The desperation of imploding christianity

Religion is the most ancient and powerful mind control ever.
It is so powerful, that it even affects those who do not believe in it.
It has such a powerful grip on the human psyche, that its adherents can be made to do anything in service to it.
Religion is a scourge on humanity. It is a lodestone around our neck that dulls our true potential, and keeps us content in ignorance.
It is a tool of oppression, wielded by Princes and petty tyrants since ancient times.
The religions that sprang from Israel are the most pernicious lies ever told.

Brother seven thunders inspired me deeply, and as I know, that christians love narratives, here's one. Even relating to the topic, which is unusual.

A pub, and some christian missionaries.

The missionaries walk in, and the most verbartim turns on his holy megaphone to maximum, and drowns out both the jukebox and any private conversation:

"Brethern and honorary sistren. I am am brother Interference and my associate is brother Chatterbox. We are here to inform you, that our lord is mightily displeased with you, seeing as it is, that you live in Sodoma and Gomorra, not to mention Babylon.You have transgressed from glory be, and many of you are thusly unemployed. If you don't mend your ways, you'll soon be starvin' Marvins"

(In the background, brother Chatterbox: "For I am the way")

A mountain of a man, a hardened lefty-veteran of many a demagogic labour-union fight, lifts his knuckles from the floor, and at the end of a six feet arm, points an accusatory brat-wurtz finger at brother Interference:

"If me missus looses her job also, how shall we feed the kids? Here's a glass of water, some stale pizza and some fish-an-chips. Do your holy multiplying thing, feed us, or you're in for it".

(In the background brother Chatterbox: "Man does not live by bread alone").

Situation gets lively...

(Brother Chatterbox: "Blessed are the meek, .....ousch, why did you have to do that for?"

Next day brother Interferenece and brother Chatterbox, stitched up, report to their holy supervisor and ask for transference to Africa, for as they said, the formula 'Bible-reading=Food' never fails.

In the pub life went on as usual, and the incident wasn't much talked about. Weirdos are weirdos, and in any case the resident christian had been nursing his gin-and-tonics and his discreet sign: "Christian counselling" in the corner for years, being one of us, and not hurting anyone.

Originally posted by Smack
Religion is the most ancient and powerful mind control ever.
It is so powerful, that it even affects those who do not believe in it.
It has such a powerful grip on the human psyche, that its adherents can be made to do anything in service to it.
Religion is a scourge on humanity. It is a lodestone around our neck that dulls our true potential, and keeps us content in ignorance.
It is a tool of oppression, wielded by Princes and petty tyrants since ancient times.
The religions that sprang from Israel are the most pernicious lies ever told.

I agree, Religion needs to be eradicated.

reply to post by mamabeth


.

The op has made it his mission in life to bash christianity.

I have "never" said this M so clearly you are presenting false information to Vicky.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. (Exodus 20:16)

He doesn't bash islam because he is not stupid.

Again you are passing on false information M, it is precisely "because" I am not stupid that I "do" criticize Islam, but as equally as any other religion.

Once again -

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. (Exodus 20:16)

It is easier to bash christians

How would you know this M? Once again you casting aspersions

because we are suppose to turn the other cheek.

Well according to Vicky the passage that contains that instruction may be incorrect and you may need to have someone with authority to interpret for you as what jesus said may not be what jesus meant,

Hey by the way you never did manage to explain how you know your god would not ask you to kill me when the scriptural evidence presented to the world speaks to the contrary.

reply to post by The Djin


It is quite obvious to anyone that understands things such as this to any sort of degree that there must be some sort of determining factor. Simply because I have faith in Jesus Christ's promise that whatever I pray for in faith in His name the Father will give to me doesn't quite make it so. Regardless of whatever you may think, the blueprint of my life was written before my life was ever built, it's pretty similar to engineering. If I were to pray for something that would set my life off course for whatever reason, my Lord would not allow that. You see, He has a plan for me, and no matter how much I think I "need" whatever it is I'm praying for, it may not be so. I may "need" to go through whatever it is I'm going through in order to become a stronger more intelligent individual. I may "need" to put up with whatever nonsense someone may be throwing at my Lord and Savior via the safety of the internet in order to bring more glory and honor to my Father's holy name.

With this being said, I apologize for whatever, if any, brash remarks I have made. I withdraw from this discussion and thank you kindly for your time.

A2D

Originally posted by The Djin
reply to post by mamabeth

 

.

The op has made it his mission in life to bash christianity.

I have "never" said this M so clearly you are presenting false information to Vicky.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. (Exodus 20:16)

You're forgetting,

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?(Matthew 7:16)

Your branches are showing....

Originally posted by mamabeth
reply to post by Vicky32

 

I have to inform you that ATS was started in england,not the U.S.
The op has made it his mission in life to bash christianity.He doesn't
bash islam because he is not stupid.It is easier to bash christians
because we are suppose to turn the other cheek.

Thanks Mamabeth, I hadn't known ATS was originally English! (I had assumed otherwise because probably 60% of posters I see are American, as are many if not most threads.) Thanks for that!
I can't be bothered arguing with him, really, because as you say, we Christians are supposed to be doormats.
I have already wasted too many heartbeats arguing with organised internet atheists, so I am excluding myself - and leaving it to others, which is a bit mean of me, but I am too busy at the minute!
The obsessiveness hurts as much as the stupid and the angry!
Vicky

Wow! A good ole fashioned Bible slash religion debate. The end result is dogma. Mental ascension vs "The mind of man can't comprehend the things of the Spirit ". Hummm... How do debate someone with an open mind? Not !

reply to post by Agree2Disagree

It is quite obvious to anyone that understands things such as this to any sort of degree that there must be some sort of determining factor.

Why ? in the verse jesus makes no mention of a "determining factor" either you believe what he says or you don't. If you choose not to and make the claim that his words don't mean what they say then you have to apply the same reasoning to anything else he said.

It 's not good enough you scrabbling on the obviousness to those that have an understanding as you then set yourself aside as someone who has had something other than what was revealed to "all" revealed to you separately .

Simply because I have faith in Jesus Christ's promise that whatever I pray for in faith in His name the Father will give to me doesn't quite make it so.

Well er yes it does according to jesus

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus reiterates that same message: For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you

Now if you reject the statement you can only do so for 2 reasons

1) You don't have faith even of a mustard seed

2) You don't believe jesus said it

Regardless of whatever you may think, the blueprint of my life was written before my life was ever built, it's pretty similar to engineering.

And how exactly do you know this ? Ah I see because it is written in the bibles, so by your reasoning some parts of the bibles you accept because they make some kind of sense to you but other parts, such as what jesus had to say you reject because you don't actually believe he said them.

If I were to pray for something that would set my life off course for whatever reason, my Lord would not allow that.

Whether he would or whether he would is irrelevant it is not for you to make assumptions on the bible gods' behalf, you're making excuses for one of three reasons -

1) You don't beleive what jesus said

2) jeus lied

3) You don't trust the source of the information given you.

You see, He has a plan for me, and no matter how much I think I "need" whatever it is I'm praying for, it may not be so

.

Yes you said this once but still you are making excuses, it makes no difference to me you either believe what jesus said or you don't . Jesus said what he had to say -

Mark 11:24: Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Now he did not say "Ah but" did he? neither did he say "unless of course - - - - " neither did he says "on condition ---"

I may "need" to go through whatever it is I'm going through in order to become a stronger more intelligent individual.

Clearly you have a long way to go when it comes to intelligent reasoning as you are failing miserably to demonstrate but a modicum of this in your rebuttal.

I may "need" to put up with whatever nonsense someone may be throwing at my Lord and Savior via the safety of the internet in order to bring more glory and honor to my Father's holy name.

And here you are demonstrating your inability to intelligently reason, you've entered the debate making claims then use diversionary tactics to try and obscure the fact that you really don't know what you're talking about.

With this being said, I apologize for whatever, if any, brash remarks I have made. I withdraw from this discussion and thank you kindly for your time.

Alas, yet another xtian who runs into the showroom kicks a few tyres shouting toyota are crap then runs back to Pastor to be spoon fed more nonsense. You do a massive disservice to the children of the world.

Assumptionism at its worst.

It's symptomatic for this kind of thread, that many participating christians go to lengths to avoid touching their own basic assumptions.

Bibles containing TWO not quite identical cosmogonies (gen 1 and 2), and with a cosmology and evolution-theory being pure nonsense seen in the light of contemporary knowledge. Leaving only the fable of existential debt (orginal sin) untouched, for the simple reason that it presently can't be proved or disproved directly.

Based on this fable OT contains commandments of brutality only paralleled by nazism, inside a totalitarian structure where the topdogs can get away with everything. This totalitarian structure was from time to time renewed by 'contracts' (covenants).

2.000 years ago one man (Paulus) took it upon himself to invent, embellish or renew such a contract; in sharp competition with traditionalists, who wanted to stress the old ways. The new contract kept the fable of existential debt intact, but tried to re-orientate the 'payment' into seemingly more peaceful terms.

Some 15 centuries after this new contract, the fascist fringe of christianity had still not discovered this 'new wave', but happily followed the good old tradition of blood and invasion.

The intelligent and adaptive part of contemporary christianity complains, when I, or other critics of the christianities, bring up the past, and I can to a certain degree understand their attitude.

A major part of western christianity does not put on white sheets, carry around burning crosses or single out people as heretics or witches.

But there's the question of: "Why?". Have the christianities gone through a period of ethical self-criticism, or is it just a result of secular society saying stop.

As a result of being a somewhat old cynic, I'm not convinced of the option of christian self-betterment in all cases, but for following reasons I believe, that the fascist and elitist christian values still are alive and well in some circles (possibly over-represented on ATS):

With a few exceptions, critics of the christianities are not suggesting a forcibly closing down of the christian religions. The suggestions from critics mainly touch upon the excessess of the still openly invasive branches of the christianities. Something the major part of decent and co-existing christians probably don't mind, as the advantages are obvious: Competition from jihad, agressive atheism etc is equally restricted.

But on ATS (and elsewhere), I have noticed a group of christians, who don't want to re-enforce the image of fascist christianity openly, but instead just close ranks, when the christian extremists are criticized. The victimized whiners, never daring to touch anything substantial; the " 'they' did it first " and the endless word-mongers trying to sneak in messages by re-interpretating their fable in endless varieties.


I suffer from the curse of a north-european, germanic background. We produce pages of circumstantial material, and conclude it in a few sentences, so here it comes.


Contemporary christians: Personally I consider your fable ridiculous, and I have never signed ANY contracts with anyone about it, but I will not support laws or other binding social rules to deny your rights of it.

That some of you have an obsession about spreading your fable and your contract won't really be much of a problem, once you learn the difference between offering information and stuffing propaganda down peoples' throats (or worse infiltrating secular society to get privileges).

So could some of you, somewhere, somehow, get to a point not involving the self-appointed supremacy of your ideology, and for reasons of selfpreservation of christian dignity come around to a broader concept of communication.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical

"Which one of the Jesus(es) is referred to?"

The historical one.

This is really REALLY scary. Almost as scary as this:

www.allabouttruth.org...

The only "proof" there is of a "historical Jesus" is the Bible and the Bible is the word of God because:

2 Timothy 3:16 states that “All scripture is inspired by God….”

The only reason Christianity is so big is because it was preached to the ignorant masses as it still is today, and it was swallowed because those people didn't know any better. They were promised "everlasting euphoria" in Heaven and they fell for it.

The main reason Christianity is failing to drag in the masses today is because more and more people are becoming educated and are learning more and more about the past and how the universe works. This is how I became a "fallen Christian" because I got an education (not a very good one, but an education none the less).

If you survived a fire, don't thank God, thank the firemen. Don't thank god when a stranger passing by helped you fight off a mugger, thank the stranger. When you passed your exam don't thank God, thank your teachers and congratulate yourself for studying. If you survived an operation don't thank god, thank the surgeons, specialists and nurses. I could go on and on but I'm sure I got my point across.

We are doing fine without a god. God is not watching over us and protecting us. Ask yourself when last something good happened in your life and there was no human intervention (including yourself). Ok, I'm done preaching now

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
reply to post by The Djin

 

It is quite obvious to anyone that understands things such as this to any sort of degree that there must be some sort of determining factor. Simply because I have faith in Jesus Christ's promise that whatever I pray for in faith in His name the Father will give to me doesn't quite make it so. Regardless of whatever you may think, the blueprint of my life was written before my life was ever built, it's pretty similar to engineering. If I were to pray for something that would set my life off course for whatever reason, my Lord would not allow that. You see, He has a plan for me, and no matter how much I think I "need" whatever it is I'm praying for, it may not be so. I may "need" to go through whatever it is I'm going through in order to become a stronger more intelligent individual. I may "need" to put up with whatever nonsense someone may be throwing at my Lord and Savior via the safety of the internet in order to bring more glory and honor to my Father's holy name.

With this being said, I apologize for whatever, if any, brash remarks I have made. I withdraw from this discussion and thank you kindly for your time.

A2D

So you have no free will. I had an interesting argument about this with a Christian and a Moslem lady. They tried to gang up on me . The went on and on about how everything that is gonna happen in the future is known to God, but they insisted I have "free will". Religion must have adled their brains in some way because any reasonably intelligent person can tell you that "free will" and "God knowing exactly what you're gonna do in the future, God planned your life for you" is mutually exclusive.

Hi Lannoch,

just for fun; here's a link to some subsets of christianity, which have quite a complex relationship to free will - predestination. As is often the case amongst christians, resulting in splintergroups with separate interpretations.
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Lannock

The only reason Christianity is so big is because it was preached to the ignorant masses as it still is today, and it was swallowed because those people didn't know any better. They were promised "everlasting euphoria" in Heaven and they fell for it.

Only reason? Sorry, but you've presented nothing but a poorly reasoned conjecture. If your statement is true why did most of all the ancient religions die out that also were preached to the same 'ignorant masses' and who also promised 'everlasting euphoria'?

If your conjecture was true all ancient religions promising 'everlasting euphoria' would be equally represented today. And they're all dead, only Christianity has survived from 2,000 years ago, and done so despite severe hostility.

Originally posted by Lannock

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
reply to post by The Djin

 

It is quite obvious to anyone that understands things such as this to any sort of degree that there must be some sort of determining factor. Simply because I have faith in Jesus Christ's promise that whatever I pray for in faith in His name the Father will give to me doesn't quite make it so. Regardless of whatever you may think, the blueprint of my life was written before my life was ever built, it's pretty similar to engineering. If I were to pray for something that would set my life off course for whatever reason, my Lord would not allow that. You see, He has a plan for me, and no matter how much I think I "need" whatever it is I'm praying for, it may not be so. I may "need" to go through whatever it is I'm going through in order to become a stronger more intelligent individual. I may "need" to put up with whatever nonsense someone may be throwing at my Lord and Savior via the safety of the internet in order to bring more glory and honor to my Father's holy name.

With this being said, I apologize for whatever, if any, brash remarks I have made. I withdraw from this discussion and thank you kindly for your time.

A2D

So you have no free will. I had an interesting argument about this with a Christian and a Moslem lady. They tried to gang up on me

. The went on and on about how everything that is gonna happen in the future is known to God, but they insisted I have "free will". Religion must have adled their brains in some way because any reasonably intelligent person can tell you that "free will" and "God knowing exactly what you're gonna do in the future, God planned your life for you" is mutually exclusive.

No, God knowing what's going to happen doesn't mean God plans what's going to happen!(Muslims and Christians, and different types of Christians differ greatly over the extent to which God plans peoples' lives.)
I know my son is coming off night shifts at the hospital where he works - doesn't mean I have any influence over his roster!
BTW, the word is not Moslem, it's Muslim, pronounced not like 'buzz' as some people pronounce is, but as in 'push'..
Vicky

Re NOTurTypical

You wrote:

"If your statement is true why did most of all the ancient religions die out that also were preached to the same 'ignorant masses' and who also promised 'everlasting euphoria'?"

To a very high degree because a fascist christianity slaughtered them.

Quote:

"If your conjecture was true all ancient religions promising 'everlasting euphoria' would be equally represented today. And they're all dead, only Christianity has survived from 2,000 years ago, and done so despite severe hostility."

Depending on how 'euphoria' is defined and in what context, I would say, that semireligious buddhism is alive and well after 2600-2700 years, as is jain and hinduism. Then there is a revival of the 'pagan' religions, not to be disregarded either.

Don't get carried away by your propagandistic zeal to the extent, that you start fabulating and falsifying.

St Bernardus Ministries?

For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil.
The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!-Luke7

Here is me ranting on again.

DO NOT equate Jesus Christ with the so-called Christian church.

Forget bibles, forget churches and follow Jesus - love, forgive, do not harm, nurture = what humans need.

And be tolerant.

reply to post by The Empty Skies


Right...I mean Im all for having a good time...

Maybe Id strike a deal...for every verse you read that I listen to. You buy a round. You know, get the ole brain hummin so I can better pay attention...

Everytime I close your sermon with the word "Amen"...you buy a round... I mean its only fair. I sat here patiently listening to your beliefs.

And you know since most Christian churches serve the blood of God-man and his bread for his organs and flesh and what not and since it would be illegal to bring in wine and bread to do so, and since we are here at the bar, it only makes sense to take advantage of the resources at our disposal. SO, go ahead and get me a pint of that God blood to make sure Ive been cleansed amd acceped God-man as the good ole Lord and Savior... especially before I go out and pick up that blonde on the corner...I might need that extra guarantee Im headed to heaven when everythng is said and done...

Ya, I could see this working out well actually...

Re Rustami

You wrote:

"For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; ...."

The same John the baptist, whose followers called Jesus a 'deciever messiah'?

(Being to busy with being a prophet yourself, you never took up this link outside your own holy bubble).