skyone:

if we can have RCCG in Pakistan and Kuwait plus the fact that bible is allowed in Baghdad i'm afraid this topic is meaningless,

Really?
are these churches winning converts or are they sey up for the Nigerian community in these areas like most "Nigerian" Churches outside of Nigeria.

Loyalty:

people like nwando should be banned from the world,when simple question are being asked u try to be funny, u started this whole christian/muslim thing and most of your post are simillar, for what u said about the prophet giving usman dan fodio a hi five from the grave, i must say i invoke the wrath of Allah swt upon you, u shall never find peace within your heart.beheading is the best solution to people like u, once more may Allah's anger shower uponyou!

The Islamic apologetic way of addressing issues when confronted with them.

So much here for the religion of peace. The same problem facing this forum is also exhibited with your posts here. Issues about MO are raised here based on the validity of your hadith, rather you retort to hyperventilating and foaming undue anger around, raining invectives and exhibition of tantrums and threats with murder intent. 

If you are not able to answer the questions, go and sit down and read from the sideline rather than jumping around with verbiage of nonsense and shouting curses from a god thats none existent or a god that depends on human beings to execute fellow mankind.

Whether it be the Koran or the Bible, they should both be burned and banned. They are the root of all evil and cause more misery and suffering to the human race than any other thing on this planet.

Ascony:

Hmmmm , A WORLD WIDE BAN ON BIBLES? THAT WILL BE THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT THAT WOULD EVER BE MADE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. ITS HIGH TIME WE DO AWAY WITH THAT SILLY OLD BOOK. A BOOK THAT IS FULL OF ERRORS, FALLACIES AND OUTREGEOUS FLAWS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY, LET ALONE ALLOWING IT TO ENDURE MORE FURTHER. IF YOU HAVE STUDIED THE BIBLE VERY WELL, You WILL UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS A BOOK THAT MUST BE BANNED.

dude you are amazing! 

Get your facts right about the inqusition before you publish Goto http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition for further education and stop claiming that Catholics burnt bibles in that era.
Their's was to protect the bible from would-be-free-thinkers. Stop regurgitating what you picked up somewhere. Go and read!

For your info:

The inquisition hunted people such as astrological scientists (or whatever they were called in those days) for atempting to gaze up at the skys and tell fellow humans that the earth rotated round the sun and not the other way round; that there were other galaxies out there, etc (to the understandings and teachings of that time, this was heresy and would lead people away from the faith as well as weaken the hold of the church on the masses).

Churches were more powerful than any govt of the time. There was thus a need for an inqusition to fishout "enemies of the state".

By this term is usually meant a special ecclesiastical institution for combating or suppressing heresy. Its characteristic mark seemed to be the bestowal on special judges of judicial powers in matters of faith, and this by supreme ecclesiastical authority, not temporal or for individual cases, but as a universal and permanent office. Moderns experience difficulty in understanding this institution, because they have, to no small extent, lost sight of two facts.

On the one hand they have ceased to grasp religious belief as something objective, as the gift of God, and therefore outside the realm of free private judgment; on the other they no longer see in the Church a society perfect and sovereign, based substantially on a pure and authentic Revelation, whose first most important duty must naturally be to retain unsullied this original deposit of faith. Before the religious revolution of the sixteenth century these views were still common to all Christians; that orthodoxy should be maintained at any cost seemed self-evident.

However, while the positive suppression of heresy by ecclesiastical and civil authority in Christian society is as old as the Church, the Inquisition as a distinct ecclesiastical tribunal is of much later origin. Historically it is a phase in the growth of ecclesiastical legislation, whose distinctive traits can be fully understood only by a careful study of the conditions amid which it grew up. The subject may, therefore, be conveniently treated as follows:

I. The Suppression of Heresy during the first twelve Christian centuries;
II. The Suppression of Heresy by the Institution known as the Inquisition under its several forms:
(A) The Inquisition of the Middle Ages;
(B) The Inquisition in Spain;
(C) The Holy Office at Rome. Continue reading from the link below:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm

@ IDINRETE
dude you are amazing!

i don't understand what you mean. are for me or against me?

Guy u dey try!its not possible,tink of bettr tins,
Rob.

because a lot of us ARE STILL BLIND, and r still babies, we need Christ to wash away our blindess, and make us to undastand who we r n were we r from.

it seems to me that you believers are the ones blind. are you a xtian or muslim. well i am talking to xtian alone because i WAS once one myself( but now an atheist).

the bible should and must be banned because like i said before, it is a book of errors, fallacies and outrageous mistakes. the truth is that xtians know next to nothing abot this bible they carry around with so much passion. the bible is just a silly old book written by a bunch of illterate ancestors who were just making use of their ancient imaginations. the bible is outdated and archaic therefore does not belong in this moden age.

if i start showing you the outrageous fallacies in the bible, you will be like "Gees, are these really in the bible?
just one word from you again and i will give you a few exaples that will baffle you(not the ones you've heard before, these ones are entirely unbelievable to be found in a HOLY BOOK).

whateva _{*hisses and walks out of d silly thread*}

Ascony you atheist hmmmmmm

any homage to Robert Ingersoll yet?

Ascony:

@ IDINRETE
dude you are amazing!

i don't understand what you mean. are for me or against me?

that is a task for you to decipher,  at least i have given you a clue.

C:\Documents and Settings\obi.ASCONY-3HY6MC8R\My Documents\My Photos\The Great Minds\ingersoll02.jpg

Gees how did you know him? you are one telepathic son of a b****.
Robert Green Ingersoll is my mentor and i admire him alot. his image was the wallpaper on my pc before i changed it to thomas Paine.

some of his quotes remains my favourites till date. i'm sure u know may know some;

"The inspiration of the Bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it."
                             
"The universe is all the God there is."

"If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith."

"Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms."

and so on, and so on, and so on.

do you know Robert well, please tell me more?

below is the image of the great mind we are talking about.


adios amigo.

What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide?
by Robert G. Ingersoll
**** ****

YOU ask me what I would "substitute for the Bible as a moral guide."

I know that many people regard the Bible as the only moral guide and believe that in that book only can be found the true and perfect standard of morality.

There are many good precepts, many wise sayings and many good regulations and laws in the Bible, and these are mingled with bad precepts, with foolish sayings, with absurd rules and cruel laws.

But we must remember that the Bible is a collection of many books written centuries apart, and that it in part represents the growth and tells in part the history of a people. We must also remember. that the writers treat of many subjects. Many of these writers have nothing to say about right or wrong, about vice or virtue.

The book of Genesis has nothing about morality. There is not a line in it calculated to shed light on the path of conduct. No one can call that book a moral guide. It is made up of myth and miracle, of tradition and legend.

In Exodus we have an account of the manner in which Jehovah delivered the Jews from Egyptian bondage.

We now know that the Jews were never enslaved by the Egyptians; that the entire story is a fiction. We know this, because there is not found in Hebrew a word of Egyptian origin, and there is not found in the language of the Egyptians a word of Hebrew origin. This being so, we know that the Hebrews and Egyptians could not have lived together for hundreds of years.

Certainly Exodus was not written to teach morality. In that book you cannot find one word against human slavery. As a matter of fact, Jehovah was a believer in that institution.

The killing of cattle with disease and hail, the murder of the first-born, so that in every house was death, because the king refused to let the Hebrews go, certainly was not moral; it was fiendish. The writer of that book regarded all the people of Egypt, their children, their flocks and herds, as the property of Pharaoh, and these people and these cattle were killed, not because they had done anything wrong, but simply for the purpose of punishing the king. Is it possible to get any morality out of this history?

All the laws found in Exodus, including the Ten Commandments, so far as they are really good and sensible, were at that time in force among all the peoples of the world.

Murder is, and always was, a crime, and always will be, as long as a majority of people object to being murdered.

Industry always has been and always will be the enemy of larceny.

The nature of man is such that he admires the teller of truth and despises the liar. Among all tribes, among all people, truth- telling has been considered a virtue and false swearing or false speaking a vice.

The love of parents for children is natural, and this love is found among all the animals that live. So the love of children for parents is natural, and was not and cannot be created by law. Love does not spring from a sense of duty, nor does it bow in obedience to commands.

So men and women are not virtuous because of anything in books or creeds.

All the Ten Commandments that are good were old, were the result of experience. The commandments that were original with Jehovah were foolish.

The worship of "any other God" could not have been worse than the worship of Jehovah, and nothing could have been more absurd than the sacredness of the Sabbath.

If commandments had been given against slavery and polygamy, against wars of invasion and extermination, against religious persecution in all its forms, so that the world could be free, so that the brain might be developed and the heart civilized, then we might, with propriety, call such commandments a moral guide.

Before we can truthfully say that the Ten Commandments constitute a moral guide, we must add and subtract. We must throw away some, and write others in their places.

The commandments that have a known application here, in this world, and treat of human obligations are good, the others have no basis in fact, or experience.

Many of the regulations found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, are good. Many are absurd and cruel.

The entire ceremonial of worship is insane.

Most of the punishment for violations of laws are unphilosophic and brutal. . . . The fact is that the Pentateuch upholds nearly all crimes, and to call it a moral guide is as absurd as to say that it is merciful or true.

Nothing of a moral nature can be found in Joshua or Judges. These books are filled with crimes, with massacres and murders. They are about the same as the real history of the Apache Indians.

The story of Ruth is not particularly moral.

In first and second Samuel there is not one word calculated to develop the brain or conscience.

Jehovah murdered seventy thousand Jews because David took a census of the people. David, according to the account, was the guilty one, but only the innocent were killed.

In first and second Kings can be found nothing of ethical value. All the kings who refused to obey the priests were denounced, and all the crowned wretches who assisted the priests, were declared to be the favorites of Jehovah. In these books there cannot be found one word in favor of liberty.

There are some good Psalms, and there are some that are infamous. Most of these Psalms are selfish. Many of them are passionate appeals for revenge.

The story of Job shocks the heart of every good man. In this book there is some poetry, some pathos, and some philosophy, but the story of this drama called Job, is heart-less to the last degree. The children of Job are murdered to settle a little wager between God and the Devil. Afterward, Job having remained firm, other children are given in the place of the murdered ones. Nothing, however, is done for the children who were murdered.

The book of Esther is utterly absurd, and the only redeeming feature in the book is that the name of Jehovah is not mentioned.

I like the Song of Solomon because it tells of human love, and that is something I can understand. That book in my judgment is worth all the ones that go before it, and is a far better moral guide.

There are some wise and merciful Proverbs. Some are selfish and some are flat and commonplace.

I like the book of Ecclesiastes because there you find some sense, some poetry, and some philosophy. Take away the interpolations and it is a good book.

Of course there is nothing in Nehemiah or Ezra to make men better, nothing in Jeremiah or Lamentations calculated to lessen vice, and only a few passages in Isaiah that can be used in a good cause.

In Ezekiel and Daniel we find only ravings of the insane.

In some of the minor prophets there is now and then a good verse, now and then an elevated thought.

You can, by selecting passages from different books, make a very good creed, and by selecting passages from different books, you can make a very bad creed.

The trouble is that the spirit of the Old Testament, its disposition, its temperament, is bad, selfish and cruel. The most fiendish things are commanded, commended and applauded.

The stories that are told of Joseph, of Elisha, of Daniel and Gideon, and of many others, are hideous; hellish.

On the whole, the Old Testament cannot be considered a moral guide.

Jehovah was not a moral God. He had all the vices, and he lacked all the virtues. He generally carried out his threats, but he never faithfully kept a promise.

At the same time, we must remember that the Old Testament is a natural production, that it was written by savages who were slowly crawling toward the light. We must give them credit for the noble things they said, and we must be charitable enough to excuse their faults and even their crimes.

I know that many Christians regard the Old Testament as the foundation and the New as the superstructure, and while many admit that there are faults and mistakes in the Old Testament, they insist that the New is the flower and perfect fruit.
I admit that there are many good things in the New Testament, and if we take from that book the dogmas, of eternal pain, of infinite revenge, of the atonement, of human sacrifice, of the necessity of shedding blood; if we throw away the doctrine of non-resistance, of loving enemies, the idea that prosperity is the result of wickedness, that Poverty is a preparation for Paradise, if we throw all these away and take the good, sensible passages, applicable to conduct, then we can make a fairly good moral guide, -- narrow, but moral.

Of course, many important things would be left out. You would have nothing about human rights, nothing in favor of the family, nothing for education, nothing for investigation, for thought and reason, but still you would have a fairly good moral guide.

On the other hand, if you would take the foolish passages, the extreme ones, you could make a creed that would satisfy an insane asylum.

If you take the cruel passages, the verses that inculcate eternal hatred, verses that writhe and hiss like serpents, you can make a creed that would shock the heart of a hyena.

It may be that no book contains better passages than the New Testament, but certainly no book contains worse.

Below the blossom of love you find the thorn of hatred; on the lips that kiss, you find the poison of the cobra.

The Bible is not a moral guide.

Any man who follows faithfully all its teachings is an enemy of society and will probably end his days in a prison or an asylum.
What is morality?

In this world we need certain things. We have many wants. We are exposed to many dangers. We need food, fuel, raiment and shelter, and besides these wants, there is, what may be called, the hunger of the mind.

We are conditioned beings, and our happiness depends upon conditions. There are certain things that diminish, certain things that increase, well-being. There are certain things that destroy and there are others that preserve.

Happiness, including its highest forms, is after all the only good, and everything, the result of which is to produce or secure happiness, is good, that is to say, moral. Everything that destroys or diminishes well-being is bad, that is to say, immoral. In other words, all that is good is moral, and all that is bad is immoral.

What then is, or can be called, a moral guide? The shortest possible answer is one word: Intelligence.

We want the experience of mankind, the true history of the race. We want the history of intellectual development, of the growth of the ethical, of the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, of self-denial. We want to know the paths and roads that have been traveled by the human mind.

These facts in general, these histories in outline, the results reached, the conclusions formed, the principles evolved, taken together, would form the best conceivable moral guide.

[b]We cannot depend on what are called "inspired books," or the religions of the world. These religions are based on the supernatural, and according to them we are under obligation to worship and obey some supernatural being, or beings. All these religions are inconsistent with intellectual liberty. They are the enemies of thought, of investigation, of mental honesty. They destroy the manliness of man. They promise eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith.

These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat on Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy in Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against some god, To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Mohammed or Christ, is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question or doubt miracles. is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous. It is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be governed by evidence, by facts. In addition to this, you must believe. These things are the foes of morality. They subvert all natural conceptions of virtue.

All "inspired books," teaching that what the supernatural commands is right, and right because commanded, and that what the supernatural prohibits is wrong, and wrong because prohibited, are absurdly unphilosophic.

And all "inspired books," teaching that only those who obey the commands of the supernatural are, or can be, truly virtuous, and that unquestioning faith will be rewarded with eternal joy, are grossly immoral. [/b]
Again I say: Intelligence is the only moral guide.


Ingersoll is awesome

Ascony you are welcome to the feast

All you who do not know, please do not kid yourselves. It is a statement of fact when the suggestion is made to an upcoming event or a series of upcoming events that would culminate in the global extinction of all modern day faith based belief or religious delineations. This is not restricted to christianity alone. I do not know if present religious literature would survive those times but I do know from research and available evidence that organised worship of whatever kind as presently practiced in contemporary faith based beliefs would cease to remain in their present form.

This idea which has been in the consciousness of interested scholars of this expected phenomenon for over fifteen millenia has only just begun enjoy little attention from contemporary scholars of the world over who have seen through the shroud that has been pulled over reason by political and economic think thanks manipulating the potentialities of religion to assert a stranglehold on power, the bane of mankind.

One truth is certain though, religion might one day cease to exist the way we know it, but the truth of man's existence shall be sifted through all the religious literature and those that genuinely seek to know the "whys and hows" and the many questions that continue to plague mankind that religion has failed to answer would discover that the real substance of worship is not the name that a religion is given nor the tag ascribed to it, rather it shall be the positive force that guides us all into discerning that which hurts the other brother and our abstinence fro it or those that wrong the other sister and our desisting from them. Those are the templates that shall be imprinted in our hearts.

Nietzche had an idea (although he veered way beyond the right direction due to his disenchantment with religion) when he said "God is dead", but were he to be alive today, I believe that he might have rephrased it to read "Religion is dead".

I urge you all to reason rationally and without bias. Myanmar might just have set the ball rolling

Ascony:

if i start showing you the outrageous fallacies in the bible, you will be like "Gees, are these really in the bible?
just one word from you again and i will give you a few exaples that will baffle you(not the ones you've heard before, these ones are entirely unbelievable to be found in a HOLY BOOK).

Could you give those few examples anyway?

@ IDINRETE
Thank you for that article from ingersoll, it was really awesome, and i don't still know why KAG wants me to show some biblical fallacies when this artcle had done everything.

@KAG
please read the above artcle by rebert ingersoll posted by IDINRETTE and u will see that i don't need to waste my time anymore.
But if u insist, i will then lay a few examples down;
The bible has been believed to be the inspired work of the “almighty God”, full of perfect wisdom and knowledge.
Despite the fact that the bible can be inspiring and educating, yet, the fact cannot be denied that this bible contains aburdities that one does not hope to find in a holy book. and it is quite surprising sometimes that most people who read the bible almost everyday, do not notice all these things.

Now let's take few instances.

 Isaiah 6:1-5, Isaiah said, “ I saw the lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up . . . .for mine eyes have seen the lord” but john 1:18 said a different thing. “No man hath seen God at anytime”.
Maybe Isaiah was lying about what he saw or maybe John does not know what he is talking about.

 In Mattew7: 21, it says “Not everyone that says unto me lord, lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven” compare this verse to Romans 10:13 which says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”. So which one do we accept here, the first or the later?

 Christians always agree that God is omni science, which implies that God knows everything, even acts1: 24 makes it clear “ . . . thou lord which knowest the hearts of men . . .” but if you compare this to deutronomy8: 2, you will see a different thing. “ . . . The lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness . . . to know what was in thy heart”

How can God know the hearts of all men and still, he led the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years just to know what was in their hearts? I think that someone is trying to take someone for a ride here.

 GOD CONDEMNS THE BASTARD.

It will surprise us to know that God condemns the bastard. Deutronomy23: 2 made it clear “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation”. Now tell me what a bastard had done to deserve this kind of condemnation, even though he did not make himself a bastard, why should God treat him this way?


 GOD DEGRADES THE DEFORMED.

In Leviticus21: 16-23, God instructed Moses to tell Aaron the priest that no deformed man of any kind should ever come near the temple or present any sacrifices, do you know why? “That he profanes not my sanctuaries, for I the lord do sanctify them”. If God could talk this way about the deformed, then what does he expect the deformed to do? The deformed did not create himself deformed, and now, we see clearly that he is totally valueless in the sight of God. What a pity. I bet that this is not the kind of thing that anybody would like his or her child to learn in school or even in church.

 GOD PREVENTS PEOPLE FROM HEARING HIS WORD.

“Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes . . . . Lest they understand with their heart and convert and be healed” Isaiah6: 10. This was the assignment our almighty God gave to Isaiah.
But think of it, why would God be so cruel to think of something like this? Why would he want the people he created in his own image not to hear his word and be saved? This is nothing other than personal hatred. Is this the kind of God you worship?

This is but a tip of the iceberg. (not even up to a tip).

It can be possiblem at all and it will not be possible for them
just believe that.

Shallom!

@segun4god

It can be possiblem at all and it will not be possible for them
just believe that.

Shallom!

Is that for someone in particular, or are u just soliloquizing?

that will be soo [color=#770077]UNcool[/color]

WOW!This is what i call,"Taking a book apart!".

IDINRETE:

What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide?
by Robert G. Ingersoll
**** ****

YOU ask me what I would "substitute for the Bible as a moral guide."

I know that many people regard the Bible as the only moral guide and believe that in that book only can be found the true and perfect standard of morality.

There are many good precepts, many wise sayings and many good regulations and laws in the Bible, and these are mingled with bad precepts, with foolish sayings, with absurd rules and cruel laws.

But we must remember that the Bible is a collection of many books written centuries apart, and that it in part represents the growth and tells in part the history of a people. We must also remember. that the writers treat of many subjects. Many of these writers have nothing to say about right or wrong, about vice or virtue.

The book of Genesis has nothing about morality. There is not a line in it calculated to shed light on the path of conduct. No one can call that book a moral guide. It is made up of myth and miracle, of tradition and legend.

In Exodus we have an account of the manner in which Jehovah delivered the Jews from Egyptian bondage.

We now know that the Jews were never enslaved by the Egyptians; that the entire story is a fiction. We know this, because there is not found in Hebrew a word of Egyptian origin, and there is not found in the language of the Egyptians a word of Hebrew origin. This being so, we know that the Hebrews and Egyptians could not have lived together for hundreds of years.

Certainly Exodus was not written to teach morality. In that book you cannot find one word against human slavery. As a matter of fact, Jehovah was a believer in that institution.

The killing of cattle with disease and hail, the murder of the first-born, so that in every house was death, because the king refused to let the Hebrews go, certainly was not moral; it was fiendish. The writer of that book regarded all the people of Egypt, their children, their flocks and herds, as the property of Pharaoh, and these people and these cattle were killed, not because they had done anything wrong, but simply for the purpose of punishing the king. Is it possible to get any morality out of this history?

All the laws found in Exodus, including the Ten Commandments, so far as they are really good and sensible, were at that time in force among all the peoples of the world.

Murder is, and always was, a crime, and always will be, as long as a majority of people object to being murdered.

Industry always has been and always will be the enemy of larceny.

The nature of man is such that he admires the teller of truth and despises the liar. Among all tribes, among all people, truth- telling has been considered a virtue and false swearing or false speaking a vice.

The love of parents for children is natural, and this love is found among all the animals that live. So the love of children for parents is natural, and was not and cannot be created by law. Love does not spring from a sense of duty, nor does it bow in obedience to commands.

So men and women are not virtuous because of anything in books or creeds.

All the Ten Commandments that are good were old, were the result of experience. The commandments that were original with Jehovah were foolish.

The worship of "any other God" could not have been worse than the worship of Jehovah, and nothing could have been more absurd than the sacredness of the Sabbath.

If commandments had been given against slavery and polygamy, against wars of invasion and extermination, against religious persecution in all its forms, so that the world could be free, so that the brain might be developed and the heart civilized, then we might, with propriety, call such commandments a moral guide.

Before we can truthfully say that the Ten Commandments constitute a moral guide, we must add and subtract. We must throw away some, and write others in their places.

The commandments that have a known application here, in this world, and treat of human obligations are good, the others have no basis in fact, or experience.

Many of the regulations found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, are good. Many are absurd and cruel.

The entire ceremonial of worship is insane.

Most of the punishment for violations of laws are unphilosophic and brutal. . . . The fact is that the Pentateuch upholds nearly all crimes, and to call it a moral guide is as absurd as to say that it is merciful or true.

Nothing of a moral nature can be found in Joshua or Judges. These books are filled with crimes, with massacres and murders. They are about the same as the real history of the Apache Indians.

The story of Ruth is not particularly moral.

In first and second Samuel there is not one word calculated to develop the brain or conscience.

Jehovah murdered seventy thousand Jews because David took a census of the people. David, according to the account, was the guilty one, but only the innocent were killed.

In first and second Kings can be found nothing of ethical value. All the kings who refused to obey the priests were denounced, and all the crowned wretches who assisted the priests, were declared to be the favorites of Jehovah. In these books there cannot be found one word in favor of liberty.

There are some good Psalms, and there are some that are infamous. Most of these Psalms are selfish. Many of them are passionate appeals for revenge.

The story of Job shocks the heart of every good man. In this book there is some poetry, some pathos, and some philosophy, but the story of this drama called Job, is heart-less to the last degree. The children of Job are murdered to settle a little wager between God and the Devil. Afterward, Job having remained firm, other children are given in the place of the murdered ones. Nothing, however, is done for the children who were murdered.

The book of Esther is utterly absurd, and the only redeeming feature in the book is that the name of Jehovah is not mentioned.

I like the Song of Solomon because it tells of human love, and that is something I can understand. That book in my judgment is worth all the ones that go before it, and is a far better moral guide.

There are some wise and merciful Proverbs. Some are selfish and some are flat and commonplace.

I like the book of Ecclesiastes because there you find some sense, some poetry, and some philosophy. Take away the interpolations and it is a good book.

Of course there is nothing in Nehemiah or Ezra to make men better, nothing in Jeremiah or Lamentations calculated to lessen vice, and only a few passages in Isaiah that can be used in a good cause.

In Ezekiel and Daniel we find only ravings of the insane.

In some of the minor prophets there is now and then a good verse, now and then an elevated thought.

You can, by selecting passages from different books, make a very good creed, and by selecting passages from different books, you can make a very bad creed.

The trouble is that the spirit of the Old Testament, its disposition, its temperament, is bad, selfish and cruel. The most fiendish things are commanded, commended and applauded.

The stories that are told of Joseph, of Elisha, of Daniel and Gideon, and of many others, are hideous; hellish.

On the whole, the Old Testament cannot be considered a moral guide.

Jehovah was not a moral God. He had all the vices, and he lacked all the virtues. He generally carried out his threats, but he never faithfully kept a promise.

At the same time, we must remember that the Old Testament is a natural production, that it was written by savages who were slowly crawling toward the light. We must give them credit for the noble things they said, and we must be charitable enough to excuse their faults and even their crimes.

I know that many Christians regard the Old Testament as the foundation and the New as the superstructure, and while many admit that there are faults and mistakes in the Old Testament, they insist that the New is the flower and perfect fruit.
I admit that there are many good things in the New Testament, and if we take from that book the dogmas, of eternal pain, of infinite revenge, of the atonement, of human sacrifice, of the necessity of shedding blood; if we throw away the doctrine of non-resistance, of loving enemies, the idea that prosperity is the result of wickedness, that Poverty is a preparation for Paradise, if we throw all these away and take the good, sensible passages, applicable to conduct, then we can make a fairly good moral guide, -- narrow, but moral.

Of course, many important things would be left out. You would have nothing about human rights, nothing in favor of the family, nothing for education, nothing for investigation, for thought and reason, but still you would have a fairly good moral guide.

On the other hand, if you would take the foolish passages, the extreme ones, you could make a creed that would satisfy an insane asylum.

If you take the cruel passages, the verses that inculcate eternal hatred, verses that writhe and hiss like serpents, you can make a creed that would shock the heart of a hyena.

It may be that no book contains better passages than the New Testament, but certainly no book contains worse.

Below the blossom of love you find the thorn of hatred; on the lips that kiss, you find the poison of the cobra.

The Bible is not a moral guide.

Any man who follows faithfully all its teachings is an enemy of society and will probably end his days in a prison or an asylum.
What is morality?

In this world we need certain things. We have many wants. We are exposed to many dangers. We need food, fuel, raiment and shelter, and besides these wants, there is, what may be called, the hunger of the mind.

We are conditioned beings, and our happiness depends upon conditions. There are certain things that diminish, certain things that increase, well-being. There are certain things that destroy and there are others that preserve.

Happiness, including its highest forms, is after all the only good, and everything, the result of which is to produce or secure happiness, is good, that is to say, moral. Everything that destroys or diminishes well-being is bad, that is to say, immoral. In other words, all that is good is moral, and all that is bad is immoral.

What then is, or can be called, a moral guide? The shortest possible answer is one word: Intelligence.

We want the experience of mankind, the true history of the race. We want the history of intellectual development, of the growth of the ethical, of the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, of self-denial. We want to know the paths and roads that have been traveled by the human mind.

These facts in general, these histories in outline, the results reached, the conclusions formed, the principles evolved, taken together, would form the best conceivable moral guide.

[b]We cannot depend on what are called "inspired books," or the religions of the world. These religions are based on the supernatural, and according to them we are under obligation to worship and obey some supernatural being, or beings. All these religions are inconsistent with intellectual liberty. They are the enemies of thought, of investigation, of mental honesty. They destroy the manliness of man. They promise eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith.

These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things holy, and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat on Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy in Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against some god, To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Muhammad or Christ, is far worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question or doubt miracles. is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the obedient, the credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the unquestioning, the true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous. It is not enough to be honest, generous and useful; not enough to be governed by evidence, by facts. In addition to this, you must believe. These things are the foes of morality. They subvert all natural conceptions of virtue.

All "inspired books," teaching that what the supernatural commands is right, and right because commanded, and that what the supernatural prohibits is wrong, and wrong because prohibited, are absurdly unphilosophic.

And all "inspired books," teaching that only those who obey the commands of the supernatural are, or can be, truly virtuous, and that unquestioning faith will be rewarded with eternal joy, are grossly immoral. [/b]
Again I say: Intelligence is the only moral guide.


Ingersoll is awesome

Ascony you are welcome to the feast

Ascony:

@KAG
please read the above artcle by rebert ingersoll posted by IDINRETTE and u will see that i don't need to waste my time anymore.

To be fair, if wanted your opinion, not Ingersoll's.

But if u insist, i will then lay a few examples down;
The bible has been believed to be the inspired work of the “almighty God”, full of perfect wisdom and knowledge.

Many Christians believe that while the Bible may very well be full of "perfect wisdom and knowledge", that doesn't make it perfect in its entirety. Just a point worth thinking about.

Despite the fact that the bible can be inspiring and educating, yet, the fact cannot be denied that this bible contains aburdities that one does not hope to find in a holy book. and it is quite surprising sometimes that most people who read the bible almost everyday, do not notice all these things.

Now let's take few instances.

 Isaiah 6:1-5, Isaiah said, “ I saw the lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up . . . .for mine eyes have seen the lord” but john 1:18 said a different thing. “No man hath seen God at anytime”.
Maybe Isaiah was lying about what he saw or maybe John does not know what he is talking about.

Maybe.

 In Mattew7: 21, it says “Not everyone that says unto me lord, lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven” compare this verse to Romans 10:13 which says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”. So which one do we accept here, the first or the later?

They don't contradict, IMO. In the former, Jesus seems to be stating that not everyone that uses or says his name is a Christian; while the latter is saying that if you call on - like doing the whole accepting Christ thing - Jesus you'd be saved. Entirely diiferent things.

 Christians always agree that God is omni science, which implies that God knows everything, even acts1: 24 makes it clear “ . . . thou lord which knowest the hearts of men . . .” but if you compare this to deutronomy8: 2, you will see a different thing. “ . . . The lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness . . . to know what was in thy heart”

How can God know the hearts of all men and still, he led the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years just to know what was in their hearts? I think that someone is trying to take someone for a ride here.

While Omniscience is one of the attributes attributed to YHVH, the first doesn't contradict the second in that the first doesn't explicitly exclude the method mentioned in Deuteronomy as a way the Tetragrammaton knows the "hearts" of humans. The Deuteronomy verse does contradict Omniscience, though.

 GOD CONDEMNS THE BASTARD.

It will surprise us to know that God condemns the bastard. Deutronomy23: 2 made it clear “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation”. Now tell me what a bastard had done to deserve this kind of condemnation, even though he did not make himself a bastard, why should God treat him this way?

.


 GOD DEGRADES THE DEFORMED.

In Leviticus21: 16-23, God instructed Moses to tell Aaron the priest that no deformed man of any kind should ever come near the temple or present any sacrifices, do you know why? “That he profanes not my sanctuaries, for I the lord do sanctify them”. If God could talk this way about the deformed, then what does he expect the deformed to do? The deformed did not create himself deformed, and now, we see clearly that he is totally valueless in the sight of God. What a pity. I bet that this is not the kind of thing that anybody would like his or her child to learn in school or even in church.

 GOD PREVENTS PEOPLE FROM HEARING HIS WORD.

“Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes . . . . Lest they understand with their heart and convert and be healed” Isaiah6: 10. This was the assignment our almighty God gave to Isaiah.
But think of it, why would God be so cruel to think of something like this? Why would he want the people he created in his own image not to hear his word and be saved? This is nothing other than personal hatred. Is this the kind of God you worship?

This is but a tip of the iceberg. (not even up to a tip)[quote][/quote]

Israelite beliefs and prejudices.


Thanks for posting them, I've to admit to being slightly disappointed as you did promise that they'd be "not the ones you've heard before, these ones are entirely unbelievable to be found in a HOLY BOOK". Those are kinda known.

dont lose track with the point, is wont be easy but we have been through it before and we didnt die,it will be hard but sure we will smuggle it again,the word is in us anyway,

In as much as the bible is a good fictional and imaginative litrature,highly promoted in the time that most people of world were in the dark,christianity like every other religion time is up,it is only still buoyant among blacks and the weak because they don't know any better,conservative americans too,but rather they use it more for political and race propangandas than salvation.If you understand the history of christianity,i don't think you want to associate with it as a rational person,domination,colonialism and imperialism with cross.The story of christ is the revolution of the mind,body and soul,ultimate freedom through simplicity and selflessness that nobody but you can attain,you got to put yourself in it and be the one. Believe that you are free.

people like nwando should be banned from the world,when simple question are being asked u try to be funny, u started this whole christian/muslim thing and most of your post are simillar, for what u said about the prophet giving usman dan fodio a hi five from the grave, i must say i invoke the wrath of Allah swt upon you, u shall never find peace within your heart.beheading is the best solution to people like u, once more may Allah's anger shower uponyou!

Mr man e be like fear don catch you and you've started invoking the wrath of an idol god on yourself.
A god that has ears but cannot hear,hands but cannot deliver and mouth but cannot speak.
allah like Shango and amadioha are beneath my 2 feet.

I am covered by a precious blood and no weapon ever fashioned against me shall prosper.
Borrowing a phrase from the singer Njideka Okeke,keep calling your god allah,maybe he went to the market,or could it be he's in the toilet? .

Now we see how peaceful allah can make one

Onye "allah" ka Loyalty bu

why do these so called atheists bother reading the Bible ?
do they think Christians give a rat's behind about them?

get a life guys!

since you believe in nothing simply say[i],"I believe in Nothing"[/i] and move on.

why the epileptic fits to prove nothing
Just go ahead and proclaim your "gospel" of nothingness
Christians or even Muslims don't bother much about you guys.
You are some insignificant fly on the wall.

Reminds me of a little child struggling for attention
If you believe in nothing so be it.
You don't have to use scriptures to prove your nothingness.
Your doctrine should be able to stand on it's own without weak jabs at the Bible?
or can it?

I-man:

Onye "allah" ka Loyalty bu

LOL.
maybe allah went for "omugwo"

_{omugwo is when women go to spend time with their married daughters who just had a baby.}