I can only speak for myself here spider, but i don't hate christians, i think they are deluded just as i was when one.

when i look into something seriously, i look for core truths, not just reading a book, so i searched for core answers as to where and what christianity came from as well as all religions.

what i found at the core was not an all powerful being, but mythology dating well back before christ came onto the scene. One thing i don't think most modern christian's think of or do and i understand why.

when i went as far as i could with my research i stopped and pondered on it all and asked myself " why were there no evidences of the monotheistic god before the stories in the book?" Why would this infinite being keep himself aloof from man after the garden of Eden or mans creational stories? why is their no evidence of his existence till then? why were so many other cultures before the bible not aware of this mono-diety? if he always was - why? why did he not appear til then? as this god who had existed forever and ever? There is a huge gap between before the biblical accounts that exist in the bible and the stories of other gods and saviors "before" that state things to similar to be a coincidence, and why does the bible follow so closely after these earlier accounts of those cultures?

You can give me all your reasons, but there again it is just your faith ideas, not proofs, nothing can substantiate your claims, so there is no reason outside of faith to believe what is within the book. I'm happy for you that you have found your truth, enjoy it, live it, love it ,obey it. but please don't get upset if other's don't feel the same and refute it's claims.


I'm only sorry that your god teaches you to preach and offer apologetics to other's and therefore you "feel" "compelled" to bring other's into your belief's. Since you and the other's are convinced of what you believe - don't you think it might be wiser to just listen and learn of what others say, and not comment at all? but alas, i know you cannot do so, it's against your teachings.

so do as you must if you must, but don't expect different results than you continue to get - it won't happen - sorry.

sincerely - tribo

Nobody is so blind as those who choose to be.

Tell me Tribo, what is the difference between these two questions:

1) Your beliefs are stupid, they don't make sense, only a fool would believe them and if there is a hell, you belong there.

2) How could an all forgiving God send someone to hell?

Notice that only one is a question? Notice that #2 doesn't insult the beliefs of anyone, it simply asks a question. #1, however, isn't asking for any information, it is simply insulting the beliefs of the person being spoken to and in-fact the audience is being directly insulted.

"Respectfully disagree", have you heard that term? That's how people should disagree in polite society. It's how you show that while you disagree with someone, you still respect that person. I have NEVER complained that people don't agree with me, I have stated that it is disrespectful to insult the beliefs of others. I don't care if you, Abra, JB, Voil, the Moderators, the Admins, the President or the Pope disagree with me on that, if you don't think you should show respect for people, then you are just plain wrong. Everybody deserves to be treated with respect.

Spider, you will most likely start getting respect from other's when you stop demanding it and earn it instead of complaining about it. At least that's true on my part. sorry

Tribo,

I give everyone respect, because everyone deserves it. Maybe if you were to give the same respect you receive I wouldn't have to point out the crassness inherent to your behavior.

I believe your weakness is that you get emotional and feel insulted in a debate. It is easy to 'rattle' you. There is no need to be insulted personally when someone lashes out in anger against Christianity. There are lots of good reasons for being angry at the doctrines of religions. Lot of people are angry and confused. They ask questions out loud that they have asked of them self and found no answer. And you just get offended by it. You don't even try to stand in their shoes and understand them.

JB

spider, i'm curious? what do you do for a living? do you own your own business? do you work for someone else, are you employed at all? are you a minister or priest?

I'm semi retired and i write books and screennplays and i'm also a musician and song writer and producer. i have much free time as i want or need are you also in this position?

just curious?

The Christians didn't seem to have any problem insulting the religions of others when they went into Greece and methodically converted all the Greeks to Christianity whilst simultaneously proclaiming that the Greek Gods and Goddesses were all myths.

In fact they still have no problem today proclaiming that all other religions are false. That's precisely what they are doing when they proclaim that the only way to God is through acceptance of Jesus Christ as their own personal sacrificial lamb and that the Bible is the only book that contains the true word of God. That's an outright proclamation right there that all other religions are false.

So by your very description here you are proclaiming that Christians are all hateful and that their religion is a hateful religion because they are constantly doing precisely what you are proclaiming to be hateful.

I don't believe that Christians are hateful. They're just misguided. They just can't see that the mythology they are supporting is an unhealthy philosophy for humanity as a whole.

You keep complaining that people are "mocking" Christianity but that's not what they are doing at all.

Christianity, as an organized religion, is proclaiming to the world that everyone must accept Jesus Christ as their Sacrificial Lamb. They proclaim that only his blood can wash away sins which they also proclaim that everyone is guilty of no matter how nice of a person they are! They are proclaiming that the Bible is the only true word of God. They even try to push the biblical bigotry into law in many cases, and try to get public schools to teach and support their religion.

That's a fact Spider. Christianity is an organized religion that is making outrageous proclamations. And it's proclaiming that everyone must see the TRUTH in this proclamation. Yet at the very same time it's perfectly clear that the religion gets its so-called TRUTH from ancient stories. It a religion that is solely based on the doctrines of those ancient stories.

So it makes PERFECT SENSE, that when people are confronted with this outrageous proclamation they have every RIGHT to investigate the origins of these stories and question their divinity.

There's no hatred in that. It's a perfectly legitimate and intelligent thing to do.

If you gave me a book and proclaim that it was written by my father, and I said I would like to check it out and look into the origins of the book. Would you say that I am being hateful for wanting to verify that the book indeed did come from my father?

Well, that's precisely what I'm doing with the Bible. People are giving me this book and proclaiming that it was written by my Heavenly Father and that I must accept it as his word and worship it as his word?

Ok fine. Let me check into it and see if I'm in agreement that this book was indeed written by my Heavenly Father.

Well, I did check into it, and I have been checking into it for almost 50 years now!

I've concluded that it can't possibly be from my Heavenly Father. Anyone who claims it is, is a liar. That's my conclusion.

I personally believe that the book is full of things that my Heavenly Father would never do or support.

I've also noticed that the book has been modeled after countless other myths in the same geographic region.

In fact, it is so similar to those other myths that I'm totally and completely convinced that it's just more of the same.

I don't believe that my Heavenly Father ever asked anyone to pay for their disobedience by slaughtering animals. That is a very common theme in all of those ancient mythologies. Why would my Heavenly Father just happen to turn out to have the very same character as all those other imagined Gods?

This book claims that my Heavenly Father told people to stone their unruly children to death.

I don't believe that my Heavenly Father would ever ask people to do that.

This book also claims that my Heavenly Father told people to judge their brothers and sisters and stone them to death to if they are "sinners".

I don't believe that my Heavenly Father would ever ask people to do that.

Besides, doesn't that fly in the face of the previous notion that all they had to do was slaughter an innocent animal to pay for their sins? Sounds like mixed messages there.

I don't believe that my Heavenly Father would send mixed messages like that.

I also don't believe that my Heaven Father would have done the things described in the book of Job as well as in many other stories of the Old testament.

In short, after investigating the origins of the Old Testament I'm completely convinced that it is not the word of my Heavenly Father. There is no doubt in my mind about that at all. These are clearly ignorant superstitious ideas that were also clearly copied from other mythologies of the area. Mythologies that everyone agrees are nothing more than manmade fairytales.

So now you claim that I'm full of hate because I don't believe that these stories came from my Heavenly Father?

Clearly you are misguided.

My Heavenly Father is very pleased with me for having looked into that false book and exposing it for the fraud that it is. I loved him enough to do the footwork that is necessary to expose the frauds who are making erroneous claims in his name.

As far as the New Testament is concerned. Why even bother to go there? It's perfectly clear to me that the Old Testament is a fraud, so why follow it though to the New Testament? It just more demagoguery about some poor rabbi who was wrongly crucified by the Romans. It does appear that he made every attempt to expose the lies of the Old Testament too. He preached against just about everything that was in it. He denounced an-eye-for-an-eye in favor of turning the other cheek. He denounced the stoning of sinners which people were supposedly still stoning to death in those days. This rabbi was against just about everything that Old Testament even taught.

Now him? Yeah, he might have been my Heavenly Father. But, unfortunately by that time the book is so screwed up and ambiguous and clearly full of demagoguery that it no longer has any credence. The idea that Jesus was proclaimed to be the sacrificial lamb of the God of Abraham to pay for the disobedience of all mankind simply doesn't wash. That's total demagoguery as far as I'm concerned. It was written into the story after the fact based on the strong superstitions of the day that were still heavily ingrained in the Older Testaments.

No, I don't believe a word of it, and I don't see why any intelligent person who bothers to seriously looks into should believe it.

If you want to call that hate, by my guest. From my point of view, the things that you demand are true about my Heavenly Father are extremely hateful things. I don't believe that my Heavenly Father is anything at all like the Bible demands him to be.

Just open your eyes and look around at all the other mythologies of the time. It's all the same stuff. Blood, and guts, jealous gods and the need to appease them. I don't believe for one second that the creator of this universe has any need to be appeased whatsoever. That entire mindset is the mindset of men.

Nothing hateful in that. It's just the truth.

This has been a fun read. JB, Spider, Abra, Tribo, Belushi, you're all as arguementative as usual. I've enjoyed it, just thought I'd let you all know.


While reading this thread, I figure we cannot all agree on whether Krishna was crucified or not, I think we can all agree that there was definately a "wrongful death." Whether the hunter was filled with the intentions of an assassin, we surely cannot say. Without knowing the intent, one cannot safely presume that Krishna was crucified or martyred, but neither can it be ruled out completely.

Spider, I think Tribo and JB are correct when they say that you take an discussion on any tenet of christianity that you don't believe in personal. I will argue on your side though, I don't think you realize that some of your writings appear (or maybe sound) as personal attacks. Even with fellow christians who believe different. But I will say again, I do not believe that intend to personally insult anyone.

I also don't think Promethious counts as a crucifixtion either. Technically Promethious lives, only to have his liver eaten out daily. He also was not human if I remember correctly.

I could be off on all of this stuff, I'm not very wise.

Let's see... none of your business? Read my profile, that's all of the personal information I want to share.

It a moot point as far as I'm concerned. Krishna was involved in Eastern Mysticism anyway wasn't he? What would that have to do with the judgmental kind of God's in Mediterranean mythologies?

What I see as the common thread between all the Mediterranean mythologies are Gods who demand blood sacrifices as appeasements. It doesn't matter how many "saviors" there might have been. There were certainly a lot of "sons of Gods" who came to act as a buffer between man and the main godhead.

I don't see where Jesus was any different from those basic stories. The idea that sins are washed away by blood sacrifices is the only common thread that is necessary to establish between these mythologies. And that has been well-established.

Why would the real creator of our universe just accidentally happen to be appeased by blood sacrifices just like all the other mythologies claim their gods are?

That would be a truly absurd coincidence. It is clearly a common manmade superstition that gods are appeased by blood sacrifices. The Mayans actually sacriciced children to their gods!

Why should anyone believe in these ancient myths?

A very real and sensible question must emerge. What gives Christianity any more credence than any other ancient myth?

As far as I can see there is nothing that gives it any more credence. So they why do so many people buy into it. And let's not forget that Islam is just as popular within its culture too. These religions have no credence.

Everyone knows this. They are entirely faith-based. There's no one shred of evidence that can be pointed to that will give credence to their divine claims.

The fact that the stories can be traced back to actually places and events is totally meaningless. All mythologies are based on something. Even Greek Mythology can be traced back to actual events. That doesn't prove it's divinity.

The fact that the Romans may have unjustly nailed a rabbi to a pole doesn't prove divinity. I have no doubt that a man named Jesus (or whatever) may have taught and been crucified by the Romans. That doesn't give any credence to the entire biblical story.

In fact, people will often claim that the Old Testament predicting so many of the things that were written about Jesus.

Well duh?

If the stories truly are filled with demagoguery (which they most likely are) they would naturally put in all sorts of things using the Old Testament as a guide. In fact to believe that this didn't happen would be extremely naive.

People didn't read and write back then like they do today. Those religious writings would have been well guarded by the churches and only transcribed by the scribes of the churches.

Even in total innocence the scribes would be reading an original document and not be sure what something was saying so they would turn to the priests. The priests would then convene to discuss the matter, they would quite naturally turn to their old testaments for "guidance" and then they would say, "Oh here it is, it must have mean this!". And then they would write that into the gospels.

To believe that his didn't happen would be extremely naive because we know that's precisely how things are done.

It's not my intent to belittle Jesus. He was an innocent victim in all of this just like everyone else.

According to you, everyone is disrespectful but you. How convenient. It s a good thing that you're the absolute authority on these things otherwise someone might object.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

My sister and I were going for a walk last night and we were talking about that in the spiritual sense and we have recently come to the conclusion that the only thing that is REAL is us. The people. Individuals. All else of this world is illusion. It is a holographic matrix and a game.

THE FILM:

The film presents things for thinking people to consider about the game. Agendas. Not everyone will believe it or want to believe it, but what will come to pass is a one world government and a one world religion. This will probably all be in place in the new age of Aquarius. The film states that the new age starts in 2150 I believe, but it does not give references to where it came to that conclusion. I would like to see a book with references for all the information that was presented in that film. There may be one, I don't know.

"TRYING CHRISTIANITY."

I can only speak for myself about Christianity. I know what it is about, probably more than you do. I do not go around "trying" things out and I never "tried" heroin or drugs or LSD either. I look at things and information and evaluate it first before I commit to it or "try" it as if it were some kind of new drug.

THE NEW WORLD ORDER:

The things in the film about that are all facts that can be checked out. People will protest it at first, but eventually they will embrace the New World Order and the One world Government. If they don't they will disappear mysteriously.

JB

aaachhuuuwwwww!

hey why isn't anyone blessing me down!!!

spider

the crassness inherent to your behavior.


tribo:

the above is but one of many reasons i treat you know better spider, your choice of words such as crass, specious, and so forth put off an odor that in my opinion reaks of superiority, whether or not it is meant to be taken that way or not. It is the way i take it. use of more common word's would be a start of you being given more respect by me if that is what you desire, also a more humble tone to your own responses. That is but a suggestion, for sure you don't have to follow it.

sincerely - tribo

How did that ever get started anyway?

Why should people bless you when you sneeze? No one ever blesses you when you fart.

I have heard that people bless you when you sneeze because momentarily your heart stops.

I don't think your heart stops with you pas gas.

Obviously you've never heard me pass gas. I could stop train.

A heart? pffft Child's play.

Apparently you've never eaten at Tito's Mexican Cantina. After that place, you gas not only stops your heart, but those of the people standing nearest you!!

that is a medievil custom that came about in "germany" people thought that when you sneezed your soul was being seperated from your body - not a good thing to them - hahaha - so they startes saying god bless you so that the soul would caome back to you, john will have to spell god bless you in german i dont know how - hahaha but in time it became a custom and was shortened to bless you. that is what i was once told anyway.

oh my goodness this is funny