Adelphiasophism
Adelphiasophist Correspondence: Your Views, Our Replies 3
Abstract
© 1998 The Adelphiasophists and AskWhy! Publications. Freely distribute as long as it is unaltered and properly attributed
Contents Updated: Friday, 24 December 2004
David B
Shirlie, I have the following comments on: Adelphiasophism: Foolish Women’s Words on Nature and her alleged Rule of Life. I always find it intriguing how those who don’t care to know or worship the God of the Bible, believing it fatuous to do so, end up with some perverse religion of their own or some other’s inventing. In fact, your philosophy, propaganda and personal dogma touted on you goofy website actually give greater testimony and credence to the words of God… “…Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,…” and: “They exchanged God’s truth for a lie and worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” “Romans” 1:25, also “For the time will come when people will not put up with healthy doctrine but with itching ears will surround themselves with teachers who cater to their own needs.” “Romans” 1:22 (read vs 19-25) and “II Timothy” 4:3 The cool thing is that God loves YOU Shirlie or Mike or ??? regardless of what you believe or think or do today (or did yesterday)… “But God demonstrates his love for us by the fact that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.” “Romans” 5:8. By the way, these aren’t words of my own contrivance… the Bible, GOD’s word, tells us this. I pray you come to a saving knowledge of the true God of the Bible. Take care.
Thanks for the warning. Did you ever think of applying it to yourself?
I too always find it intriguing how people fed a load of obvious lies can keep on regurgitating them with no effort to test their reliability or common sense, spewing out incoherent nonsense that is manifestly designed to stop the gullible from questioning the incredible. Instead of professing wisdom, the Christians boldly professed themselves to be fools and practised what they preached, destroying civilisation for a thousand years. Now, beginning in the USA, they seem to want to do the same again, voting in a latter day saviour whose name, along with Paul and Saul, is also a four letter word.
Was this man Paul—a man not a god, you will notice—a fool or not? You must think he was. And the civilisation these self-admittedly foolish Christians destroyed was one that had worshipped Nature for the whole of previous history, giving rise, in so doing, to the greatest civilisations. Only when Christianity weakened sufficiently for people again to wonder at how amazing Nature is, did civilisation again begin to rise, and eventually, through science, surpass the ancient Nature based civilisations.
Christians rightly brag about being fools. They brag that their religion is the religion of liars, rogues and criminals—people they call sinners. The religions they destroyed were religions of the good, people who were generally expected to demonstrate high ethical standards to be accepted into them, not religions of alcoholics, confidence tricksters, torturers and mass murderers. What a pride you take in your achievements, you Christians.
What is healthy about patriarchal religions, especially the one that is supposed to be the worship of a God of love? I have noticed few Christians, in practice, as opposed to phonographically, that love anyone except their own image of themselves—the image they fancy God created and favours. Read some Christian history. I have some on my Adelphiasophism pages, and, since you mention Mike, he has plenty more on his own pages, as you apparently know. Try reading it.
God, you believe, gave you a brain, and then Paul tells you not to use it. Paul, tells you to be a fool. If God wants you to be a fool, then you worship the God of fools. Yet, you believe Paul, plainly the Devil’s agent. You truly are a fool! God Himself tells you there is no saviour except God Himself—aiming to stop anyone believing a religious imposter pretending to be God—so you divide God into bits so that you can still pretend He appeared on earth claiming to be a saviour, though a mere man. The God you profess to believe must despair. God warns you not to believe false prophets, but this same man, supposed to be a saviour, is not only believed but considered a new god, even though he was a false prophet by God’s own criterion. If we are to believe your real God, the so-called Holy Word, a prophet’s words must come true. Your saviour has had 2000 years and is still wrong. This is no kingdom of heaven—but he will be right soon, of course—foolish one.
He tells you not to kill, but to turn the other cheek, so the assembled foolishness of US Christendom votes for a man who enjoys killing people through mass bombing raids, and somehow contrives in his own utter foolishness to think he is doing God’s work, this Christian man who is so much of a coward he preferred to dodge the draft himself, but has no compunction about sending young men he does not know to kill and be killed. The Christian faithful re-elected him for this, the people of the God of love, cheer the man who lies to send their sons to die while hiding in a bunker himself.
You will, of course think any religion other than your own foolish one is fatuous, and you will think that a manifestly non-dogmatic religion is dogma, though your own religion of torment and intolerance introduced the word into the world in just the sense in which you use it. You are all foolish enough to ignore the simple non-biblical truth that the conspiracy—the Straussist neo-cons—behind the new Christian king of the world freely admit they use Christianity for their own political ends. Patriarchal religion has always been a tool of unscrupulous rulers and their class of assistants—gentlemen, it seems they are called in the USA today!
Christianity has never been good. How can a religion of fools be good? It is plainly rotten by the criterion of your own God incarnate—your own God, Jesus, not the charlatan called Paul that you really worship. No god or even God has ever written a word down in any book. Books are written by men, and when they claim to be writing the words of God, the best opinion of them is that they are insane, the worst is that they are doing the work of the Devil. Only the insane believe in figmentary fathers. Nature exists! And, if it did not, then neither would you.
Being a fool, you will not be able to understand a word of this. That is too bad, but you could at least put your head in the sand and leave it there, along with all your equally foolish teachers and fellow believers. Then the rest of us might have a chance of some civilisation, and peace.
Hoping you can find your brain and put some sense into it.
Wow! Wacky, wonderful woman. Sounds like YOUR jealous of a patriarchal scheme of things. Definitely a woman. Nice of you to assume I’m the fool. Is that the way your mother taught you to dialog with others? …or your religion?
The word is you’re! You are a Christian and therefore are proud of being a fool. It is the reason, no doubt, why you find it so easy to accuse others of being foolish while pretending that they are the ones doing the insulting. You cite Paul at me but seem to forget he said: “hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?”, in 1 Corinthians 1:20, and “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty”, in 1 Corinthians 1:27, and “If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise”, 1 Corinthians 3:18. And he was proud to be accepted a fool himself by his followers (though we can accept he did not believe it)—“yet as a fool receive me”, (2 Cor 11:6), “I speak as a fool”, (2 Cor 11:23), Paul was telling Christians to be fools, a command they achieved effortlessly. Your own God told you to be as the little children, obviously meaning gullible and lacking in discernment and critical faculties. Yet you seem to be annoyed when I join in and call you a fool. Why are you not pleased with your success, brother?
You just proved that man, and woman’s, nature are imperfect and argumentative, including your own. Nature exists because God created it. You wouldn’t exist if HE didn’t put breath in your lungs, or a beat in your earth-worshipping heart.
There is no need to prove imperfection. Perfection is an ideal, like your own God who is an ideal you, the reason why you like Him so much as a buddy. Only Christians could think they were perfect, but arguing is not an imperfection, it is a sign of life. A man trained as a priest called Stalin understood that the only place where there was perfect agreement was after death. Heaven is perfect for that reason. And why do Christians conceive of your almighty God as so stupid that he could not arrange for lungs and hearts to function without His own constant involvement in it?
Another thing, you say God didn’t write down His word, that imperfect men ’transposed’ it. Where is your basis for YOUR beliefs. Written down somewhere? Or is it in your head.. CONSISTENTLY inscribed in the hearts and minds of all your adelphiasophism friends?
You put the word transposed in citation marks as if you were quoting me, but I cannot find where I used it. In fact ’transposed’ is too gentle a word to use if we are to assume that some original work intended to be good has been altered by Jewish and Christian rogues. In fact, the original works themselves were intended to control the readers and to alter the truth of history. I repeat that the details are on the pages of Magi Mike. There is no point in your reading them, I know. Even an angel sent directly from God could not persuade you that you have been fooled, along with millions of equally credulous twits over thousands of years. We all have to suffer from your insane fancies.
If Christians differ in their beliefs from one denomination to the other, even with a ’written’ compass,
There is not much use for a compass that points in 35,000 different directions at the same time, and that has not yet exhausted the varieties of Christianity there are, since new ones emerge daily.
How do all you tree-worshipping intellectuals maintain any consistency of truth from one ’savior’ to another?
Truth can only be called truth when it is verified. That means, poor man, that people agree—not disagree!—it corresponds with reality and can be shown to do so. You believe Christian doctrine because it does not conform with reality!
Maybe your adelphiasophism friend down the street has a better or different way than yours, hmmm? Oh, that’s right, you think truth is RELATIVE. “Gee, I wouldn’t want to take away from my fellow congregants believes, though wildly different than mine, because of a little thing called TRUTH or REALITY…”,
It is reality that guarantees truth. You have figments called gods, saints, angels, devils and demons in your head. Imagination is powerful, but it does not generate anything real. It requires reality to do it, so truth must be verifiable in reality.
You also get Christianity and government mixed up, sometimes Christians do too. However, what our government does or any government does is not tied to my salvation or any church or denomination. The US is NOT the church and the church is NOT the US. By the way, do you know how many Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, etc. are in the US? A lot of us vote a moral conscience regardless of party platform. In the end, all governments are flawed anyway. We do the best with what we have.
It is a feeble religion that condones monstrous behaviour by government. Christianity only succeeded by doing it—by agreeing with the Roman emperors to help them, from the time of Constantine to rule the world. They are just the same today. Christianity is an opportunistic religion, and not a good one. It is unprincipled in the extrme, the reason why any villain anywhere can join it with advantage—and be gladly accepted! I mention your Christian leaders simply to show how unprincipled Christians are. If you, as a Christian support the office of evil men intent on murdering their way to the riches of others, then you are condoning evil acts, and any almighty and just God must notice it. The whole point is that these people are Christians only for reasons of public admiration. They know that Christians are fools and so use them for their own ends. I am not making it up. The Straussists who control the administration openly admit it, knowing that Christians are too stupid to notice. Even the best governments might be flawed, but they would be intent on trying to correct the flaws. These governments do not recognise they are flawed. What seem like flaws to critics are considered as virtues themselves.
Why do you refer to the God of the Bible or Bible verses? Can you give me a quote from the goddess! Give me one direct quote.
I have already said that no god has written a word anywhere, especially not yours. It is proof of your idiocy that you think God writes down his own monstrous history to boast about it.
Yes, Jesus claimed to be god, because he is God. This is a fact of Biblical record.
You truly are a fool! God Himself tells you there is no saviour except God Himself—aiming to stop anyone believing a religious imposter pretending to be God—so you divide God into bits so that you can still pretend He appeared on earth claiming to be a saviour, though a mere man.
It is a fact that lies like this are in the Christian New Testament, but they openly defy God’s own word from an earlier time, since you have accepted the Jewish scriptures as equally holy. If God gives commands that His laws cannot be countermanded and even says so in the new form he adopts in the new book he supposedly wrote countermanding them, then it can only be concluded that God likes to seem as foolish as His own followers. No Good God, or Perfect God, or Just God, could do such idiotic things. If God did them, he is none of these, and if not, either He does not exist or he is evil.
Buddha and Mohammed and ’fill in the blank’ also claimed to be god.
You prove your utter ignorance here. Neither did, and Buddha did not accept any gods.
Unfortunately for the others, Jesus was the only ’GOD’ to have risen from the dead. This was prophesy long before he was born.
Indeed many previous gods rose from the dead and did it every year just like Jesus. You like to boast about your ignorance.
The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the early 1900’s not only were written in the time of the Bible, they also corroborate and validate, even detailed facts, about Bible stories.
You talk utter bilge, poor boy! Try reading something instead of making it up, or believing your deceitful pastors.
I’m not the first Christian to try to share his faith with someone such as yourself and probably won’t be the last. People that belong to cult-like belief systems such as yours get pretty good at defending themselves. That’s because they have to do it a lot. You only have to look at recent history to realize how gullible the human mind is. The Nazi’s were successful at conditioning the minds of it’s citizens and it’s military to think that the Jews and retarded and ’different’ people were either evil or useless to society and needed extermination or banishment.
Christianity would be more tolerable if its practitioners were as modest as their own God, and did not try to foist there insane views on to others, especially the vulnerable young and the ignorant. Did you not notice that Christianity began as a cult, and was treated precisely as a cult by the Romans for 300 years. The Christians at the time had to do just what you said, defend themselves a lot, and they did it with every dishonesty they could conceive of. Many books of the ancients have been “lost”, because Christians did not like them, and since they controlled the known world from 325 AD, they could lose anything they did not like. And so they did.
The most gullible of human minds are those belonging to Christians. Adelphiasophists urge people to be skeptical, to ask questions and to seek their answers using the scientific method of testing, hypothesising and deducting—not just believing what some deranged no mark tells you.
The Nazis came to power in a country that was as Christian as the modern USA. Only 5 percent of Germans denied the Christian faith, about a third being Catholics and the rest being Protestants. The Catholic party in pre-War German openly supported the Nazis, and most Protestants eventually did so too as individuals. Hitler was brought up in his mother’s faith. She was a devout Catholic, and he was always a Catholic himself and boasted about it. The basis of Nazi attacks on Jews was biblical. They were the murderers of God and so were not subject to God’s salvation. They were “under men”—subhuman. Luther hated the Jews too, so it was not simply a Catholic outlook. It was Christian.
Today, Jews are dominant among those who are the modern fascists in the US. Their chosen tools are Christians and their chosen victims are the Moslems. Leo Strauss is so plainly a fascist, it is astonishing, even to skeptics like us, that they have got so far with their wicked plans, but they have, and Christian opportunism among their leaders, and gullibility among the led are the reasons for it. Adelphiasophists are among the minorities who can point out errors but have no political power. Only the many liberal Jews and liberal Christians in the world can do anything about it, but they chose not to rock the boat. They will regret it, if they do not find some backbone.
As for you, try learning something before you chose to spout, poor boy. It would be beneficial for you.
From James Rice
Shirlie, I have the following comments on: Adelphiasophism: Goddess Pages—God or Goddess. There’s a lot I could say. I could condem, I could argue, I could waste my breath with all the emotions I have wrapped up in my faith. Instead, I compell you: Look up what you’re saying. Read it in earnest. Look all through the Bible. Look at the Hebrew texts, and if you don’t know Hebrew, talk to more than one person or don’t base any of your arguments on it. Even if you do know Hewbrew and Greek, ask 2 people from conflicting standpoints and hear them out for why the text condemns or supports the Bible. I, in my ignorance and stupidity, in my constant blunders and lapses of memory (though I’m quite young) can pick a pretty good fight with you over your points. With how much thought that was put into your website, look further, and see how the other side deals with the problems you’ve uncovered. Surely what reasons I have to beleive, despite all the problems and horrors of the Bible, can tell you that I, and many others, can give you good reason why what you’re saying is false. The reason I do not condemn or preach to you (although I started to) is because I know that I cannot fulfill all that is necessary to back my faith. No one can, but I would just waste my breath if it made you angry. Angry people have no ears for listening. I am truly sorry if I made you angry in any way, but if I offended you, good. If I offended you, you will prove me wrong. If I am completely off base about Christianity, and you can give me substantial proof, I will denounce my faith. Until that day, I remain Christian. Prove me wrong.
Should I listen to the people who tell me the earth is flat? They say things like you. Just hear the case. Give it a chance. Listen to it being presented by a believer, and try to get rid of your prejudices. It is all nonsense. The prejudices you talk of in these arguments are evidence. The evidence is clear to me that the earth is spehrical not flat, and the evidence is even clearer to me that the whole cosmos is sacred not an imaginary father and his imaginary son. What you call faith is believing what someone has told you despite there being no evidence. I suggest you start to believe things only when there is good enough evidence to believe it.
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. I’ve got all the evidence I need. I see my God all around me, and I try to see if I’m right or just crazy. The people who thought the earth was round were disrespected and sometimes hated. Given, yes, that just because you beleive in something doesn’t mean that it’s true; but also, just because you don’t beleive in something doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. Try convincing someone in the 11th century that the earth is round. The evidence you present to them won’t even phase them. What is key is that they be open to new ideas, but that means accepting that they may be wrong. I try to accept that possibility and search the truth, but in my eyes there is nothing that can change my beleif. I try to keep an open mind, but I always return to the same thing: God.
f I simply told you that I’m right and you’re wrong, would you listen to me? I can’t try to tell you “such and such evidence” proves the Bible is completely right. The only thing I can truly compel you to do is search for God anywhere you can. If you find Buddha is God, tell me and I will renounce my faith if it is that compelling. It takes a lot to compell people, but it has been done throughout the centuries. I wonder which religion, in it’s infancy, had the most compelling growth? If ask me about Christianity, I will give you all of what little I have. Anywhere you look, so long as you look in earnest, will tell you something. Psalm 19 says:
I see my God all around me, and I try to see if I’m right or just crazy.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
When I look at the firmament and see the clouds at day and the stars at night, I see the paintbrush of God at work. Honestly, I cannot see how one can look at the skies and not see the handywork of God. I want to know what you beleive, and over Christmastime I will try and read more of your websight. I will happily tell you what I beleive if you want. Ask me a question, and I will try and answer it. Search people, history, the Bible, or even the skies; just search.
Just listen to what you are saying. It has nothing to do with God and everything to do with Nature being sacred. I said in my last post ’the whole cosmos’. That is Nature.
Everything that you and the Psalmist mention here are parts of Nature. God is superfluous. It is a human construct. It is imaginary. Nature is real! Why does the wonder of Nature compel anyone to see a God beyond it. It is the Nature that is wonderful, not your mental image. Nature does not need a Creator. Pots and clay models have creators but Nature stands in her own right.
You write: I’ve got all the evidence I need... I try to keep an open mind, but I always return to the same thing: God. I try to accept that possibility and search the truth, but in my eyes there is nothing that can change my belief. Yet you also write: What is key is that they be open to new ideas, but that means accepting that they may be wrong.
You are like all Christians. Utterly contradictory. You say that being open to new ideas is key but you will not be. So you are dishonest. You want others to be open to new ideas (really ancient and stupid ideas—but yours) while you will keep your own head firmly closed.
Whether you believe in something should be based on unambiguous evidence. You give completely ambiguous evidence, because you attribute the wonder of Nature to some idea you have in your skull. I can see Nature and appreciate it, like you, but I appreciate what I see. You do not.
“If I simply told you that I’m right and you’re wrong, would you listen to me? I can’t try to tell you such and such evidence proves the Bible is completely right. ”
You are the one that believes without evidence, not me. I need it. If you believe without evidence, you must have been sold a lot of trash motor cars and cheap TV sets in your life. Nobody believes without evidence except religious beliefs, because everybody knows that if you do you get conned. You do indeed, and you have been. The bible is an ancient book of myths, now known to be mainly wrong. Throw it all out. It is garbage, and turn fresh to the Goddess that keeps you alive with her scented air and pure water. Unless, that is you live where Christians depise her and them, and pollute her with smoke and rubbish.
Do read more of the website, and read also Mike’s website which goes deeply into Judaism and Christianity. As you say, you will not change your views, but you might be a better person if you get less smug.
You are so right. I am a contradiction unto myself. That is because there are two conflicting parts of me:
1. The rebellious, tainted image of God—who’s desire is to “sin” and snuff out the Christian in me.
2. The “Christian” part of me—searching a relationship with God and trying to “live out” the Bible These parts of me coincide, and in effect, the make the “devil and the angel on my shoulders". I’m not schitso, but a man constantly in his sin and constantly around someone who cannot tolerate it. Do not take this out of context, but Christianity is a contradiction unto itself. Christians, in their sin, cannot possibly live the life we are compelled to live, but were we not compelled to live it, we would live the worst lives we could possibly live. We believe the depravity of man, the salvation by a loving Jesus, and the help from the counselor, the Holy Spirit. He works through us to produce the only good we can do. I, alone, can do nothing good. With Him, I can do all things. About the nature thing, I messed up. I meant to say something, but I said something else. I said I won’t give you any cold, hard facts unless you are willing to have them (i.e. you ask for them). The reason I believe is not based on nature alone, but the beauty of nature points out to me a divine creator. Evolution can’t explain it good enough for any Christian (if it could, the person wouldn’t be a Christian). The Big Bang- a tiny speck of incredibly dense matter “explodes” into this universe. Great theory, explains a lot, but where did the speck come from? Does evolution explain, at it’s roots, the origin of man to be confident in it, basing, on the off chance you have one, the eternal existance of your soul? Not for me. I have read and seen tons of stuff about Christianity being reconciled with science and history. I don’t base my faith on that. This is all unclear; let me give you an example: You meet a man one day and have a meaningful conversation with him. Nobody saw you talk to him. You see him lots of times again, but all in different places. You tell your friends about him, but they can’t find out anything about him. They start to question your sanity. Two weeks later, you see him, and find out he is from another country, and he gives you an address. You tell your friends, but they think that you just made this up to throw them off. You constantly send letters to him, but he never sends any back. A year passes, and you, along with your friends, see a man, and you say, “That’s the guy I was telling you about!” Without talking to the man, prove to your friends, first the existance of the man, and then that the man you knew a year ago was the man standing in front of them.
If that made any sense, you see the trouble trying to “prove” God’s existance. It is a relational thing. At first, the evidence draws you to Him, but later those things which first made you believe are of minimal importance to your belief in Him. The fact that I’ve “seen” his hand and “heard” his voice is the main reason why I believe, first in His existance, and second in His word, the Bible. My belief is belief of the heart. Sure, with that is belief of the brain, but that is meaningless if there is no belief in the heart. That is what I’ve been trying to tell you. I can tell you all the facts I want to; I can debate with you over the existance of God, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe with your heart. We’re both asking each other to take a leap into the unknown, but neither of us are willing to take it. We are both so sure that we are right that we only want to convince the other one why we are right. I think I’ve got the jist of what you think, but I want to hear itfrom your own “mouth". What do you believe? I will try and give you a short “list” of what
So, one thing I hold on to: That there is one God, the triune God (Holy Spirit, Father, Son). That God created all things, and when the creation sinned with Adam, it became separate from God, for He hates sin. Out of love, He became one of us, endured all temptations and never let into one of them, and finally died and rose again. He was the once for all sacrifice for all who will accept it.
This, at the VERY least, is what I believe. If even the tiniest bit of this is unclear, tell me, and I will attempt to clarify it. I want to know what you think the history of mankind (just the hight points) is. Don’t skip the beginning. Where do you think man came from. Where do you think the universe came from. When I say man, I mean just the first cell, let alone any of the evolution from single cell to complex being. Origin of life- I think God made it all-- somehow-- In some order. Why not start at the beginning? It is a very good place to start. Sorry for the length.
I must ask your forgiveness. I treat you as if you are not a human. I “debate” with you with this notion that it will be so satisfying to see you in the end see my way. I’m discovering my true heart, Shirlie, and it’s incredible. I was wrong, wrong about so many things. I will leave you be from here on out, but one thing I must tell you. My God is a person. He is fierce, wild, passionate, mysterious. One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes, talking about ’Aslan’, a symbol of Jesus, “Is he safe?” one of the children askes,” No, but he’s good.” I try and tell you the “formula” of Christianity when I myself haven’t bought it, because I know deep down that there is no true formula.
Another thing. What I’ve been trying to tell you, poorly, is that God does not give us anywhere near all the proof. He created us with free will, and although I can’t understand how we can have free will and be predestined, I can tell you this. This is the only way God can present himself and preserve free will. If he came to us in all his glory, how could we doubt him? If there were no proof at all, nothing to even reference the possibility, how could we choose to believe in him? So God must reveal himself bit by bit, in no particular order, so that we might have the chance to choose for him, and also the chance to choose against him. However God works in your heart is up to Him, and I cannot know it. Do not rely on the posers you see. Our churches are filled with stand-ins and fakes. There are very few real men and women devoted to Christ. It is the strangest of us, who hear God’s voice and follow it, who are true. Neither you nor I can truly know if one is real or fake by a passing glance. Only years of friendship can reveal their true heart. I leave you with this: our God is a living person, and he will do as he pleases. You cannot calculate God, nor can you calculate me or any other person. It is a wild adventure, stepping out of your doorway. Before you know it, you’re swept off your feet and into an adventure. The solution isn’t to stay inside, it’s to be ready for the adventure, and take it for all it’s worth. For that is true life. The braveheart theme: Everyone dies, not everyone truly lives. I will pray for you, and I will respect you.
Imaginary friends ought to be the safest things, ...er imaginable. The trouble is that everyone who gets them thinks they are real, and eventually begin to murder anyone who has a different one or none at all. I suggest you use your imagination for writing poetry or novels and get real friends not dangerous ones that talk to you privately in your head. The word good is meaningless in the context of religion. Everyone has a good god, and like the little friends that they put into people’s heads, they are always ready to promote murder in aid of their own version of goodness. I really cannot understand how anyone with 3000 years of patriarchal history to look back on can accept any of it.
As for your free will argument, you are way out. As long as you believe that there is a Satan, you can never know anything. The Devil has the best tunes, and the Devil can do anything that the good God can. The history of Christianity is so horrific, the only explanation in Christian terms is that the Devil took it over long ago, and has been pulling the strings ever since. How can any Christian KNOW he has not? It would be a perfect explanation of what has happened in history. So, no miraculous revelation can be taken to be of a good God. When Christians say they know this and they know that, I know they are deluded.
The fact is that the best explanation of the apparent absence of any significantly good power in the world is that there is none. That means that what we do is entirely our own fault, and it is up to us to change it. Praying to a nonentity might be comforting to the individual, but in 3000 years has done nothing observable, unless it is to make things worse, because by doing it no one is actually trying to make things better.
You say that churches are full of fakes. I can see that for myself, and long ago ceased trying to distinguish the odd good one. The reason is that no good person would want to keep such sordid company. Evil Christians come out with outlandish ideas, but where are the good Christians who say, “Hang on, that is not Christian"? OK, there are again odd ones, but they neither make a fuss, nor shout loud enough. I conclude, that they are like the clergymen who nod when they mention the name of the Devil, just to be on the safe side. It is token protesting so that they can say to St Peter, “Look at least I did that!"
Christianity can be no use at all, if you have to know a friend for all those years to be able to tell whether they are true Christians or not. Christianity is not a comfort blanket as you and others seem to think. It is meant to make the world better. If after 2000 years all the evidence is the opposite, there is no reason at all, quite the opposite, for believing it.
The world is Being. It IS God. It is not personal but it is law and order and more powerful than anything you can conceive of, yet can still crumble at the edges where selfishness rules. It is up to us to save God, not up to God to save us. If you are truly in his service then you ought to know. (He is of course a she!)
I am beginning to understand where you’re coming from. You said: “The Devil has the best tunes, and the Devil can do anything that the good God can” And, although the Devil does have good tunes, he doesn’t have the best. In “The Lord of the Rings” the orcs are hideous creatures. They were once elves, but they were twisted and contorted into orcs and goblins. That’s what “the Devil’s song” is-- a twisted contorted version of God’s perfect song. At first it is pleasureable, but it has no depth. But the enemy has many songs, and our life is but a fleeting moment. About the enemy’s power, the Bible says it’s far short from the power of God. Do you know who the Devil and the Demons are? The highest of all angels, Lucipher, waged war against heaven. He thought himself to be greater than God.
“A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sigh appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 crowns on his heads. his tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stoiod in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that hemight devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.—Revelation 12:1-9”
This is the gospel story. Not a babe in a manger softly giggling while silent night was being sung, but a holy war, waged since adam and eve, reaching its climax.
“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ’Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. ...... Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.’—Revelation 12:10,12 ”
Satan is far from the only power, and as for the horrific history, that is satan’s fury.
“Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring--those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.—Revelation 12:17 ”
Satan hates Christians. He will do anything he can to get rid of them. I have suffered, my family has suffered, all who know Christ have suffered, but through the suffering we have grown closer to Christ. Ever heard the phrase ’whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’? Well, it’s kindof like that, in spiritual terms. Spiritual warfare, ever heard of it? Well, you must think that there are a few weirdos who go on TV and preach on it, but not even the respectable Christians listen to them. Every true christian knows satan’s bite. Someone who thinks that everything is ok in their lives is probably not a christian. So, if you want to be “happy", and live a comfortable life, don’t become a Christian. There is misery beyond your imagination.
you wrote: “The word good is meaningless in the context of religion. Everyone has a good god, and like the little friends that they put into people’s heads, they are always ready to promote murder in aid of their own version of goodness. I really cannot understand how anyone with 3000 years of patriarchal history to look back on can accept any of it."
My point there was that God is dangerous, he’s not safe. Don’t judge our God by a biased view of the whole of Christians over the ages.
“The fact is that the best explanation of the apparent absence of any significantly good power in the world is that there is none. ”
“Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. You say that churches are full of fakes. I can see that for myself, and long ago ceased trying to distinguish the odd good one.”
For than I am truly sorry.
“The reason is that no good person would want to keep such sordid company. Evil Christians come out with outlandish ideas, but where are the good Christians who say, “Hang on, that is not Christian"? OK, there are again odd ones, but they neither make a fuss, nor shout loud enough. ”
Good point. Where are all the “good” christians? There are few of us, and no one wants to hear from us, no one ever has. Satan hates Christians, right? So he’s going to try to keep others from becoming Christians too. That’s why you’ve never heard any good Christians. He wants you for himself. If he had his way, you would convince me to leave my faith and I would go and convince those around me. It’s a war, and Satan knows tactics. Kill the communications and it’s hard to get your word out.
“I conclude, that they are like the clergymen who nod when they mention the name of the Devil, just to be on the safe side. ”
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.
“It is token protesting so that they can say to St Peter, ’Look at least I did that!’ ”
We will get no reward if we are only out for treasure. God doesn’t judge us by anything we did. When he sees Christians, he sees Jesus’ blood, not our sin. It’s a matter of the heart.
Christianity is not a comfort blanket as you and others seem to think.
Right you are—it is extremely uncomfortable.
“It is meant to make the world better. ”
God is going to destroy this world. It’s done for. When Adam and Eve screwed up, they doomed all creation to death. Why, then, would God want to make the world better if he’s said he’s going to destroy it? No, God wants us. Not to make us better, not to make him better, but to love us. Do you know why the universe was created? For our pleasure. For our souls. For it pleases him. For His pleasure and ours, and the adventure He initiated.
“The world is Being. It IS God. It is not personal but it is law and order and more powerful than anything you can conceive of, yet can still crumble at the edges where selfishness rules. It is up to us to save God, not up to God to save us. If you are truly in his service then you ought to know. (He is of course a she!)”
The universe is nothing compared to the awesome power of God. I can understand how you would get those ideas, and it would seem wisdom but for the warning in my heart. One thing I must ask you, have you personally read the Bible, or even talked to a fourth as many Christians as you have non-christians and truly listened? If I knew everything I could possibly know about the Bible and God, I could defend my religion against everything you shot at me, but in no way convince you of it. Could you defend your faith? I pray that God will work in your life as he has in mine.
I find it astonishing that people like yourself who sound quite intelligent can accept that an ancient book of fables should be unquestionably believed in every respect. You might as well believe The Lord of Rings. It is just as valid as the bible. It is fiction.
Christians have no arguments. They quote from the bible and, for them, that is sufficient to answer everything. For others not beguiled in the same way, the bible not only has no authority at all, it has less authority for being used as the basis of a scam that has gone on for 2000 years.
The highest of all angels, Lucifer, you say, fought a war in heaven. What is God doing to allow it? You Christians tell us, He is almighty, so he could have squashed Lucifer had he wanted to do so. No only that, but because God is able to see the future, he must have known he was creating evil when he made Lucifer. God therefore must be evil Himself to have created evil. Christianity is utterly incoherent. Theology is the desperate attempts of the clerics and Christian academics to make sense of it. Christians reject dualism but are in fact dualist as soon as they blame evil on to a god that God cannot defeat. Christianity is even supposed to be monotheistic but has this Lucifer that is as strong as God is in practice.
God created the world and declared that it was good, but now you tell me it was not good and God is determined to destroy it, and presumably all the sinners left alive at the time. God gave us free will but then tells us he will burn us in the eternal flames of hell for not doing what he tells us. Your religion is a mess, and my point, and that of Adelphiasophism, is that it is Christianity and the other patriarchal religions like it that came from the same soil that are evil.
You make excuses for yourself by saying that Christians who do things that you say are not Chgristian, like burning people alive, are not Christians at all, and when I ask, how then can you know who is a Christian, and say I have given up on trying to make any distinctions, you say you are sorry. Don’t be. I should be sorry for you for being so deluded. As long as you quote absolute garbage like Revelation at me you are merely confirming that you have no critical faculties. Someone has told you this book means something, even though it is the rantings of an opium eater, and you belief it.
Lucifer means Light Bearer. It is a name that tells us the owner of it brings light into the world. The person that Christians normally accept had this role was Christ. How do you know that Lucifer in not the real Christ and you have not been fooled by tricksters into thinking that the real Christ is Satan? You can hardly expect God to be pleased that his followers have refused to use the brains he created them with to believe without question what the same tricksters contine to say is the word of God. A book is full of manifest holes and contradictions and yet it is the word of God. God must be in dispair. Christ supposedly came down to earth and your tricksters say he was hurled down to make it seem that he was thrown out instead of coming at God’s behest.
The truth is that you have not looked far enough. You suffer because you might easily be worshipping the wrong god, and he torments you and you love him even more for doing it. If Satan hates Christians and aims to get rid of them, he does it by fooling them into doing everything wrong. The first thing he does is make them smugly certain they will get to heaven, presuming that God will do what they expect and not what He desires. God expects, according to your own books, Christians to be humble. That means none of you can presume that God will admit you into His kingdom as you all do. So the Devil immediately gets you banned from heaven by the smugness he has generated in you. You talk of spiritual warfare, but, if there is such a war, you are too smug to understand its subtleties.
I would not become a Christian because Christians are the synagogue of Satan. The whole trouble is that Satan, in the form of their own arrogance, has blinded them to the reality. You will not criticise wicked Christians but you are willing to share the same church with them. When I hear Christians raising their voices in a clamour of protest against those who call themselves Christians but use it as a cover for robbery and murder, then your piety might mean something.
You say I must not judge Christianity by a biased view over the ages, but the history of Christianity in nothing less than Satanic. The Devil has blinded you over that too. I cannot see much good in Christianity even though it claims to be God’s own institution, and you say that Satan is all against it, but I repeat what ought to be clear to anyone who is not drugged into unreason. Christianity is Satanic.
You say because I can see no good in it that does not mean it is not there, but what good is Christianity if it does not obviously show that it is a force for good. Again you are arguing the Devil’s argument of blindness and uncritical acceptance. Yet you admit then that there are not many of you good Christians. Why are you not pointing to the wicked ones and saying, “There he is! He is an agent of Satan, not a Christian. He is a robber, a rogue and a thief.” None of you has the courage or the conviction to do it. That is why Christians are phonies and smuggies.
“I conclude, that they are like the clergymen who nod when they mention the name of the Devil, just to be on the safe side. ”
As I have already said, Christianity is supposedly monotheistic, and so the Devil should not exist at all if the Almighty is good. Yet some clergymen have the habit of acknowledging him with a nod at the mention of his name, as if offering him some respect. You believe in Satan, so perhaps you ought to do the same. Christ is supposed to have defeated Satan, but he seems just as strong as ever. Satan might turn out to be the winner in the cosmic battle that you talk about.
Christians will tell you that salvation is God’s gift. No one can presume they are saved. You do. Most of you do. Yet that it the grievous sin of vanity. You finish up with absolute insanity. God loves us, you say, so He is going to destroy us. He created the universe for our pleasure, then because we enjoy it, He wants to destroy us. Listen, this is exactly the insanity that AS is complaining about. People who think the world is going to end, will give it a helping hand, just as the brave and loving Christians from Constantine to the age of reason only a few hundred years ago, happily burnt alive anyone that they said were sinners. “Kill them all, God will know his own,” the Christian prelate said to the Christian knights. This is Christian madness and Christians are getting bigger swrods than they have ever had.
You say the universe is nothing compared to the awesome power of God, but God can demonstrate no power because there is no such thing as God. If there were, and assuming He was good, then He would not have put up with an evil angel for a second. God is a concept in the head of a lot of self-righteous and ignorant madmen. If they believed in God, they would be ready to let God judge, and let God act as He deems fit. All of you want to save Him the trouble. That is the core of Christian insanity. No good God can want His decisions taken for Him by a lot of ignorant twerps, even if they think they mean well. You never think that you are again presuming too much. You will judge, even though God told you not to because that is His privilege as the Creator. You are right, though, that I cannot be persuaded of your religion. I can see it without your blindfolds, and it is evil.
It is too late to be ashamed of previous Christians and too late to apologise. Myriads of innocent people have died cruel and agonizing deaths at Christian hands. The cross is coated in human fat, burnt flesh and is dripping in blood. If this is offensive to you, then I am sorry for you, for it is the historical truth, not hard to find if you want to. You do not want to hear it.
