http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,776580,776741#msg-776741

So your response is to bear your testimony of the greatness of the holy babble? So much like the sheeple.

janeeliot Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> atheists&unhappy -- you really need to stop doing
> that. As you know nothing of my beliefs, you can't
> judge how they are coloring my perceptions.

Yes, the unoriginal ad hominem once again. *Yawn*

I don't have to know your beliefs to say they color your perception. Even so, it is obvious you cannot handle criticism or disagreement.

You seem to find some superiority in the tribalist babble as some kind of high culture.

> Let's just say it is hard
> to get through a poem written in the English
> language without tripping over several references,
> allusions, take-offs, or send-ups on verses from the Bible.

Obviously since they killed off the competition.

Apparently you overlooked some things.

Exodus 22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Such a glorious inspiration for the "Malleus Maleficarum", and the tens of thousands of people (mostly women, but some men, and children) murdered in the name of gawd. The fires from the stakes must have been a beacon of light for the witnesses, guiding them to what exactly?

The genocides justified by such a lofty, ancient, wise book.

The crusades:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

The inquisitions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitions

The justification of slavery. The oppression of women.

Absolutist despots who oppressed their people for centuries based on the "divine right of kings".

The murder of pagans, and suppression of anything not xstian. Have you noticed Northern Europeans are using texts from a Middle Eastern tribe?

The brutality, and patriarchy of xstianity, and Constantine lowered the status of women in Europe.

It certainly did not inspire the Enlightenment. Our society has made substantial progress thanks to the Enlightenment, as we move towards reason, and away from superstition, and tribal nonsense.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2013 12:18AM by Susan I/S.

Oh, grow up. You started it.Besides, as usual you have no idea what you are talking about. You don't know Jane and your views of Christianity and the Bible are hate filled and one sided.Slavery existed long before Christianity. So did the opression of women and the belief in witches. You said you are a researcher. Do some research.Christianity did some bad things, yes, but that doesn't mean they didn't do some good things too. Same for the Bible. Talk about black and white thinking.

"you don't know what you are talking about, because I studied history, therefore everyone else is ignorant" rhetoric.

janeeliot started the threads in question.

It says a lot that any negative publicity brought to you courtesy of the RCC, and xstianity is "hate filled and one sided" to you. Pointing out the obvious is not persecution.

We have had discussions on slavery before. It did not exist in every culture, and in Western culture it was directly justified by the holy book you revere so much.

You cannot dismiss what was done to women, because it happens elsewhere in other forms, and degrees of severity. There are matriarchal societies, and they do not use the babble as their holy book. Women directly suffered losses thanks to your specific holy book.

Again, a society here, and there that believes in witches does not negate the fact that your holy book directly inspired the murders, and witchcraft trials of Europe.

You cannot say the holy babble is a grand, and glorious book to which we owe our culture, but then wash your hands of the evil it has inspired, and cite OTHER cultures to absolve it of guilt.

Some bad things? Those things are a dark cloud that hovered over, and oppressed people for centuries. It kept them ignorant, and obedient, and works its magic to this day.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2013 10:02PM by atheist&happy:-).

Thanks for making my point.

Try not to act like impaired, ahtiest&veryveryunhappy. Do you imagine you or your generation discovered any of that? No one is disputing the problems in the Bible or in Christian history (although you have rather muddled them here.) I am only disputing the silly idea that the Bible does not also contain gorgeous passages and grand ideas.

Why is some people are so hysterical about the Bible that they cannot bring themselves to use words like "complex" or "complicated" or to admit that it might have a complex effect on the world, might be a mixed bag of good and bad -- rather like human beings themselves? I don't think it is lofty. It is ancient. It is also wise -- and silly -- which is rather perfect isn't it, as it is an expression of humans about human life -- which is rather a mixed bag of goodness and evil -- of beauty and horror.

But the black and white stuff, that is right out of the worst side of religions. If the Bible isn't the holy word of God and perfect -- why then it must be very, very evil -- and from the devil! All that is absurd -- and if you can stay out of religion long enough you will figure it out -- although I wonder if that black and white thinking will eventually exert its irresistible pull...

Finally, the only interesting thing to note about the Inquisition, sweetie, is its irony when contrasted with the message of Jesus. SEE DOSTOEVSKY.

Because none of the apostles seemed to have gotten it right when they tried writing it down in the bible.

You have bought into the lie that the 12 apostles wrote the New Testament. They didn't. James is the brother of Jesus, not an apostle. As tradition states it, Luke was a disciple of Paul. Mark was a disciple of Peter. Paul was a false apostle, and all of Asia believers turned away from him, recorded by Timothy. 2nd Peter is a proven forgery. Jude was not an apostle. John apparently was a disciple other than the apostle John, which many scholars stand behind the facts that prove it. That leaves Matthew and 1st Peter. The author of Matthew does not name himself, and it is pure speculation and tradition that claims he wrote it. That leaves us only with 1st Peter, and the only reason it is believed to be genuine is that it is quoted in the early second centuries by others. The fact that Jesus never wrote anything down, it is more reasonable that the 12 apostles also never wrote anything down, and that puts 1st Peter on the chopping block as not being from Peter, but another forgery of early centuries, which writers loved to do.

This is just a correction to your presumptions left from Mormonism. There are devastating facts to prove Mormonism is false from this approach, since the LDS Church presumes we need a prophet and apostles to follow, and yet, the 12 original apostles stuck with Torah and the Prophets and followed the example of Jesus and didn't write anything down, apparently, not to distract from what God gave Moses.

Indeed, the only apostle replaced in the New Testament was Judas, and it was done by lots, not by "revelation" in prayer like the LDS Prophet does today. The apostle James was beheaded, but there is no mention of his replacement in Acts. Furthermore, there were only 12 apostles, not 15, like the LDS Church. Feel free to research history to validate my claims. If you find anything in err in my summary above, please let me know.

overcome the babblings of bronze-aged, tribal, patriarchal yahoos.

Religion should not be allowed to “hijack” the great cultural resource of the Bible...

“I think it is important to make the case that the Bible is part of our heritage and it doesn’t have to be tied to religion.

“It’s of historic interest, it’s of literary interest, and it’s important that religion should not be allowed to hijack this cultural resource.

“You can’t appreciate English literature unless you know something about the Greek gods. You can’t appreciate Wagner unless you know something about the Norse gods. You can’t appreciate English literature unless you are to some extent at least steeped in the King James Bible.”

“Phrases that make echoes in people’s mind, they haunt our minds because we are a Christian culture, we come from a Christian culture. And not to know the King James Bible is to be, in some small way, barbarian.”

All that is testimony bearing about the Bible, wouldn't you agree a&h?

I would say ROLF, but I'm not. I did smile though.

All that is from Richard Dawkins. Got you going, didn't I?

Why don't you email your list to him? I'm sure he has never heard that stuff -- any more than I have!

Okay, I chuckled -- briefly.

I agree the Bible is especially important because it has influenced our culture, and is the reference for many ideas we have. I think most of us get that point.

The difference between the Bible and other important classics is that the Bible has been set up to be the moral standard, justified by divine authority. Maybe that is what you meant by it being hijacked by religion.

So, it is not the same comparison when someone uses the Bible as justification as when they use the Beatles (bona's example below) or the Odyssey. When a book of myths is the cultural moral standard and current religious foundation, it bears more responsibility when people do bad things based on it.

People will do bad things with or without the Bible.Sometimes they even do good things because of It It works both ways.A lot of the evils blamed on the Bible have complex causes anyway.Saying they wouldn't have happened without the Bible is silly and simplistic.My point with the Beatles is that you can't blame them or Jesus or anyone else for what other people think they said if they didn't actually say it. The Beatles didn't tell Manson to kill and Jesus didn't tell people to.go on Crusade.The ones responsible are the ones who did those things.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2013 11:10PM by bona dea.

The holy babble is so bad, they step back, and say "we're better than this, let's not do that".

Richard Dawkins is not the supreme authority for me or atheists.

I do not believe it is a great cultural resource. People need a basic knowledge to understand literature, but also need a basic knowledge to understand the destruction it caused, which part you seem to conveniently forget.

I do disagree about tying religion with the babble. Western society needs to never forget where it got, and justified some of its worst ideas.

I'm honestly sorry. I wasn't making fun of any disability -- as I didn't know you had one. That is "impaired" as in driving while impaired -- as you know -- you sound a little too emotional -- as in -- okay -- I'll just say it -- sloppy drunk.

Austism runs in my family. To quote "Arsenic and Old Lace," it practically gallops. I have several disabilities myself -- both physical and mental. Some days I have trouble deciding which is worse.

I wish I could convince you to stop assuming you know what I mean. It is (hilariously) obvious to me you don't. You have accused me of being a Mormon(!), said that I must be bearing my testimony about the literary value of the Bible (er -- okay -- whatever), an now accused me of making fun of some still unknown at least to me disability. Why don't you give it a rest? You haven't a clue what I'm about and you aren't going to figure it out until you take a deep breath -- or a hundred.

Fake apology + insult. Hi Beth! Seriously, why would I think otherwise?

1. So you say you do not say what you mean?
2. You yourself said you were a morgbot.
3. That was a testimony. When confronted with facts, morgbots bear testimony instead.
4. Translation: pooh, pooh, condescension, sneering down from above the peons, pooh, pooh, sniff.
5. What a cop out. You have left us plenty of clues.

Okay, I know this lady and she is no Mormon and she is not Beth. Give it a rest. You are sounding paranoid.

You know nothing you say has any credibility with me, right?

Same reply for below.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2013 12:12AM by atheist&happy:-).

Well, you can ask Susan if you don't believe me. Besides Beth doesn't seem to be the type to hide behind a sockpuppet

and if she wanted to fake apologize and insult you, she'd do it as her own bad self.

> Try not to act like impaired,
> ahtiest&veryveryunhappy.

"Impaired". Wow! You sound like Beth, because she is the only one who insults my disability.

> Do you imagine you or your generation discovered any of that? No one is
> disputing the problems in the Bible or in Christian history (although you have rather muddled them here.)

Do you think your approach is original? It has been overwhelmingly preached for centuries since nothing else was allowed. It's getting old.

I would like to know more about the fantastic cultures xstianity killed off? When will those people be heard, and given their important place in history? They were not inferior as theists would have one believe.

So you claim you are not disputing the problems, just burying them in fawning drivel?

> I am only disputing the silly
> idea that the Bible does not also contain gorgeous
> passages and grand ideas.

What's good, and useful can be found elsewhere, and I find nothing gorgeous or grand in it.

You fail to understand that once you introduce the concept of deity to your "complex, complicated mixed bag of good, and bad" you have an entirely different representation of humanity. It becomes one skewed towards hierarchy, authoritarian rule, tyranny, oppression, etc. which includes extra doses of now divinely sanctioned horror.

I call your attention away from your slavish praise to the very real problems, and you label that black, and white. I think you are the one still too close to religion. At least I am able to look at it critically.

> Finally, the only interesting thing to note about
> the Inquisition, sweetie, is its irony when
> contrasted with the message of Jesus. SEE DOSTOEVSKY.

Just when I thought more condescension was. not. possible....

Well, there was no burning, hellish afterlife until jeezus. He was a great inspiration for the Inquisition, and there never has been one official message of jeezus.

The evangelical presumptuous spirit behind Paul's writings combined with taking the law of Moses out of context to gain power and money for a few leading men, caused all the fighting and killings in the inquisitions. It is so evil, it is almost incomprehensible for us surfs at the bottom. Fighting for money and power has "reason" behind it, by the way. It's called "making a better life" for the people at the top at the expense of the people dying at the bottom. Such things have been going on since the beginning of time.

Furthermore, atheists such as yourself don't realize that your religion has no moral standards to judge anyone. If a king at the top actually fights and kills for a better life, and as such, then why are you judging it as "bad"? The survival of the fittest and natural selection rule, right? So what's your beef? Wars have been fought by humans with winner and losers since the beginning of time.

Thus, those who profited from the wars only applied the atheistic models in the pretense of religion to become wealthy, and yet, the morals that you have to condemn it did not come from atheism, but from some other framework, which includes moral standards unique to you!

But if you can create moral standards for yourself, so can kings of ancient times, right? And if kings want to enrich their lives through pretense of religious wars (the Bible was used to get power), then more power to them the better, right? What is your big beef about it? There is no God, so each man to his own kingdom.

If I am wrong about atheism in theory and this post, then please, educate me. Correct my assumptions. Am I missing something?

This is not to argue. I will listen. It just appears to me you have not thought through the basics of athesism to make a rational conclusion about the inquisitions.

You may have a bunch of "moral standards" for yourself, but in atheism, another atheist can create his own standards, using the Bible to gain power, which includes murder. What right do you have to judge that as wrong? Just because you believe it is wrong? Do you comprehend that?

Let's suppose God's laws given to Moses were intended to make mortals into immortals, so that nobody dies. Suppose we could see and talk to immortal beings on earth to accomplish that goal. Let's also suppose that a witch is a follower of the devil who uses powers of the occult to draw Israel away from Yahweh, so that people die. In short, the witch is placed there deliberately to discontinue the process of translation life that Israel can receive.

Now if that is true, I'm just supposing, is it the Bible or God's fault that some man picks up the Bible and defines witches and demons outside of this interpretation of "Life over death" model?

No. It's not God's or the Bible's fault. The "religious man" in the 15th century (or whenever) does not believe in such things about the law of Moses. Everyone "has to die" because Christianity says so. Thus, the witches did not threaten anything in the 15th century at all, and the "religious" man acts with presumption and stupidity about the Bible, killing innocent people unjustly, riling you all up for his idiocy.

Something to think about further...your anger about witch hunts is completely justified. I agree. But it's based on an assumption that I believe is not true about the Bible. People corrupted the intention of the law over time, especially Christianity, having no comprehension of what the law was intended to do.

If what I write is correct, and Yahweh intended for Israel to overcome death itself, and witchraft threatened that goal, is it wrong for God to command the people to remove the witch that sought to "kill" Israel? If someone came to your house with a gun to kill you, would you not want a gun to protect yourself, and would you not kill the murderer before he killed you?

If true, is not the law completely justified in its command against witches in the context of Moses, and not the context of the 15th century? In other words,the law is completely removed from its original purpose today, since the nation of Israel no longer exists, and therefore, the threat of witches today is inconsequential, since we all die.

What do you think?

Charles Manson took the Beatles' songs as an invitation to kill Sharon Tate and others Do I blame the Beatles? No, I blame Manson. Same thing. The Bible let does have some bad things, but the OP is going way overboard.

And no one can fix them.

Devastated he searches for the one thing that may cure them - witchcraft!

But once he gains power over magic, he accepts that it is his duty to protect the earth as the Sorcerer Supreme.

Isn't that just as likely as what you've proposed?

I don't understand your analogies. You'd need to explain what you are saying. Otherwise, no, I don't "get" what you are implying. Sorry.

I find it hilarious that Homeless is backing A&H on this one!

LOL