Billboards Declare Prayer, Bibles Not Helping Disaster Victims

I believe ( tricky phrase) in prayer, but only in two ways:

1. Prayer is effective in helping yourself

2. Prayer is effective in helping a loved one or someone you know well through constant interaction

When it comes to catastrophes involving thousands or even millions of individuals, it's best to find an ethical charity which you KNOW will actually put the bulk of the funds into the hands of the people that need it most. Many do not and line their pockets by a huge percentage.

Using disasters to make religious converts is not ethical at all… it's preying on the weak and helpless.

reply to post by Grimpachi


okay, deep breathe. (no i don't sound like vader. hehe)

to solve the dilemma of the creation and flood accounts, vs. science, i had to do indepth research. i first started with the premise of who the author was. mose (moses) was the adopted son of pharaoh ahmose, who he was named after. he was from the habiru, also known as the hyksos shepherd kings and also called the ahmo. the hyksos had migrated to egypt and eventually became pharaohs themselves at a city called avaris. they eventually grew unpopular, were deposed, later enslaved and then were chased out of egypt by pharaoh ahmose. this is called the hyksos expulsion in egyptian hieroglyphs and the exodus in the bible.

next i pondered moses' writing. according to the story, his mom became his nanny. my theory is that he learned both the mesopotamian (from his mom) and egyptian creation and flood accounts and recognized that these were the same stories. to verify this i went back to the genealogies, which stated that following the flood (i'll get to the flood itself shortly) one of "noah's" ancestors repopulated egypt and another repopulated ethiopia. this is both the northernmost and southernmost borders of egypt at the time. the son who populated egypt was ham. ham is khem, in other words, the name of egypt today, was originally named after one of "noah's" sons (well, there's a stipulation here but i'll cover that later).

anyway, the mesopotamian version of the story, which if you've read the atrahasis epic or the epic of gilgamesh, is virtually the same thing, is in the biblical flood account but also, the egyptian flood account is in the flood account. that's 2 floods, entwined together in the text. one flood was the black sea flood, which was not global but was bad enough to require evacuating the royal barnyard. this is evidenced by the text saying noah should take 7 clean animals in pairs, 7 birds in pairs, and 2 unclean animals in pairs. that's only 32 animals, a far cry from all the animals on the planet. so where did the global flood, all animals thing come from? it came from the ice age event.

the creation account is almost entirely egyptian. in it, we see not the creation but a re-creation following a cataclysm which is mentioned in the first few verses of chapter 1 of genesis. the spirit of god moved over the face of the deep . the deep is depicted there as very deep water that draws down to reveal dry land that was already there. so all the animal creations, are re-creations using dna of former species from before the ice age, that made the grade. THAT is the global flood account, which is later mixed into the flood of noah account as being one and the same event.

whew my hands are tired

so the creation and flood accounts are a mixture of both the egyptian version descended down from ham, and the mesopotamian version as recounted by moses' mother.

ghostfacekilah00
I do know that Christian charities always donate a lot of food, basic supplies, and man-hours to help with disaster relief, especially for a disaster as big as Hurricane Haiyan.

edit on 26-11-2013 by ghostfacekilah00 because: (no reason given)

Yeah, And wasn't the Red Cross founded by christians in the first place?

ghostfacekilah00
What do you mean the billboard was at no cost? It doesn't cost money to put up billboards? As a Christian, I would consider it a godsend to be given a Bible or rosary in the midst of a disaster and I would hope for prayer from my brothers and sisters in Christ

You have obviously never suffered. And have no compasion or understanding for those who have,

But if you have lost your home, have no shelter, no food, no water, I'll send you a prayer and a necklace in the secure knowledge that it's all you need.....

reply to post by undo

how did you get christianity out of that.

How did you get atheism out of what I said!

just because some deists weren't religious as you say,

History says.

doesn't mean practically everybody else was the same.

And I said this where? I specifically said Founding Fathers. It is you that is extrapolating too much.

what do you think happened? they turned off their religious switch and turned it back on again a few years later, or what?

I'm not following.

and i'm under attack for even that.

no problem. i don't think you're attacking me. Lucid

So then me. I'm attacking you. I made a simple comment in reply to our nations 'religious roots'. And that's me attacking you?? Good grief.

Lucid just doesn't have any wiggle room in his head for any other world view.

Please do share what is my world view Undo? Do you really know it? Can you really infer it from those 2 short sentences in this thread? I go back and forth between atheism and deism. I change my existential world view in accordance to my growing understanding of life and philosophy.

You want an attack. Fine. You Undo seem to have little wiggle room. It's you that consistently speaks about your unorthodox, yet particular versions of Christianity in which has tight connection with alien life. It's you that consistently speaks in these terms as if absolute truth. Do I? I assure you I have exhibited much more 'wiggle room' with my views than you have on ATS. I'm not the one claiming to know our origins, or our fate hereafter. My world view is quite open. Thank you very much.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


is there something wrong with having an unorthodox view?

reply to post by AndyMayhew


is that all they sent? i did not realize this. i thought they had sent food and medicine, etc, as well. and that the debate is over why part of the funds were used to buy them bibles and rosaries

reply to post by undo

belief in a higher power does not preclude morality, i agree with that. but lack of belief in a higher power, does not preclude morality either.

the problem is, where there are no rules regarding the sacredness of human life, governments become monsters.

You're insinuating that atheists, or at least the non-religous, don't hold life to be sacred. That's ludicrous and offensive. Yes it's THAT type of mentality that fosters the idea without religion one doesn't have morality. Which is down right wrong.

Also. Since I know I have shared this with you in the past when you've said similar arguments:


If I recall. Your rebuttal to this will be 'Oh well we have no way of knowing it was really his religious belief underlying it". Which of course could be turned around on you just as equally concerning those monsters and their atheism. I go with occam's razor. He said he was doing it in the name of religion because he was doing it in the name of religion. Have you read Mein Kampf by chance?

Is there something wrong with an unorthodox view.

I don't answer questions when people sidestep everything I say / ask. Not how I operate on ATS.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


keep reading my posts. you'll get to the one where i addressed hitler.

reply to post by undo


I have read many of your posts in the past, from many threads. I am seeing the same stuff here. You regurgitate the same ludicrous misunderstandings about atheism and morality over and over. Even when presented with strong counter arguments.

In your words, not much wiggle room.

Any hoot. I'm done "attacking you". Carry on

Lucid Lunacy
reply to post by undo

 

I have read many of your posts in the past, from many threads. I am seeing the same stuff here. You regurgitate the same ludicrous misunderstandings about atheism and morality over and over. Even when presented with strong counter arguments.

In your words, not much wiggle room.

Any hoot. I'm done "attacking you". Carry on

edit on 27-11-2013 by Lucid Lunacy because: (no reason given)

listen i spent the first half of the thread defending atheists and people who have no religion. then you came in squaring off on me over something you apparently misread. so i defended myself. what did you want me to do, just sit here like a moron or do you think i'm already doing that?

reply to post by Grimpachi

Long time no see lucid.

Hey I always confuse deism with other things maybe you should clarify for all.

Yeah I've been on and off for a while now. Busy with trying to start a web business. Good to see you

Deism is kind of an umbrella term. Lots of different views could fall under it. Meaning, not all deists are in agreement with each other (of course that's a theists thing too! lol). The crux of it: one can infer the existence of a Creator through the natural faculty of their mind through observation and reasoning of the physical Universe. However, this position asserts that Creator either does not or cannot partake within its creation. Therefore it rejects personal revelation, miracles, prayers being answered, aka no grounds for religious dogma.

reply to post by undo

listen i spent the first half of the thread defending atheists and people who have no religion.

Thats the way you see but thats not the way we see it. You quite clearly insinuated the non-religious don't hold life sacred (of high value) and therefore they are prone to doing monstrous things. Sorry. That's not defending them. That's attacking quite strongly.

then you came in squaring off on me

No. I wrote two short sentences in reply to a very specific thing. Our nations religious roots. You interpreting that as an attack or 'squaring off' seems quite silly to me. Truth be told, you interpreted it that way then attacked me

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


if there's no grounds for dogma, as you say, in deistic thought, how about grounds for history, where events that were ruled impossible 300 years ago, are easily explained with science today?

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


i said first half of the thread i did this. i also said, the issue is that holding the view that we are nothing but mammals is akin to the talmud view that gentiles are cows -- et.al, that we're animals, but the talmudians are not animals. well i beg to disagree. i'm a spirit and soul, encased in a mammal body, just like them, unless they can prove that they are actually just holograms or something, being intelligently manipulated from some other dimension. i could find some theoretical physics that claims we are all holograms so yeah.

anyway, when a human is relegated to nothing but animal, and leaders grow to power who believe this (hitler believed in evolution), and the tendency for leaders to be the most functional psychopath inthe culture in question, the two things have a head on collision with everyone else's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

i still want to know if as a deist/atheist, you think my unorthodox view is a problem?
that is so dang confusing.

reply to post by undo


Like others have said in the past. You attribute way too much to atheism. Atheism is simply the belief (non-belief) god(s) don't exist. That's it. That's all.

You suggesting atheism means viewing a person as nothing but a mere animal with no higher value is ridiculous. Surely some atheists. Surely. All? No. 'Why' should be obvious when you understand what atheism is, and what it is not. There is nothing mandated to the atheists for them to read, follow, understand, believe in (apart from non-belif in god(s), to qualify as an atheist. Some atheisms might be scientists, others might dismiss much of science. Some could read and follow Nietzsche's philosophy, other atheists might think Nietzsche is a famous painter. There is nothing to unify atheists in this way. It's strictly the non-belief in god(s). You cannot attribute what you consistently do, to atheism. You need to narrow it down and be more specific. More to the point, if an atheism is say a nihilist that doesn't mean every atheist is.

i still want to know if as a deist/atheist, you think my unorthodox view is a problem
that is so dang confusing.

I wasn't speaking from my position there. I was merely musing over being accused of not having wiggle room when your beliefs entail knowing our origins and our ultimate fate and mine does not.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


i don't think you are hearing me at all. i'll try one last time. atheism says there's no god. therefore, we weren't created by god. we are the result of something, or else we wouldn't be here talking. the mainstream view is that we are animals. while i agree my body is a mammal, the rest of me is not. my premise is that as long as leaders view us as nothing more than a collection of mammal body parts, they will commit crimes against humanity that they wouldn't have otherwise. now i'm not saying religion hasn't done so as well, but at least they don't eat their own quite as often as they share the common ground of believing in each other's value above the mammal parts.

reply to post by Grimpachi

I have donated to religious organizations before for disaster relief but I never thought the money I gave would go to proselytization with bibles or rosaries if I thought for a second they would be I would have found a worthwhile charity. The people need food shelter medicine.

What they need out there are bounce houses. So all the islands could sink and the residents just
fire up the outboard and come ashore.

That way atheism has nothing to constantly criticize. Be it chicken soup
or soup for the soul.

reply to post by swanne


Yes. True about the Red Cross.

However, Harvard and all the Ivy League universities started out as Bible schools, too.

Now look at the horrid globalist values they push on everyone.

I knew when Elizabeth Dole became head of the Red Cross that there was deep rot in the org.

Samaritan's Purse does far better with far less overhead.