Screwballs
of the month
may 2005
This was an odd month, as I had a
lot of dealings with apostates. And also, from those who think being nice to
the worst of them will accomplish something.
From the
mailbag
For example, take this one from the HQ of The Society of Wimps for Jesus…
I was trying to read
your attempt at rebuttal of Dan Barker's book, but frankly I grew tired of your
personal attacks on Mr. Barker and stopped after about 3 minutes. You seem so
angry, just because Dan has brought forth some very valid challenges to
fundamental beliefs. You would be much more effective just presenting the
arguments without the character assassination.
Your argument about him being dishonest because he continued to preach Christianity
for several months after he no longer believed, is
simply unfair. That was his livelihood. He showed a lot more character in
admitting his ultimate convictions and turning his world upside down than I see
coming from your rebuttal. From what I have read on your site, If I have to
choose between a heaven filled with people with your views or a hell filled
with people like Dan, I would chose Dan's group.
My reply says all that is needed….
Why do you assume I am
angry, and why don't you show why I'm in error about Barker's poor arguments,
dishonesty, and ignorance instead of whining about what is an accurate
assessment of his character, based on all the evidence?
I'm laughing at the poor slob. Anyone who takes up for the Jesus myth has truly
lost his brains.
So I guess an SS guard who realized it was wrong to kill Jews should have kept
it up a few months more anyway until he found another job, huh.
Yep. Freethinkers sure have great principles. :-D Enjoy the company of your
fellow hypocrites, bud.
Our dizzy friend declined to show I was in error (of course) and said he was “simply trying to give you some constructive criticism about your approach with the first e-mail, but you obviously have it all figured out.” Obviously, since no one seems to be correcting me, even when invited to do so.
Then we had this from the Atheist Evader of the Month:
Your website is a joke, and Farrell Till whoops your
fake *ss!
When I gave Whoppee
his return dose of riposte, he blamed the victim:
you must have a lot of free time on your hands….You will never
be able to convince anyone but the willfully blind jesus-zombies.
Furthermore, if you were a REAL CHRISTIAN, YOU WOULD HAVE IGNORED THIS TYPE OF
SOPHOMORIC EXCHANGE.
Jesus would be proud of your words and actions. You
are obviously just another fool at the top of the apologetic junkheap who is being paid in one way or another for your
mindless, clueless, unsupportable blather. Your job is to keep the
ever-diminishing flock of jesus
b**ches paying their tithes and buying books that
drool over a long dead jew who most likely never even
existed.
So, when your baby-killing wife-raping foreskin-loving
commander of genocide who loves the sight of severed heads speaks to you, does
he encourage you to keep up with this petty correspondence, or is this simply
your "fleshly" sinful nature that keeps you coming back for
more? It must be the holy spirit
I asked for responses to specific
arguments or articles, but our friend declined. Finally, another from the “All
Dan Barker Really Needs is a Hug” Department:
I don't even know
where to start.
With faith, why does the existence of atheists and such bother you so much.
Why can't you be secure enough in your faith to not cast dispersions
[sic] about someone you don't even
know? Or someone that might be hurting.
As a Christian, I was
ashamed that your sight [sic] even exists.
Shame on you
Funny how this type usually can’t spell, either.
Golden dun award winners
Richard carrier: Sinking even lower
First of all, we have a special Lifetime Achievement Award for the Secular Web’s Richard Carrier,
who in his latest response to me on The
Impossible Faith managed to misrepresent and misread me no less than a half
dozens times, and even tries to blame me for his misreadings.
For example, I say:
"But here Carrier does appeal to
evidence; although it is evidence that is directed at the wrong argument. As I
expected, Carrier tries to circumvent my point about prejudices against Jews by
saying, "we already know that many Gentiles flocked to Judaism even before
Christians came along, either converting to it, supporting it, or holding it in
high esteem." But that is not the point. Carrier confuses Judaism as a
religion with being a Judean in an ethnic sense. The latter is the point I am
also after, not merely the former! It does not matter how many converted to the
Jewish religion. The issue would also have been, How
many would have wanted to become ethnic Jews? How many would have worshipped a
man who was an ethnic Jew? Thus indeed Carrier's entire retort on this point is
misunderstandably misdirected, and no doubt caused by
his confusion of thinking that ancient Judaism, like modern Judaism, was not
particularly associated with an ethnic group."
And he says:
"Holding tries to change his argument now by claiming he meant the Romans
and Greeks were prejudiced against people from
So he 1) blames ME for his error and 2) misreads what I say about ETHNIC
prejudice as a matter of it being the accident of being born, geographically,
in
And then this. He says:
"Respecting Tradesmen: In my first draft I demonstrated conclusively that
Jews had great respect for tradesmen and thus would not have looked down on
Jesus for being a carpenter as Holding falsely claimed. In response to that, Holding desparately resorted to
the bizarre argument that only Jews respected tradesmen--apparently
assuming that Greco-Roman tradesmen all despised themselves and each other,
which is obviously ridiculous. As usual he inserted his foot into his mouth yet
again by not actually checking the facts before making a claim. Indeed, he
betrayed his utter ignorance of ancient culture by saying "the only
evidence [one] can find is within Judaism." Only someone who knew
nothing about the ancient world, and made no effort to learn, would make so
foolish a claim."
Huh??? What I said was:
"Next up from Carrier is my point
about Jesus being a working-class carpenter; once again, Carrier appeals to the
notion of variety of opinion ("other groups did not share this low
opinion") though he is compelled to admit that the only evidence he can
find is within Judaism (where at any rate, as I note, Jesus as a member of
the Jewish "ingroup" would overcome the
stigma among Jews; nevertheless, let us imagine it being said that Shammai the carpenter would undertake such a profession as
the hypostatic incarnation of the Jewish God, and Messiah,
as opposed to just a teacher; and that, after receiving training that would
give him the prestige he lacked as a carpenter -- education Jesus did NOT
have)."
So the “one” was Carrier himself and I was only addressing HIS arguments! He
says:
"One thing to add here is against Holding's now more adamant claim that
no one in antiquity had notions of improving their condition. That is
outrageous. It is not what any of the scholars he quotes have ever argued--to
the contrary, they would all be appalled by what he claims they said. I ask all
readers to stop trusting Holding, and actually buy or borrow those books that
Holding quotes out of context and read them. Then you will see how those
scholars actually discuss the total situation very differently than Holding lets on."
This seems to be in reply to what I say:
"Just as anachronistic is Carrier's
idea that "Christian missionaries were meeting a new market demand, of a
growing mass of the discontented." He is yet again importing modernist,
individualist ideas into the social world of the NT; the
reality however is that "discontent" such as he imagines, though it
would exist, would not be seen as solved by Christianity (even if a
"solution" would have been desired, which, as our example of Iraq in
point 1 shows, would have been far from the case). As Pilch
and Malina report in The Handbook of Biblical Social
Values [79ff], this was a world of "limited good" within which all
resources were considered at a fixed value (as practically, they were). The
"discontented" who wished to rise in the ranks, would perceive that
they did so at the expense of others, including their fellow poor, who would
have the same perception and would resent any attempt to "rise above"
others. Thus in fact the ancient person regarded their lot as decided by fate; however
dissatisfied they may have been, there was nothing that they could do about it,
and any discontented person seeking resolution of the sort Carrier envisages
would incur the envy and probation of their fellow ingroup
members. If anything, Christianity as a newcomer would be rejected as a
religion trying to cut from the pie that was already distributed. Carrier's
retort comes from the mouth of one who lives in a world that perceives goods as
limitless, with "resources that are endlessly available to the
individual" and one's life is made of what one chooses."
So where do I say, "no one in antiquity had notions of improving their
condition"? I don't. Finally, Carrier also backpedals on his claim that
the Sumerian goddess Inanna was crucified, and then we have this one
that speaks for itself as a Crybaby Award Winner:
Holding
then steps into a bear trap.
He says that "line 390" in the Life of Josephus contains
"nothing" about what I argue, that in line 228 "nothing is said
about the governorship of Galilee," and that JW 2.590
refers "only" to "the repairing of a wall." From all of
this, Holding mistakenly claims that "Carrier
clearly hopes that no one will check these references." Yet in saying
this, Holding proves he is not a skilled researcher and has no competent
knowledge of the sources he is working with. The fact is,
I made a small mistake in writing down the numbers of my source citations in
that one footnote (which I have since corrected). But the error was so small
that had Holding actually read the paragraph, not the line, in each case he
would have seen that the material I referred to is there. The fact that he
didn't do so simple a check as this proves that Holding is just mining his
sources and doing the absolute minimum [sic] to prove his case instead of
honestly and seriously studying the sources and making sure his claims are
correct. Holding doesn't read Josephus. He just jumps to single sentences that
help his case--not even caring if there are any other sentences that hurt his
case. And instead of knowing the facts--which I did, and only then took the
trouble of tracking down the exact references--Holding is completely ignorant
of the facts, and therefore incapable of tracking them down.
So get that: It’s your fault, not Carrier’s, when he doesn’t type correctly.
And they wear funny
hats, too
TWeb members uncovered a Gold Award Mine lately at a fundy atheist site, and we’ll have several entries from there. To start, we have this from “cooljohng”:
Most religions can be
used for uses we believe as wrong, but to them it is not wrong, because they
have interpretted their holy scriptures/rules in a
certain way. Who is to say they are wrong? How do we know that the original creaters of these religions didn't mean for their teachings
to be used in this way? Just because something is seen as good, doesnt mean it is right. Religion, in particular christianity is too vague, and is
open to indivdual beliefs... to a certain extent. What
is the difference between The Catholic Church, and the Nazi Party from 1930/40
Psst…it’s a parody…
Johnny EC of TWeb nominates Dave Silverman of Athiests.org. Johnny was:
….at the family/youth section of the Athiests.org page, and under the "bad
guys" section (a section devoted to exposing us evil lying Xtians who try to steal their little Athiest
bebbies away) I found an interesting image labeled
as:
Dave Silverman: Check out this cartoon! I could write a Doctoral Thesis on
the psychological messages this sends -- about the author!
Johnny then says:
So I check out the
cartoon and I instantly recognized it. It was a Mr
Gruff from the "Lambuel" page of Objective Christian Ministries which isn't a real
Christian organization but a parody of xtain
websites that was created by Athiests a-la
Landover-Baptist style.
So either:
a) He made a colossal blunder.
b) He is intentionally propogating a smear campaign.
Dictionary and genetics
by a cuckoo bird
“Hamster” from TWeb offered these comments taken from a site called, “Factology.com”:
Dyslexia means to go
against the law. “Dys” a Greek word meaning “hard,
difficult or against” and “lexia” or lex a latin
word meaning “law.” Here an English word dyslexia
made from a combination of two distinctive languages combined to form one word!
Do you follow? So in actuality, when a person is said to have dyslexia, it is
because they say the child reads and spells English backwards. That’s not the
problem. What it is, is the person’s brain refuses
to go against the original law, meaning the first languages, the ancient Aramic (Hebrew) and Ashuric/Syriac
(Arabic). Both of which existed almost simultaneously because
When you’re sitting around the table on Christmas day feasting on the
flesh of swine or holiday ham, remember: Christ (still an unproven being), ate
fish, he did not eat pork!!! You Christians know it says right in your Bible
not to eat of the animals with the clovefoot (Deut.
14:7) and even during Yashuas (Jesus) time he cast
demons into swine (Matthew 8:29-32). No where will you find mention of Yashua eating pork. The pig and its variants are
grafted creatures from three animals (dog, cat, and rat), by fusing the nucleus
of these cells, created to clean up the cadavers that were claimed by the curse
of leprosy during the time of Abraham.
He must have checked
factology.com
Nominated next is Avraham, crazed TWeb member. More rational Jewish member “Yoshiyahu” first said:
One - The allah
= moon good argument is bullhonkey. It's simply the arabic equivalent of eloah or elohim. It is a generic term,
just like the previously mentioned hebrew
words. It is not uncommon for words that generally end in ים
in Hebrew to drop the ending in Arabic. Besides, elohim has been translated
into arabic as allah as
long as arabic has been around.
Saying "allah" means a pagan moon god is no
more correct than saying "el" is a caananite
deity. Yes - both may have been refferred to by that
title. No - the title is not specific to that diety.
To which Avraham replied:
First Hebrew Is Not A Language Duhhhhhhhhh
And also said elsewhere:
Christian = Back-wards mean Anti-christ
= His Son Jesus
And I’m also William
lane craig
Ed Babinski, operating as “Babaloo” on TWeb, foresees an identity crisis:
I notice that J. P.
Holding of Tekton apologetics web ministries has defended Frank Walton of
AtheismSucks.com to the max, and Frank shows
every sign of being heavily influenced by Holding. Frank has even repeated
insulting words and phrases that Holding has used about me, verbatim. Frank
seems to know everything Holding has said about me.
Furthermore, Frank, just like Holding, doesn't show a
photo or share his personal testimony of how he became a Christian.
Frank also personally insults the same people Holding holds in lowest regard,
almost like a mirror of Holding's site. Frank even defends
Holding in detail, putting up detailed information about Holding's prison
librarian career, and photos of the prisoners that may have been in the same
prison where Holding worked. If I didn't know better, it would appear
that Frank and Holding are either of incredibly one mind, or possibly one and the same person. I say this
because of the above degree of "in synchness"
between them. And also because "J.
P. Holding" is itself an alias. And
a man who makes up one alias might find enjoyment in making up more.
Also, Frank says he's concerned about people finding out who he is, though
Frank never claims to have worked at a prison, and instead says he's a college
student. But both Frank and Holding appear equally
concerned in maintaining their anonymity. Just some thoughts.
As for posting photos
at websites, I only asked if anyone had seen a photo of
Holding and Frank together. I'd like to know if they are one or two
people, or even whether they live near each other? The evidence is clear that
Frank is a profound Holding wanna be, defering to him in terms of both having the same major
targets they taunt, and in terms of plaigarizing Holding's put downs that Holding had used on me.
So does dembski collect the skulls or what?
TWebber
“Snarf” had these choices words about those who
promote Intelligent Design:
Since IDists never want to name
their designer, then it is clear that they are ashamed of its identity.
If they are Christians, then just as Jesus said 'if anyone is ashamed of Me, then I will be ashamed of them,' then at best the IDists are committing
blasphemy by being ashamed of Jesus.
Another possibility is this: IDists worship Satan, which explains their reluctance to
identify their 'designer.' Another is that they think
that aliens from another planet are the designers,ala Von
Danigen.
Silver duh award winners
TWeb member “Penguin” gets one for remarks made on TWeb in which he used some specific slurs against homosexuals. I’d note what they were here (edited) but mods removed them.
What hole do you live
in, again?
More now from the disaffected. One “James T” at christianforums.net offered this gem:
Begging the question
is when you assume what you want to prove in your argument. And what happens,
again and again and again is that the contents of the bible are used to justify
the contents of the bible. Nevermind the contradictory statements therein.
There are any number of variations, but the
fundamental problem is that from the point of view of validity of an argument,
justifying the bible with the bible is fallacious.
In no other realm of historical investigation is it adequate to rely on a
single document, such as the bible. And the last thing any competent historian
would do is rely on a group with a vested interest for further evidence, doh!
Actually, given the political sensitivity of giving it the thrashing it
deserves it is no surprise that there is so little quality academic critique of
the bible and the surrounding dogma. An academic with a view to having a future
would not be so naive as to assume this would not be detrimental to their
career. The shame is that some find supporting it financially rewarding. But
the taint this gives their scholarly work, is it worth it?
For creativity, this site wins some awards:
http://www.wiolawapress.com/black.htm
According to this fellow, the Pope is actually a lizard, and
so are some Jesuit priests, apparently. I think someone has been reading too
much of Harry Turledove’s WorldWar
series.
Forum denizen “andrewwray” from that fundy atheist forum offers the following, which TWeb member Johnny EC rightly compared to, “like watching Dan Brown getting drunk at a party and throwing up.”
…It all starts off
with the church and the bible. the bible is collection
of ''religious'' texts. However, before the new testement
was officially put togeather there
was a sort of book quiz of the church. basically
the church asked for people to send in ''Gods'' words
(basically there own waffle) and the church then went through all these books
and choose which ones they wanted. They basically chose all the ones that went
with there views on 'God' and jesus
and so on. And some of the other books that didnt cohear with there ideas they basically re-wrote some bits
so it fits in nicely with the rest. Some books were not even put in becuase they went so much agaisnt
the churches beleif that there was sod all they could
do except write the book themsele (which i wouldnt have been suprised if they had).
Anyway there is one book in particular that the church took out of the bible.
The book of Mary magdolin (probly
got the last name wrong). Mary magdolin was
supposedly the wife of jesus.
And put it this way jews
usually got married at 15 years old or something like that and here we are
reading about jesus when he was crusified
at 33. I doubt even the son of the almighty coud have
gone tht long without some nooky.
Anywho.....in the book of mary it talks about jesus
having children, and so we come to the question well who can proove that this wasnt just a
random women writting about coblers.
well it could have been. But imagine a jewish person. they
have big hair and a promenant beard.
Take a look at Leonardo Da Vinci's Picture of the
Last Supper mainly the ''deciple'' on the left of jesus. Notice a certain feminicity about him? Or Her?
Our side isn’t always better. Here, TWeb member “BurntOffering” had some comments on Brown’s sort of ideas:
The Bible is Not
Silent on this issue, and tells Us that Jesus was made a Eunuch for the
Kingdoms sake" In other words his Scitzophrenia, affected his Sex drive and He was Interest
in Man or a Woman for that matter.
Further the bible is Not Silent about when it says eventually the Voice of the Bride (a real wife) and the Bridegroom
(Jesus Christ) would be Heard No More! Nor is it silent about His Bride,
Wife, Angel and Spirit of Truth he would send in the Last days to Collect His RENT or Final Judgement.
So when the Spirit of Truth is come; S/He will go to the Supreme Court asking for at least 1/3 credit
for every penny that has "In God We Trust" depicted on it.
S/He probably will as for 2/3 credit for all her Pain
and Suffering; not to mention Alienation of Affection due to Christians
blaming all their sins of Her, when she didnt do half
of the things they said She did.
TWeb readers also suggested a couple of reviews from Amazon.com of….the Bible.
The second half of the
book introduces some new characters, most importantly Jesus Christ who seems to
be based on Buddha. Here's a confusing part that is never really clarified.
Jesus is the son of Mary and Joseph, but he is also referred to as the son of
God. Which is it? It seems like the author couldn't decide
Pretty Cool Stuff, but Where are
the pictures?!
And we’ll close the Silver section
with some full-site awards for some of the wackier apostates and such I dealt
with this month…you’ll find responses to the first two onsite.
Dr. Jason Long
http://www.biblicalnonsense.com
Full of all the standard canards, and don’t expect that to change. Here’s how Long responds to those who say he needs to do more reading:
Whomever Author X
happens to be at the moment, a few things almost always remain true:
1. X began with the conclusion that the Bible is true and worked backwards to
find only supportive evidence.
2. X is not interested in the most likely conclusion, only the most likely
conclusion that doesn’t invalidate the Bible.
3. If X was born with religion Y instead of Christianity, X would be just as
confident that religion Y was correct.
4. There are countless Xs in every religion who claim to be able to prove that
each of their belief systems is true.
5. X is skillful at making an argument seem valid but eventually looks foolish
if you just do some unbiased research.
Yep. Long knows this even before he has read N. T. Wright….
Joseph Atwill
http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/
Almost as nutty as the Roman Piso theory.
Hal Lindsey
http://www.hallindseyoracle.com/
Hal revises his predictions every ten years. This is the latest.
Wayne Holland
Not to be confused with Wayne “Purple Clouds” Harrington, this guy has some nutty ideas of his own. On Christianity:
Christianity is
centered in the lie that would have us believe that we are not okay as we are, but have to accept Christ
as personal savior in order to become
okay, which brings us to another truth:
Jesus never preached Christianity, or said anything about accepting him as a personal savior.
Jesus did not come to this world to start a religion about himself.
His life goal was to re-establish the
The lie of Christianity is insulting to the great God Who made everything, and
made it okay just as it is.
Biggest Lie:
The premise of Christianity.
It is maintains that we are separated from God, which is impossible.
Second essential truth:
There is nothing
but God (or the Universe, if you prefer).
Nothing could possibly
be separate from the universe,
but only a manifestation, or
face, of It.
Jesus (we are led to believe) always referred to himself as the son of Man,
never the son of God. The church conceived and propagated this lie (that Jesus
called himself the son of Man, thereby implying that there is something different between God and Man). If we
are all manifestations of God, each and every one of us simply wearing one of Its infinite faces, then the church is out of business. If
we are already one with God, the church has no reason for being.
I talk so much about the Bible because I grew up in a family that went
to church every Sunday, a fundamentalist, Pentecostal church at that, and
actually believed the crap I heard there for many years. When I finally
unloaded the bag of rocks that had been heaped upon me by the Church of God, I
was a little miffed that I had allowed myself to be duped by it for so long.
Basically, I’ve got an attitude about the whole thing, and it shows in my
writing. But, on balance, I talk about a lot of other stuff too, as the books
displayed on this page clearly indicate.
On prostitution:
The only thing that is
relevant is that this is supposed to be a free country. It should be a woman's
right to sell her body if she chooses. Isn't this what the abortion rights
activists are always going around spouting off about, that it's the woman's
body and that she should therefore have the choice to do pretty much what she
pleases with it? Why should prostituting it be an exception?
It should also be a man's right to purchase her services if he chooses.
I agree one-hundred percent with Bukowski on this
issue. The main reason that women hate the
prostitution business so much is because they feel threatened by it.
It's all connected to the fact that women essentially
control the mating game. If prostitution were made legal, the women who are not prostitutes would lose considerable
leverage in the matrimonial marketplace.
On AIDS:
As I said, I do
believe that AIDS cases are out there, but in every circumstance I've read
about, those who are suffering with it have virtually
given themselves the disease. They haven't acquired it as the result of
doing something as simple as having some casual contact with someone else who
has it. AIDS is
not a contagious disease. You can't catch it from someone else.
The only person you can catch it from is yourself.
Drugs, recreational and medicinal, are the true culprits in acquired immune
deficiencies. Addicts are at risk of getting AIDS not
because they might happen to share a needle, but simply because they take the
drugs, period. Drugs compromise the immune system, the kind you get in the street and the doctor's office, especially antibiotics. And AZT? Forget about it. It's downright poisonous. It's
what killed Arthur Ashe and Kimberly Bergalis.
If you engage in unprotected (and indiscriminate) sex with multiple partners,
you put yourself at risk of contracting one of the more ordinary sexually
transmitted diseases; you know, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes
and so on. And when you do come down with them you go
to a doctor and get an antibiotic, which weakens your immune system even
further. And chances are, if you are indeed indulging in such
indiscriminate sexual activities, you're very likely also
not taking very good care of yourself in other ways. In addition to the
recreational drugs you're no doubt into, you're
probably also smoking, drinking, not eating properly or getting enough sleep or
exercise. To anyone who's not behaving like this (most of us) it looks
as if you had a death wish or something, like you're trying to kill yourself.
And indeed you would be. Anyone who behaves like this
doesn't need to go on some kind of witch hunt, looking for a cause outside of themselves,
to account for the sickness that eventually comes calling.
Of course the pharmaceutical industry doesn't like to
hear this kind of stuff. They need the witch hunt, and the external pathogen it
(hopefully) discovers. How else could they come up with a good excuse for manufacturing
an outrageously expensive drug, which is nothing more than a poison, and
convince you that you need it to stay alive?
Bronze duh award winners
Not quite as wacky as the lizard one, but still wins:
http://www.jahtruth.net/starwar.htm
Star Wars was telepathically transmitted to George Lucas, etc. Oh, read it yourself; it’s too good to spoil.
TWeb’s “Da Blonde” wins an Irony Award for this performance:
J: If you want to start to present arguments for your point of view beyond
calling people bigots and homophobes then I am more than willing to engage with
you.
Da Blonde: I will elaborate when such is called for,
but calling bigotry and homophobia what it is is
merely acknowledgement there is an elephant in the room. It is not particularly
an argument per se so much as a label and an entirely
valid one.
J:
So when I call you a bible
hating liberal pseudo-christian it is not an attack
but just an acknowledgement that there is an elephant in the room. It is not an
argument but just an entirely appropriate label.
Da
Blonde: No that is a lie.
Your bigotry is obvious.
TWeb member Pythagoras is
nominated for trying to perform an excorcism over the
internet – on me:
Pythagoras: Keep quiet spirit. In the name of Christ I rebuke you.
Jpholding: Didn't
work. Maybe if you stuck out your tongue, put your fingers in your ears,
curtsied, and shouted LAAAAALAAALAAA it would help.
Pythagoras: Stop
freaking out spirit.
"Stop freaking out
spirit." – as Johnny EC says, “Words I would
never expect to hear during an excorcism.”
TWeb member CuMhorrigan
wins a desired Screwball again with a thread titled, "A family Shows
Christian Love to a wayward Daughter involved in witchcraft". Here is the
article he used:
An eight-year-old girl was tortured and
was about to be killed after being accused of being a witch, the Old Bailey
heard today.
The child had been placed in a laundry bag and was about to be thrown into a
river to drown when one of her tormentors managed to stop the others, said
Patricia May, prosecuting.
Her months of ill-treatment had started when another child told his mother that
the girl had been using witchcraft against the family.
The article doesn’t say the family was Christian, though. Asked how he arrived at the conclusion that they were, Cu said:
Most times Children
able to practice witchcraft are taken in by nieghbor
hood witches and witch doctors and taught. The Witch Huning
craze is primarily a christian
phenomina that carries over violently in third world
countries. Look up your own history and see what christians have been doing to
witches over the centuries.
But a more intellectual Wiccan, Durthorin,
corrected Cu:
Cu, in
to which Cu replied:
Shhhhhhh, THEY DON'T Know that!!!!!!
And this is the pick of the litter from Cu.
Salem may have been
blown out of porportions, but the witch burnings and
other atrocities of the christian
church are well documented. and guess what the burning
times are (On some level) Our holocausts In Europe and the
More winners from that fundy atheist place.
Xsquander:
Then for the ones who
believe in God there is "If God created the universe then who created
God?" People usually say he created himself but I personally think
they don't totally believe that themselves but they like to because it keeps
that part of the problem solved in their mind and keeps the question away just
like the people who follow more scientific beliefs just follow the belief of
the big bang and whatever was before that is blocked out by common believers
not looking for an answer because it causes too much confusion in the mind.
Juxari:
this far I haven't seen any
proof that Christianity would even be based on facts, and secondly be better than any other religion. Mastermind Prime has been
very entertaining though, almost like child with not enough experience to see
world in any complicated way, so he simples it to fit his own religious views,
like his parents maybe told him to, I guess. He ignores the fact that the NT
it self was written over hundred years after Jesus might have lived, and it has
been edited several times by church. Final editions were made during 19th
century when it was added for an example that Jesus was a joiner. Also there
have been numerous mistakes when bible was translated into Latin and later on
to English. Bible is not very historical in this way. Romans didn't write
anything about magics of Jesus, and most jews ignored him as well. If he
really had these super powers wouldn't it have been widely noticed? but no, Jesus wasn't noticed, and it is possible that he
never even existed. NT itself has many contraventions
containing Jesus.
Bible is not a historical book. Most things which it claims to have happened
cannot be proved and some things may be proved to never have happened.
I don't think that I have been ignorant here, if someone could show me that his
religion is the only truth etc. of course I would join it, but religions are
just a very poor way to explain world, based on traditions and ancient stories
as far as I have noticed.
And that's the difference between a logical and rational person and a religious
person. First one cares only about the truth, but the religious only wants to
see world though his religion, maybe he doesn't or doesn't want to understand
that his religion might not be the only absolute guideline to life and truth. any information which would be in contravention with his
religious views is ignored.
As TWeb member Darth Executor puts it, “It's like somebody made a fundy atheist template and gave it away for free in kindergartens throughout the nation.”
The “faith in technology” award goes to TWeb member TheOneAndOnly, who posted an item about (so he thinks) defeating God through talking yogurt. He said:
Since the dawn of time man has yearned to destroy god, our oppressor and slave master. Soon the Age of God will be over, and the Age of Man will begin:
And then posted this item:
Aeroplanes will be too afraid to crash, yoghurts will wish you good morning before being eaten
and human consciousness will be stored on supercomputers, promising immortality
for all - though it will help to be rich.
These fantastic claims are not made by a science fiction writer or a crystal
ball-gazing lunatic. They are the deadly earnest predictions of Ian Pearson, head of the futurology unit at BT.
'If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to
download your mind into a machine, so when you die
it's not a major career problem,' Pearson told The Observer. 'If you're rich
enough then by 2050 it's feasible. If you're poor
you'll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it's routine. We
are very serious about it. That's how fast this technology is moving: 45 years
is a hell of a long time in IT.'
Pearson, 44, has formed his mind-boggling vision of the
future after graduating in applied mathematics and theoretical physics,
spending four years working in missile design and the past 20 years working in
optical networks, broadband network evolution and cybernetics in BT's
laboratories. He admits his prophecies are both 'very exciting' and
'very scary'.
He believes that today's youngsters may never have to die, and points to
the rapid advances in computing power demonstrated last week, when Sony
released the first details of its PlayStation 3. It is 35 times more powerful
than previous games consoles. 'The new PlayStation is
1 per cent as powerful as a human brain,' he said. 'It is into supercomputer
status compared to 10 years ago. PlayStation 5 will probably be as powerful as
the human brain.'…
'We can already use DNA, for example, to
make electronic circuits so it's possible to think of
a smart yoghurt some time after 2020 or 2025, where the yoghurt has got a whole
stack of electronics in every single bacterium. You could have a conversation
with your strawberry yogurt before you eat it.'
And TOAO summarizes: “So soon you wont
have to waste your Sundays praying to the megalomaniac in the sky, because we
will become our own gods...”
Sorry. Not as long as I have a spoon…
TWeb
member Clarice creates a new distinction:
I would not rely too much on your emotions! They are
merely egoic responses to what we perceive with our
mundane senses and are not reliable. Feelings, on the
other hand are intuitional perceptions derived from more reliable sensing of
what is true and trustworthy.
And finally, a nomination for DivineOb, hateful apostate of the month.
But my war is with the religion of Christ
worship. Whether the religion is true or not,
it *does* negatively impact the world and negatively impact me. So that is why
I wish it to cease to exist. Whether Christianity is
true or not, and whether they were
"true" Christians or not, there are numerous good examples of
people doing evil things *because* of the Christian religion they attempted to
(or thought they were) following.