It is best you realize this soon for I do have Rope and will travel. shshhs almost made me use the good rope too

Heavens James,

why be so awfully bitter about things in the far past.
They sure don't affect you the way they did in these times long past.
There is no point in shedding tears over spilled milk.
You have to start to realize that you live in the here and now, that it is up to you to change some of these ways in the future, but you will not, under no circumstance, change the past.
It is up to us, you, me, and any others who don't believe in the bible, to live as an example of goodness, thanks to the goddess and the god, to show them that Christianity isn't all that good.
I do understand you to a certain degree, but I surely don't understand all of it. I'm surely only human, but I do see the difference between simply giving out about something and living the right way.
I'm sure some of what I'm saying to you might hurt, might even feel as an insult to you, but I live here and now, and that's the place and time I want to remain, and make the best of it.

Speaking of divine intervention, here's my case against the Biblical God with respect to the Burning Times.


If the biblical God wrote the bible (and that's the whole presumption there) then it has already intervened by having written a rule book that it demands that eveyone believe was written by God.

So now we have these two Christian idiots writing the Malleus Maleficarum based on what they believe the Bible to be saying.

At that point the intervening biblical God (who wrote the Bible!), has absolute responsibility to stop those two idiots from writing the Malleus Maleficarum based on the what they percieve the Bible to be saying.

It even says right in the Bible as a commandment (though not one of the top ten, but a commandment none the less):

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

This even implies that the Biblical God himself believes in witches and would have condoned the burning times.

So if the Biblical God were real he would have absolute responsibility to get his butt down here and correct the people who misinterpret his horribly written book.

If the Bible were graded by writers of today it would flunk writing 101.

It's a horribly confusing and ambigious book.

So the point with the biblical God is that he has already intervened by the mere writing of his godforsaken book. And therefore he has absolute responsibility to see that no one misunderstands it. If they misunderstand it, it can only be the author's fault.

Christians claim that the Holy Spirit is suppose to help people understand it, so then it would have been the Holy Spirit's responsiblity to be sure that no one who is reading it misunderstand it to the point of using it to create yet another book like the Malleus Maleficarum.

So the Biblical God would be a God who intervenes just enough to screw eveyone up, but not enough to do any good.

That would be a truly inept and irresponsible intervening God.

This is why I say that the Burning Times proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Bible cannot have been written by an responsible divine being.

A God who writes a book is totally responsible for writing it well enough that it isn't easily misunderstood. But everyone know (and the multitude of Christian denominations shows) that it's the most ambiguous book ever written.

It's totally irrespsonsible authorship, and therefore if it's the word of any God that God would also be totally irresponsible.

The massacre that took place in Rwanda of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Catholic clergy occurred in the 1990s.

Because it's not in the past!

When we're talking about divine responsiblity we're talking about all of eternity.

If the divine spirit was irresponsible in the past then that same divine spirit would still be irresponsible right now.

It doesn't matter when a divine spirit screws up.

If a divine spirit screws up it's an eternal screw up!

It's not about the past.

It's about the character of a supposedly divine and eternal spirit.

If God is that screwed up then God is that screwed up.

Period.

Time has nothing to do with it.

But that's not what he is on about. He is on about burning witches, and the last case, as far as I remember, was in 1742 in Switzerland. I do know that James is hurting, because in turn it's hurting me because I so care for him, knowing him as long as I do. But our hurting doesn't make things better.
We have to live what we want to see of those around us, and that is not done when being bitter, but realistic.

Agreed. I was just pointing out that this continues to take place.

I know it does, but it is not resolved by pointing fingers.
The more you tell these people they are wrong, the more stubborn they will become. I'm more for a subtle approach, but that's simply my personality.

It's truly ashame that people look at it like this.

From my point of view it's not about pointing fingers at all.

I'm saying that the Biblical God can't be true. Not that he actually exists and is guilty of something.

Sure, if he did exist he would be guitly of something. But that's precisely why he can't exist.

A supposely all-wise divine creator can't be 'guilty' of anything. Therefore the Bible can't be the word of a divine creator.

It's not a matter of 'finger-pointing'.

It's just a matter of recognizing what can't be true.

The Bible can't be the word of any divine being.

No finger-pointing required.

Well I dont know how subtle I can be. This is historical fact and some of it has taken place much later in history than Hitler. Do we just shut up?

No, we can't, and stating proven historical facts is something I don't see as pointing fingers. It's just the stubbornness of certain people, who don't want to see the truth because it would burst their safety bubbles. I guess in the moment I'm just utterly frustrated with these stubborn people while I, at this time of year, have my own load to carry.
If I offended some of you, perhaps you can forgive me.

I understand what you are saying, its in the past and why not let sleeping dogs lie for the sake of harmony. Thats just hard sometimes. I respect your efforts to maintain peace however.

Actually Jeanniebean's philosophy that everyone attracts whatever happens to them would justify divinity.

It's a hard concept to accept. But, if true, it would justify divinity.

It's just so totally non-intuitive, nor does it appear to even be logically sound.

None the less, if true, it would justify divinity.

Maybe that's a good enough reason to buy into it. It it's the only thing that can justify divinity then it must be true.

Kind of like the Sherlock Holmes thing:

After all impossiblities have been removed whatever is left must be the truth.

If ulimately everyone is truly responsible for everything that happens to them, then this would indeed justify divinity.

In fact, that's about the only way it can be justified as far as I can see.

So maybe it's true.

It's just hard to swallow. Not for me personally. I've never had anything that horrible happen to me in my life.

The only way I would argue against this philosophy is if something truly horrible happened to me. Then I would argue that I did not attract that that nasty.

But I guess without having lived in other people's shoes I can't really know what they might have attracted to themselves.

It could be justified in the following way:

Before coming into this life we choose the level of horror that we are willing to tolerate.

The women who were burned as witches had choosen to be open to that level of horror.

I can't personally comprehend it because I can't imagine choosing that level of horror.

But then again I don't even like to watch horror films.

Some people do!

Obviously.

I must confess this would justify divinity.

It still wouldn't help the biblical picture of God though. Because in this scenario people are choosing their level of horror before they come into this life, whilst the Biblical picture has everyone being created at birth equally and then being judged at death for eternity.

So the Biblical picture is out no matter what. It's totally unjustifiable.

But Jeanniebean's philosophy would justify divinity.

All victims of what appears to us to be incomprehensible horror actually chose to allow themselves to be vulnerable to that before coming into this life.

That would justify it.

That's all I'm trying to do Invisible.

I'm just trying to justify some sort of divine existence.

Pfft. Ive never been a big fan of self-righteous suicide.

I understand where you're coming from.

I'm just trying to justify divinity so I can believe in it.

So in a real sense I'm just brainstorming to myself on a public forum.

Sorry about that.

Gnostic Christians believe the god of the bible is an evil god and that there is some kind of battle going on to oust him. They believe that it requires people to come to know the truth and reach a state of knowing to overcome this evil god. At least that's my preliminary understanding.

I feel as though people have a right to believe in whatever dam thing they want. As long as they dont hurt anyone in the process, have at it.

However, I also feel that in regards to a person's spiritual identity comes a certain degree of responsibility. I would not attempt to sit here and deny that Wiccans and Witchcraft has been associated with evil or Satan over the centuries. I would be willing to take that under consideration and address those fears as best that I am capable of doing so.

Is it so wrong to ask that practicing Catholics and Christians do the same?

I personally believe that all conscious deities are manmade creations.

However, I believe there is something to the pagan idea that spirit resides in everything. Certainly in animals, and even plants. I believe there is also spiritual power in what we call inanimate objects (like stones, crystals, etc).

Precisely how that power is animated I have no clue, but I believe that the art of witchcraft holds the keys to interacting and tranforming that power.

As far as a 'biblical God' is concerned I don't believe there is such a thing (good or evil). I believe the entire mythology is just that. A manmade story that has no divine being behind it other than the very spirits of the men who made it up.

In fact, when I look at the pantheon of witchcraft I see that pantheon as being entirely a construction of man.

That doesn't invalid its usefulness or purpose. The imagined deities of the Goddesses and Gods as well as the elemental spirits are pragmatically useful. They don't need to be real desties in their own right because we make them real in our own minds.

What is more important is that via that imagery we are able to transform the spiritual energy that consituties this physical world.

There are no deities who are responsible for this. We are fully responsible for it. We actually become the deities by visualizing them psychically.

It truly is about getting in touch with our higher-self.

But the only way to justify the divinity of the higher self is to accept Jeanniebean's insistence that all higher selves are indeed responsible for everything they experience.

That utlimately must be the truth.

Otherwise there would be no justification for divinity.

It's just so hard to believe in from a practical point of view.

It almost seems like grasping at straws just as a way of avoid having to face the dark dragon of atheism.

But I must confess, it is a straw that is graspable. I mean, it would constitute justification if everyone is ulimately responsible for everything that happens to them. That would be total justification.

No one could complain because nothing could happen to them that they truly wouldn't permit.

The only thing that makes it so hard to swallow is that it kind of hardens a person off to feeling sorry for anyone if this is true. I mean, no matter what happens to someone you can just shrug your shoulders and say, "Well, clearly you aren't all that worried about it or you wouldn't allow it to be happening."

Now we get into a case of reverse-heartlessness.

In order to justify divinity we need to recognize that there's no real reason to feel sorry for anyone.

It's true.

On major problem I see with Jeanniebean's philosophy that we attract everythign that happens to us, is that it would be a terrible philosophy to teach people to live by.

The reason being that people wouldn't understand it at all.

In other words, if someone wants to torture another person they would just say, "Well, hey, they must be attracting this otherwise I wouldn't be able to do it to them!"

That's the kind of mentality that Christians would put onto it.

It would almost be like saying, "Well she must be a witch then and deserve to be tortured if that's what's happening to her".

Or in more mordern times, "Well, Gays must being doing something wrong then if everyone is harrassing them. Clearly they are attracting the harrassment to themselves by their very act of being homosexual."

The philosophy may justify the divine, but if misunderstood it could also be used by idiots to justify anything. They would just claim that anything they do to someone else must be ok then because the other person is 'attracting it'.

In other words, it's not a good philosophy to preach to people for the purpose of instilling them with moral values.