Never said I did equate anything of the sort.

Protestant churches do that in their brick and mortar churches as well. I was raised a Southern Baptist and heard it every week.

My point is that MILLIONS of sheep (they actually TELL you that you are a sheep lol) are told that God will help them have everything they want if they only believe, pray and GIVE.

If you weren't aware of them doing that, then you are now.

yeah - i just think it's a fairy tale that was invented to keep people in line

and to make money by letting them pay for absolution

everything that comes from organized religion - no matter which one - carries no relevance for me anyways since it's all written by man - sometimes hundreds of years after the reported incidents supposedly happened.

if someone wants to believe that there's a higher power - fine with me

if someone wants to tell me I am supposed to take seriously what's written in the bible - no way

Then my response is that perhaps you were taking the word "blessed" a little to literal.

Whatever, I answered your question, now you can answer mine.

It seems that the people who "believe" in their "faith" have never asked just a few simple questions:

In the bible...God "communes" with man (Moses for instance), Angels come down and talk to people, "Miracles" are done, etc. All in the distant past.
For thousands of years now...NOTHING.

Where is "God"? Where are all these "Angels" who in the distant, distant past couldn't seem to keep away from doing shit on Earth? Why isn't anyone being raised from the dead in 2013? Why isn't anybody walking on water or performing "miracles" (not magic tricks)?

Why? Because it's a superstition!

Now ask yourself this: If ANYBODY in 2013 suddenly made any of the claims that Moses, or David, or JESUS himself made...what would you say?
I'd tell you what you would say: You would say he's fucking crazy.

And yet people believe it because it's in a book by Jewish goatherders (that was re-written by people working for a British King centuries later)

Nope, we wouldn't believe one word of that crap.
I can find plenty of guys who are just like the "prophets" who "wrote" the bible...just go to any homeless bum on the street and talk to them a few minutes.

Their babbling and hallucinations are pretty much the same thing.

i dont know what your question was...

i just know you always trick me with your one liners in writing much more than i originally wanted

No, I was saying that people actually believe that "God" will "enrich" them if only they live their lives according to "his word".

And when it doesn't work out that way...well, it's because they didn't have enough "Faith".

It's a perfect con game that has worked for millennium.

Isn't science god?

the inquisition was more political than religious from I've read.. .. the church was the ONLY power at the time, involved in many power struggles.. hard to blame that on the teaching of Jesus... be like me blaming you if I got hit by a Mercedes walking down the sidewalk..

information will always be subverted to personal gain, or always has been... certainly not 'gods' fault is it?... one of the cornerstones of Christian is free will correct? I have no idea about Islam and free will though.....

speaking of hallucinations - there's one thing in the bible i found interesting

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...1&version=NKJV

that guy either smoked really heavy stuff, or was some ancient Jules Verne, or saw some UFO

:winkwink:

parts of the old testament are historically accurate to a point and the writing and the poetry are amazing... how else could a book last 3500 years? talk about a best seller :winkwink:

mental illness maybe... :2 cents:

oh, i am pretty sure many of the historical elements in the bible are true (at least to a certain extent)

Robbie there is a definite documented and traceable change in Jewish philosophy which you refer to when you speak of the old testament. the new testament is for the most part a 'careful selection of heavily edited ' letters to a from early church members.

the gospels are of confusing source at best written generations after the events, they literally portray a different Jesus in each one, of the 4. our common perception of Jesus is a combination of the 4 gospels.

somewhat and like most history written to make the winners look good :winkwink:

right, the excuse of religion there, which is what I'm getting at. It's a fine line, but it's the one that causes all this 'us versus them' whenever conversations like this thread occur :thumbsup

They are 'enriched' though, just not in a monetary or materialistic way. It's like if you give a tramp $10 - the good feeling you get out of helping out that guy who desperately needs it, enriches you, even though that's not why you gave over the $10 in the first place. True religious people don't see it as give 10 receive 100, it's not about that at all for them :)

What happens, and this is just my own personal observation, is that it's basically a placebo. It works 100% though, and then creates the religious person/nut's reality, which is genuinely enriched for them. Does it make them weak, or needy for a 'crutch'? Meh, not really imo, they want to be like 95% of the other people on the planet - kind, considerate, and so on. If they choose religion to focus that, fucking good luck to them I say :)

https://gfy.com/showpost.php?p=19745747&postcount=86

I know this will fall on deaf ears, but OT vs NT

just came into this thread...did anyone actually read the poll?

not much choice there..lol

this was my answer

https://gfy.com/showpost.php?p=19745806&postcount=101

in short: believing in god and how your life turns out has nothing to do with each other - statistically

And I pointed out that the "reward" is after you die; I kind of thought your answer would change since it is a little difficult to do statistics on dead people.

But okay. :)

like i said earlier - i dont believe in any reward or punishment

i "believe" there will be a big black nothing.

to believe that there will be something after death would mean to believe in the man made concept of religion (opposed to the remote believe in a higher power that "sparked" the universe i mentioned earlier).

and i completely reject any man made concept of religion

i just have sympathies for the spirituality of Buddhist people, but i'm far from being a follower. just a sympathizer

http://i.imgur.com/ZrzFj.jpg

http://conservativenewager.files.wor...mb-atheist.jpg

:stoned

ADG

here's how I personally view god... I believe in service, I provide work for a model, I provide a fee for an agent, I provide content for my clients, I provide images and video for members to enjoy as they might see fit... I am of service to a variety of people on various levels.

I am rewarded for this service, financially, emotionally and spiritually. I am grateful for the opportunities to be of service to many, and look forward to more opportunities to be of service. I treat the people I come into contact with on a daily with respectful curtsey as best I am able to.

I take care of my possession to show my gratitude for having them, I treat my family with respect and am grateful to have them in my life most of the time.

do I think god will kick me down some cool shit? I think god will allow me to earn what I may if I continually provide service to the best of my abilities. are my prayers answered? my prayers are of gratitude, so in a sense my payers are answered because I am thanking god for what I have been provided, for my services.

do I see an end game in this? I don't do this for an endgame, I live this way to enhance the quality of my life and the lives of those around me. one of the rewards of a life of service is the company of similar minded people. like goes to like, a backwoods saying from my kin as I was growing up, meaning your life will be filled with those you choose by your actions and thoughts. if you want a life filled with quality people, be a quality person.

do I care if you agree with me? not really... do I have the answers? I do for me. do I wonder what it all means? no, I would know if I was supposed. do I fuck up? all the time, I just try to stay focused on what's important and move forward.

this is how I express my understanding and relationship with god... so is there a god, yes in my life.... do you believe in god, none of my business. I do notice all the non believers are very angry about god and belief... read this thread is you don't think this is true, look a the anger in the word and phrase choices used to deny the existence of god.

do you know there is no gravity? how can I possibly say that right? we see the effects everyday, you can prove this to me numerous ways blah blah bla... the reality is scientist and physicist have no idea at all about gravity or what it is or does it even exist, or where it comes from... they can only measure the effect. gravity is a complete unknown force or power that we all agree to 'apply the word' gravity too, so we can discuss and measure the phenomena. so does gravity even exist? not my problem....

same with 'dark matter' we've all heard or read the phrase dark matter, makes up 75% of the known universe...blah blah blah... you know what dark matter is? no? guess what... no one does... it's a name applied to the missing understanding of our concept of the universe... that's all... we have the ability to measure 25% of the known universe... but scientist figured out that things can't run on 'x' amount and there are some big holes in the theory's, so... to make the math add up.... shazzam!!! dark mater was created... :winkwink:

I do believe Jesus was real, and was sent by God.

Just read the bible, and if you are an intelligent person, you'll realize it's very profound stuff, impossible for someone to have invented it all.

Reading that book with intelligence is a great way to make someone an atheist, to be honest. That book is so ridiculous and contradictory, you have to try very hard to stay faithful after reading it.

Do you have any example of a contradiction or ridicoulness?

nice post :thumbsup

That's why I get so afraid of people I meet who say they believe the bible is the word of their god. If they are crazy enough to believe it or lack the mental capacity to see it for what it is, what else might they be capable of.

I have to say I met a lot of Christians and a few Muslims in my life and the majority of them seemed unstable, either emotional or mentally.

I blame.....everyone.

You are correct that a single "someone" didn't write the Bible. It was compiled from ancient myths from a variety of sources which were translated, modified and adapted across cultures and time by a plethora of ancient scribes over a period of thousands of years for the Old Testament and hundreds of years in the common era for the New Testament. And what we remain with as the King James Bible is comprised of only a tiny fraction of the contradictory myths that different sects of ancient Jews and Christians believed in. Many other myths including wildly varying as well as redundant or partly redundant myths were lost, discarded, censored or suppressed for a wide variety of reasons, making the Biblical literature we study today an end product of random chance more than a purposeful narrative as much of actual history is.

And for crying out loud, have you ever actually read the Bible? It's a horror show full of genocide, incest, murder, rape and tale after tale of every dark and deviant human impulse as one might expect from a bunch of fairy tales made up by superstitious bronze age warlords. Even the personalities of the deities portrayed in it are those of spiteful vengeful, hateful monsters beyond what any modern horror writer could imagine. The only profound thing about it is that any modern, educated person could take it literally rather than studying it as a fascinating document of historical significance that it is.

Thanks Mutt.

This damn topic has my brain spinning reading people still believing in fairy tales. lol

I give up. Believe what you want everybody. In the end, you're gonna fucking die. And if you go to "heaven" then you can laugh at me then.

I don't think you're going anywhere by the way...I think the lights are gonna turn out. The end.

I think that our "spirit" is nothing more than wishful thinking by a bunch of animals who are so intelligent that we are self-aware and understand our own mortality.

Examples of ridiculousness in the Bible? God damn it!

Are you shitting me?

A virgin birth, healing the sick, parting the red sea, a staff becoming a snake, some dude coming back to life, living forever in some magical place in you believe in a flying zombie jew, the Garden of Eden, original sin, a talking snake, a burning bush?

A god so incompetent that he fucked up his own creation, flooded the world, then came back as his own son to be killed by his own creation to wash away his own mistakes?

All of the animals in the world just happened to live within walking distance of Noah's house, all fit on his boat, and didn't eat each other?

A wall falling down because someone blew a trumpet?

A bunch of kids were killed, but NOT the ones in the houses with sheep's blood above the door?

Voices in people's heads, telling them to kill their kids, oops, no, just kidding?

Some people mocked someone for being bald, so god sent bears to murder them?

Passages on how to treat your slaves, what price to sell your daughter for, and to put people to DEATH for working on Sunday or mixing up cotton and materials in their clothes?

Living inside of a big fish? Water into wine? A magic sky fairy destroying cities for wickedness?

Do I seriously have to go on? This just just the shit that occurs to me right off the bat as absolutely bat-shit insane for people to even consider believing.

Here's just a few of the more obvious contradictions in the Bible:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...adictions.html

Note that this is just the contradictions from the books that made it in. There were TONS of books that didn't make it into the "current" form of the Bible, that say all kinds of fucked up and contradictory things. Taking those books out was to hide some of that shit from an increasingly intelligent populace.

Let's face it: Mary fucked some other dude, told a lie to avoid being stoned to death for it, and now it's gotten WAY the fuck out of hand.

It's also pretty amusing (and sad, in a way) how many Christ figures there were, exactly like Jesus, that just didn't "catch on" like he did. And how much the Christian mythology matches Greek and Roman mythology, as well as other Pagan mythos.

I feel that two of the most insidious problems that modern mostly secular Western societies still face are:

1- This idea of a generic version of god that each person can simply make up on their own and half-assedly believe in and which they expect other people to respect. Obviously some unique religious belief that a person admits to making up on their own and "works for them" can't be disproved like the historical myths can. It's a total cop out in my opinion by otherwise intelligent people who who can't be bothered to follow any of the inconvenient rules of the organized and established religions, but who just want to pay some lip service to the vague idea of spirituality once in a blue moon.

2- The rampant anti-intellectualism that even otherwise intelligent people who mostly live secular lives still cling to. Arguing that science can't really prove anything or that any conclusion is just as good as any other interpretation of the world does absolutely nothing to advance mankind. This attitude pervades everything from education and even Presidential politics with all the rubes in the flyover states for example who won't vote for a "feller who seems too smart".

Thanks edgeprod for a great post

But a lot of people WANT to believe the fairy tales.

It's their "faith" and it proves how "good" they are. lol

Your awesome post will just fall on deaf ears I'm afraid.

Damn, I had to double check to make sure that this post wasn't something I had written, LOL. Well put!

Passover still celebrated by the Jews to this day

hey!!! maybe god's touchy about male pattern baldness :1orglaugh

I always wondered why Jesus had to die and be reborn.. simple: seasons, crops grown, crops die, crops crow etc...

interesting but I'm not sure what you mean? I'd say our legal system allowing our boarders to be broached and our moral values degraded along with the medias constant persecution of our culture is far more disastrous... a country that has no respect for its boundaries, no respect for it's language or culture or history can not stand IMHO

I'd say the pseudo intellectualism displayed by the intellectual class of our society and media is a real disaster... has caused several wars, poverty, propagates class warfare and racism...

There are basic contradictions in the bible itself, you don't even have to look at individual stories.

God says don't kill, it's his most important commandment yet he kills millions including babies. Sometimes he does it himself and sometimes he orders others to do it.

God killed all the world except Noah and his family, then promised never to do again but we are all waiting for Jesus to come back and kill us all.

God/Jesus wants us to love and care for each other but as his biggest example of love he sacrifices his son to forgive us instead of just forgiving us which would defiantly be a more loving act.

This shit was written by mentally twisted desert nomads. The sun must have baked their brains.

Lookup deism