Why Atheists Are NOT Wasting Their Time

Why Atheists Are NOT Wasting Their Time

By Thomas Keane

AKA DoubtingThomas

 ***NOTE: This article was originally published by the people at www.PathofReason.com and is reprinted here with their permission.

One of the most common criticisms Atheists are confronted with is the question of why we waste so much time discussing religion, god worship, the bible, etc.? Why do we focus so much time on something we don’t believe in? Don’t we have anything better to do with our time? The reason why these questions are always so frustrating has less to do with how often we are confronted with them and more to do with how obvious the answers should be. When your child tells you they believe there is a monster in their closet or under their bed, do you ignore them or tell them the truth? If she told you that the reason she believed there was a monster under her bed was because she had read a story that told her about these monsters, wouldn’t you be curious to read this story in order to better understand how your child came to her erroneous conclusion? Now what if your daughter is 21 and has a 3 year old daughter of her own. Her boyfriend, the father of her child, is involved with a group that believes their founder (Avalon) is the second coming of Christ and is in direct communication with God. If you discovered that your daughter had also become a follower of Avalon and was teaching/raising your 3yo granddaughter to believe in the same things, would you be wasting your time if you decided to speak up and express your belief that Avalon was a fraud and even offer proof to support your opinion?

What if your daughter refused to listen and instead ran away with her boyfriend, your granddaughter and Avalon to an isolated compound somewhere and you didn’t see them again for another fifteen years? What do you think the likelihood is, that once you are finally allowed to see your, now 18yo, granddaughter, that anything you say will convince her that what she has been raised to believe isn’t true? The odds are that your words would fall on deaf ears; however, that doesn’t make your efforts meaningless. Nor does it mean you should give up. The more you learn about this cult that swallowed up your daughter and granddaughter the greater your ability will be to address the issues you have with it. After all, even the strongest barrier of misinformation can’t withstand a constant barrage of truth.

There is a reason why the majority of god worshipers are devoted to the same god that the people who raised them worshiped. It isn’t because their god is any more legitimate than any of the other 2,000+ gods mankind has invented over the years. It is simply because once myth has been established as fact in a child’s innocent, naïve mind, it is very difficult, even as an adult, for that person to shake that belief. Faith is not a synonym for fact, it is a synonym for hope and it is the definition of foolishness to devote one’s every life decision around the hope that a thing is true.

Once upon a time, people believed that the earth was the center of the universe and everything (including the sun) revolved around it. Once upon a time people believed that tossing a virgin into a volcano or carving out their still beating hearts was the only way to appease their god(s). Once upon a time people believed Zeus’ wrath resulted in thunder and lightning and Poseidon’s resulted in tidal waves. Once upon a time people believed that you could take ‘it’ with you and as a result they built elaborate tombs and filled them with treasures and even servants so that in the afterlife they would continue to enjoy the lifestyle to which they were accustomed. Once upon a time people believed in a great many things that we now know to be erroneous.

If we discovered that there were people in the world who still believed in established myth, would we be wasting our time to confront them with evidence that reveals the fallacy of their beliefs? And when a Christian or Mormon missionary travels deep into the Amazonian jungles to tell the native people there that the gods they worship are false and that they should instead believe in this or that god, aren’t they doing the same thing that an Atheist does when they contradict Christian beliefs? The only difference here seems to be that an Atheist supports his beliefs with evidence while a believer relies only on hope, AKA – faith.

What could possibly be more admirable than knowing the truth of something and, when encountering someone who only knows the lie, taking the time to share with them what you have learned. How could this ever be considered a waste of time? How many people ‘wasted their time’ trying to talk reason with a follower of Jim Jones (900 dead, 300 of whom were children). How many people ‘wasted their time’ pleading with family and/or friends who were members of the Heaven’s Gate cult? How many of the 80+ followers of David Koresh, 21 of whom were children, who died in the Waco, Texas catastrophe might have been spared if more people had ‘wasted their time’? If an Atheist had encountered a member of any of these groups you can bet that they would have spoken up. Are we to believe that a Christian would have tucked their bible away and bit their tongue?

It is in all of our best interests that we resist the tendency to dismiss the opinion of another simply because it differs from our own. If someone is willing to take the time to challenge something you believe in, the least you can do is take the time to listen and consider. Christians like to act all mystified as to why Atheists spend so much time discussing something they don’t believe in but the fact that they never protest when an Atheist wastes his or her time playing Guitar Hero or watching an American Idol marathon reveals that what they are really expressing is anxiety, not confusion. No one likes to be confronted with the prospect that what they accept as truth could possibly be a lie. But such a revelation can only benefit us, individually and as a society.

If anything it is the religious who are wasting their time. Just consider how much further along we would be as a society, not to mention as a species, if it weren’t for religion. The endless struggle for religious supremacy has led to innumerable wars and countless lost lives. Consider the incomprehensible amount of literature that was hunted down, confiscated and/or destroyed by the church. How much knowledge have we lost because of the fears of the religious? How many of our greatest minds were persecuted and imprisoned because they dared to disagree with someone’s concept of one god or another? How many dreams, ideas and inventions were snuffed out by worshipers of gods? How many more men like Aristotle, Galileo, Voltaire and Socrates would we have if not for religion? Consider all the trials, the imprisonments, the banishments, the riots, the persecutions, the genocides, the repression, the bigotry, the sexism, the mutilation and the division, so much division. Has anything in history ever divided one man from another more than religion? But it’s the Atheist who is wasting his time? Could anything be more laughable? Just imagine where we would be now as a people if we had focused on peace, coexisting, civilization, progress and philosophy instead of saving souls and deciding whose god was better than another’s. No one has wasted more of their own time, and worse, humanity’s time than the religious.

If the human race has any hope for a bright future it certainly doesn’t rest with the religious or whatever god they may worship. Their god will not create peace on earth. Your god will not protect our children from the evils of the world. His god will not reward us with eternal life. Her god will not assure our armies of success in battle. We can only rely on ourselves and on each other. There simply is no one else. And it’s not a waste of time to say so.

 

Thomas Keane (DoubtingThomas)

 

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the Right hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

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The Wickedness of the Popes

 

The Wickedness of the Popes

 

By Thomas Keane

AKA DoubtingThomas

 

All but one of the first fifty popes were deemed saints. Whether or not they were deserving of such a title will always be debatable, however, beginning around 500 A.D. the corruption of the Catholic Church becomes undeniable. After that, finding any pope worthy of being called a saint becomes all but impossible. The Papacy had by then become a means to power, and only those craving power pursued it, and they pursued it with all their might. From the New Standard Encyclopedia: “In the furious strife of local parties, the papacy came to be hardly more than the spoils of party victory. Candidates of every variety of incapacity and unsuitableness were set up by rivals.”

Keep in mind that this information was not gleaned from the writings of the Church’s enemies but from the records of its own historians, popes and cardinals: Victor II, Pius II, Cardinal Baronius, Bishop Liutprand, Father Salvianus, and historians, Milman, Gerbert, Buchard, Guicciardini, Vacandard, Draper, and others.

During the atrocities of the Dark Ages these divinely guided popes were so busy murdering each other that there were ten in twelve years (891-903) and forty in just over a hundred. According to Cardinal Baronius and Vulgarius, Pope Sergius III murdered his two predecessors. Toto, a noble at the head of the rabble following, used his influence to have his brother, Constantine II, appointed pope in 708. Constantine II had his eyes put out by Christopher, his chief official. Christopher learned that Karma was a bitch when he and his sons had their eyes put out as punishment for plotting against Pope Gregory. Pope Leo III’s two nephews, Pascal and Campulus, both clerics, hired a band of assassins to murder their uncle and when the hirelings failed, the two nephews took matters into their own hands and dragged the pope into a nearby monastery and killed him.

Another treacherous Christopher deposed Pope Leo the V, and was in turn deposed and succeeded by the bloodthirsty and power hungry Sergius III. During this time the Holy Ghost was not the one selecting the popes but what Cardinal Baronius called scortas, AKA whores. This was known as “the rule of the courtesans,” or sometimes the Pornocracy, or reign of the whores. One of the more notable members of this select group, Theodora, was a woman Cardinal Baronius called the “shameless whore.” Theodora’s daughter, Marozia, was a mirror image of her mother both in appearance and behavior. Both women had sons by none other than Pope Sergius III, and both put their illegitimate sons on the papal throne – John XI and John XII. The first ended up in prison while the second “turned the Lateran Palace into a brothel.” Some of Pope John XII’s crimes – murder, perjury, adultery, incest with his two sisters, bleeding and castrating his enemies, giving church treasure to a mistress, just to name a few. It was said he died at the hands of an outraged husband.

Pope Benedict VI was strangled to death on order of Cardinal Francone, after which the Cardinal became Boniface VII, “a horrid monster surpassing all other mortals in wickedness,” according to the historian Gerbert. Pope Boniface VIII was little better, as he orchestrated the murder of the halfwit Celestine V in order to gain the papacy. However, the Romans drove him out before he even had time to redecorate and after his death, a successor, Pope Clement V, had him tried posthumously where he was found guilty of many horrible crimes including pederasty and murder. But it turned out Clement wasn’t much of a saint himself, as his successor, John XXII, revealed that Clement had stolen the equivalent of five million dollars of papal money which he had given to his nephew.

So corrupt was John XXIII that Sigmund of Hungary felt compelled to call a council to investigate him. The council produced fifty-four articles describing him as “wicked, irreverent, unchaste, a liar, disobedient and infected with many vices.” As a cardinal he was described as having been “inhuman, unjust and cruel,” and as Pope “an oppressor of the poor, persecutor of justice, pillar of the wicked, statue of the simoniacs, addicted to magic, the dregs of vice … wholly given to sleep and carnal desires, a mirror of infamy, a profound inventor of wickedness.” His acquirement of the Papacy was through “violence and fraud and sold indulgences, benefices, sacraments and bulls.” He practiced “piracy, sacrilege, adultery, murder, rape, sodomy, incest and theft.” The council deposed him in 1414.

Benedict V fled with the Vatican treasury after dishonoring a young girl. For 1,500 pounds of gold, Benedict IX sold the papacy to a successor. Pope Urban VI subjected his cardinals to torture and murder. Pope Innocent VIII took no measures to hide his illegitimate children and even filled their pockets with church riches. During his time as a papal legate, Clement VII ordered the slaughter of the entire populace of Cesena, including the children. Some popes were so offensive they were exiled. At least two were punished for their wickedness by having their eyes and tongues carved out before each man was tied to the tail of an ass and dragged through the streets. Others were so despised that they weren’t safe even in death, the vengeance seekers digging their corpses up and throwing them into the Tiber. The church did such a poor job of leading by example that Pius II reported that “scarcely a prince in Italy had been born in wedlock.”

And then came the shameful Borgias clan, most notably Rodrigo (AKA Pope Alexander VI). Few popes could equal this man in wickedness. For the equivalent of three million dollars he bought his place at the top of the divinely elected hierarchy. The notable historian, Guicciardini, described him thusly: “…private habits of the utmost obscenity, no shame or sense of truth, no fidelity to his engagements, no religious sentiments, insatiable avarice, unbridled ambition, cruelty beyond the cruelty of barbarous races, burning desire to elevate his sons by any means: of whom there were many, and among them one – not any less detestable than his father.” Alexander VI’s son, Cesare Borgia, gained a cardinalate by murdering his brother John, his sister’s husband, and two cardinals. But when he found that he wasn’t making as much money as he had expected, Cesare Borgia renounced his blood-soaked title in order to seek out more profitable enterprises. He made himself Duke of Valentinos, positioned his brother to become Duke of Gandia, and his sister, the Duchess of Ferrara, and later a princess after arranging her marriage to one of the King of Naples’ sons. While still a cardinal, Cesare Borgia turned his quarters in the Vatican into a brothel. Burchard, the papal historian at the time, reported that Cesare indulged in nightly carousing in his rooms, rooms that were just above his father, the Pope’s. Burchard also spoke of the courtesans “dancing naked before the servants of the Lord and the Vicar of Christ.” And Lucrezia, Cesare’s sister, reportedly gave out prizes to whoever “had had carnal intercourse with courtesans the largest number of times.” The church loves to govern the populace but who governs the church?

During the Middle Ages the College of Cardinals was a den of corruption. For anyone with money and influence securing a cardinalate was a breeze. Character, education or ability played no part in it. Even age wasn’t a factor. Paul III appointed two of his teenage grandchildren to office. Paul IV made his nephew a cardinal even though he himself admitted that “his arm is dyed in blood to the elbow.”

In a bizarre episode, just as the cope (Catholic vestment) was being placed upon Alexander III, Cardinal Octavian tore it away and put it on himself, backwards, and proclaimed himself pope. A sort of tug-of-war broke out between Octavian and one of Alexander’s supporters until a group of soldiers loyal to Octavian charged in and declared him a winner. Alexander was forced to flee to France where he raised an army and eventually returned in an attempt to reclaim his title. The battle that followed destroyed several churches and left the floor of St. Peter’s strewn with corpses. The Romans were able to drive out Alexander’s army but not permanently. His second attempt was a success and for the next three years Alexander made his rivals suffer for their insolence.

If the Catholic Church has proven anything over the years it is that it can always be relied upon to be a refuge for the abominable, a sanctuary for the corrupt, a safe haven for the perverted, a protector of the virtue-less, and an exemplar of greed. Both Sadism and Masochism were created and perfected by the Catholic Church. Guilt and oppression are its tools and it uses them with unparalleled skill. Inspired and deluded by its own arrogance and greed, the Catholic Church lit a fire beneath a monster (the Crusades) and to this day the monster still feels the burn and desires retribution. How much longer must we allow religion to divide all of mankind, how much longer must we allow it to revise history, how much longer must we allow it to influence and shape government, how much longer must we allow it to stifle our potential, how much longer must we allow it to abuse our children, how much longer must we allow it to warp our concept of sexuality, how much longer must we allow its organized form tax exempt status, how much longer must humanity suffer and stagnate?

DoubtingThomas

 

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the Right hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

ABORTION: The most contentious, confused and misunderstood issue that continues to divide us

Abortion: The most contentious, confused and misunderstood issue that continues to divide us.

 

By Thomas Keane

AKA DoubtingThomas

 

The volatile and never-ending issue of whether or not a woman has the right to terminate her own pregnancy now seems to be centered on the question of when during the prenatal development the fetus is considered viable or human. For a very long time it was accepted that one wasn’t actually ‘alive’ until they were born and took their first breath. This was even supported in scripture; Adam only “became a living soul” once God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” (Genesis 2:7). However, now some ultra conservatives actually argue that humanity (life) begins at conception. It’s not hard to imagine these same people grieving over the millions of potential humans that are lost every single time a man ejaculates.

Whether it is more willful to suggest that life begins upon that first inhalation or when the spermatozoon joins with the ovum to form a zygote is all dependant on one’s own bias. As for where the law/government stands on the issue; as is often the case, it is somewhere in the middle. The determining factor seems to be the point at which the fetus can survive outside of the womb. It has been well established that any premature birth can, and often does, result in some sort of negative developmental issue, whether in infancy, childhood or adulthood. The most common afflictions are cerebral palsy, vision and/or hearing loss and learning problems. And yet none of these potential disabilities are taken into account when judging viability. In fact, the main factor that influences whether or not a woman may be allowed to request an abortion is simply the number of weeks of gestation that have elapsed in her pregnancy. In most U.S. states that magic number is twenty-one. If the fetus makes it into week twenty-two, the choice of whether or not it can be terminated is taken from the woman and given to the doctor.

For pro-lifers, the idea that they are standing up for the rights of the fetus, who has no voice of its own, is an inspiring one. But is it also misguided? If it really is about the rights of the fetus and the fetus has no ability to express or even form its own opinion, does it really make the most sense that someone with no connection to the mother or any knowledge of the circumstances should be making the decisions? If the fetus is incapable of declaring an opinion for itself, doesn’t it seem reasonable that the person who should be allowed to decide for the fetus would be the woman whose body sustains and contains it? Is there a more logical candidate? Would this not be the case if we were discussing another living mass of cells residing within someone’s body, such as a tape worm (parasite) or a tumor? Shouldn’t this be the main focus when considering the topic of abortion, not whether or not the fetus is human, not when life begins, but who has the right to make the decision seeing that the fetus has no ability to do so for itself?

If the decision on what can be done with what resides within a woman’s body is to be given to another, who should it be? A stranger? The government? A priest? The church? A parent? A doctor? A Judge? A husband? The ‘father’? Any man for that matter? How can anyone justify placing any of these people/organizations above the person whose body the fetus/tumor resides? And if you were to grant the government jurisdiction over a woman’s pregnant body, at what point would they take control? At conception? Upon first confirming that the woman is pregnant? After the quickening? After the first trimester? The second? If she were a first time mother? If she were a mother of fifteen illegitimate children? If she were an I.V. drug user? A victim of incest or rape? Mentally retarded? Mentally deranged? If she were a Mormon? A Scientologist? An Atheist? An illegal immigrant? Underage? Middle-Class? Homeless? HIV positive? Brain dead? And if the government was to take steps to protect the human rights of the fetus, shouldn’t it also monitor the mother’s consumption of tobacco, alcohol and drugs (both legal and illegal)? Shouldn’t the mother’s very behavior be authorized and restricted based on the perceived effect on the fetus? And why stop there? Why not also allow the government or church to decide who, when and if someone should be on birth control and what type. Why not have the government/church decide who we should be allowed to have sex with. Why make any decisions for ourselves? Why not just give up all control to the government and/or the church? Or should only the decisions categorized as moral be governed in such a way? And who is to decide what is moral? Would a Buddhist have a say? Would an Atheist?

Good Samaritan laws state that a person can’t be forced to save another’s life if doing so would risk or even inconvenience their own except under highly specific circumstances. For example, you can’t be forced to be an organ donor; you can’t be forced to donate blood; if a person struggling to save a panicked drowning victim is forced to abandon their efforts in order to protect themselves, they cannot be charged with a crime if the person they attempted to save perishes. Yet, for some reason, forcing women to carry someone within their own bodies appears to be the exception to the rule. Somehow the rights of the fetus have superseded the rights of the woman to have autonomy over her own body even though the physical use of another’s body for one’s own survival is not, and has never been, a human right.

If we as individuals continue to insist that our particular philosophical understanding of an issue be established as a universal absolute, governing the lives of all, then we will continue to be divided as a people. For if there is only one absolute truth, it is that there are no two people in the world, not Christian, not Atheist, not man or woman, who will ever be in total agreement on all things. No one will ever be so wise as to know what is right and what is wrong for each and every one of us. There will always be choices that we as individuals must be allowed to make for ourselves. Humanity thrives on such freedom. It is the core of the American ideal. We must strive to never forget that.

DoubtingThomas

  

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the Right hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

The Mythological Origins of Christianity Pt. 3 of 3

 

 

The Mythological Origins of Christianity

–Part Three of Three–

 

 

By Thomas Keane (DoubtingThomas)

 

 

Continued:

 

 

The Evangelists put so much energy into obliterating any evidence of Christianity’s Gnostic and pagan sources one has to wonder what they were so afraid of. Edward Carpenter wrote: “…they took special pains to destroy the pagan records and so obliterate the evidence of their own dishonesty.” The Church ordered all the books of the Gnostic Basilides burned, the same for Porphyry’s thirty-six volumes. All the ancient lore that filled the Apollo library was lost when Pope Gregory VII had it burned to the ground. Understanding that they contained the doctrinal basis of the Gospels, Emperor Theodosius had 27,000 schools of the Mysteries papyrus rolls destroyed. For the very same reason, Ptolemy Philadelphus had 270,000 ancient documents destroyed. It was said that the baths of the early Christians were heated with the Ancient Wisdom.

 

Perhaps the greatest crime the Crusaders committed was burning every book they could find, the original Hebrew scrolls among them. In 1233 twelve thousand volumes of the Talmud were burned along with the works of Maimonides. In 1244 eighteen thousand books of various kinds were destroyed. Draper reported that Cardinal Ximenes “…delivered to the flames in the square of Granada eighty thousand Arabic manuscripts.” In the New World, the Spanish Christians destroyed the lore of the native peoples and the temples that contained it.

 

With the original sources now destroyed, the early Christians could freely substitute whatever they chose. They changed words and inserted verses that were nonexistent in the original texts in an attempt to substantiate their new religion. Celsus, who witnessed the alterations, said of the revisionists, “Some of them, as it were in a drunken state producing self-induced visions, remodel their Gospel from its first written form, and reform it so that they may be able to refute the objections brought against it.”

 

Gerald Massey also commented on the practice, saying: “They had almost reduced the first four centuries to silence on all matters of the most vital importance for any proper understanding of the true origins of the Christian superstition. The mythos having been at last published as a human history, everything else was suppressed or forced to support the fraud.”

 

In 250 A.D., Eusebius left a record of the Church that reads: “But since from our great freedom we have fallen in neglect and sloth when each had begun to envy and slander the other, when we waged intestine war against each other, wounding each other with words as with swords and spears, when leaders assailed leaders, and people assailed people, hurling epithets at each other, when fraud and hypocrisy had reached the highest heights of malice … when devoid of all sense, we gave no thought to the worship of God, but believing like certain impious men, that human affairs are controlled by no providence, we heaped crime upon crime. When our pastors despising the rule of religion, fought with each other intent on nothing but abuse, threats, jealousy, hatred and mutual enmity, each claiming for himself, a principality as a sort of tyranny.”

 

There was little unity among the early Christians, in fact they were divided into numerous fanatical cults, each contending for place and power. There were the Arians, Nestorians, Martionites, Marionites, Jacobites, Basilidians, Carpocratians, Collyridians, Eutychians, Sabellians, Valentinians, Gnostics, Ebionites, to name just a few. All had their own interpretations of the scriptures and the version that made it to the present was simply the one that triumphed over the others.

 

Bishop Hilary revealed a great wisdom when commenting on the origins of the Church’s creeds, dogmas, rites and rituals, saying: “It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous that there are as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us, because we make creeds arbitrarily and explain them as arbitrarily. Every year, nay every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries; we repent of what we have done; we defend those who repent; we anathematize those whom we defend; we condemn either the doctrines of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing each other to pieces, we have been the cause of each other’s ruin.”

 

Until the triumph of Christian fanaticism, the ancient world was progressing toward true enlightenment. In addition to those already mentioned, it had produced such men as Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and many notable others. Together these men pioneered the philosophic and scientific foundations for true civilization, until the Christian Church came and laid them to waste.

 

Compayre said, “Once the pagan schools were closed Christianity did not open others, and after the fourth century a profound night enveloped humanity. The labor of the Greeks and Romans was a though it had never been.”

 

Throughout history religion and ignorance have gone hand in hand. The seeking of knowledge was an admirable pursuit everywhere except in Catholic Europe. When even the kings of Christendom were illiterate, a Moorish king’s private library held some six hundred thousand books. At a time when nearly every Christian could neither read nor write, there were eight hundred public schools in the Moorish city of Cordova. And according to S. P. Scott in The History of the Moorish Empire in Europe: “…there was not a village within the limits of the empire where the blessings of education could not be enjoyed by the children of the most indigent peasant.”

 

The Church discouraged people from expanding their minds as the acquiring of knowledge always seemed to be accompanied by the abandonment of faith. To the church, the only ability the Christian truly needed was the ability to pray. When Celsus criticized the Christians for doing nothing to help the pagans defend the (Roman) Empire, Origen replied, “We defend it with our prayers.” Their prayers, of course, did nothing and so Rome fell and a thousand years of darkness followed.

 

The Church criticized Montesquieu, a humanitarian and agnostic, because he was against slavery and the use of torture. His book The Spirit of Laws was condemned. The trade in African slaves was not just unopposed by the Church but was often blessed by it. The Spanish Government’s slave charters were signed “in the name of the Most Holy Trinity.” Captain Hawkins, the notorious slave trader, named his slave ship Jesus. And from Jesus’ deck sick slaves were regularly thrown to the sharks.

 

But the slave trade wasn’t the only way the church amassed it wealth. During the thirteenth century, the clergy operated many brothels that were so prosperous the financers decided to tax them. The church’s treasury was also enhanced by the constant sale of counterfeit relics. Manufactured by the thousands, they included everything the church imagined Jesus, his family, and his followers could have used, owned or come into contact with. To name just a few: there was Christ’s milk teeth, his still wet tears, barbs from his Crown of Thorns, his naval, and even his foreskin, quite a few of them in fact (one account had the number at fifteen). And let’s not forget Mary’s hair, undergarments, and even vials of her milk. There were so many nails and wood fragments supposedly from the cross of the crucifixion that one could have built a score of them. Regarding the wood of the cross, Washington Irving had this to say – “There is enough extant to build a ship of the line.” A Saxon ruler proudly proclaimed to be in possession of 17,000 relics, including a branch from Moses’s burning bush and a feather plucked from the wing of the Angel Gabriel. Historian Charles Mackay reported that Spanish churches possessed the thighbones of the Virgin Mary, seven of them in fact, and that the toenails of St. Peter were so prevalent that there were enough to fill a sack. Canterbury Cathedral exhibited what they claimed to be the clay that remained after God created Adam. Every church in Europe had their own collection of “holy relics”; amazingly three of them claimed to possess the one spear that Longinus had used to pierce Jesus’ side. Understandably this caused some serious discord among the arrogant leaders of these churches. A Sultan was the first to present the supposedly real one to the city of Rome. But the French cardinals weren’t having any of it, insisting that the real one was in Paris. And the German cardinals dismissed both, proclaiming that everyone knew that the original was in Nuremberg. How typical that it never occurred to them to question the legitimacy of all three claims. Every single church on earth seems to believe that they are the center of their god’s universe.

 

The Crusades turned Golconda into a battleground presumably to wrest the tomb of Christ from the “unclean” hands of the infidels, but really it was motivated by the jealousy and envy of Middle Eastern riches. In an address at Clermont, Pope Urban II said: “The wealth of our enemies will be yours, and you will despoil them of their treasures.” Several hundred thousand Jews and Mohammedans in Spain were killed or banished and their property confiscated as a result of the greed of the Church. Vacandard, a Catholic historian, wrote that “the Pope granted indulgences to all who carried on this pious work.” How many thousands of years has murder and thievery been considered pious work by the church?

 

But it’s not only the ‘enemies’ of the church who have had their possessions taken from them, it’s the members of the church as well. This divine pilfering of the people was called “giving unto the Lord.” Why is it that with religion it is always those who have the least who are required to give the most? Why is it that the leaders of religions regularly live in mansions while their followers so often live in squalor? How many more homes and cars and vacations do the viewers of the 700 Club have to buy Pat Robertson before they wake up? But is it really a surprise that the poor are drawn in by the empty promises the church provides so copiously.

 

Christians have woven their “holy scriptures” into mankind’s ignorant soul and we have all paid the price – two thousand years of ignorance, bigotry, intolerance, inquisition, massacre and war. Because of religion our people hate, our nations fight, and the idea/ideal of peace has never been farther away. Because of the Bible our world leaders can’t decipher myth from history and so act upon the lie. Religion is but a way for man to control his fellow man, to rob him of his money, and their fictitious gods are simply accessories. When man hungered for answers but had none, these myths sustained them. To the robbed and starving man a rotten apple resembles ambrosia and the ravenous age that religion helped create swallowed it without chewing or worrying at its sour taste. But as that age fades away, the feeble crutch and rotten apple need to go with it. Instead, let the hungry consume the fruit the church has always forbidden. Let them eat of the tree of knowledge.

 

It is time for another Emancipation Proclamation.

 

 

END

Part ONE can be found here:

 

https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/the-mythological-origins-of-christianity-pt-1-of-3/

 

Part TWO can be found here:

https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/the-mythological-origins-of-christianity-pt-2-of-3/

 

 

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the Right hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

Where In The Hell Did Jesus And Elijah Think They Were Going!?

According to the Christian bible, both Elijah and Jesus rose up bodily into heaven, Elijah in a chariot of fire (just like Romulus the founder of Rome, similarly Mithra of Persia) and Jesus like superman. One can’t help but wonder where exactly Christians think heaven is? Clearly the writers of the bible believed that this place of gold-paved roads was literally floating above our flat earth on a VERY sturdy cloud (which makes one wonder how important the time of liftoff was considering if either man had waited 12 hours they would have been headed in a COMPLETELY different direction) so where do Christians think heaven is? In other words, where in the hell did Elijah and Jesus think they were going? How high did they get before they were no longer able to breathe and their bodies turned to ice? Also, when these two men with their human bodies arrived in heaven, a place populated by souls, angels and a God, what then? Did they have to eat? What did they eat? How did they get all their necessary vitamins and minerals? Did they wear clothes? The same clothes? Every day? Did their hair continue to grow? Did they have to sleep? Where did they urinate and defecate? Did they have gas? Did they have B.O.? Did they get involuntary erections as all men do? Did their noses produce snot? Could their bodies be injured? Could they suffer from aging? Were the angels and souls jealous of Elijah and Jesus’ human bodies or contemptuous of them? I occasionally get criticized for asking silly or frivolous questions but I truly am curious as to what Christians think about these things. I appreciate anyone who will take the time to voice their opinion on this subject.

Thank You

DoubtingThomas

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the Right hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

 

VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

  This post was originally left as a comment by Erynn on my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) but was much too long so I cut and pasted it here as I felt it contained a great deal of interesting historical information deserving of review.

—————

 VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

“WONDERFUL EVENTS THAT TESTIFY TO GOD’S DIVINE GLORY”

Listed are only events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete):

Ancient Pagans

As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples  were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed. Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.

Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.

Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as “temple destroyer.” [DA468] Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA-468]

Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed,  because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA-469]

According to Christian chroniclers he “followed meticulously all Christian teachings…” In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights. In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA-466]

The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a  Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.[DO-19-25]

Mission

 Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO-30]

Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, wome and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW-223]

Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO-235]

15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO-30]

16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops “pacified and civilized”  Ireland, where only Gaelic “wild Irish”, “unreasonable beasts lived  without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing.” One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that “the heads of all those (of whatsoever they were) which were killed in the die, should be cut off from their bodies… and should bee laid on the ground by each side of the waie”, which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused “great terror to the people when they saw the heads of their dead fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolk, and  friends on the ground”. Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH-99, 225]

Crusades (1095-1291)

 First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41] 

Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW-23] .9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then Turkish), thousands respectively. [WW-25-27]

Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (Number of slain unknown) [WW30] fter 6/3/98 Antiochia (then Turkish)  conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks incl. women & children) killed. [WW-32-35]

Here the Christians “did no other harm to the women found in [the Enemy’s] tents – save that they ran their lance hrough their bellies,” according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC-60]

Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the  subsequent famine “the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians” said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW-36]

Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (Jewish, Muslim, men, women, and children). [WW3 0] In the words of one witness: “there [in front of Solomon’s temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes”, and after that “happily and crying for joy our people Marched to our Savior’s tomb, to honor it and to pay off our debt of gratitude”). e Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: “It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished.”  [TG-79]

Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that “even the following summer in all of Palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition. One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW-41]

Battle of Askalon, /12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered “in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. [WW-45]

Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW-141-148]

Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy Land and Arab/Turkish areas alone).  [WW-224]

Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.

Heretics

Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO-26] 

Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was  exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]

Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians.  [DO-29]

The Albigensians (cathars) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. (thousands burned alive) [NC]

Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Beziérs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbors and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]

Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]

subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were Exterminated. [WW183]

After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search  and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]. Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]

Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).

Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]

John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]. University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]

Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Witches

From the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand. In the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or Hanged. [WV]incomplete list of documented cases:The Burning of Witches – A Chronicle of the Burning Times 

Religious Wars

15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]

1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]

1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]

1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]

17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, “cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals… and then dumped him into the river […but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [… and] dragged what was left … to the gallows of Montfaulcon, ‘to be meat and carrion for maggots and Crows’.” [SH191]

17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. “In a single church fifty women were found beheaded,” reported poet Friedrich Schiller, “and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers.” [SH191]

17th century 30 years’ war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of  population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32] 

Jews

Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by  Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown. 

In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first  synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]

Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]

The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities’ Jews, who would  not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]

First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total.

Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]

Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully,

Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]

Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]

Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]

1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]

1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]

1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]

1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]

1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly brned live (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]

1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42] 

1391 Seville’s Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored “badges of shame” that all Jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.

1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]

1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain.  [DO43]

(I feel sick …) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz. (many believe Hitler was an atheist, which is debateable, but keep in mind the vast majority at his command, the ones actually commiting the autrocities, were Christians).

Native Peoples

Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.

Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, “ought to be good servants … [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion.”  [SH200]

While Columbus described the Indians as “idolaters” and “slaves, as  many as [the Crown] shall order,” his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian  nobleman, referred to the natives as “beasts” because “they eat when they are hungry,” and made love “openly whenever they feel like it.” [SH204-205]

On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, “making the  declarations that are required” – the equerimiento – to claim the  wwnership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And “nobody objected.” If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued: “I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you … and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church … and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him.” [SH66]

Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: “justifying the undertakers of the intended Plantation in New England … to carry the Gospel into those parts of the world, … and to raise a Bulwark against the kingdom of the Ante-Christ.” [SH235]

In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of “the marvelous goodness and providence of God” to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as “for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess.” [SH109,238]

On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 Dead. [SH204]

The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and Spanish raids.

As one of the culprits wrote: “So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous.” [SH69]

The Indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As “they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell.” [SH70]

What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness: “The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties … They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Savior and the twelve Apostles… then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive.”  [SH72]

Or, on another occasion: “The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts…Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs.” [SH83]

The “island’s population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus’s arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half  before the year 1496 was out.” Eventually all the island’s natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were “forced” to import slaves from other Caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus “the Caribbean’s millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century”. [SH72-73]

“In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated.” [SH75]

“And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitlán [Mexico city] was next.” [SH75]

Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other Spanish conquistadors  likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of  Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida). .”When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead.” [SH95]

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of  America. Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the Pilgrim Fathers:

“Their Wars are far less bloody…” so that there usually was “no great slawter of nether side”. Indeed, “they might fight seven years and not kill seven men.” What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]

In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives ttractive enough to leave Jamestown – “being idle … did run away unto the Indians,” – to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).

“Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: ‘some he  appointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon heels, others to be staked and some shot to death’.” [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow Englishmen: “This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia”

Methods were ifferent: “when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community” down. [SH105]

On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the  colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the “Peqout War”. The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from resection in their own home country England.

When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief’s pledge they attacked.

Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after,  because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.

The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote:

“And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their  Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished … God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven …

Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies”: men, women, children. [SH113-114]

So “the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance”. [SH111].

Because of his readers’ assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow: “Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them…” (Deut 20)

Mason’s comrade Underhill recalled how “great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers” yet reassured his readers that “sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents”. [SH114]

Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mother’s breasts, in the colonists’ own words: “blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them.” (This was inspired by Spanish methods of the time)

In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was  near. [SH107-119]

The surviving handful of Indians “were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for ‘a share’ of the captives, specifically ‘a young woman or girl and a boy if you think good’.” [SH115]

Other tribes were to follow the same path.  Comment the Christian exterminators: “God’s Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!” “Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!” [TA]

Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. “Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians ‘grow secure upon (sic) the treatise’, advised the Council of State in Virginia, ‘we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cut down their Corn’.” [SH106]

In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]

In a single massacre in “King Philip’s War” of 1675 and 1676 some “600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Matter, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a ‘barbecue’.” [SH115]

To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive – a destruction rate of 98%. The ocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 – 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had  numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 – 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive – 81% destroyed. [SH118]

These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.

All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun. A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery. In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious events in US history:

Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England’s most esteemed religious leaders, in “1703 formally proposed to he Massachusetts governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs ‘to hunt Indians as they do bears’.” [SH241]

Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist ministers and still elder in the church (“I long to be  wading in gore”) had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs’ waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.

From an eye-witness account: “There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed …” [SH131]

More gory details: By the 1860s, “in Hawai’i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those slands’ native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to ‘the amputation of diseased > members of the body’.” [SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities

Catholic extermination camps Surpassingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveliç, a practicing Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children!

In these camps – the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar – orthodox-Christian Serbian (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their  victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or  shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and  600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi “Sicherheitsdient der SS”, watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]

Catholic terror in Vietnam

In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters – the Viet Minh – had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the coteries assured religious freedom to all (most non-Buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns  many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican’s spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam “Soldiers of Christ”, a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which  could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]

Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism.

The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:

“Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp.”

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of Buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in “detention camps.” Out of protest dozens of Buddhist teachers – male and female – and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded – mostly in street riots – 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].

To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of  American GI’s lost their life.

Christianity kills the cat

On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old student of a teachers college in Germany, died: she starved herself to death. For months she had been haunted by demonic visions and apparitions, and for months two Catholic priests – with explicit approval of the Catholic bishop of  Würzburg – additionally pestered and tormented the wretched girl with their exorcist rituals. After her death in Klingenberg hospital – her body was littered with wounds – her parents, both of them fanatical Catholics, were sentenced to six months for not having called for medical help. None of the priests was punished: on the contrary, Miss Michel’s grave today is a place of pilgrimage and worship for a number of similarly faithful Catholics (in the seventeenth century Würzburg was notorious for it’s extensive witch burnings). This case is only the tip of an iceberg of such evil superstition and has become known only because of its lethal outcome. [SP80]

Rwanda Massacres

In 1994 in the small African country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tootsie ethnic groups. For quite some time I heard only  rumors about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda  massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic Church  journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.

Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany – a station not at all critical to Christianity – the following was stated: “Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda’s capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tootsies in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody laughter of Tootsies seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees – women, children, old – being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.

According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tootsies and  turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia. In connection with  these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid  prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her  monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response.

She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive…” [S2]

As can be seen from these events, the Christianity of the Dark Ages never come to an end.

References:

[DA] K.Deschner, Abermals krähte der Hahn, Stuttgart 1962.

[DO] K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987.

[EC] P.W.Edbury, Crusade and Settlement, Cardiff Univ. Press 1985.

[EJ] S.Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders, Madison 1977.

[LI] H.C.Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, New York 1961.

[MM] M.Margolis, A.Marx, A History of the Jewish People.

[MV] A.Manhattan, The Vatican’s Holocaust, Springfield 1986. See also V.Dedijer, The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Buffalo NY, 1992.

[NC] J.T.Noonan, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Cambridge/Mass., 1992.

[S2] Newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany, 10/10/96, 12:00.

[SH] D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992.

[SP] German news magazine Der Spiegel, no.49, 12/2/1996.

[TA] A True Account of the Most Considerable Occurrences that have Happened in the War Between the English and the Indians in New England, London 1676.

[TG] F.Turner, Beyond Geography, New York 1980.

[WW] H.Wollschläger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zürich 1973. (This is in German and what is worse, it is out of print. But it is The best I ever read about crusades and includes a full list of  Original medieval Christian chroniclers’ writings).

[WV] Estimates on the number of executed witches: N.Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch Hunt, Frogmore 1976, 253. R.H.Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, New York 1959, 180.  J.B.Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Ithaca/NY 1972, 39.  H.Zwetsloot, Friedrich Spee und die Hexenprozesse, Trier 1954, 56.

Save Yourself From Religion!

Save Yourself From Religion! 

Robert M. Pirsig: “When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.”

All gods have been invented by man. Since the earliest days of our existence we have created gods to comfort our fears (mainly death) and explain the unexplainable. It’s absurd to suggest that primitive humans guessed wrongly about everything else, but were spot on regarding the origins of life. Once upon a time it was our god(s) who caused the lightning to strike and the thunder to rumble, same with the windstorms, plagues, tidal waves, floods, and earthquakes. It was our god(s) who lifted the sun into the sky (if the sun itself wasn’t the god) and darkened the moon. How many times has something, especially the origin of something, that was once attributed to a god, had the truth revealed by science? Whenever a new truth is discovered, some religious belief falters. And rarely, if ever, does a new scientific discovery ever support any religious theory. Just how many of the stories of the bible need to be proven fallacies before those who hold its pages in reverence will begin to question their conviction? Let’s face it, there are many who, even with the evidence of a story’s fiction placed right before them, will deny its validity before they even consider denying the absoluteness of their holy book. Is there truly any way to convince such people? Is faith simply a synonym for willful ignorance? How is it that the faithful can so casually dismiss ALL the other gods and religions mankind has invented over the years, acknowledging that they are ALL fallacious man made drivel, ALL, that is, with the exception of THEIR god and their particular religion? Could there be a more perfect example of arrogance and narcissism?

On what do you base your faith? Dogma? The pretty, comforting scripture you repeat over and over like a mantra, carefully avoiding the rest of the biblical passages that are utterly horrifying and/or obviously fiction? Are you simply the faith of your parents? And by parents, I mean original/birth parents. Are you more likely to belong to the faith of those who birthed you or those who raised you? If, at 4 years old, your parents died while taking you on a Christian missionary expedition through the mountains of Afghanistan, and a local family of Muslims found you and raised you as their own, do you really think you wouldn’t grow up a Muslim? Why would God allow a Muslim family to lead one of his children away from the one, true faith? Is it because what religion you belong to is completely arbitrary? And can anything arbitrary ever be taken as an absolute?

The truth WILL set you free. But you will not find it in the pages of the bible or any other religious doctrine. But please do read the bible, and in its ENTIRETY, but do so with open eyes and a clear mind. No one who does so can possibly come away having any desire to glory in the god depicted in its pages. 

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the left hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

All Gods Are Inventions of Man

The Christian God is no different than Zeus or Horus or any other dismissed god of the past, and Jesus was only one of many crucified saviors. God’s come in very handy. They help explain the unknown, and might help you if you treat them right. And if you want to be important, how better than to make up a supreme being who names you his chosen people and despises everyone else? If you want to control your people, how better than to put a thousand rules into a god’s mouth and have him annihilate anyone who disobeys them? If you want to take other people’s land, how better to justify it than to have your god tell you to do it and leave no one breathing? If you want to be sexist and racist, how better to condone it than by having a sexist, racist god not only approve it but order it? If you are typical of the times and inclined to be cruel, how better to burn, hang, drown, smite, mutilate, and torture than to have your god command you to do it and set the example himself? If you want to kill your neighbor, your friend, and members of your family, and thrust your children through when you’re not beating them black and blue, what better way to get permission than from a god who is an amoral fiend himself? Poor God! We can’t always choose our biographers.

 

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the top Right hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

MISC

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” – Blaise Pascal

Where Do I Sign Up?

Human beings are warned to judge no one, cast no stones (unless it is to kill your slut daughter or stubborn son), love thy neighbors as themselves, forgive totally, and exact no retribution. Yet the same God actually keeps score and looks (with what sometimes seems to be relish) to a final day of reckoning when all his enemies shall meet with their just deserts. And he grants forgiveness during human lifetime only if it is begged for.

Most Ridiculous Story Ever

God tells a seer named Balaam to go join the king of Moab. Balaam hops onto his faithful donkey and heads out, eager to obey a command from the Almighty. During Balaam’s journey God changes his mind. But for some reason he doesn’t speak to Balaam to inform him of this fact. Instead, an Angel is sent down to stop Balaam from reaching Moab. The Angel stands in Balaam’s path but does not make itself visible to Balaam. The Angel is going to slay Balaam if he continues (!). The donkey, however, can see the Angel and refuses to continue. Balaam, angry at the stubborn animal, begins to beat the donkey to get it to move. At this point God decides to begin talking to Balaam again, only he decides to speak through the donkey. Cause God’s so silly that way. Balaam, not understanding it is God he is actually speaking to, has a conversation with his donkey. Because that’s normal. Finally God reveals the Angel blocking Balaam’s path. And after all this, God sends Balaam to continue on to Moab anyway. Num. 22:13-36. This is one of the most inexplicable stories in the bible.

Most Ridiculous Story Ever – II

In Ez. 4, 5 God tells Ezekiel to lie on his left side (to bear the sins of Israel) for 390 days and on his right side for 40 days. God will bind him so he can’t turn over. Anyone who lies in one position for even 30 days would have such bad bed sores they would surely lead to their deaths. Also, God tells Ezekiel he is to bake his bread (while lying on his side) using man’s dung for fuel. Another example of God being influenced by man as Ezekiel protests, and God changes his mind, saying he can use cow dung instead. God continues ordering Ezekiel to cut his hair and beard, weigh it, burn 1/3 in the midst of the city (while still bound and lying on his side?), smite 1/3 with a knife and scatter 1/3 in the winds. He is also told to keep a few strands and keep them in his skirt, then remove them and burn them.

Most Ridiculous Story Ever – III

Jonah, a prophet, doesn’t want to go to Nineveh as God has ordered. So he hides on a boat (kind with oars) belonging to some Gentiles. Remember, he’s hiding from God. God sends a terrible storm against the boat (because that’s easier than just dealing with Jonah directly) but Jonah is sleep and the storm doesn’t wake him (!). The Gentiles on board pray to their gods and cast lots (to which god, Baal?) and discover that Jonah’s presence on board is the cause of the storm. First – How do you cast lots on board a ship being pitched back and forth during a terrible storm? Second – Which god informed the Gentiles that Jonah was the cause of the storm? Certainly not the Christian god who had nothing but contempt for Gentiles. Finally the Gentiles toss Jonah overboard. A ‘great fish’ swallows him. This is clearly some type of whale but very few are capable of taking in something as large as a human. Jonah spends three days and nights in the whale’s belly, and yet the gasses and acid and lack of oxygen doesn’t kill him. Eventually, after many prayers, God compels the whale to vomit Jonah up onto the beach. Jonah 1, 2.

Most Ridiculous Story Ever – IV

Judges 19 & 20 depicts the story of some Israelite men who demand that a male house guest be brought out to them for sexual perversion acts. The host offers to send out his maiden daughter and his guest’s concubine instead. The Israelites refuse the offer and insist upon the guest, but the concubine is pushed out the door. She is abused all night long and found dead on the doorstep the next morning. Angry, her master takes her body home, cuts it into twelve pieces and sends one piece to each of the tribes of Israel. As a result, there is a civil war in Israel, and 65,100 on both side die in battle.

Most Ridiculous Story Ever – V

Judges 21 shows when the tribes of Benjamin need wives, the Israelites attack one of their own tribes that fails to come to an assembly, and they proceed to kill men and women but take 400 virgins (how do they check?) and bring them to a camp at Shiloh, where they give the girls to the Benjamites. More are needed, however, so prayer is offered to God for help. Then the Benjamites lie in wait at a feast of the Lord (in a vineyard) and capture the daughters of Shiloh as they come out to dance.

God Was Not A Vegan

Jeremiah 7:21 – “Thus saith the Lord, Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.”

Lot: Great Guy, Horrible Father

When the men of Sodom demand Lot send out two angels they believe he is housing (because that was such a common occurrence back then), Lot refuses (so brave) but does offer the men his two virgin daughters instead. Are these the same daughters that sleep with their loving father after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Gen 19:8 – “Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes….” Remember, this is the Lot who is later deemed by God as the only man worthy of sparing the horrors that are soon to befall the populace of Sodom and Gomorrah.

So Why Do Christians Only Believe In One God?

Clearly the writers of the bible believed in other magics and other gods actually existing as throughout the bible are soothsayers, seers, wizards, witches, prophets, false prophets, diviners, sorcerers, necromancers, sons of prophets who make predictions using musical instruments and animal entrails, people who cast lots to determine choice and guilt, etc. Don’t forget Pharaoh’s own wise men and sorcerers turned their rods into serpents too.

FYI: New and Old Testament Represent Different Religions

The Dead Sea Scrolls make no reference to the New Testament, Jesus or Christianity.

Are Adam and Eve in hell?

Paul clearly states that all who lived before Christ are denied eternal life. What does this mean exactly?

Paul: The Most Detestable of ALL (Cont.)

Paul also says, “…let every unbeliever be accursed.”

The Clergy Should Be Serving, Not Governing

As long as the bible is left to the clergy, they will make of it what they will.

It’s God’s Will That I Drive a BMW

It is possible to pull out justification for imposing your will on others, simply by calling your will God’s will.

God Loves A Good Curse Word

The word curse and its various forms appear 205 times in the bible. The last word of the Old Testament is curse. Malachi 4:6 – “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

Just A Coincidence, I’m Sure

In Samaria, a god that post dated Jesus was said to have risen from the dead every three days.

No Different Than Any Other Religion

Christianity, much like all the other religions of the past, is simply a community of people linked by the fearful need to appease a vindictive god.

Prove that I’m wrong

The bible and its gods were the products of folktales and invention all mixed up with a dash of history and seasoned with vast quantities of superstition.

A lot quicker if ANYBODY other than believers had witnessed the resurrection

It took 300 years for Christianity to become an established religion.

Why would it be God’s Will for Parents to Eat Their Children?

Once again the ignorance of those who wrote the bible is on display as in James 5:17 it states that in answer to Elijah’s prayers, God made it not rain on earth for three years and six months! If this really happened, all life on earth would have come to an end, but perhaps those in the sea. As a result of God’s actions a great famine causes some Jews to eat their children.

Rebel Without A Cause

Deut. 21:18-21 describes how if a father has a rebellious son, he and the mother are to hold him down as all the men of the city stone him to death.

Here There Be Dragons

If the people who wrote the bible believed in such mythological (fictional) creatures as Dragons, how can we take anything they wrote seriously? Job 30:29 – “I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.” Psalms 91:13 – “…the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.” Isaiah 13:22 – “And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces…” Isaiah 34:13 – “…and it shall be an habitation of dragons…” Isaiah 43:20 “The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls…” Isaiah 51:9 – “Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?” Jer 9:11 – “And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons…” Jer 10:22 – “Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.” Jer 14:6 – “And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons…” Jer 49:33 – “And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons…” Jer 51:34 – “…he hath swallowed me up like a dragon…” Jer 51:37 – “And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons…” Mal 1:3 – “And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”

Another Bizarre Punishment From Out of Nowhere

I Kings 13:4 – King Jeroboam points at a prophet and the king’s hand dries up as a result.

Wow, Elisha, You’re A DICK!

II Kings 5 – Naaman, a Syrian army captain with leprosy wishes to be cured and Elisha (upset at first by the request but eventually relents) tells the man to dip himself in the Jordan River seven times and when Naaman does, he is indeed cured. But for some reason Elisha feels the need to even things out and gives the curse of leprosy that was removed from Naaman to a man he doesn’t care for and includes all the man’s descendants in the curse just for good measure.

A Life of Excess

Solomon, to build a temple to the Lord in Jerusalem, used: 70,000 border bearers, 80,000 hewers, 3,300 labor bosses, 30,000 laborers. It takes seven years to complete. To dedicate the temple he sacrifices 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. He also builds a palace to himself that takes thirteen years (longer than the temple to your lord? And yet no punishment from God) and a house for one of his 700 wives. Massive amounts of stone, timber (where’d he acquire that), gold and jewels are used. The bible says Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses, 12,000 horsemen. I Kings 4, 6, 7 and I Kings 8:62-64.

Is this where the term Unwieldy came from?

I Sam. 21:9 – After having slayed Goliath, David is given the giant’s massive, five foot sword to wield. David must have had some massive arms on him.

Piss is NOT a Curse Word

I still vividly remember being harshly scolded by a teacher during my junior year at Cascade Christian Highschool for saying “That Sucks” and another time for saying “piss”.  I wish I knew then what I know now.

“Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall….” I Kings 14:10 And in Isaiah 36:12 – “…Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?”

The Desires of Man

It is the overly complicated nature of God’s desires that is the most compelling evidence of his fictional existence. An all powerful God would not need all the pathetically inept human assistance to have whatever he wants done. The only explanation is a simple one: These desires are not God’s but man’s.

Don’t know the answer? Invent a god = god is the answer

It’s extremely uncommon for a missionary whose mission was to go out & convert people to Christianity in order to ‘save their soul’ to encounter someone who didn’t already believe in god. Just not their god. The reason? Humanity regularly invents a supernatural explanation for that which frightens them. Namely; Death and the unknown.

Free Will Is Not The Answer

Atheists often ask why God doesn’t reveal Himself more clearly. A common response from religionist is, if we had absolute proof then one could no more deny God than one could deny the sun. In other words if we had absolute proof of God’s existence, then we really would not be free to accept or reject Him. But I’ve got absolute proof that my girlfriend exists, and I have little difficulty choosing whether I want to be with her or not. And what about Satan? Satan had absolute proof of God’s existence and still chose to rebel against God, still choose not to follow Him. Proof of God’s existence would do nothing more than give us the option of choosing to follow him instead of the option of choosing to believe in him.

How long did God intend each of his creation to live?

Some theologians and clergy insist that death was imposed upon human beings as punishment for sin and God actually intended for us to live forever. But Gen. 3:22, 23 clearly shows that men were created mortal and in fact were expelled from the Garden of Eden to prevent them from eating of the Tree of Life and living forever.

Can he get anything right?

God must get frustrated that his plans keep failing so miserably. His original two creations, Adam and Eve, utterly disappoint and are forced out of the Garden of Eden. One of their first two sons becomes the world’s first murderer. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah are such a disappointment God himself feels compelled to murder them all himself and restart with Lot, his wife and their two daughters (oops, not Lot’s wife, he’ll have to repopulate with his daughters). But that doesn’t work so God gets so pissed he is compelled to murder all living things except Noah and a few family members. Again, a failure. Moses? Failure? And on and on and on. Can God really be referred to as all knowing?

An utter failure

If God’s intention was to have his creation (man) spend eternity in heaven worshiping him, his plan has been a massive failure. God’s own plan results in the inevitable outcome of the vast majority of humanity being doomed to eternal hellfire, as the vast majority of humanity isn’t Christian.

The wisdom of one of the greatest Americans ever

Thomas Jefferson said, “God is a being of terrific character … cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.”

Ignorance is bliss

In I Cor 1 God discourages the development of one’s mind. I Cor 1:19, 20 – “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” AND 1Cor 1:27 – “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise…”

God has no problem with slavery

God gets very angry over certain ‘sins’: noncircumcision, trimming hair or beard, adorning body, eating certain foods (pork), prostitution, homosexuality … but slavery is fine. God even sets up rules to cover slavery in Ex 21 & Lev 25. He says that a man’s slaves are his money (Ex 21:21), and gives permission for a man to sell his own children or buy an impoverished brother to be a servant. Jesus states, “Servants, obey your masters.” Col 3:22.

My god’s been around longer than your god!

Many gods, most popular being Baal, were worshiped by the Jews before Christianity. Keep that in mind when you consider the history of YOUR god.

In the name of God

Jehu, following God’s orders, has 70 sons of Ahab beheaded and has their heads piled up at the city’s gates. He also has Ahab’s 42 grandchildren killed. II Kings 10.  He also has Jezebel thrown from a window and purposefully rides over her in his Chariot. He then goes and has a meal, leaving her body out for other to gawk at. II Kings 9:33, 34 Jehu will eventually become King of Israel.

God’s a perv

Isaiah 3:17 “…and the Lord will discover their secret parts.” Ez 23:34 “Thou shalt pluck off thine own breasts.” Nahum 3:5, 6 “I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will show the nations thy nakedness & the kingdoms thy shame.”

That’s just gross

Deut 28:53 – “And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons, and of thy daughters, which the lord thy God hath given thee.”

Discrimination in the bible

Lev 21:18-23 – “For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or anything superfluous, or a man that is broken footed, or broken handed, or a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed … he shall not come nigh unto the alter.”

Who wrote this awful book?

The author of not even one book of the bible is known with certainty. The book of Daniel is believed to have been written at least 400 years after the period of time with which it deals. What possible authenticity can it have? Daniel certainly didn’t write it.

No afterlife in the old testament

The God of the Old Testament does not promise an afterlife.

The Lord works in mysterious/hideous ways

Christian theology makes salvation necessary because Adam & Eve were not aware of divine truth, through no fault of their own. For God’s refusal to make them aware of it they are cursed, and their descendants along with them, until, with either cruel intent or owing to failure to consider the inevitable outcome, God comes up with a repulsive device to save a few and damn many.

So Moses and David are roasting in hell then?

Apostle Paul maintains that none who lived before Christ are eligible for eternal life. AND YET – John 5:28, 29 states “The hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” So no need to believe in Jesus for them to get into heaven then? And the others have no opportunity to repent and go to heaven? Once again, ignorance leads to damnation and yet the bible condemns the wise and seekers of wisdom. I Cor. 3:18 – “If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool.”

Slavery is never condemned

Eph. 6:5 – “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling.” AND, I Tim. 6:1 – “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour.” I Peter 2:18 – “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear…”

No Forgiveness for murderers

I John 3:15 – “…and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” So what is the point of the priest at death row?

The Prophet Edgar Alan Poe

Thomas Paine wrote in Age of Reason that the word ‘prophet’ meant ‘poet’ in the days in which the bible is believed to have been written. Should I then trust that Poe’s tale of the crow tap, tap, tapping at his chamber door to be factual?

Should have taken a few pointers from King Tut

Even with the bibles descriptions, no one has any idea where Moses lived, died or was buried. Why are the tombs of these major figures of the bible so darned hard to locate?

This is not abortion?

II Kings 15:16 – “All the women therein that were with child he ripped up.”

Why are religionists so afraid of scrutiny?

Don’t ever ask questions. The bible commands to ‘avoid foolish questions’. Why do religions always discourage scrutiny? Nothing real and true has anything to fear from being scrutinized.

Back so soon!

Luke 12:45-48 – states that if a master’s servants begin to misbehave upon their lord’s rapture (while he’s away), when he returns in a day they will be beaten. So the rapture is going to only last one day? Boy, the guys who wrote the Left Behind books need to do a rewrite.

Ugh! I hate weddings

Matt 22:1-4 – depicts a marriage feast where the servants do not wish to attend and are subsequently massacred. People from the street are forced to be guests and one who is understandably not in the proper attire is punished for this offense by being bound and cast into darkness.

Any day now…

Jesus predicted that he would return to earth within a very short time, before his generation should pass away. And yet people still await his return! How long will you people wait!?

Anything you want, so you shall have

John 16:23 – “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” These are Jesus’s words. What evidence do we have that this is true? Any?

Ye of little faith

The bible says faith as small as a mustard seed will move mountains. That isn’t a lot of faith. I should be able to move at lease a small stone.

All man made religions reflect each other

Confucius, Plato & Aristotle lived before Jesus & probably had some influence on the writers of the bible. Many of the teachings of Confucius and early Greek moralists are reflected (copied) by Jesus’ teachings.

Is the Devil a god?

According to the stories of the bible, the Devil often appears to be more powerful than God.

As man evolves so do his worshiping practices

The Old Testament depicts Jews sacrificing animals & sprinkling their blood on the altars & veils of the tabernacle believing such blood offering would cleanse & sanctify. Why did God encourage or at least not discourage such behaivor? If God is perfect why did he allow those who worshiped him to practice such barbaric rituals for so long? Why has the way God is worshiped changed so much over the years? Shouldn’t it have been correct from the beginning and still carried out in the same way today?

Thou Shalt Not Kill … unless you’re Moses, then it’s cool

Moses, who God gives the Ten Commandments to, kills an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite (God forbid) and hides the body in the sand. Shady. Ex 2:12

Always the excluder

To prepare for the Lord’s presence, every leper, everyone who has an issue of blood (?), and everyone defiled by the dead (touched a dead body) is expelled. Num 5:24

Christianity loves the slave

The bible never says a disapproving thing about slavery. In fact, it seems to clearly support it.

What happened to thou shalt not kill?

“If thy brother … or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying Let us go and serve other gods … Thou shalt surely kill him … and thou shalt stone him with stones that he die.” Deut 13:6, 9, 10. So if someone you love wants to be another religion and asks you to consider joining their religion, you should disobey the Ten Commandments, and kill him and condemn their soul to eternal torment in hell.

Hey handicapped dude! You suck!

II Sam 5:8 – David promises a reward to the man who will “…smite the lame and the blind who are hated of David’s soul.”

Why is God always so complacent in the bad behavior of his people?

II Sam 11 – After getting Bathsheba pregnant, David (God’s favorite) decides to send her husband to the front line of the ‘hottest’ battle to be abandoned and die. God does not speak up to stop this although he regularly has idle conversations with David. And why doesn’t God keep Bathsheba’s husband safe?

More atrocities resluting from an all knowing God’s actions

II Kings 6:28, 29 – During a famine (created by God) a woman is so desperate she boils her child as food.

All Atheists must die!

King Asa, a man of God, decreed that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether man or woman. II Chron 15:13

You allow your children to read this book!?

What the hell is going on with these people?! Micah 3:2, 3 – “O princes of the house of Israel, who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones: who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin off them; and they break their bones and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the cauldron.”

So many lives lost because God likes to play games

Every child in Bethlehem and surrounding cities under two had to die (killed by King Herod) because God needed to be born into human form. He couldn’t just appear so there would be no doubt he was God because that would be too easy.

Greed is good

Acts 5 – Because Ananias fails to turn over every cent from his sold land to the Apostles when he converts, Peter rages at him, accusing him of letting Satan make him lie to the Holy Ghost (who is that exactly). Ananias falls dead on the spot. No one tells his wife until she eventually comes looking for him, at which time Peter accuses her of also lying about the amount held back and announces, “Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door.” She then drops dead. Just when did Greed and the Church become one?

Joshua, God’s # 1 Hitman

Josh 6 – All the citizens of Jericho are killed, but for a prostitute and her family (why are they spared again?). Even the cows! What did they do? “And they utterly destroyed all in the city, man and woman, young and old, and ox … with the edge of the sword.”

Joshua, God’s # 1 Hitman

Josh 10:16-26 –  Joshua humiliates the five kings of the Amorites by having his congregation put their feet upon their necks. Not satisfied, Joshua then kills them and hangs their bodies up on display.

Joshua’s killing spree continues

Continuing his killing spree, Joshua, obeying God’s directives, smote 12,000 men, women and children with the edge of his sword. He also hangs a king on a tree (crucifixion) and he holds out his spear at arms length and God causes all the inhabitants of the city to become impaled.

Joshua’s killing spree continues

More killings by Joshua – All people of Makkedah and hangs their king. Josh 10:28. All the people of Lachish. Josh 10:32. All the people of Gezer. Josh 10:33. All the people of Eglon. Josh 10:34, 35. All the people of Hebron. Josh 10:36, 37. Everyone else, All the inhabitants  “…of the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs and all their kings, he left none remaining but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.” Josh 10:40. All those Moses missed. Josh 11:12, 16, 17 and 12:24.

David, God’s favorite monster

In order to purchase Saul’s daughter, Michal, for a wife, David kills 200 Philistines in order to obtain their foreskins to present as a gift to King Saul, and Saul only asked for 100. And Saul’s true intention was for David to die in the effort to fulfill the request. I Sam 18:25-27. Saul will later give his daughter (David’s wife) to another man (I Sam. 25:44).

Why are God’s favorites always such monsters?

II Sam 12:31 – Describes what David did to the Ammonites of Rabbah. “He put them under saws and under harrows of iron and made them pass through the brick kiln.” God does love a good torture session.

See! Jesus ain’t so special

Hebrews 11:5 – Enoch was taken into heaven without suffering death, before Moses was born.

Why do I believe Santa is real? Faith!

It seems that in order for religion to really stick (last a lifetime) it must be introduced as a child. A child’s untried mind, peopled with fanciful characters as real as any (Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, etc.) represents just the level of thought processes necessary for acceptance of a religious system so rooted in superstition and mythology. An adult tells the child of Santa Claus and the child believes, whole heartedly that he exists. If that child was protected and isolated from those that would tell him otherwise and surrounded by those that would continue to encourage his belief in Santa, would said child ever stop believing in Santa? How is this different than belief in God (Jesus)?

Someone needs a lawyer

Christianity is almost a direct rip off of Zoroastrianism, and a number of other religions of Greece, Egypt, Assyrian and other neighboring countries of Israel. They embodied belief that good persons would go to a heaven. At the end of 12,000 years Ahriman (Satan) would be overthrown; then the savior Saoshant would be virgin born and the dead would rise, as hills became molten metal to destroy the wicked. Ahriman and his demons would occupy hell, loved ones would be reunited and the righteous would enjoy eternal bliss in their heavenly home.

Why couldn’t Eve be content with being dumb?

It’s simplicity itself to acknowledge that the hunger for knowledge (eating of the fruit) caused the downfall of the human race. I guess it’s true, ignorance is bliss.

It’s immoral not to believe in the unproven?

Unbelief is the same as Immorality according to the bible.

ACTS: Worst book of the bible EVER

The book of Acts is by far the least credible of all the books of the bible besides Revelations as it repeatedly contradicts the gospels and other parts of the bible and states all rumor as fact. It also never mentions the 500 people Paul claims Jesus saw between the resurrection and ascension.

I change not … except when I do

For as often as God does change, it’s strange that he can still claim – “I am the Lord, I change not.” Mal. 3:6

The Bible is NOT a History Book

The phrase ‘(Un)To This Day” appears throughout the bible (see I Sam. 5:5). This phrase suggests that the events depicted took place long before the author wrote it. So how can it be considered accurate/trustworthy?

Child Abuse Directive

Proverbs 23:13-14 “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” AND Proverbs 20:30 – “The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly.”

No record of this atrocity

Matthew is the only book to mention Herod’s decree to kill all children 2 years of age and under. If such a horrendous atrocity actually occurred, all living in the vicinity would have been affected by it or aware of it. But history records no such crime.

Hell/Satan in the Old Testament

On hell, there is very little talk of it in the Old Testament at all and even less of Satan, who is very polite and nobody seems to be trying to chain up.

Human Will vs. God’s Will

Where does human will leave off and God’s will prevail? If A murders B, is it God’s will? What about the builder of the dam, who may have willfully used faulty materials? When the dam breaks, and people die, people who believe in God will no doubt exclaim it was the will of God.

Interpretation = Division

The numerous sects of the Christian religion are the result of the variety of the interpretations of God’s word.

Hey! Not so fast, God!

Another example of God being talked out of a decision. In Ex. 32 God thinks it would be a good idea to appoint Moses the founder of the greatest nation instead of Abraham and Jacob but Moses tells God that this wouldn’t sit well with the Egyptians. God decides Moses is right and changes his mind. God can’t change his mind! Ever! A perfect God would not be influenced by man at any time. This would suggest man being wiser than God. Not acceptable.

Did they see a beanstalk as well?

In Num. 13:33 the scouts for the Israelites advise against entering Canaan because they claim to have seen giants there.