₦airaland Forum

One only has to look at the slander placed upon Mary Magdalene to see how the Church tried to subjugate women.

Nowhere in the Bible does it suggest that she was the prostitute that the later Church made her out to be.
In all reality, she was very likely a woman with power in the Christian movement - probably a financial sponsor as well as a follower, if the Bible itself is to be believed. But by turning her into a prostitute, the Church tried to totally undermine her postion due to nothing more than chauvanism.

Again not a statement advocating or condemning but merely a point of interest.

Drugs and alcohol have played a big part in the creation and enactment of religion and still do.
Take a look at the majority of ancient religions and even some of the "native" religions today and you will find that substances that "alter reality" are used to enhance the religious experience.

There is even a theory that Judaism evolved around the drug contained in the Thorn Apple.

http://www.amazon.com/Moses-Legacy-Evidence-History/dp/0330484087

Sometimes I look at the amount of hate some of this christians show and I realise that 400 years ago our ips might have been traced and the gullotine would be fed

Rest assured, if it were still legal, they would probably do the same today.
The thing that amazes me, is that they try to force-feed you with fantasy, but when you come back with fact you're accused of being a "fundamentalist". If they weren't trying to jack their crap down people's throats and making outlandish statements there would be no need to continually discredit their arguments.

It's like they say something is black when it's clearly white. When you point out the truth, you're subjected to hate and vitriol, smoke and mirrors, lies and deceit, illogical argument and twisted fact.
If one person tried to shove all these things down your throat, he'd be locked up in an asylum as he would clearly be mad. Get a load of them together though, and they call it a religion and see it as perfectly acceptable to spout madness.

Unless  the works of Celsus, Pliny the Younger, Lucian, Seutonius, Thallos, Tacitus and Mara bar Serapion are parts of scripture, you must admit to encylopedic ignorance. None of these mentions of Jesus could be remotely seen as hagiographical.

Let's take a look at those shall we?

Celsus wrote 200 years after Christ. Pliny 100 years after Christ. Lucian 300 years after Christ. Seutonias doesn't mention Jesus Christ. Thallus actually wrote to discredit the Jesus myth (ironic that one). Tacitus 100 years after Christ and his work was edited long after. Mara bar Serapion doesn't mention Jesus Christ.

Hagiographical? No.
Bullshit? Absolutely.

Every single one of those examples is either false or irrelevant. Not a single one could be classified as even remotely providing independent evidence that Christ existed. Again, I laugh in your face.

Hitler and Christianity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_beliefs
http://nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

The juxtaposition of Pasteur with Hitler was an interesting point. For respectable luminaries, you assert their failure to attend mass is indicative, yet, where it comes to the Fuhrer who is not known to have attended mass throughout his adult life, he becomes a confirmed a Christian! Such is the inconsistency of oafs like you.

You dickhead!!! That's the point of the argument. The Christians are claiming Pasteur as one of their own as a "devout" Christian and I've shown that by using the same logic criteria, they have to also take Hitler. I know that since you've joined this thread, you've shown the understanding of an imbecilic dipshit but at least try to follow what's going on.

Honestly. Try again, retard.








@DavidDylan.

Did you take a scientific poll before spewing this nonsense? And you claim to be able to reason logically.

Yes, you spanner. It was a scientific poll (actually I gave you 3 poll examples). I even gave you the statistical figures from the polls. I not only claim to reason logically but, unlike you, I also claim to read before commenting.


@Chrisbenogor. Let him attack, dude. He's toothless so it doesn't matter.

To assert that there is no single documented account of him outside scriptures marks you out as a clueless buffoon.

I laugh in your face. Name the instance where Christ is mentioned outside of scripture. I've already offered to debate you on the subject. The post above shows that you are not only an idiot but also a hypocrite too. So come on. Where are these examples?

For someone questioning the Christianity of Louis Pasteur to even imply that Nazi Hitler was a Christian is incredible.

Incredible but factual and true. Saying that Hitler wasn't a Christian is totally and utterly laughable. Read "Mein Kampf". Read his speeches. Read the accounts of people that knew him. You're an ignorant joke. There's no secret or conspiracy regarding Hitler's Christian belief. I would have thought the fact that he gassed Jews might have given a little clue about how Christianity affected him. But anyway, there is absolutely reams and reams of material out there regarding Hitler's Christianity.
As for Pasteur - "Maurice Vallery-Radot, grandson of the brother of the son-in-law of Pasteur and militant Catholic, holds that Pasteur fundamentally remained catholic, but does not pretend that he went to mass."
Once one understands the context of the word "fundamentally and takes that into account with his avoidance of church one can hardly call him a "devout" Christian as was claimed. Or one can look at his Wikipedia biography - "Following his grandson Pasteur Vallery-Radot, Pasteur had only kept from his catholic education a spiritualism without religious practice." So now Christianity claims to own all spiritualism does it? Please, if you're going to make a claim in such a vociferous manner, make sure it can't be so easily disected. Otherwise one ends up looking like an uneducated retard, just as you have done.

This blithering oaf proclaims that he researches non-spiritual material, what would make any intelligent person think religionists don't consume literary content outside their holy books?

You're living in Cloud Cuckoo Land if you think that the majority of Christians will read independent research. Their reading tends to be of a very biased slant as exemplified by OLAADEGBU and his posting of Creationist material. If you think that the majority of devout Christians are liable to often pick up and read material that may be deemed "heretical" by their religion, you're even more of a fool than I first took you for (if that's possible). Independent work is quite often anatheama and the majority of devout Christians will view it as evil. To suggest that they would willingly read it is again, laughable and shows no understanding on your part.

You keep dropping the name of Richard Dawkins as if by knowing of him you prove some sort of credibility. Sorry. It just makes you look like a band-wagon jumper. Although I have a copy of "The God Delusion", Dawkins doesn't bring anything new to the table that hasn't been around before. That said, Dawkins cannot be discounted. Anyone who has received the number of awards that he has, holds a professorship at Oxford University or who has lectured in the Royal Institute Lectures could only be dismissed by someone living in your world. Of course, I could counter that you now think that you are either Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

As for assuming your beliefs? Yes, I assume that you are Christian. Either that or just an idiot who doesn't know what they're talking about. Why? Because you waffle about nothing and show no real inclination to address any question or adhere to any logical thought process.

I'll skip over the rest of your post as it's just mere trash that has already been addressed but please do feel free to follow up on my first point and give some independent evidence of Christ's physical existence.



@DavidDylan.
Your examples are pathetic and very tenuous. Yet again, you show no grasp of logical argument.
You ask what relevance 400 years has? 400 years ago, you would have been executed for not being a Christian. That rather makes a difference don't you think? But then, you guys are used to worshipping with a gun to your head. Up until the 19th century, everyone had to claim that they were Christians. But since then? How come that since the death penalty has been removed for heresy, the vast majority of scientists and thinkers now are not Christians?

Richard Smalley was a christian the last yr of his life and so what? That is even more astounding that a man with so much knowledge could still at the end realise that without God he was nothing but a candidate of hell.

Or more realistically, he went senile towards the end of his life. Hey, I hit my head and was a Christian for 10 minutes last week - are you going to claim me as one of your own?

If indeed one or two names of people shown to be not devout christians makes my argument less credible then the way longer list of those who are indeed known to be devout christians puts your argument to shame.

Is that some sort of joke? Let me give you some figures: Of 250 members of the Royal Society polled, only 3% professed a belief in Christianity. In the National Academy of Sciences (the US version of the RS) 7% professed a belief. Out of the hundreds of winners of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences, only 2 were found to be religious Christians. A study found that "among Nobel Prize laureates in the sciences, as well as in literature, there was a remarkable degree of irreligiousity, as compared to the populations they came from". A "way longer list" of devout Christians? You have no idea what you are talking about.

It's about as far away from the ringing endorsement of "great men" that you can get.

It's amusing that they try to claim that all the smart people are Christians but then overlook the Hitlers of the world.

Maybe if Germany had won WW2 huh?  

Reaching again. You've even managed to go back 500 years for some of your examples!!!

And just like DavidDylan you're claiming people to be devout Christians when they weren't.

Louis Pasteur is well known for not attending church although Catholics love trying to claim him as one of his own. Possibly he was Christian but "devout"?
Francis Bacon with his links to Roscrucianism and Freemasonry could easily be seen as "heretical".
Johannes Kepler was not only an astronomer but also an avid astrologist. Again "heretical". His mother was tried for "witchcraft".
As I've already pointed out, Isaac Newton was considered as a heretic.
Nicholaus Steno was so devout he didn't know what he wanted to be. Raised a Lutheran, he converted to Catholicism.
Andrew Ure was the role model for Shelley's "Frankenstein". Hmmm. Christian? Perhaps.
James Clerk Maxwell was a member of the Cambridge Apostles - known for homosexuality and Marxism. Also yet another who didn't know what he wanted to be and converting from Presbyterian to Episcopalian to Evangelicalism.
Others that you've mentioned, such as Jason Lisle whose work has been discredited by the scientific community, aren't big players.
Raymond V. Damadian claimed to have invented MRI but when the Nobel Commitee looked into it, they found that two other people had done most of the work and even after Damadian threatened to sue them they still awarded the Nobel Prize to the other two candidates. He was criticised and told that there is "No Nobel Prize for whining".


Need me to go on?

It may be of interest to this topic but saying that Jesus drank wine and leaving it at that is a little misleading.

The wine of the ancients was pretty potent stuff and wasn't drunk in the same way that we partake of it today.
Basically, a little wine was added to a pitcher and then the host would top it up with water. The diluted wine was then poured into bowls and handed out to the guests. Hosts who used less water were always thought to be the best party throwers as the less water, the merrier the party!!!

So in reality, Jesus may have taken wine but it may have been 10 parts water, 1 part wine and so diluted that you would have had to drink gallons to get drunk. Or he may have done it the other way and drunk 10 parts wine, 1 part water, in which case The Last Supper woulda been one helluva party.

@ auwal87. The aim of drinking wine was not always to get drunk as the above points out. Quite often it was seen as a ceremonial participation or formality just as it is in many religious rituals today.

Women held many high offices in early Christianity and any Biblical passage stating that they are not to have authority is contradicted elsewhere in scripture.

Female authority was stamped out by male chauvanism. Nothing more, nothing less.

one can still be devout and be at odds with the vatican about an issue that is not dogma.

Not if one is a Catholic.
Historically, people were put to death for far less.

People who hold contrary opinion have also conducted their research. The real question is what makes the conclusions you have drawn from your research any more valid.

What a mouth-breather.

You don't seem to understand that research actually involves studying other than Biblical material. If you did, you would understand that I don't have to make a claim for more validity - the facts in non-scriptural materials speak for themselves and logically expose the Bible as flawed. Want to pick one of those exposures and debate it with me? How about the Christ figure himself? Want to explain to me why there isn't one single documented reference of him outside of scripture? That's just one solitary point I could tear you a new asshole over but the "Good Book" contains hundreds more.

Of course, a plank like you can go around blabbing their mouth off, acting like they know what they're talking about but all you are is a fart in the wind. You've nothing of substance whatsoever to say - just some pansy-assed retard whining because you don't like people pointing at the obvious holes in your religion.

Yet you dipshits are always trying to shove that religion down everyone else's throat. Reap what you sow, bitch.

@OLAADEGBU.
Never heard of a single one of those suckers. Hardly "great" men.

@DavidDylan.
Come on, you're reaching. Richard Smalley a devout Christian? Yeah. For the last year of his life.
Walter Kohn is totally at odds with his Catholic faith and the Vatican on the issue of birth control (a pretty big one, you'd have to agree). He's way more of a theist than a "devout Christian".
Pascal? 400 years ago. I'm not even going to bother with that one. Suffice to say he wasn't a "devout Christian" but a "heretical" Jansenist.
Do I really need to go through the other couple of names that you've given? And come on. If Christianity is the be-all and end-all like you state that it is, you should be able to come up with the names of thousands of these "great men" of devoutness.

The fact is, you can't. You're talking crap again. One or two names of people who can easily be shown not to be "devout" Christians makes your argument even less credible.

The Bible shouldn't be edited. So you shouldn't be looking forward to editions here and there.

The Bible has been edited hundreds of times.

I have a dozen different editions sitting on my book-shelf right now. My favourite is what is known as a Parallel Bible. It has the King James version on one side of the page and the 1881 revision on the other side. It's amazing looking at the same page and seeing just how many differences there are.

Let me illustrate why you're an ignorant asshole.

Nobody but an idiot responds to the question of what makes their opinion more valid by stating they researched it.

I haven't once stated that my opinion is "more valid".

I would add as well that claiming to have researched a subject is not the ignorant reply that you claim it to be - especially when the majority of you Bible-bashers don't even have the balls to do it yourself but merely swallow the party line like gimps wearing gag-balls. All you do is bury yourself in the Bible, listen to your pastors and then bleat like sheep.

"Baa baa baa".

this in highlights is the ready excuse you and your ilk bandy around as an excuse when we mention the likes of Isaac Newton. Sorry but there are many contemporary scientists here whom you don't know who profess a staunch belief in the bible.

It's like arguing with a Muslim. They'll never give you a straight answer either.
Isaac Newton was born almost 400 years ago. 400 years ago he was considered a heretic. By your standards of "judgement" today he would still be considered a heretic.
Try again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_religious_views

A careful analysis of the points made expose them to be nothing but a desperate attempt to play down the significance of righteous christian living.

Then analyse and expose.
Go for it.

@4Play.

Don't be an asshole.
I explained what the research involved.
OK. Maybe not being an asshole is difficult for you but at least try to read what I wrote before commenting with trivial crap.

@DavidDylan.

You have no wish to abide by His rules but want Him to welcome you with open arms into heaven.

They are the rules of men. Period.
And how many times do you want me to type that I don't give a crap about heaven?

One geared towards understanding God more or one that is already predicated on picking out none existent holes in the bible?

Actually, I aim for the former, but often that will mean discrediting Biblical source. Not where it's "non-existent" but where it exists.

There are more renowned men than you, more intelligent scientists who have done way more "research" than you would ever do shld you live your life 5 times over . . . if they could believe the bible as God's Word revealed to man,

Name them. Go on. Who are these "intelligent scientists"? And don't go pulling up names from hundreds of years ago when professing not to be a Christian would have got you your balls cut off. Name some contemporary, modern-day geniuses who believe in the bible as "God's Word revealed to man".


Go for it.

I don't condemn the Bible per se in the same way that I don't condemn the Qu'ran.
They are just books. Pieces of paper. They are worthless until they are read. Then they are either great or disastrous depending on interpretation. Unfortunately, it seems that disastrous is making a return.

Scriptures do not make a religion until they are read by men. And that is where the problem occurs.
You say to appreciate the fact that men penned the Bible, but the problem is that once it was penned, to a large degree it became immovable. This meant that errors became dogma. Also, there are so many contradictions, interpretation becomes very, very difficult. Putting the religions to paper means that they aren't flexible and I honestly believe that this is a big failure. I personally prefer the old ways of oral tradition and editing as you go along as with many of the Buddhist and Hindu scripts. Unfortunately, Biblical editing has been very slap-dash and sometimes even compounded errors (not to mention influenced by politics).

You are confident in your salvation because man dared to listen to God and let God use him.

No. Salvation is totally and utterly irrelevant to me. Concentrating on it is at odds with everything I believe in.

I don't deal with boasters like you but believe in facts.

Islam, like Christianity, is a religion.
It is a system of beliefs. It is not a fact however much you would like to state that it is.

The guy supported most of your doctrines especially that of trinity

Yet another false assumption. I did not support the Trinity. I merely explained how it could be looked at. Explaining something has nothing to do with supporting something. One can still explain an idea even if one is opposed to it.

You are here asking a question when I asked you and enboldened it but you pretended not to have seen it

Either you're being misleading or just plain thick.
I'll ask the question again. Were the Crusaders Christians?

People come to believe in God by reading the Bible, not by believing in God and then reading the Bible to make him fit.
The Bible is used as a measure of standard, not the other way around. We conform ourselves to fit and not conform God to fit us.
You have conformed God to fit you.

Which is exactly what the Bible authors did. They made their god conform to their way of life back then. So you may be conforming yourself to fit but all you are conforming to are the ideas put forward by other men (the authors). You've conformed God to fit by proxy.

@DavidDylan.
Research. Lots and lots of research. Some of what stands out is obvious (like politics) some not so obvious (like ritual) - but I study everything and anything that I think may be relevant - from Mathematics to History, from Science to my own personal sense of spirituality.

Quote from: Bastage on Yesterday at 11:11:17 PM

One could lay the exact same accusation at the door of Christians. You guys want him to be like the deity depicted in the Bible and you use the Bible to define him.

Quote from: DavidDylan:

How else would you define your own idea of God?

Most certainly not by taking everything that is written in the Bible at face value. And definitely not by having Him defined by organised religion and by other men.

don't want to rain on your parade, but this is the problem with everyone. we want God to be the way we think he should be, instead of letting him show us how he really is.

One could lay the exact same accusation at the door of Christians. You guys want him to be like the deity depicted in the Bible and you use the Bible to define him.

Personally, I don't have a problem with any god. I have a problem with the followers.

You claimed that it has everything to do with Islam but you couldnt support your fact with Quranic verses or Hadith.

I explained why that was irrelevant. It doesn't matter what the Qu'ran says; if you think that the Crusaders were Christian as their actions were contrary to their scriptures. With the logic used by you guys, the Crusaders couldn't have been Christians if suicide bombers aren't Muslims. Go back and read what I wrote again.





So answer the question: Were the Crusaders Christians?



Oh yeah. Stop calling it my Bible. The majority of it is as worthless as the Qu'ran.

Do you think the Quran was compiled like your bible? Do you need us to go through your bible from Genesis to Revelation and if its 100% words of God?

You guys are very assuming people. First you assume I'm a Muslim and now you assume I place all of my belief in the Christian Bible.

The Quran was revealed by God Almighty through Angel Jibril and every revelation was memorized word for word. Later they were written on rocks, on animal bones till it wad finally printed.

Sure it was. Or you could actually do what you claim I should do and research. If you do, you will find it drew heavily on earlier religions (the Judaic plagiarism is too obvious to state) and there is basically nothing in there that hasn't been taken from elsewhere.  
If the angel Gabriel really did hand it down to Mohammed, he deserves a good kicking for stealing everyone else's work.


babs787. Don't flatter yourself my dear. Being a student of theology and therefore more open-minded and educated, I probably know more about "your" religion than you ever will - especially with you being hampered by your ability to comprehend (poorly) only what the other brain-washed drones tell you.

Like I said perceive or not jump from the empire state building, think you are a bird, you have yourself to blame!

Ever seen the movie "The Matrix" where Neo tries to jump from skyscraper to skyscraper?

"Nobody makes their first jump".

Fact: The people mentioned call themselves Muslims. Wether you like it or not. Wether you agree with it or not. They commit these acts in the name of Islam.

It doesn't matter what it says in the Qu'ran. That has absolutely no relevance whatsoever. If it does, then were the Crusades undertaken by Christians? Yes or No?

If you answer yes, you've merely proven that you are either a hypocrite or a liar if you continue to state that the people who blow themselves up have nothing to do with Islam.

Fact. Period. Got it?

For me I don't know is the answer, one cannot pass judgement on an issue you do not have facts of.

But we do that all of the time.
The only facts you have are those that you perceive. That doesn't make them absolute facts.

Here's a good example to show you what I mean by that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat

If you were a brain in a vat, you may well have made judgements on what you perceive to be facts but which are actually ideas fed to you by the mad scientist. Therefore, you may not be in possession of the facts and any judgements you've made are irrelevant!!! So at the end of the day everything comes down to belief. Scary stuff huh?


As for extraterrestrial life? I don't discount it. Neither am I convinced it exists. I'm pretty ambivalent on the subject. To be brutally honest, it's not something that really concerns me nor which I give much thought to. I have enough trouble getting my head round Planet Earth.

If that is not your God then enlighten me on your God how about we start from there.

OK. I choose to believe in a god.
The god of the New Testament happens to have the attributes closest to those I believe my god would have. I also take into account the influences that older religions have on the NT god. Then I look at science, logic and myself.

I don't see God as a Christian god or an Islamic god. He's just "God".

As to why I believe? I just see it as a logical choice. Like I said, I can only be certain that "I think, therefore I am". I choose to believe that something created the "I am" and that something is my god.
To believe in a god is a yes or no answer. To me, the Yes seems more logical. To you maybe not. But that's a matter of choice.

@Bastage: I don't think that you can cull out a verse from the holy Qur'aan, where people are supposed to be killed for just leaving Islam.

Hmmm,

Verse 256 of Surah Baqarah is a good argument for freedom of religion, under the freewill that Allah gives to mankind.

@olabowale: I don't think that you can cull out a verse from the holy Qur'aan, where people are supposed to be allowed freedom of religion.


If you're going to insist on talking crap, try not to mix it in with too much hypocrisy.

Hence your philosophy example is meaningless.

One of the greatest recognised philosophers within Islam is "meaningless"?

Yes. I suppose she is just as long as she doesn't fit your agenda of shallowness. Or could it be because she was merely a woman? A second-class citizen who should have been seen and not heard?

Mohammed came out of the cave, dude. You've never left it.

Quantum theory works you say, and we have evidence to support that it does.

Yes. But that's the point. It's illogical evidence that supports it. Therefore we have to rely on belief to explain why we think it works.