₦airaland Forum

Deleted.

Double post

Horus: Can you post the "harmonised version" of the bill on the forum

I'm still trying to find a copy. The NA is useless when it comes to public access to documents.

As far as I know, its essentially the same bill they passed 2 years ago. There has been no significant debate on this bill, and they haven't even acknowledged its many problems, not to talk of fixing them.

Bump bump bump!

Bump

The senate just passed the harmonised version of this horrible bill. And they've made no attempt to fix the draconian and unconstitutional parts.


Time to resurrect the old thread.

OLAADEGBU: Why not? God didn't have to get today’s approximately 6.5 million species to fit onto the ark. Noah needed only one pair for the canine kind—from which would come all the species of dog, from the Chihuahua to the Great Dane—and one pair for the feline kind—from which would come the domesticated cat and the tiger, etc. So now we are talking just thousands of animals, not millions. And because these animals need not have been fully grown (averaging the size of a sheep), it becomes possible.

Are you now actually trying to use evolution and speciation to explain the ark? So now you believe in evolution abi? If I were you, I'd keep that can of worms closed. If we agree that evolution is real, then Genesis has far bigger problems than the ark story.

What do you know about marine archaeology? Have you ever heard of a Chinese treasure ship of Yung He in the 1400s? Another older contender is the ancient Greek trireme Tessarakonterres

The sizes of Zheng He's treasure ships is grossly exaggerated. Most historians believe that the largest was no more than 70 metres or so in length, half the size of the ark. Plus history records that they were only used in rivers because they were too dangerous to sail in the open sea.

The Tessarakonterres is a legendary ship known only from the writings of Plutarch and Athenaeus. Let me quote what Plutarch said about her:

But this ship was merely for show; and since she
differed little from a stationary edifice on land,
being meant for exhibition and not for use, she
was moved only with difficulty and danger.

Even Plutarch knew that a wooden ship that size couldn't possibly have sailed. Your two examples only illustrate how ridiculous the idea of a 137 metre wooden boat is.

Noah's Ark was the focus of a major 1993 scientific study headed by Dr. Seon Hong at the world-class ship research centre based in South Korea. Dr. Hong's team compared 12 hulls of different proportions to discover which design was most practical. The found out that no hull shape was found to significantly outperform Noah's design. In fact, the 4,300 year old biblical design would have lost its balance if the proportions were modified, thus rendering the Ark either unstable, prone to fracture or dangerously uncomfortable. The research team found that the proportions of Noah's Ark carefully balanced the conflicting demands of stability, comfort and strength. In fact, the Ark has the same proportions as a modern cargo ship.

First of all, that study was funded by the Korea association of creation research, a Christian creationist group thus calling into question its objectivity ab initio.
Secondly, if you'd bothered to read as far as the second paragraph of your Korean study's abstract, you'd have seen that it was done with 1/50 scale models. That automatically removes the ark's most obvious flaw, that wood cannot possibly survive the stresses sea waves put on a ship of anything even close to that size. It would have snapped like a toothpick in a crocodile's mouth within minutes.
Third, the study made huge assumptions about the shape and architecture of the ark and didn't take into account the technological limitations of the period.
Fourth, the dimensions of the ark (what the study compared) wasn't even the best among the 13 possibilities tested. It doesn't say much about say much about gods engineering skills when some random Korean can come up with a ship design that's more stable than his.

Your study is worth diddly squat.

OLAADEGBU: "Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second and third decks" (Genesis 6:14-16).

Noah's Ark was a massive three-level ship, the size of one and a half football fields and for your other questions you will have to open other threads for it to be treated.

A ship that size can't contain enough food for 2 elephants to survive a year, not to talk about food for the millions of other species and space for the animals themselves. Maybe the bible translation is wrong and the ark was actually the size of 1000 football fields? That sounds closer to the mark.

And I wonder how 6 people were able to build such a ship? And out of wood? Even if it was really 1.5 football fields long, it would have been ridiculously fragile. Wood doesn't have the tensile strength to hold its shape at such a scale. A wooden ship of that size would have snapped like a toothpick on even the gentlest of waves. There's a reason nobody builds large ships out of wood anymore. A wooden ship without a metal skeleton wouldn't last 5 minutes in a storm. Pretty much all the wooden ships ever built that were over a 100 meters long either sank or were scrapped after a few years because of their fragility.

Then there is the technical difficulty of building such a ship. Even with modern technology and hundreds of years of shipbuilding experience, it still takes thousands of people to build far smaller boats. Noah and his sons built the largest wooden ship in history, with zero knowledge and experience, and no technology, not even the wheel (it hadn't been invented yet). And that's despite God handicapping them with an unworkable and structurally unsound rectangular design.

Those guys (and their wives) deserve an award!

Watching this thread with great interest. I'm a bit disappointed that my christian brethren haven't tried harder to answer the questions from my first 2 posts. The bible cannot be wrong, so I guess you guys just don't have the spirit of discernment to decipher its secrets.

Also I just want to point out that the archeological record shows clear evidence of farming of rice and domestication of animals in China as far back as 7500BCE. Since then, the record is continuous with no breaks consistent with a flood. Which leads me to another question: How come the Chinese people didn't know they had all died in the flood and instead just kept on farming and making pottery to us to find thousands of years later?

Again, I'm not doubting the ark story. I just want to know the whole truth.

Joshthefirst: ^^^

He does.

And not all insects were admitted into the ark mind you.

If you can mannage to not lalala and examine this noah and the ark story even scientifically, you'll realize its remarkable.

And only terrestrials were admitted. Some fish would have survived though. Majority of the rest would be covered in sand and silt washed suddenly upon them.

Majority of lifeforms would fossilize, majority of the land would be scarred by the moving waters.

The numbers I quoted refer to the species alive today. If they weren't all admitted to the ark, then how did they survive?

And no, the saltwater fish could not have survived. Very few fish species can survive such drastic changes in salinity. The vast majority would have died long before all the land was covered.

I noticed that you didn't address the fact that there simply isn't enough space for even a tiny fraction of those animals to fit on the ark as described in the bible. Even a hundred arks couldnt have fit all the food (and shït) they would have gone through in a month, not to talk of a year. Also there's the altitude problem. And the post deluge food problem. And the problem of which one of Noah's family members was HIV positive.

I didn't even ask how all the animals only found on isolated islands and continents (like kangaroos, ostriches, lemurs and the various species of giant tortoises) managed to find their way to the middle east to climb into the ark. Did they swim across the oceans? Did they swim back after the flood? And how come kangaroos and lemurs didn't leave a single descendant behind in Eurasia or Africa during their long walk/swim back to Australia/Madagascar? You'd think you'd find every class of animal living around the area where the ark landed instead of species being geographically isolated the way they are.

Like I said before, I'm not doubting the story. The Bible is obviously 100% correct in every way. I just want to clear up a few grey areas.

@OP

If your mother cant come to terms with your atheism, then there's nothing wrong with pretending to be a Christian in front of her if that is what will make her happy.

Your mom is not going to be with you for ever. We atheists don't have the luxury of fantasizing about seeing our lived ones in heaven. Once she dies, you'll never see her again. So use the little time you have well. Make the woman happy. Don't flaunt your atheism in front of her if it makes her feel bad. And lie and pretend to be a christian if she just can't accept it.

Like I said before in another thread, we don't all have to be Christopher Hitchens.

How did Noah fit 2 million insects (1 million species x 2) into the ark? And how did be manage to fit 12,000 amphibians, 20,000 birds, 11,000 mammals, 16,000 reptiles and god knows how many crustaceans, arachnids and mollusks into a boat that must have already been overflowing with insects? Where did he find space to keep a years worth of food for all those animals? How did he keep the meat for the Lions, tigers and other carnivores fresh for a whole year? Why did he take mosquitoes, tapeworms, guinea worms and the HIV virus aboard the ark? Did he infect himself with all those parasites, or did he force his wife and children to carry them? How come all the animals didn't freeze to death at 9,000 metres altitude (the height of Mount Everest which must have been underwater) Where did they find oxygen to breathe at that height? What did all the animals eat after getting off the ark? All the plants must have died after a year underwater, and all the animals would have drowned so no food for herbivores or carnivores. How come all the fish in the ocean survived? Saltwater fish can't survive in freshwater and the ocean would have been massively diluted with all that rain. Or did the ark also have a salty fish tank with space for 60,000 fish (30,000 species x 2)? And how did he feed all those fish?

Not that I'm doubting this ark story mind you. Its in the Bible after all, so it must be true. I'm just curious about a few technicalities. I'm sure you have good explanations for all of them.

I've performed a few amputations myself and dealt with dozens of amputees. I've also read literature by other doctors involving hundreds of thousands of amputations over the last hundred years or so. Let me assure you that there has never been a single recorded case of an amputated limb growing back anywhere.

Most of the patients I've dealt with personally have looked for spiritual solutions either before of after the surgery. Not a single person has found one. Those who go to the big churches like redeemed and Christ embassy looking for healing always get diverted away from the main stage (along with other people with obvious physical deformities) whenever the pastor does his healing altar call. The only people who ever get “healed" on stage are those whose problems aren't outwardly obvious like back pain, “body weakness", blindness, and deafness. You will never see any miracle in church that you can verify with you own eyes.

So to answer OP's question, no god cannot heal amputees. God cannot heal anyone. All those “healing pastors" are nothing more than stage magicians. If you are an amputee, my advice is to get a prosthetic limb, stop wasting time in church and move on with your life.

^^^ Abeg stop sidetracking the debate with this partnership nonsense. Churches are not partnerships. Pastors don't pay income tax on church earnings like they would if churches were partnerships. Partnerships are taxed ways in which churches are not. Your point is moot.

You claim to be reserving stronger arguments. Please feel free to unleash them without holding back. Just stop wasting my time on this US corporate law bullshït.

If you like, you can go and argue that stuff on dollarland.com/legal_crap

nlMediator: It is obvious you do not know what you’re talking about. Any business organized as a partnership, limited liability company or S corporation does not pay any income tax to the US government. It has nothing to do with loopholes. See the link below from the State of New York, which says, inter alia: “Income tax responsibilities - A partnership:
• does not pay income tax directly on its income. The partnership's income is passed through to its partners and is included as income on each partner's income tax or franchise tax return."
http://www.tax.ny.gov/pit/efile/partneridx.htm
Loopholes will pertain to corporations (C corp) which are required to pay a corporate income tax. Those can utilize loopholes, credits and deductions to reduce their tax liability. But the big law and accounting firms, which are almost invariably organized as partnerships, and many other businesses now organized as LLCs and PLLCs do not have an income tax liability in the first place. So, loopholes have no place in the discussion.
And why are you talking about capital gains tax or property tax? Let’s settle the income tax question first. Since you do not seem to know how the income tax system works, it is unlikely that you’ll know what to say when we shift to capital gains and property taxes. For a start, tithe and offerings paid in church are income, not captal gains nor are they subject to property tax even if the church were to be a private business that is taxed on its income.

Partnerships are not legal entities therefore, corporate income tax cannot be levied against them. Instead, income tax is levied against the individual partners in the same manner as a sole proprietorship. This is solely because of the nature of a partnership and not because anybody thinks they shouldn't be taxed. The reason why law firms are usually partnerships is because law firms are full of lawyers and lawyers tend to know how to lawyer their way to paying as little tax as possible. The downside is that they lose the limited liability that corporations have, but they can lawyer their way around that as well.

Churches aren't partnerships, they don't operate like partnerships and the pastors who effectively own them don't pay income tax on the church's' earnings like partners do. There is no other reason for comparing them to partnerships except the vain hope that I'd be ignorant on the topic and concede even though I'm right.

So your argument basically is that certain types of businesses in the US don't pay income tax, therefore churches shouldn't be taxed at all? Really? You want to use your minimal knowledge of the NYC tax code to obfuscate how ridiculous your argument is abi? Nice attempt, but it didn't work.

Try again.

Uyi Iredia: And he starts with its flaws. Abiogenesis and vast swaths of aspects of evolution such as that of the brain, sexual reproduction even phylogeny remain unsolved. To pretend otherwise is pathetic and shows lack of objectivity. In the case of atheists LIKE YOU who scorn religious delusions, I say it's crass stüpidity for the hypocrisy involved.

This is a perfect example of the ignorance I was talking about. You calling abiogenesis a flaw in evolution exposes your lack of understanding of the premise of the theory.

Just for giggles, I'm not going to tell you what is wrong with what you said. Let me see if you can do some googling and figure it out yourself. I'll let you know when you're getting warm.

nlMediator: No, those companies are not required to pay - and do not pay any - income tax in the US. Your assumption that churches in the US and Canada don't pay income taxes because of their influence holds little water when you can't answer why for-profit businesses organized as partnershis, LLCs and S corporations enjoy the same privillege. Again, I mention these countries because the practice of exempting religious institutions from tax is similar. Besides, if your argument that churches are enjoying a free ride at the expense of tax payers had any merit, it would be more applicabe to those countries (US, Canada) where there are genuine tax payers who are financing the government, unlike Nigeria. Yet, nobody has seriously considered the proposal to tax churches because it lacks merit, seeing the important social functions that churches play. Sorry I had to spell it out and repeat myself again.

I don't know where you are getting this idea that those companies aren't require to pay tax. FYI, they are taxed on their profits, their capital gains and their landed property. The fact that they have the money and the lack of morals to lawyer their way out of most of their obligations is irrelevant to our discussion.

You can't use the corporate tax loopholes in the pro-big business, anti-poor people US as a justification for not taxing churches.

Try again.

Joagbaje: You can't tax churches for donations they Recieve . If you must tax churches then you must tax mosques too.

Why the hell can't we tax churches for donations? Cash gifts to individuals and corporations are taxable so why should churches be different? And I agree that we should also tax mosques. And not just on their income, all of them should pay the same property tax as everybody else.

Logicboy03: Thank you. All catholic churches engage in charity. But many have other services that arent charity. The charity side should be left while other business eg catholic book shop, rosary sales, printing etc should be taxed

Even the Catholic church spends a relatively small amount of its earnings on real charity work. Most goes to maintaining church structures, paying staff and proselytizing. What tends to happen is that the proselytizing gets rebranded as charity work when it clearly isn't.

If your local Guru Maraji shrine were to build a primary school where kids are constantly indoctrinated with Guru Maraji beliefs, I doubt is anybody would say that was charity or want it subsidized by government. Why is it different when the catholics do it?

nlMediator: Not taxing churches is subsidizing them only if you accept that you're also subsidizing PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche, Baker & McKenzie and numerous other firms that gross billions of dollars in revenue annually. I didn't see where you made such an assertion. Until you do, your argument about churches and subsidy is baseless. And just as you insist that churches be taxed, you should also argue that these firms be subject to taxes. But you conveniently ignore that.

All of those companies are required to pay tax. If you feel they aren't paying enough, then you can start a new thread about that but don't pretend that they are getting the same free ride as churches.

I did not say that there is a correlation between the number or size of churches and crime rate. I said that going to church has kept many people from crime and harmful behavior, such as drugs and alcohol. That there are people in church that indulge in such behavior or people outside the church that do not indulge in such behavior does not negate it. Even if it’s only one person that’s helped by a church, that amounts to money saved to the society. If your argument, however, is that nobody is ever steered from evil by religion, then it wouldn’t make sense to continue with this discussion.

My argument is that there's not a shred of evidence that religion has any overall positive effect on the amount of harmful behavior engaged in by its members. Until you can show us some, please keep your church propaganda to yourself.

Unless you’re completely ignorant of Nigeria’s fiscal posture, you should know that Nigeria is notoriously dependent on non-tax revenues for running the economy. [snip] Worse still, even in societies like the US and Canada where tax revenues largely fund government, churches continue to enjoy tax-exempt status.

I already dealt with the oil vs tax issue in my last post. Try reading that again. And pointing to the US and Canada is a nursery school debating tactic. Just because other children in school wet their bed doesn't make it okay for you to do it. Churches in US enjoy all sorts of illegal privileges due to their overbearing influence and the lack of opposition to them in the past. But that is slowly changing.

nlMediator: ^^^
The logic of your position is easily refutable. The fact that taxes are not levied does not translate to endorsement. It simply reflects public policy that accepts the important role of the non-taxable entities to the society. In the US, churches are not taxed. But many for-profit businesses are not taxed either, if they choose certain organizational forms. General partnerships, limited artnerships, limited liability partnerships, limited liability companies and even some corporations ("S" Corp) pay no taxes even when they rake in millions of dollars in profit. By your logic, because big accounting and law firms or the Heinz ketch-up group are organized as partnerships and thus exempt from taxes, government is somehow endorsing them and forcing people who do not believe in their products to be subsidizing them? Maybe, you should launch a fruitless campaign to make them pay entity-level taxes.

Not taxing churches is exactly equivalent to funding them. There is no material difference between giving somebody free money and giving them free services. The whole point of money is to exchange it for goods or services. If churches had to pay for their own police and roads and water, they'd be spending huge amounts of cash which their pastors are presently pocketing. All the things that the government provides cost money. All people and every other type of of organisation pay for them and so should the church.

Churches provide valuable services to the society. The state would be spending more money to fight crimes, if more people were not in church and as a result staying away from evil. Of course, the churches are not doing a perfect job. But it is hard to deny that many religious people are influenced by their beliefs to adopt a lifestyle that saves the society money in terms of crime control, maintenance of law and order, drug rehabilitation, therapy for depression, etc.

There is absolutely no evidence that people who attend church are less likely to commit crimes, or use drugs. That is just bullshït christian propaganda. There is no correlation between number or size if churches and crime rate. Actually, more religious communities tend to have more crime (also more violent crime, more poverty, more illiteracy, less education, more teen pregnancy, more abortions, lower life expectancy, worse health indices, and more of pretty much every bad thing you can think of). Churches directly harm society by opposing science education, women's rights, religious freedom as well as destroying their members capacity for critical thinking.

And let's quit fooling ourselves that a lot of roads and other infrastructure in Nigeria are built through taxes. An overwhleming amount of the budget of the government at all levels is funded through oil money, which accounts for about 80% or so of government revenues. When we have a tax-dependent society, like many organized societies, which also forces politicians to be accountable to the tax payers, we can have a meaningful dialogue about taxation of religious institutions. For now, it's premature and a waste of valuable time.

The fact that the government makes most of its money from oil doesn't reduce the need to tax churches. Even if it was only 1 kobo we were losing by not taxing them, that's still less money for roads and schools and hospitals all of which are more important than the voodoo nonsense churches spend their money on. Also, not taxing churches puts then at an unfair advantage over individuals and other organisations. For instance, it allows them to buy up huge tracts of land which they can own free of property taxes. Religious institutions now own 7% of all the habitable land on the planet and they are doing nothing useful with it. And most annoyingly, the useless pastors that control these churches also don't pay taxes on their income, their houses or their private jets.

Religious institutions are the people who run them are nothing but a bunch of free riders and parasites. They should pay tax just like everybody else.

But the parrot pigeon always wins.

plaetton: I disagree sir.
Let me remind you that the Catholic church defined and authored these so-called conventional Christian teachings. The Catholic Church, at least from the 1st century Ad, birthed and nurtured, shaped and molded Christianity.
So, you are in no position to tell the Catholic Church, what is christian and what is not.

They know all the secrets of Christianity.
They know what is true and what is myth.
The Cathoic Church is by far the oldest, the pre-eminent experts in social engineering.
They have been doing it for 2000yrs.

The catholic church didn't exist in the 1st century, it was created in the 4th by roman politicians and holymen. The idea of an unbroken line of Christian leadership leading back to saint Peter is a fable cooked up by those politicians to give themselves more credibility in the eyes of the people.

And pope Francis hasn't done anything worth praising. He hasn't changed any of the church's evil practices. He hasn't stopped them from protecting pëdophiles. He isn't cooperating with those investigating the churches past crimes. His predecessor is still a fugitive from justice in Vatican city, safely out of the jurisdiction of any real court. He hasn't done anything to improve the lowly status of women within the church.

All he has done is talk, talk and more talk (often followed by back pedalling by the church orthodoxy). And talk is cheap.

*Edited to fix typos

We should charge all churches. The “traditional" i.e Catholic and Anglican churches may go about their business in a more discreet way, but they are still running the same scam as Winners, TB Joshua and co.

Taxing one type of church and not the other is tantamount to religious discrimination. And not taxing churches at all is tantamount to government funding them i.e. state religion which is highly unconstitutional.

As useless as our government is, it still provides important services that are paid for by taxes: roads, police, legal tender, a legal framework, etc. By allowing churches to enjoy all of these tax free, they are not only indirectly funding them with cash value of these services, they are also forcing people like me to subsidise churches, mosques, guru maraji shrines and all the other stupid religious establishments that I don't believe in.

Its time for government to start obeying the constitution and get out of the business of funding religion. This nonsense has to stop.

Uyi Iredia: Off-point. He doesn't need knowledge of the ddtails you mention. Darwin had way less than that and yet his theory gained acceptance.

Nonsense. Darwin didn't write any ignorant diatribes against the evolution of sëxual reproduction or any another topic. He was an extremely serious scientist, and when he set out to debunk a theory, you could bet your āss that he'd first learn everything there was to know about it before opening his mouth in public. If you don't believe, read his Descent of Man and see the way he tore the ynashes those who claimed that white people were a seperate, higher species than blacks and other “savages".

If you want to disprove a theory, you first have to learn what the theory actually is, how it was arrived at, and what its recognized flaws are. Yet from his very first post, he has revealed his almost total ignorance of the topic, to the point that he was actually quoting Wikipedia (lol!) as proof that evolution is flawed!

What deep sight is doing is like trying to prove that elephants don't exist without ever seeing a picture of one, or even having a clue what they look like. If you do that on a public forum, then other people are going to reply and make you look stupîd.

He only has himself to blame.

Deep Sight: I SAY - THAT - the evolution of sexuality in the appearance of the male and female forms and their sexually complimentary attributes particularly in the matter of reproduction, cannot be addressed by evolution, is a major flaw in the theory of evolution, and points to a code of existential forms which governs the appearance and existence of such forms as male and female.

In a perverse sort of way, its hard not to admire the way born again types talk. The way they can make bold, sweeping statements from a position of near total ignorance. I mean, deep sight read a single wikipedia (lol!) article, scratched his head for a few seconds, then concluded that he could overturn the accumulated hundreds of years worth of work done by far smarter people who have dedicated their lives to studying living things in the wild and in the lab.

All the hundreds of grey haired PhDs who've been poring over every published scientific paper looking for holes and flaws couldn't do what deep sight did with just a few minutes and a little wiki reading.

Without having a clue about the biomechanics of sëxual reproduction and the analogous, but massively different process of bacterial conjugation. Without knowing how sëx affects the rate of appearance, competition and combination of mutant genes within a population. Without understanding the differences in DNA and RNA biochemistry in monerans, archeans and eukaryotes. Without doing any sort of comparative molecular genetics study. Without even knowing what sëx is at its most basic level, this guy has managed to debunk everything we know about the science of sexual reproduction.

DeepSight has the confidence of a näked madman catwalking down the street. I wouldn't want to switch places with him, but I'm sure he must feel good!

NativeBoy: Nice try. Hitler was an atheist. Do you aim to deceive by using quotes without knowing the context of the situation? Hitler made those statements in his attempt to manipulate.

Please see the below link:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler

Look don't waste your time trying to rewrite history. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were atheists and between the three of them, they killed more people in the 20th century than in the first 19 centuries combined.

See this person! So your final proof that Hitler was an atheist is a wikipedia article?

You think that's enough to overturn the fact that he called himself a christian, and was raised Catholic from birth? That he signed official treaties with the catholic church and had the Vatican's full support? You think your wikipedia article is more important than the fact that he promoted the indoctrination of German schoolchildren with Christianity and worked to wipe out secular and atheist thought? You think wikipedia is enough to overturn all those speeches he gave quoting the Bible and using it to justify murdering millions of people? All the pictures of Hitler smiling and shaking hands with various church leaders carry less weight than a wiki article written by anonymous writers who may or may not be biased or have no gaddem clue what they are talking about? Or the fact that the German officers and men who actually carried out Hitler's evil plans were virtually all Catholics and Lutherans i.e. Christians.

The only reason the pope has the elevated status of a head of state (and the immunity that goes with it) is because of the dirty deals the Vatican did with the fascists which resulted in Mussolini giving them independence. If not for Hitler and his allies, the “pope emeritus" Benedict XVI would be spending his retirement rotting in prison like he deserves instead of enjoying in a mansion while tens (hundreds?) of thousands of his victims grind their teeth. Hitler and co are the reason catholic priests have a [url=worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/04/20331764-vatican-recalls-dominican-republic-envoy-amid-abuse-claims?lite] safe extradition-free haven to run to whenever one of them gets caught with his john thomas in some small boy's bütthole.[/url]

You seriously want to claim Hitler was an atheist? Get the fück out of here.

This is a nonsense question.

Outside the bible, there is basically zero evidence that the historical Jesus even existed at all. Even if the gospels were reliable (and they aren't) they still don't agree on the year, or even the decade Jesus was born in, not to talk of the month. The oldest new testament books (Paul's letters and anonymous letter to the Hebrews written in the middle of the first century) don't even seem to be aware that Jesus was a real person who was alive just one one or two decades earlier.

In fact, some of the earliest Christian sources place the death of Jesus as sometime around 75 B.C.E, a full century and a half before the traditional date.

The fact is that it makes more sense to ask which month Father Christmas was born in than to ask about Jesus. At least we have evidence that saint Nick actually existed and we can be fairly certain of the times and places of his birth and death.

If you want to remain a christian, I advise you to just accept the traditional story as it is and ignore the parts that don't make sense. If you examine it too closely, you might end up losing your faith completely.

*Edited to fix an error.

^^^^
Yes I already said baal was a title not a same so it could have referred to any god. I'd like to know how you came to the conclusion that in this particular instance, they were praying to a small minor god instead of the main one in the sky (Wikipedia notwithstanding).

Keep in mind that none of this stuff actually happened and we are arguing about a myth.

Because nobody really gives a crap what the bible says.

We are all atheists with a Sunday obligation.

Rabbinical (i.e. modern) Judaism has virtually nothing in common with Judaism as described in the bible.

Temple Judaism was a primitive, fetish, juju-like religion that involved slaughtering animals (and occasionally, people) as well as sprinkling and smearing blood all over the place. Read Leviticus if you don't believe.

After the Romans destroyed the temple in AD 70, the surviving Jews had no choice but to synthesize a new religion without all the crude legacy traditions that the loss of the temple had now rendered impractical. Aside from the name, the new version was almost entirely different from with the old temple Judaism.

You can read the Pentateuch and compare it to the modern practices of even the most conservative Jews. The difference is like night and day.

Interestingly, Christianity also arose from the same vacuum caused by the destruction of the temple. Except that Christianity came from a more open and less Jew-centric version of Judaism that incorporated many gnostic and pagan beliefs.

rapture_ready: Baal as "lord" referred to their own gods, not Yahweh.

For example, if a pagan calls "lord", he may be referring to amadioha or whichever god he serves, as opposed to the Christian's "Lord".

So when the semtic tribes said Baal(lord) they were referring to their gods.

When the jews said Adonai(Lord) they are referring to God.

Not true.

Baal-Hadad is name the philistines called the lord of heaven, and creator of the universe, i.e. God. Same name, same god, except addressed in a different language.

What you're saying is like claiming that Olorun is different god and that all non english speaking Yoruba Christians deserve to die for praying to him.

rapture_ready: ^^^^

How about you put all them gods to a contest, and whoever wins becomes God. Like Elijah and the prophets of baal...

Then you'll know you have the right God, or at least the most powerful, to stop the others throwing you into their own hells.

Like Project Fame: Divine Edition :-)

Funny thing about that story. The word baal is actually a title meaning “Lord" in the language of the semitic tribes that lived around Palestine in ancient times. It actually means the exact same thing as the hebrew word Adonai.

So when Elijah was praying to the the Lord god in heaven to send down fire, the prophets of Baal were also praying to the exact same god, except in their own native language. I'm not sure why he chose to only answer Elijah though. Maybe god is a racist.

@OP
You must be new here. FYI, what you heard in the movie is called Pascal's Wager, and it is a completely nonsense way of thinking.

Rather than writing another long post explaining why it is nonsense, I think I'll just copy and paste something I posted over 2 years ago. I'm tired of shooting down the same dead arguments over and over again.

Evil Brain: Wow, this Pascal's wager has really opened my eyes to the folly of atheism. From now on, I'm going to become a born-again Christian and serve Jehovah God so he doesn't throw me in hell.

But come to think of it, isn't it risky to stick to just one god? What if my parents were wrong and I'm betting on the wrong horse? I don't want to end up in hell! Just to be safe, I think I'll also start worshipping Allah, Shiva, Orunmila, Chukwu, Egbesu and all of the thousands of other gods. This might take a while.

But then many of these gods have rules against worshipping other gods. If the one true god turns out to be the jealous type (e.g. Yahweh or Allah), he/she is going to be pissed at me for praying to all the others. Not to forget that there are different variants of all these gods (which Yahweh should I worship, the Jewish, catholic, pentecostal or Jehovah's Witness version?).

Gaddem, this stuff is far too much stress. I'm going back to being an atheist.