joseph1013:


Love you too, bro. No homo (I have often wondered why we need such caveat)

joseph1013:
CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A RELIGION!

I've noticed a new Christian apologetic emerging in recent years. Rather than attempt the hopeless project of finding evidence to support the existence of God, Jesus, heaven, hell and all the rest of it and excuses for the contradictions and embarrassing nonsense, these new kids on the block simply say we misunderstand it all--Christianity is not a religion, it's just a way of life.

Really? So Christianity has no god, no prophets, no holy scripture, no dogma, no priests, no worship, no life-after-death and Christians don't pray? OK, it's not a religion then.

It's just a lifestyle. A lifestyle that happens to believe in a god, prophets, holy scripture, dogma, priests, worship, life-after-death and prayer.

What an amazing coincidence--it's a lifestyle that looks just like a religion!

joseph1832:
Funny how those who say christianity is a way of life, never seem to be able to follow the way of life prescribed by christianity. All you ever see them do, is the direct opposite of what christianity preaches.

Finally my impersonator! How many times have I been "mentioned" in place of you especially in the Sexuality section?

It is safe to say that Christianity itself does not have the power to uniquely steer one in the most righteous of directions. After all is said and done, we are all humans often subject to the failings of our frail humanity.

urahara:


If u no want may den suspect u say u be guy

joseph1013:


Finally my impersonator! How many times have I been "mentioned" in place of you especially in the Sexuality section?

It is safe to say that Christianity itself does not have the power to uniquely steer one in the most righteous of directions. After all is said and done, we are all humans often subject to the failings of our frail humanity.

joseph1013:


I know that's why, and I have often told those who say so to go f**k themselves. Gays are humans and most can't help been gays. It's like a man apologizing for being born in Nigeria. There are just so many idiots in this country.

I was reading about Homosexuality in Africa some years back and it occurred to me that our Ancients treated them with indifference. In fact, some of them were deified. Sango, a Bisexual is a god in the Yoruba traditional religion. Sango, the Yoruba god of thunder was often described as a beautiful man who dressed like a woman, had his hair braided and accessorized like a woman. Sango priests, all men, still dress in women apparels when performing traditional rituals.

The foreign gods messed up our minds.

joseph1832:
Funny how those who say christianity is a way of life, never seem to be able to follow the way of life prescribed by christianity. All you ever see them do, is the direct opposite of what christianity preaches.

joseph1832:
Funny how those who say christianity is a way of life, never seem to be able to follow the way of life prescribed by christianity. All you ever see them do, is the direct opposite of what christianity preaches.

urahara:


but they just cherry pick the rules they want to obey.

joseph1013 :


Then there is a problem. We may paraphrase what you just said to this (please correct me if I am wrong): "Things are not good because He approves of them, they are good because they are like him."

joseph1013:



If yes, then it seems to me that you just shuffled the problem around.
If the character of God is somehow like seizing the little ones and dashing their heads against the rocks (cf., Psalm 137:9), what then?

Richirich713:


Lets just say, God is the standard of goodness, there no standard beyond him, He is the ultimate being. In a sense he is "the good" Plato wrote about.

Nothing then,for it impossible for the God to have had a different character.

As for the psalm, it's not about Yahweh character, it's a cry for justice, an imprecatory psalm asking God to let justice be served, let Babylon suffer in the same measure as they made israel suffer.

joseph1013:


How do you know this?
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joseph1013:



2nd Kings 2:23-24
Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!"
When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number.…

joseph1013:



What happened to Yahweh here in answering Elisha's prayers?

[size=14pt]Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds[/size]



Children from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households, according to a new study.

Academics from seven universities across the world studied Christian, Muslim and non-religious children to test the relationship between religion and morality.

They found that religious belief is a negative influence on children’s altruism.

“Overall, our findings ... contradict the commonsense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others,” said the authors of The Negative Association Between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism Across the World, published this week in Current Biology.

“More generally, they call into question whether religion is vital for moral development, supporting the idea that secularisation of moral discourse will not reduce human kindness – in fact, it will do just the opposite.”

Almost 1,200 children, aged between five and 12, in the US, Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa participated in the study. Almost 24% were Christian, 43% Muslim, and 27.6% non-religious. The numbers of Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic and other children were too small to be statistically valid.

They were asked to choose stickers and then told there were not enough to go round for all children in their school, to see if they would share. They were also shown film of children pushing and bumping one another to gauge their responses.

The findings “robustly demonstrate that children from households identifying as either of the two major world religions (Christianity and Islam) were less altruistic than children from non-religious households”.

Older children, usually those with a longer exposure to religion, “exhibit[ed] the greatest negative relations”.

The study also found that “religiosity affects children’s punitive tendencies”. Children from religious households “frequently appear to be more judgmental of others’ actions”, it said.

Muslim children judged “interpersonal harm as more mean” than children from Christian families, with non-religious children the least judgmental. Muslim children demanded harsher punishment than those from Christian or non-religious homes.

At the same time, the report said that religious parents were more likely than others to consider their children to be “more empathetic and more sensitive to the plight of others”.

The report pointed out that 5.8 billion humans, representing 84% of the worldwide population, identify as religious. “While it is generally accepted that religion contours people’s moral judgments and pro-social behaviour, the relation between religion and morality is a contentious one,” it said.

The report was “a welcome antidote to the presumption that religion is a prerequisite of morality”, said Keith Porteous Wood of the UK National Secular Society.

“It would be interesting to see further research in this area, but we hope this goes some way to undoing the idea that religious ethics are innately superior to the secular outlook. We suspect that people of all faiths and none share similar ethical principles in their day to day lives, albeit may express them differently depending on their worldview.”

According to the respected Pew Research Center, which examines attitudes toward and practices of faith, most people around the world think it is necessary to believe in God to be a moral person. In the US, 53% of adults think that faith in God is necessary to morality, a figure which rose to seven of 10 adults in the Middle East and three-quarters of adults in six African countries surveyed by Pew.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/religious-children-less-altruistic-secular-kids-study

joseph1013:
SOUTH AFRICA TAKES AN IMPORTANT STEP

South Africa’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned the Christ Embassy church from airing its claims of faith healing following a complaint from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) advocates for increased access to treatment, care and support services for people living with HIV and campaigns to reduce new HIV infections.

TAC spokesperson Nathan Geffen said on Thursday that the claims were aired during the church’s regular early morning slot on e.tv on Sundays.

He said the church claimed to use faith healing to treat several diseases, including heart disease, and had run adverts on its website claiming to treat HIV/Aids.

“Quackery of this nature is not merely misleading. It is life-destroying,” he said.

He said TAC knew of a woman infected with extreme drug resistant TB who stopped taking her medication because she believed the church had cured her, and died, after infecting her own children with the disease.

Geffen also criticised e.tv for continuing to run Christ Embassy programming even after it was alerted to TAC’s concerns.

joseph1013:
[b]SOUTH AFRICA TAKES AN IMPORTANT STEP

South Africa’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned the Christ Embassy church from airing its claims of faith healing following a complaint from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) advocates for increased access to treatment, care and support services for people living with HIV and campaigns to reduce new HIV infections.

TAC spokesperson Nathan Geffen said on Thursday that the claims were aired during the church’s regular early morning slot on e.tv on Sundays.

He said the church claimed to use faith healing to treat several diseases, including heart disease, and had run adverts on its website claiming to treat HIV/Aids.

“Quackery of this nature is not merely misleading. It is life-destroying,” he said.

He said TAC knew of a woman infected with extreme drug resistant TB who stopped taking her medication because she believed the church had cured her, and died, after infecting her own children with the disease.

Geffen also criticised e.tv for continuing to run Christ Embassy programming even after it was alerted to TAC’s concerns.[/b]

kevoh:

@Joseph1013 seems this happened back in 2011 or so but still has more than enough juice to expose the dangers these so called faith healers pose.

CC petra1 a.k.a Joagbaje. What sayest thou?

holamiday:
Do you believe in mind healing? That a simple shift in thinking could be the difference between sickness & health? Have you heard of 'New Thought movement' and the teaching that right thinking has a healing effect?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then that's exactly what religion(including Christ Embassy) aims at achieving. To put in a mental state that induces healing. It works. I am not unaware that churches and establishments take advantage of this to scam gullible people.