 There were twenty-eight generations from David to Jesus.
LK 3:23-38 There were forty-three generations.
==
The Shurrupak Flood has been identified as the flood recounted in the
Gilgamesh Epic.
==
Deuteronomy 17:12 Anyone who dares to disobey either the judge or the priest on
duty is to be put to death; in this way you will remove this evil from Israel.
==
From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university
researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent
immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in "sharing
their vision of American society." Atheists are also the minority
group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
==
isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a
curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
==
3/06
Missouri state representative David Sater of Cassville in southwestern
Missouri, has sponsored a bill that would name Christianity the state's
official "majority" religion. The resolution recognizes "a Christian God." It
fails to protect minority religions, but does "protect the majority's right to
express their religious beliefs. Here's the full text:
House Concurrent Resolution No. 13 submitted to the 93RD General Assembly
Whereas, our forefathers of this great nation of the United States recognized
a Christian God and used the principles afforded to us by Him as the founding
principles of our nation; and
Whereas, as citizens of this great nation, we the majority also wish to
exercise our constitutional right to acknowledge our Creator and give thanks
for the many gifts provided by Him; and
Whereas, as elected officials we should protect the majority's right to
express their religious beliefs while showing respect for those who object; and
Whereas, we wish to continue the wisdom imparted in the Constitution of the
United States of America by the founding fathers; and
Whereas, we as elected officials recognize that a Greater Power exists above
and beyond the institutions of mankind:
Now, therefore, be it resolved by the members of the House of Representatives
of the Ninety-third General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the Senate
concurring therein, that we stand with the majority of our constituents and
exercise the common sense that voluntary prayer in public schools and
religious displays on public property are not a coalition of church and state,
but rather the justified recognition of the positive role that Christianity has
played in this great nation of ours, the United States of America.
==
It is not at all uncommon for a religion to teach that murdering those who
believe in other religions is different from murdering those inside one's own
religion.
==
Why Would Anyone Believe in God? (Cognitive Science of Religion Series) by
Justin L. Barrett

Darwin and Design : Does Evolution Have a Purpose? by Michael Ruse

Evolutionary Origins of Morality : Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives by Leonard
D. Katz

Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs. by Michael A. Persinger

Darwinizing Culture : The Status of Memetics as a Science by Robert Aunger
==
Leaders of the religious right played critical
roles in schemes hatched by lobbyist Jack
Abramoff on behalf of his gambling clients.

These religious leaders have a serious gambling problem:
* Former Christian Coalition Director Ralph
Reed made millions from Indian gambling
interests, rallying religious conservatives to oppose competing casinos.
* James Dobson of Focus on the Family
recorded anti-gambling ads that a casino-operating Indian tribe paid to air.
* Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition
was paid $25,000 by online gambling outfit eLottery to lobby congress on its
behalf.
Leaders of the religious right -- including Ralph Reed, James Dobson, and Lou
Sheldon --have formed an unholy alliance with the Bush Administration to wage
war against our Constitution and to intrude in our personal lives.
==
In, 1906, Los Angeles, a small sect with a fundamentalist, speaking-in-tongues
style had begun meeting at the Azusa Street Church. After the quake, its
preacher, Frank Bartleman, distributed thousands of pamphlets claiming the
earthquake was the voice of God. In droves, people joined the church and others
like it that sprung up,
==
John Meier..."A Marginal Jew, Volume 1"

When Religion Becomes Evil : Five Warning Signs -- by Charles Kimball

Jesus : One Hundred Years Before Christ by Alvar Ellegard
ISBN 0-87951-72-4

Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
(Comparative Studies in Religion and Society, 13) -- by Mark Juergensmeyer

When Science Meets Religion : Enemies, Strangers, or Partners?
by Ian G. Barbour

When Worlds Converge: What Science and Religion Tell Us About the
Story of the Universe and Our Place in It
by Clifford N. Matthews (Editor), et al
==
March 4, 2006
Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name
Christianity the state's official "majority" religion.
House Concurrent Resolution 13 has is pending in the state legislature.
Many Missouri residents had not heard about the bill until Thursday.
Karen Aroesty of the Anti-defamation league, along with other watch-groups,
began a letter writing and email campaign to stop the resolution.
The resolution would recognize "a Christian god," and it would not protect
minority religions, but "protect the majority's right to express their
religious beliefs.
The resolution also recognizes that, "a greater power exists," and only
Christianity receives what the resolution calls, "justified recognition."
State representative David Sater of Cassville in southwestern Missouri,
sponsored the resolution, but he has refused to talk about it on camera or
over the phone.
KMOV also contacted Gov. Matt Blunt's office to see where he stands on the
resolution, but he has yet to respond.
==
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded
that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its
duty in but a lazy and indolent way for eight hundred years, gathered up its
halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest.
She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned,
tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed
the Christian world clean with their foul blood.
Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had
been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there
was no such thing as a witch--the priest, the parson? No, these never discover
anything. . . .
There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed.
Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the
text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law
books, but the texts that authorized them remain.
-- Mark Twain, "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice," Europe and Elsewhere
(1923)
==
Am I schizophrenic for not believing that when a man is dead that he will
come back to life again after three days? Am I schizophrenic for not
believing in an invisible man by the name of god? am I schizophrenic for not
believing that a virgin can give birth to a god child. Am I schizophrenic I
reject the fiendish notion of purgatory? Am I schizophrenic for not
believing that a disembodied spirit who looks out for my welfare among
millions? Am I schizophrenic for not believing that when I die I will float
up to a place called heaven? Am I schizophrenic for not believing that a
person cannot be three and yet remain one? Am I schizophrenic for not
believing in an invisible thing called a soul? Am I schizophrenic for
rejecting faith for proof? Am I schizophrenic for not being superstitious?
Am I schizophrenic because I believe the best way to face life is to deal
with reality? Am I schizophrenic for thinking the god that Christians
believe in really hates them? Am I schizophrenic for thinking that a loving
god would not make the ones he loves suffer pain and misery caused by cancer
or the hundreds of other debilitating diseases that Christians and their
loved ones suffer? Am I schizophrenic because I do not hear the sweet voice
of Jesus? Am schizophrenic for thinking the Jesus was just one more ancient
savior god from antiquity. Am I schizophrenic for not believing in ghosts
holy or otherwise? Am I schizophrenic for thinking that my brother loves me
more than a 100 gods? Am I schizophrenic to think that ALL religious beliefs
are a matter of conditioning? Am I schizophrenic for thinking that the
concept of heaven is an ignorant superstition? I am sure I am leaving out
other superstitions that Christians were indoctrinated to believe.
==
Sam Harris, "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason,"

Daniel Dennett "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" (Viking).

Professor Daniel C. Dennett, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University
Stephen Pope, Professor of Theology, Boston College.
==
The prophet Mohammad took part in or guided nearly a hundred wars, raids or
attacks for plunder. *The Bedouins, with centuries of experience of ruthless
and cruel tribal warfare, proved to be worthwhile shock troops of Islam.
*Syria fell to the Islamic Empire in 634 CE. Despite surrender, great
massacres took place at many places; thousands of men were slaughtered and
women and children sold into slavery; monasteries were ransacked, monks and
villagers were slain and nuns were raped. The conquest of Syria forced the
conversion of thousands of Christian priests to Islam. *After the conquest of
Egypt, many of its towns were put to the sword and their entire population
wiped out. *Great massacres also occurred in Cyprus and North Africa. The
conquered provinces bought hundreds of thousands of slaves, men and women.
Conquering Bed
ouin Islamic armies destroyed the local cultures by imposing their Islamic
tribal medievalism recklessly murdering men and degrading women to perpetual
sexual slavery. Bedouins raided and abducted European women for Islamic slave
markets. *The Indian sub continent suffered the humiliation and destruction
under Islam, as did Africa. *The Islamic General Mohammad Bin Qasim decimated
great Buddhist and Hindu civilisations. *Acting on the orders of a
representative of the Islamic Caliph, Governor Hijaj Bin Yousaf, Mohammad Bin
Qasim conquered parts of India in 712 CE. His Islamic plunderers and looters
demolished temples, shattered sculptures, plundered palaces and killed
thousands. It took his Islamic army three days to slaughter the inhabitants of
Debal, and their women and children were taken into slavery. *The 11th century
witnessed another Islamic murderer and plunderer, Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, an
agent of Islamic Caliph, who ruined the great Indian civilisation and looted
and plundered most of its wealth. *In one of his seventeen invasions of India,
Ghaznavi oversaw the massacre of fifty thousand Hindus at Somnath. Thousand of
Hindu men and women were sent to the Afghani slave markets. The highly
cultured and civilised daughters of the noble Hindu families were sold to the
illiterate, un cultured and barbaric Afghanis for equivalent of just one
dollar each. The military instruments of the Islamic Caliph, the Turks and the
Moguls followed, and decimated the captured Delhi, turning the whole of India
into a grand open air slave camp. * Sultan Firoze Shah Tughlaq, an Islamic
Turk ruler had 100,000 men-slaves and thousands of female sex-slaves in his
harem; the pious Islamic Mongol (Mogul) Emperor Shahjehan had 15,000 female
sex-slaves and concubines for his personal harem, the Islamic Turk invaders
and rulers did the same in India as they did in Armenia, where whole races of
peoples were exterminated. *Slavery was legal in Saudi Arabia until the
1960s when it was officially abolished.
==
The "Left Behind" series, the best-selling novels for adults in the U.S.,
enthusiastically depict Jesus returning to slaughter everyone who is not a
born-again Christian. The world's Hindus, Muslims, Jews and agnostics, along
with many Catholics and Unitarians, are heaved into everlasting fire: "Jesus
merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling and
screeching."
==
Ex-president Bush said that atheists should not be considered good citizens:
Atheists are hereby denied all rights of citizenship and will be treated as
illegal immigrants

Attention, all atheists must report to your local Christian police station
or suffer extreme punishment

All atheists MUST conform to the following United Christian States of
America Washington laws

a.. All atheists, including children of atheists MUST wear a yellow arm
band marked with a black A at all times
b.. It is forbidden for atheists to have their children in public school
c.. It is forbidden atheists to be employed by Christian employers
d.. It is forbidden atheists to have a Christian spouse
e.. It is forbidden atheists to employ Christian employees
f.. It is forbidden atheists to hold public office
g.. It is forbidden atheists to rent apartments or buy home from
Christians
h.. It is forbidden atheists to buy goods from Christian merchants
i.. It is forbidden atheists to live anywhere but designated ghettos
j.. It is forbidden atheists to have sexual relationships with Christians
k.. All bank deposits of atheists MUST be turned over to Washington
l.. It is forbidden atheists to travel without permission from your local
police
m.. It is forbidden atheists access to any form of entertainment performed
by Christians, therefore all television sets must be delivered to your local
police station or suffer extreme consequences
n.. Atheists will no longer be protected from harm by Christian police
o.. It is forbidden atheists to be treated by Christian doctors
p.. All atheists who become Christians will be treated as atheists
q.. All atheist books MUST be turned over to your local Christian police
r.. It is a capital offense to criticize the Christian party.
==
1Cr 11:10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on [her] head
because of the angels.

Cr 11:13 Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God
uncovered?
==
What can one say about America where we have public education and the
majority of people hold the same religious superstitions as they had in Dark
Age? Can one respect a superstitious person living in this true age of
enlightenment? Can one have respect for those who choose superstition
(faith) over proof and evidence? Most every politician in government is not
embarrassed about his or her superstitious beliefs; this is the phenomenon
of religion. One rarely moves away from one's childhood religion. One can
safety say all who hold religious beliefs are arrested in development (they
believe as they did when they were children).
==
Pascal Wager
Worse for the wager, there are an infinite number of potential dieties
who might exist. This divides the infinite benefit by infinity to
produce a negligible number! You're just not likely to pick the right
one with nothing other than Pascal's logic to guide you. I suppose
your best bet is to find the religion with the worst possible Hell and
believe in that, thus maximizing your potential benefit. If you are
wrong and get sent to some other religion's Hell, well, at least you
didn't go to the worst Hell!
But wait, there's more! Since there is an infinite number of
potential dieties, there's no need to limit this to actually extant
religions. Numerous variations of dieties really throw a wrench in
the works. Imagine, for just one example, a diety who does not want
to be believed in. Here he is, he's gone through all the trouble to
create a universe that looks like no diety is in daily operation which
could be entirely naturalistic, and that's what he wants people to
believe. Atheists go to Heaven when they die, believers in any
religion go to Hell. Now Pascal's Wager doesn't even produce a
negligible finite amount of benefit for believing in God.
==
The Corruption of Reality: A Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis, and
Psychopathology by John F. Schumaker "Thinkers continue to be puzzled by what
will be the central topics of this book, namely religion, hypnosis, and
so-called abnormal behavior"
==
Since the 1950s, Luce, the publisher of Time magazine, told his editor to
"PUFF" a minor preacher by the name of Billy Graham. This was the beginning of
a new wave of insanity culminating in our present day folie a deux called
"Christian Fundamentalism", (Evangelical) one of the fastest growing religions
in the world. In addition, as you can see, our president, George Bush, is
infecting America with a new rash of insanity. Only historians in the future
will be able to look back at this period in American history to assess the
damage. They may find that this religion has caused a new DARK AGE.
==
Zahn, Gordon. 1962. German Catholics and Hitlers Wars; A Study in Social
Control. New York: Sheed and Ward.
==
Dever, W. G. 2001. What did the biblical writers know, and when did they
know it? : What archaeology can tell us about the reality of ancient
Israel. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Pub. Co.
==
Bedrock of a Faith Is Jolted
DNA tests contradict Mormon scripture. The church says the studies are being
twisted to attack its beliefs.
From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled in Jose A.
Loayza the conviction that he and millions of other Native Americans were
descended from a lost tribe of Israel that reached the New World more than
2,000 years ago.
"We were taught all the blessings of that Hebrew lineage belonged to us and
that we were special people," said Loayza, now a Salt Lake City attorney. "It
not only made me feel special, but it gave me a sense of transcendental
identity, an identity with God."
A few years ago, Loayza said, his faith was shaken and his identity stripped
away by DNA evidence showing that the ancestors of American natives came from
Asia, not the Middle East.
"I've gone through stages," he said. "Absolutely denial. Utter amazement and
surprise. Anger and bitterness."
For Mormons, the lack of discernible Hebrew blood in Native Americans is no
minor collision between faith and science. It burrows into the historical
foundations of the Book of Mormon, a 175-year-old transcription that the
church regards as literal and without error.
For those outside the faith, the depth of the church's dilemma can be
explained this way: Imagine if DNA evidence revealed that the Pilgrims didn't
sail from Europe to escape religious persecution but rather were part of a
migration from Iceland and that U.S. history books were wrong.
Critics want the church to admit its mistake and apologize to millions of
Native Americans it converted. Church leaders have shown no inclination to do
so. Indeed, they have dismissed as heresy any suggestion that Native American
genetics undermine the Mormon creed.
Yet at the same time, the church has subtly promoted a fresh interpretation of
the Book of Mormon intended to reconcile the DNA findings with the scriptures.
This analysis is radically at odds with long-standing Mormon teachings.
Some longtime observers believe that ultimately, the vast majority of Mormons
will disregard the genetic research as an unworthy distraction from their
faith.
"This may look like the crushing blow to Mormonism from the outside," said Jan
Shipps, a professor emeritus of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue
University Indianapolis, who has studied the church for 40 years. "But
religion ultimately does not rest on scientific evidence, but on mystical
experiences. There are different ways of looking at truth."
According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an angel named
Moroni led Joseph Smith in 1827 to a divine set of golden plates buried in a
hillside near his New York home.
God provided the 22-year-old Smith with a pair of glasses and seer stones that
allowed him to translate the "Reformed Egyptian" writings on the golden plates
into the "Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ."
Mormons believe these scriptures restored the church to God's original vision
and left the rest of Christianity in a state of apostasy.
The book's narrative focuses on a tribe of Jews who sailed from Jerusalem to
the New World in 600 BC and split into two main warring factions.
The God-fearing Nephites were "pure" (the word was officially changed from
"white" in 1981) and "delightsome." The idol-worshiping Lamanites received the
"curse of blackness," turning their skin dark.
According to the Book of Mormon, by 385 AD the dark-skinned Lamanites had
wiped out other Hebrews. The Mormon church called the victors "the principal
ancestors of the American Indians." If the Lamanites returned to the church,
their skin could once again become white.
Over the years, church prophets believed by Mormons to receive revelations
from God and missionaries have used the supposed ancestral link between the
ancient Hebrews and Native Americans and later Polynesians as a prime
conversion tool in Central and South America and the South Pacific.
"As I look into your faces, I think of Father Lehi [patriarch of the
Lamanites], whose sons and daughters you are," church president and prophet
Gordon B. Hinckley said in 1997 during a Mormon conference in Lima, Peru. "I
think he must be shedding tears today, tears of love and gratitude. This is
but the beginning of the work in Peru."
In recent decades, Mormonism has flourished in those regions, which now have
nearly 4 million members about a third of Mormon membership worldwide,
according to church figures.
"That was the big sell," said Damon Kali, an attorney who practices law in
Sunnyvale, Calif., and is descended from Pacific Islanders. "And quite
frankly, that was the big sell for me. I was a Lamanite. I was told the day of
the Lamanite will come."
A few months into his two-year mission in Peru, Kali stopped trying to convert
the locals. Scientific articles about ancient migration patterns had made him
doubt that he or anyone else was a Lamanite.
"Once you do research and start getting other viewpoints, you're toast," said
Kali, who said he was excommunicated in 1996 over issues unrelated to the
Lamanite issue. "I could not do missionary work anymore."
Critics of the Book of Mormon have long cited anac