Screwballs of the month
July 2005
Has
anyone heard of any reports of escapes lately from their local screwball zoo?
Because it seems that last month’s drought is this month’s monsoon.
From the mailbag
Oh
my goodness, where to start? Well, we have this Atlantean
Conspiracy-Diatribe Award winner:
I have read both sides of the arguments about Christianity,
and I cannot believe why people are still having religious wars in the 21st
century. I used to be a Christian (Roman Catholic to be precise).
Because of all the hypocrisy and drivel that has generated hatred, war, disease
and poverty by intra and inter religions, I began to re-evaluate religion as a
whole.
So with an objective view I have read most of the available
scriptures (including ancient religions that are no longer practised).
Mind bogglin stuff, but the message in all is clear
and simple - Good must overcome Evil. There is no spiritual truth in any
of them as they all share and borrow the same concepts, philosophies, stories,
fables and myths. I cannot believe that religious followers are such text
book humans that they continue to write continuous drivel defending their faith
or attacking another. One needs to look at the bigger picture. I
have visited most of the lands where the scriptures of religions originated and
tranferred myself back in time to the nomadic culture
where hardly anyone could read or write, had no modern technology but could
only study the climate, the environment and cosmology.
For the love of power and money, today's religious organisation are
playing psychological politics with peoples minds. Buddhism and Hinduism
are almost the same except that one has a pantheon of Gods and the other asks
one to believe in oneself. Confucianism, Taoism and others are similar
offshoots. The three main warring factions Judaism, Christianity and Islam are
all fighting for supremacy and are from the same line of doctrine.
The Jewish faith originated from
The story about manna from Heaven
re. Moses' 40 years in the
Desert. One could take the literal sense and believe exactly what was
written down in text to be true. Or one could again dismiss this as pure
myth and say we do not believe its raining cats and
dogs so why believe this story. The truth is that the story was lost through
oral translation and when finally put into text format it seemed like a miracle,
but manna is made from wheat grass. In that part of the desert, when wheat
grass pollinates, white petals are dispersed into the air and the seeds settle
wherever they land. Therefore Moses and his people survived the desert by
eating manna made from the wheat grass. Go to the middle-east and live with the
nomadic tribes for a few months and climatically adjust to their way of life
and you will understand the Bible OT a bit more and why those doctrines were
imposed.
It goes on for some time in
this vain before our writer gets to the “big picture”:
I believe Jesus Christ existed, but not in the material
sense. Jesus Christ never existed as the Bible storytellers tell
us. Jesus Christ always existed since the evolution of man. Jesus
Christ is just a name given to a body, (male or female) which applies to all of
God's begotten children who are persecuted, suffer on their 'cross' and
die. They will continue to die and rise again until mankind become more
humane. Jesus Christ is a part of all of us, the begotten children of
God. So I hope you find the Jesus in you and do something more
'Christian' and worthwhile with your life, because your interpretation of the
meaning of life is unique to you and you have got to find your own spiritual
journey, just like the rest of us put on this earth.
I was feeling masochistic,
so I replied asking for some defense of these views, and got some fluff back:
Its seems to me that you need to convince yourself more than you do others.
Faith and Divine Truth is a personal choice to enable one on their own
spiritual journey to find their own meaning of life. To cut a long story
short:
God is free and available to all.
God is not vain.
God is not exclusive.
God does not discriminate.
I can talk to God when and wherever
I like. I can talk to God in my own words and not follow any form of
prayer, worship or protocol to do so. I do not have to read a book
to believe in God, I just follow my heart, listen to my conscience and trust my
instincts. God is with me and with all others because God cares
about all of his
creation.
Wise words from Reverend
Romney, "We must always base our faith on experience, not tradition
or dogma. Who Jesus is to us personally should not depend on any particular
doctrine. No idea or story about Jesus, including the Resurrection, should ever
be a litmus test for faith." He went on, "Even if the Resurrection
stories prove to be legends developed by the Christian community forty to sixty
years after the death of Jesus, it does not change the core of Jesus' message
of forgiveness and grace, of God's liberating presence among all women and men." .
It seems
someone hasn’t heard that Bultmann is dead.
Well,
enough of the long diatribes; now we have some smaller gems of wisdom from the
Shelled Peanut Gallery:
I read your article. I must
say that you are mislead by organized church.
God hasn't changed. If you say that he has changed his ways on
intervening in human with humans then he has changed he is not the same yesterday,
today, or tomorrow. He said that he's an unchanging God, so if what you
say is true, then you're calling God a liar or the Bible is a lie.
And also
this one for the “Nitpick from Bad Reading Award”:
You seem to have glossed over the
heart of the ten commandments issue which is what you call the ten commandments
is not said in scripture to be the ten commandments and what is called in
scripture the ten commandments is about unleavened bread and offering first
born animals and not mixing the blood with the milk etc. which you refuse to
call the ten commandments. This is far from a small issue.
The next
one requires some background. It started with this letter:
Judging from your diatribe against
Dr. LaHaye, we assume that no fundamentalist can
possibly be an intellectual. http://www.tektonics.org/esch/pretice2.html
Do you assume that your hatred is
the ultimate in Christianity?
I followed
the man by his name, and oh boy – he runs a site at http://www.onealclan.com/
that by itself wins him a Lifetime Achievement Screwball Award. I’ll let the
lunacy speak for itself:
The young descendent of priests adjusted his kuttóne looser about his shoulders. Suddenly at midday, a
great roar rumbled from amid the brilliance of a lightning-like flash
enveloping the desert sky. The descendent of priests looked up to
witness an immense vehicle descended amid a billowing cloud, accompanied
by raging fires that this man described as "enfolding within
itself."
As it settled to earth, four creatures attired in
uniforms like burnished brass emerged from the smoking orange inferno . Their aircraft ascended to move about in sequence
with the strange creatures. The flew about in shifting, simultaneous patterns,
seemingly navigated and propelled by wing-like structures upon their backs.
These airborne creatures and the strange craft were not the first to be
encountered by mankind, but the event was sufficiently rare as to be later
recorded as one of history's most breathtaking episodes.
These creatures were literally the most foreign of special
agents, commissioned by the Creator.
Nothing so spectacular had been seen since the day a
prince of Egypt and his nation of run-away slaves had witnessed a fiery
arrival atop Mount Sinai 600 years before. Those men and women had trembled
in fear beneath the rumbling firestorm that announced the first similarly
recorded arrival - either from beyond this earth or beyond the
three-dimensional realm known to mankind.
The prisoner recorded the incident at the
On July 26, 2004, scientists and theologians interviewed on The
History Channel's Biblical segment of a UFO Files program represented
the event as "most likely" an encounter with a "UFO" and
"extraterrestrials." An extraterrestrial refers to any being
whose origin is assumed to be anywhere other than Planet Earth.
But these researchers missed an important point: What none
seemed to recognize is that, in the sense that our Creator is not of this
earth. He and his servants are - from our earthly perspective - extraterrestrials.
If you haven't read the Book of Ezekiel before, without a preset disposition born of
ancient artistic depictions or another's representation, The Bible Code Website suggests its
readers read it again, carefully, at Chapter One. It's all there, one of the
grandest events in mankind's history.
Three related matrices were found, indicating a
future prospect encoded 600 years before, that Ezekiel will confront 3
winged angels (representing the Creator) in a dimensional vehicle from beyond
earth. The term "wings" today means an appendage pinioned
to an aircraft ; and the term would seem to have
been appropriate for anyone of that time to use as well when confronted with
beings flying about with artificial attachments of any sort. Ezekiel did not
describe the wings as "feathered," as presumed by countless artists
depicting angels on canvas.
And you
thought we were through with Van Daniken, eh?
Then we get
this series of letters from the same person who has been apparently taking the
same drugs for a while now:
Do you want to be right,or are you looking for
truth?
Of course there is no evidence,the church has killed to
get that evidence gone.
Listen to you hart (that's where god
is) and not to your own reflection of truth (your brains).
When told
he had won a Screwball Award, I got this:
Faith is a hypothesis nothing more
nothing les.
I don't believe or disbelieve
any faith (no religion above the truth),I only do it
with that what I know.
And you?
Your answer shows fear (but of what
are you afraid?)
And why do you need to humiliate
your fellow human (screwball)?
Are you so insecure of your self
that you need to humiliate your brothers and sisters in order to feel good
about yourself?
This is no judgement,but maybe you could think about this.
Why do you project yourself like
this and do you really think that this is the way of love and wisdom?
will you put this answer on your screwball of the month to?
When told I
would, I got this:
My fear?
Your reactions speek
for it self:-)
Someone who has nothing to win or lose,has no fear my friend.
Did you see a schrink
for your behavior?
Course to me it looks like you have
some serious isseus to deal with and I sense a
lot of frustration in you.
Why do you hide yourself behind
your walls of fear?
Was it that difficult to answer 1
simple question?
Meanwhile
back at the ranch, more conspiracies came in, as from this writer:
I have read the article on Pope Leo
X.
Also your comment on the bible being written by egyptian monks.
That in itself is not far from the truth.
Christian have ;earned much, bit not how to apply what
they have learned.
They have become helpless and hopeless.
So it doesnt really matter if the statement about
Jesus is true or not.
With all thet is taught in the bible,
(and no it is not the true source of the knowledge of which it speaks)
Christians have not learned anything about the difference between "REALITY"
& "ILLUSION".
And the reality of the words are this, it doesnt
matter who if anyone actually spoke them, they are true non
the less.
Jesus and the bible have serverd on purpose only, to
give praise and glory to mammon.
The
Who wear nice robes looking like fancy male whores, who practice and seek the
flesh of young boys.
Show me where Jesus and the 12 wore these fancy whore garments.
Chritians have become the pitiful of humans.
Televangelists have reaped the glory of God! no, only
if that god is mammon, and he is their god.
Another one tell people god made here rich! did he?
No, like everyone else, she got rich off of exploiting god, jesus, and the bible.
And because she serves the god of vanity she got a face lift as well to go with
her money.
So you see, it doesnt really matter who did, or did
not make this statement,leo, ot
lucifer, no matter they are one and the same, fleshwalkers, the statement still holds true, and cannot be
denied.
Your research leaves much to be
desired.
Christians have eyes, and still cannot see, Ears, and cannot hear.
Look around, where is the power that was given to the church, they allowed it
to be taken.
Dont show believers the money as the televangelist
do, show then the power, the realpower, nit the
Illusion
Come up with something better.
They will need it.
And last
from the mailbag, a series of letters we got from “Pastor John” Clark, who we
profiled at http://www.tektonics.org/af/clarkj01.html Was I right about
comparing him to David Koresh in the end? Not only
right, but prescient. Here’s some letters from him and from his cult members:
Bro. John:
I went to Mr. Holding's website and tried to read some of what he had
there. When I read this:
"Tekton Apologetics Ministries is committed to
providing scholarly answers . . . ."
I knew that I probably didn't need to
read any further. However, I tried. Like
you said, I, too, am willing to be wrong and consider. Reading his
website reminded me so much of where I was in
1988 - - confusion!
. . . . I could not understand the big scholarly
words, Bro. John. But I understood the tender Voice of my Savior.
My prayer for the "scholars" is that they quit hiding behind the
big words and just humble themselves before Jesus. Then they could just
rest and receive from Jesus what they need.
Love,
Sister Sandy
Dear
Sir,
I am one of the people on Pastor John's email list. He has
been sending your communication by email to the list, as he told you.
I am very puzzled as to your belligerent attitude to his earnest
reply. It seems to me, after reading your website article, that Pastor John, if anyone, should have the right
to have the attitude that you have taken. Yet he has
not. I do not know Greek at all, but I do know when someone is refusing
to return an argument in an academic manner. My sincere
request to you is to please answer his replies straightly. I would
very much be interested in your responses.
If you are satisfied with your email communications, then why not add them to
your website at the end of the article. That way other
people who visit that page can judge for themselves to validity of your
arguments vs. Pastor John's.
Thank
you,
J.
Embry
John,
I wonder if Mr. Holding would respond as he has if he knew that his peers were
witnessing this “conversation”. I am really having trouble following what
he writes. I could not believe that anyone could be so blind to the truth
if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Mr. Holding writes many words, but
I am having trouble determining what he is trying to say. But, I get the
sense that he is clutching at straw as he sinks in the mire of a self-perceived
scholarly wisdom, and instead of asking for help, he throws straw in your
face. Lord help him. I suppose that if
Jesus were to stand before him and tell him a truth, he would accuse Jesus of
being demon possessed.
Could Mr. Holding be providing
us a glimpse of what the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day were like?
MEH
Hi Mark:
Jesus spoke simply because he wanted to be understood. Any man sent from
God is the same way. All the"hypostasis"
and "homoiousias" jabber from men of Mr. Holding's persuasion is not meant to
instruct; it is meant to impress. It is intended to make the
hearers feel inferior, and those poor children of God who have not
been taught the truth usually feel just that way. How many times
have I witnessed them cowered by erudite fools who talk like
that. Such talk is not of God.
Yes, this correspondence with Mr. Holding is a glimpse,
albeit a very small one, of what it was like when the Lord tried to communicate
with the hard-hearted elders of
Jdc
You heard the man – pass the Kool Aid.
Golden dun award winners
Yeah, we go to the ancient world in the time machine every thursday
Several TWeb
Skeptics win gold for their Anachronisms of the Day when confronted with the
material at http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nowayjose.html
One styled “Rationalist” offered this pertinent
sarcasm that missed the point:
It's very nice to hear your opinion
on the matter. I must say after a bit of research on the matter, I have to
agree that you are quite right.
The message of Christianity was just as unpopular then as it is today. Few
people then really were attracted to the idea that somebody who was already dead could, by the reciting of a few
phrases and a promise to be a loyal christian (and a
bit of tithe perhaps) relieve them of any and all guilt and grant them eternal
life. People in that era generally had no concscience
and enjoyed evil, and it is also very clear they longed for death as the
ultimate finality. I was unaware that this was the prevailing attitude during
that period.
Likewise the early Christian congregations were quite unfriendly as you
mentioned. From early greek
texts on the matter, we know that meetings began with the ritualistic trading
of insults, followed by mutual cheek slapping, then a knee to the groin for new
members. This was then followed by four hours of silence enforced by the senior
member who kept a special mallet studded with nails just for this purpose.
Likewise, when fellow christians
met, they would pelt eachother with small dried fish
kept in special sacks just for such eventualities.
Ancient folks would never follow a
person who was crucified. Garroted maybe.. hung, beheaded, suffocated, strangled, drown, stabbed, shot,
poisoned, dismembered, crushed, drawn and quartered, keel hauled.. but crucifiction is simply
disgraceful. Quite unfashionable.
Rationalist
also wins the Lost with a Delorean Award for this
equation in self-defeatist detemporalizing:
Mountain Man: How about examples from the time of Christ? Can you show me examples of other martyrs
from that time who's followers thought it honorable
that they were dishonorably executed?
Rationalist:
Mormonism.
I didn’t
know Joseph Smith lived in 50 AD.
And “Mike
WC” (whom we have labeled “Mike No-Answer”) offered this complete evaluation
and rebuttal which wins the “Yes, I Have No Idea What Else to Say” Award:
Ho boy, an entire apologetic based
on keen insights into first century psychology. Veeeery impressive.
When
pressed for details, this sort of answer was the usual, for which we also give
the Spectre of Diversity Award:
I have no idea why you and your
fellow apologists consider yourselves so omniscient, Holding. Statements like
"The Romans could not envision a god dying like Jesus - period" are
absurd on their face. You're just trying to turn people into little robots,
acting out your script. You might as well be talking about the coming communist
revolution - there is no such thing as inevitability in history.
I have a fairly good handle on modern European historiography. And you know
what? Scholars that have a wealth of information to work with don't say silly
things like "People of this period would never accept concept X..."
It's only apologists shoving their noses into ancient history that think they
can dictate what people would or wouldn't have done. It is absurd method.
Any one individual has countless factors affecting their lives - and a likely
large number of those factors are inscrutable. Especially
when that person is seperated from us by 2000 years.
Johnny cracks corn, and we don’t care
“Johnny
Skeptic” wins a Lifetime Achievement Screwball for several reasons this round.
For one, he played a little game at TWeb where he
registered several times after being banned and even pretended to try to be a
friend of himself. All the while under these false names he denied who he was,
even as he used the same language and phrases each time for particular things
(like calling me “James Holding,” which no one else does). He also had some
other gems, like:
What gives God the right to define
what is moral?
What miracles? Today, millions of
Christians disagree as to what constitutes a miracle healing. People living
back then most certainly would not have had a better chance of discerning what
constitutes a miracle healing. Regarding the feeding of the 5,000, if anything
happened at all, and there aren't any good reasons at all to assume that
something did happen, a tunnel might have been dug in order to transport the
food up into a tent.
Widespread destruction of the
mainland settlement during any time during millennia to come would have
"fulfilled" the prophecy, including being destroyed by bombs dropped
from airplanes in the 20th century. Many ancient cities ended up as ruins. The
ruins of ancient
"But in some people, especially
those who are inquisitive and bright, the process continues throughout life.
They never stop learning -- and making mistakes. Others try to avoid error by
staying in familiar territory. But life is so short, and the world
of learning so vast, that I feel safe in stating that if you do not make
mistakes, you don't know much." If Marilyn is
right, then we can reasonably conclude that James Holding is not inquisitive
and bright, or that he knows that he makes mistakes but will almost never admit
it, or that he is too stupid to know that he makes mistakes. It is your choice,
readers.
Johnny gets a Keep Raising the Bar Award for that one, and for this one:
Even if I personally saw
Jesus die, get buried in J of A's tomb and rise from the dead, I would not be a
Christian. Logically, it is impossible to
worship a God who has not explained his motives and actions in great detail. No one would vote for a presidential candidate to
"rule" over them unless the candidate first answered a lot of
questions about his motives and past actions.
He shares
this award with TealTerror, who said:
Here's a list of things
that would make both its writer and me believe in God/a religion:
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/theistguide.html
My favorites:
Just think: What if Jesus had said
something like this?
"Verily, verily, I say
unto thee that thine energy is as thine
mass times the speed of light multiplied unto itself."
If cities condemned as sinful by
preachers tended to explode in flames for no apparent
reason, if glowing auras of holy light sometimes appeared around
believers to protect them from harm, or if atheists
and only atheists were regularly struck by lightning, this would be compelling
proof.
Back now to
Johnny, who also said:
The fact that you have 304 articles on the
This last
one was made to me – Johnny arrived at this “304” figure by putting the words tyre and prophecy into my PicoSearch
engine, apparently not aware that all this does is count together all articles
that have EITHER word in them. For that Johnny wins the Abuse of Search Engine
Award. And in fact, someone else does too: Ed Babinski,
for this post on how to determine truth by search engine:
But first visit http://www.googlewar.com/
In the box labeled “Query 1” type “Edward T. Babinski”
In the box labeled “Query 2” type “J. P. Holding”
See who “wins” the current “google war” as it is
called.
Other “google wars” you can wage:
“Edward T. Babinski” versus “Theology Web”
“Secular Web” versus “Theology Web”
“Talk Origins” versus “Answers in Genesis”
“Darwin” versus “Intelligent Design”
“Darwin” versus “Creationism”
“Darwin” versus “Genesis”
“Science” versus “The Bible”
“History” versus “The Bible”
“Reason” versus “The Bible”
“History” versus “Religion”
“Atheism” versus “Theism”
“Intelligence” versus “Faith”
“Education” versus “Faith”
“Education” versus “Religion”
“Rationality” versus “Authoritarianism”
Gold also
goes to Edski’s friend, Sharon Mooney, for her Grave
Hypocrisy Award. After whining extensively on TWeb
about Christian rudeness, I searched out some of her material and found this
gem she had authored:
Merry
Bloody Christmas
As you light the candles this season,
and wrapping up those gifts,
racking up that credit card line
just remember this.
Christmas is a time of year,
supposedly representing "Forgiveness through sacrifice",
by little baby Jesus who was born,
for one purpose, and that was to DIE.
Like an animal brought to slaughter,
on that glorious Easter morn,
while you're decking your boughs with holly,
just remember little Jesus and MOURN.
We're a stupid dumb__s culture,
that celebrates a holiday,
that's founded on a human sacrifice....
so to all the pagans everywhere,
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Great, But You’re out of spitwads
“Divine
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=56663&page=1
As an
aside, I have had a standing challenge out to Dobbie
to debate for months…
Using that semicolon was, like, so rude of you
Dizzyblonde
wins the Conspiracy in Grammar Award for this comment:
You are being arrognat
and prideful and it is obvious even in your sentence structure.
And I also want you to read the thread to me at bedtime
Awards as
well to “jimbo” or Brooks Trubee,
such as this comment, which gets the Injured Mouse Finger Award:
If your "answer has been given
numerous times" then surely it would be no problem for you to simply cut and paste it here so that there would
be no question whatsoever that you did in fact provide it. However, I predict
that you will continue to claim that have answered this question "numerous
times" but that your will not actually
demonstrate that you have answered it even once by cutting and pasting it here.
Extra gold
as well for the Open Self-Contradiction Award:
You can spew insults and act as
cocky as you want, but ultimately all you are doing is wasting your life
promoting idiotic ancient myths. You just don't get it.
Neither
does Brooks, it seems.
Don’t strain
Wayne
Adkins wins the Don’t Disturb My Hayseed Award for his replies to http://www.tektonics.org/af/adkins01.html
such as this, to the detailed account of Miller on the "staff/no
staff" charge of contradiction in the Gospels:
Again, Holding asserts the Bible doesn’t mean what it says or say what it
means;
Yeah I guess I could see that considering the fact that words like
contradiction, error, and scholarly integrity don’t mean the same thing for
Holding and I.
His "answer" on how a copyist error occurred in a text:
Those dam--d copyist are at it again.
I also give this award to Patristic Saint, for his continued vain
defense of the “scholarship” of David Bercot:
http://www.tektonics.org/af/bercot01.html
And another as well to Joseph Atwill and one
of his fans, for their reply to http://www.tektonics.org/af/atwill01.html
(see it there).
and then he’ll hit me with the fluffy pillows
Farrell Till wins gold for this proposed “punishment” for me at the top
of a recent article:
James Patrick Holding is a phony
name used by ________, who began using it while he was still working as a
librarian at Lake Correctional Institute near Clermont, Florida. I have long
suspected that _____ had a dishonest motive for using this phony name, but I
won't recount now my reasons for suspecting this. Here, I just want to inform
readers that Brett Palmer used _____'s "penname" throughout the article
below, because he told me, as he also said in a footnote at the end of his
article, that he wanted to focus on the issue of the biblical record of
Imagine that. He’ll put in my real name in the only .02% of his site
that does not use it. Let’s just be glad he wasn’t doing the job at Abu Ghirab. Say, what are these guys gonna
do when I legally change my name in a couple of months, anyway?
Be careful, some of them might actually be
morons
HyperHobbes
piles on with the Conspiracy Theory Award with this question to me:
So, JP, are the rumors true that you
drove a Calvinist pastor from your church and like an Egyptian Pharoah, had all evidence of his Calvinistic tendancies stripped from the entryway of your Church? Could
the resulting guilt for this act drive you to scourge all of the Calvinistic
Ilk with your, um, wit?
And wins also for this gem:
I can't for the life of me
understand why you feel compelled to label people "morons". What if
they are?
It’s just a cigar, okay???
The Wonka Tasty Fudge Award goes to Mike Ledo
(and to Cu Mhorrigan, The Freudian Obsession Award,
for supporting it) for this tour de force of sexual exegesis:
In the story of Uriah,
David tells Uriah to go home and "wash his
feet." Jesus washes the feet of the apostles. I think that pretty well
sums it up without going into any detail. ;)
Why he completely lost his mind
John Lofuts, whom we profile at http://www.tektonics.org/lp/loftus01.html
wins a Lifetime Achievement for all he has done lately, notably a thread on TWeb titled:
"Jesus Was Not Born a
Virgin in Bethlehem".
Plus, site award for http://brotherofyeshua.com/challenge.htm
which includes these lines:
You have reached the Web Site of Yeshua/Jesus'
Brother
Though many of you call me James, my real name is Jacob
In a previous life I lived as Yeshua's Brother
And the first leader of what is now the Christian Church
Silver duh award winners
Pythagoras the Cockroach wins
another for these comments which give us new insight into both the logic of
distinction and Jewish history:
John 10:33 does not say
the Jews accused Jesus of being God /Yahweh( that's your false
interpretation , you incorrectly reading the minds of
the Jews) , only god.
The Jews would not have stoned a
madman claiming to be God, nor would they have even bothered to conduct a
conversation with a madman. There was something in Jesus's
claim which irritated them enough to take him seriously.If
Jesus had claimed to be God, they would have left him, the lunatic, alone and
pitied him, not attempted a stoning.
The Jews of Jesus's
time could not fathom God come to Earth in the form of a mortal man. It is akin
to accusing Jesus of being a mashed potato.
Unless the Jews believed in the possibility that God could be born as a mortal
man, such an accusation is nonsensical. One cannot rationally accuse somebody
of something one cannot rationally conceieve.
Because normal
people do not stone madmen, especially if that particular madman claims to be God(Yahweh),
because such a one is truly out to lunch.
A Skeptic
named “Mystman” wins the Pass the Remote Award for
the following:
Assuming that God is indeed allmighty and just, and wants as many of his Children to
follow him as possible etc.
And also assuming that the Bible is indeed 100% true, word
for word inspired by God himself. (if you're
going to use bible verses as proof of anything, the Bible better be fully
inspired by God, and not just some puny human's impression of anything)
Why didn't God make the Bible any simpler? He (being the allknowing
creature he is), would've known that the inhumanly complicated language would devide his followers, and would even turn some of his
children away from christianity all together.
Funny how a guy with such bad
spelling demands such personalized service.
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=57360&page=1
and it is also shared with an unnamed British Skeptic one of our readers
encountered on BBC discussion boards:
God was presumably trying to
communicate to all cultures, not just to one. Cultures change (as any
omniscient god with foresight would know), and a literal description is more
likely to preserve meaning than a non-literal one. Scientists such as myself tend to describe ideas literally for that very
reason; when metaphors are used (as in Richard Dawkins’ “Selfish Gene”) they
are explained at some point in the text itself. If God had an important message
to communicate to all mankind, for all times and in all languages, it would
make sense to communicate in a robust, factual and therefore literal manner and
to spell out metaphors at some point.
MichaelCadry wins the Joseph Smith Award for various revelations, such as:
I'm sorry I'm being so brief here,
but I don't know how much I can write in this forum here and also, it is easier
for the reader. The third angel visited me exactly another week later and said
"Do not follow after the beast and his image, nor receive his mark/power
in your right hand or forehead." And the angel explained to me about this Israeli psychic named Uri Geller, and that he was
doing simple miracles by using his right hand to rub on and bend silverware and
using his mind to concentrate on moving watch hands and compasses, etc. And
this man said in his book that he asked his teacher when he was younger if Jesus
could do these miracles and move the hands of watches? And the angel explained
to me that he was the antichrist and that God
was allowing Satan to have someone come in the devil's name doing miracles,
like God had allowed Jesus to come and do miracles. It is hard to explain, but
I digress again. And the angel explained to me that the Lord said in the Bible
do not believe in fortune tellers, psychics, astrologers, witches and wizards,
and do not suffer a witch to live, in the Bible. And that
this psychic was urging others to be able to acquire his powers by
concentrating and believing that they could have them. And the angel
said that God would not allow more than 666 other
persons to acquire these powers in their right hand or forehead/mind, and
that this was the number of this man, like the number of a captain and his
army, or a leader and his followers. There is much
more I know about this man, but will not include it here.
Mike had
these wise words for a preterist as well:
Wow! You are a piece of work. You are so mentally confused by the devil and demons
that it seems nothing could ever help you except a great intervention by God or
our Lord Jesus Christ. You really should listen to yourself and see what you
are asking others to believe of yourself.
When have we got that 'hail the weight of a talent??' When has
I'll tell you right now. I am a virgin with women and
am 50 years old this October. This is because it
is written, there are 144,000 redeemed from the earth. These are the firstfruits who follow the Lamb withersoever He goeth...These are
they who are not defiled by women, for they are virgins...' See
Revelation 14:4.
More from
confused Christians; here’s “David O” on Glenn Miller’s article at http://www.christian-thinktank.com/fem09.html
Glen Miller seeks to
disobey the specific and plain commandments of the Bible, and to teach you to
do the same.
Women were commanded to stay silent in church, they may prophesy and pray
audibly outside of church.
Read 1 Corinthians 14 carefully. It is not obscure,
Paul claims that those who would not acknowledge it as being from the Lord
should be allowed to remain ignorant. You are free to remain ignorant. Women's
heads should be covered when they pray. Long hair was given to them for a
covering. Ever notice how bossy short-haired women
are. Watch for it. The shorter the
hair, the bossier the woman.
(Miller): “We have already noted above that v.10 says a women should have
(exercise?) authority over her own head. ["Paul means that she should
exercise wisely her right to decide whether to cover her head in a way that
will honor her husband..." BBC:in
loc.]"
[10 For this reason, and because of the angels, the
woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.] (KJV says 'power' on her
head.)
This is a shameful reversal of the clear meaning of scripture. God is the head
of Jesus, Jesus is the head of the church, the man is the head of the woman.
The sign of authority goes on the one who is under authority. The power of the
Holy Spirit was on the heads of the apostles in the form of a flame. This stuff
is not unclear. You are just afraid to obey it.
Jesus is not the head of God. The church is not the
head of Jesus. The woman is not the head of the man.
And other
David O pearls as well:
That's why it is significant that
they only paid 30 for him. We humans short changed God. I am forcing nothing on
the scripture. I am seeking to take it seriously, and obey it. It doesn't make
sense to you because you don't want it to. You force things from scripture, that has been the big effect of modern theology,
higher criticism. It is just a feminine sort of cynicism used against the
Bible. It's an "I'm cooler because I hate more stuff than you and am
disillusioned," kind of trip. It is based on erasing scripture.
I can hate my father and mother and still honor and obey them. I can love them,
too-at the same time! So can you. The Bible doesn't contradict itself. When it
seems to, that means we are to ask for wisdom, which is a consequence of the
fear of God. The wisdom of God seems like foolishness to us until we understand
it. God likes it that way. It is the glory of God to hide a thing, the glory of
kings to reveal it.
Peter and Noah both were commanded to eat pork. I am not a Jew, so I get to eat
pork. I have a close personal relationship with pork and pork by-products.
I do not allow untrustworthy sources like 'history' to trump the Bible. I have
read reviews of performances of my band (
Tate4242
earns the Spirtualism in Poultry Award for this
comment:
This may sound kind of far fetched
perhaps....but if there is a spirit or soul in a chicken that voluntarily
comes into the body of a chicken previous to hatching....then this would make
chickens some of the most courageous creatures in the universe......voluntarily
coming into a form that is going to be treated with essentially zero respect
and kindness......Wow!!
Zipperhead
wins the High Density Calvinism Award for this comment:
Mad_Gerbil: Joshua to the people of
Zipperhead: How do you know that choice was FREE?
And in
further defense of broken Calvinist analogies:
If you don't grab the rope, will you
die? YES, so you prevent yourself from dying by grabbing the rope. you save yourself from death by grabbing the rope, Your
choice was what saved you, they just helped.
“Malcolm”
wins the Constipated Pharisee Award for these comments:
1 Cor 10:31 So whether you eat or
drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Some practical theology. A simple question, really: Does your avatar glorify God, or does it reflect the world?
On one "Christian" message board I have previously been a member of,
one of the moderators actually had a picture of
"Dr. Evil" from the Austin Powers movies as their avatar. It may seem like a small
thing, but if you think God isn't interested in the
small things, then you obviously haven't been reading your Bible properly.
3 John 1:11 Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil
but what is good.
1 John 2:16 For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust
of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father
but from the world.
James 4:4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world
is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an
enemy of God.
Gal 6:14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the
world.
So, how does your avatar glorify God?
Of course, God is holy and worthy of
ALL glory. Jesus Christ died for us, to save us from our sin. I'm sure, in the light of all that, He totally understands
you wanting to use a picture from a television show as your avatar.
Also
amusing was Malcolm’s answer to the Law of Non-contradiction:
Sounds like you've created God in
your own image and put Him in a nice logical box. No wonder you can't
comprehend anything I'm talking about.
When it was
suggested by ApologiaNick that we know 2 + 2 =4,
Malcolm said:
This is an excellent example of your
general self-centered philosophy.
An actual Christian would say, "God has determined that 2 + 2 = 4,
therefore I know it is true and fully agree with Him."
There's a big difference. And out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth
speaks.
He also
said, on Bible contradictions:
I believe they are actual
contradictions. Trying to deny that they are actual contradictions leads to all
the power being syphoned out of Scripture as one
verse or another is "explained away" according to the personal
opinion, prejudice, or intellectual wisdom of the particular human being who is
attempting to fit God into his "logical" box.
Nor do I accept in the slightest that admitting and accepting that they are
real contradictions destroys anything. Scripture can only be correctly
understood with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Anything else is mere
human wisdom and that is what destroys the power of the Word of God - and, BTW, that is why we see such a mess
of denominations and theology in the church today, and why we see
"Christianity" being represented by such "false prophets"
as Benny Hinn, Max Lucado,
Dave Ramsey, Dave Hunt, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Bruce Wilkinson, and
countless others.
Full
website award for The Universe People:
http://www.cosmic-people.com/default_e.htm
plus for
“dim.com” for various things, notably a picture of the pope shooting pink
fireballs from his eyes:
http://dim.com/~randl/tmanc.htm
“Luffy”
wins the Blatant Self-Contradiction Award with this exchange:
Luffy: In itself, it means nothing of the kind. All
that I meant by that is that people in the ancient world had every reason to
believe in God. We no longer have many of those reasons - things which once
seemed magical are now explained by our understanding of nature.
04shadesofgray:
What caused the universe?
Luffy: Unknown.
Bronze duh award winners
NTSCRIBE on TWeb
gets a Bronze for arguing for a position that baptism was required for
salvation, being referred to my article at http://www.tektonics.org/af/baptismneed.html -- and thinking
it was in agreement with his views. TWeb member Sparko adds of this chap: I also got a kick out
of him arguing that speaking is tongues is a sign of being saved, but you have to
be baptized in Jesus' name first. Then I told him about Acts 10 where Cornelius
was speaking in tongues before being baptized so he says 'well exept in that case.'
When he
finally realized that my article was contrary to his position, he quoted Bible
verses in opposition which the article itself dealt with.
Swami “Lazy
Agnostic” wins Bronze for this exercise in mind-reading:
Johnny EC: I believe that a Ten
commandments monument should be displayed in courthouses, along with a pillar
representing Hammurabi's code, they both represent
how societies need Order and Law to function and thrive.
LA: No you
don't. You think the TC are a display of piety which will make you brownie points
with God. You're not afraid of Hammurabi.
“5thRabbiNPadres”
offers the following paranoid collection revising history as we know it:
after veiwing
this thread I was
reminded that christians often ponder murdering other people who do not agree with thier religious veiws ,after all
they have been taught by jesues to murder those who
do not accept jesues as their king and master
; Luke19:27: "As for those enemies of mine ,bring them here and kill them
in front of me" The previous verse is the perfect
example of a S&S subliminal message (saturate and suggest)the earlier parable overwelms the
reader into false reasoning about meaning of
information provided . Practicioners of the dark art of subliminal advertiseing
all agree the text ofthe new
testament was written by a genius in the genre.Christians historicaly
have murdered more people in the name of their g-d than any other religion. A startleing statistic few christians
are willing to face is that 1 out of every 2 jews over the past 8 centurys has
been murdered by them . When we jews see the macabre symbol of christianity ,we
veiw it exactly as it is -the symbol of death :the
new religion of the necromancers (those who worship death)
What part of christian
history dont you understand ?pograms ? blood libels ? life sureity blackmail ? how many crusades ? a thousand years of
inquisitions ? and if the xians were not too
busy killing jews they were killing off the entirety
of Incan civilization -all of the north american indian tribes(a few survivers) untold amounts of africans(they used as slaves) polyneisians
and finaly each other (centurys
of witch trials ) Christians continuosly
are involved in countless deaths of those who disagree with them "et
al" {{postscript}}~ i may have missed a billion or so murdered souls but this is
just a general overveiw ~
they only want to learn enough to be
able to convince you into beleif in their weak
man/g-d idol -they seek to indoctrinate you into the horror of christianity -if you would agree with them that Edited by a
moderator.is
deity and messiah they will soon have you in a torquamadah
like position -Never forget their minds are full of evil thaughts (worshipping their idol) until they turn for their
wickedness they are no differant to us than Haman -the word rasha has special
meaning in this instance -what does the wicked person do to gain acceptance
?=he makes central to his essence the letter shin (The acronym on the mezuzah
for shaday ) all of the rashas
actions are hipocriticaly pretences as "Holy
Causes" that is why the father at the seder is
told -hakeh et shinav- to
unmask the rasha by removeing
his "shin" his piety that they(xians) use
to mask their evil now go from this place of evil and study TORAH !
CuMhorrigan
has another bronze for:
you are going to find that there are countelss
examples of Christian Stupidity and the fruits of it. I mean Think of what our
scientific and cultural development would be if
Charlemagne had not sacked and destroyed the Library of
Iasion
wins for starting a thread by saying:
Apologists often claim Luke was an
eye-witness to the Gospel events.
While rthearle shares the award and gets his
own Misguided Enabler’s prize for the followup:
There has been at least one claim here that all four gospels were
written by eye-witnesses.
(Can't find it - too many results when searching)
We close
with several examples of scholarship from Skeptics and such at
christianforums.com, contributed by BronzeArcher:
joebuddha
First he created us to love and
believe in him. (Not sure why)
When we don’t give him this praise he demands he damns us. (Seem kind of like
the child not getting what he wants in the store so he throws a fit)
He then tests people to make sure they do love him. (Abraham)
And to top it all off he seems quite shy, being he doesn’t just show himself.
(Everyone would believe if he made himself believable to all)
Why would god do such things if he was confident in who
he is? If god had a high self image of himself he wouldn’t need others to make himself feel good or feel the need to take out his anger on
others.
Does god have low self esteem issues? Or could he be just a reflection of our
very own human insecurities?
truthmonger89
The bible is packed full of lies. If
"greatest" means most outrageous, then no, this one is no more
outrageous than any other lie in the bible, they're all equally outrageous.
quatona
And how come it had to be a son, of
all possibilies thinkeable?
Why not, say, a brother, or ten daughters (I concede,
though, that a simple goat might not have done justice to the occasion)?
Danhalen
Why did God send Jesus to earth 2000
years ago? Back then it was much easier for people to believe in the particular
dieties of one tribe or another. So it wouldn't
really be that much of a chore to convince some Israelites that Jesus was in
fact "God on earth" (I'm not saying it was easy, but it would have
been easier than now). In our modern age of reasoning and science, we are
growing increasingly skeptical of anythng that is
(defined as) supernatural or divine. The deities of yesterday are being
replaced with actual models of reality and medicines that are proven to heal.
We can find ways to explain what was once "unexplainable". It seems
to me, that if God is so important, we could have used Jesus more now than 2000
years ago. As we are continually driven to empirical data that consistently
provides results, we find ourselves in a state of mind that we do not need to
believe in the "spiritual". God would have better served his purpose
by bringing the vessel of salvation to "we the skeptical" in this
modern day of science, rather than bringing salvation to a small outpost of
farmers and goat herders looking to fill their world with meaning.
Freodin
Why not send Jesus as son of Adam
and Eve and have him killed by Cain? Would have saved a lot of trouble, wouldn´t it?
Thinker
Like us in the modern age, the
ancients assumed that God acted according to their standards, and wrote the so
called `scripture' accordingly. This assumption runs a very real risk that the
image of God presented in `scripture' differs very greatly from the way God
actually is.
Christs message was badly
distorted by inadequate communication (writing skills of the biblical authors, and
their own extremely warped cultural understanding) right from the outset.
Among the dead sea scrolls was the `Habbakuk Commentary' - basically a copy of that biblical
book, by then several centuries old, with comments written in every few lines
by a more recent author, who was attempting to understand that biblical book in
the context of his own time and culture because the old time and culture no
longer had much meaning. CHANGE HAPPENS.
Yep. Their cultural understandings
very greatly constricted the way in which they could understand the world
around them - including somebody as remarkable as Jesus. Certain key ideas,
particularly those for which they had no concept, or ran strongly counter to
their culture, would have either been immediately distorted or suppressed. This
includes *ALL* the NT
biblical authors. Or to put it another way, would the biblical authors really
be able to make an even superficially accurate description of the computers we
are using in this debate? I expect an answer here.
Plus some
from Darth Executor, from gamefaqs.com:
Blood
Knight
The 10 commandments are just an
ethical set of rules to me. The basis behind these rules
have not been scientifically proven, not to mention some religious phenomonon have been explained through underground
research.
LinuxRocks
Actually no. Atheism isn't a religion. It is just like a moron religious person to
spout off some BS like that. Religion is the opium of the masses as Karl Marx,
Lenin, and Mao have stated. It is a tool of the bourgeois aristocracy to
control the masses. Not to mention it is false BS made up by humanity to
explain what they couldn't. It's a bunch of myths and legends.
Humanity likes a good story, that's what religion is. It has been passed down
from an age where people were moronic and didn't know ****. You know why there
are so many religions??? It's because each culture has there own way of
explaining things. No religion is more right than another, they are all wrong.
For the majority of humanity instead of thinking, they just jump to conclusions
and say it is "god". There is always a logical explanation for
everything. (Religion isn't a logical explanation.) Just because humanity
doesn't see it, or doesn't know about it, doesn't mean there isn't one.
Religion is an ignorant Earth only view. Humanity needs to look past this
pathetic planet and see that humanity doesn't matter. Humanity needs to learn
to think for themselves and not have a cult that worships a made up deity
control there lives. All that religious crap and praying and other BS is all in
the human mind's imagination.
Captin Woehrle
well i do
agree with you BUT unfortunately he and all the other religious fanatics do
have a right to their beliefs... i just cant stand
the damn people in the subways... today they were handing out "jews for jesus" and im thinking to myself... isn't that just catholic??
(The one following was a reply when Darth asked for a rebuttal to my
article at http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/whatfaithhtml
)
Bard
of DorAr
"a
full rebuttal to this article or shut up." Happy?
Seriously. Your arguement is
that Faith isn't what we as the majority of the world define
it but by what your religious canon defines it as. And we're all wrong because
your religious canon says so.
I'm infallable because I say so and because I say so
I'm infallable.
The word Ninkumpoop means To
dance joyously because I say so, since I say so it is so.
The article flies in the face of logic, reason and the dictionary. This
will always be the barrier here, Prime.
Plus some
from nathanlpaylor, from the BBC forums:
Maybe He would be a bit more
tolerant and understanding of us if He had actually had to raise a child, I don’t know of any sane parents who would damn their children for
eternity for some vague and confusing technicalities! He failed to be a useful
parent to Adam and Eve and He rejected them at their first mistake; He
failed to be a useful parent to his other biological child Jesus he was just an
absentee father. What exactly does He do for His creation apart from exist?
Jesus came to earth to die for us,
so here Satan is actually helping him by forcing Judas to betray Jesus. This
makes Satan look like part of the plot and helping Jesus since Satan could
have forced Judas not to betray Jesus and so ruin everything.
However, apart from in the gospels, the
New Testament seems to be in some doubt about the manner of Christ's death. The significant matter in these ancient myths
is the "dying and rising again" part, rather than insisting on exact details, as some popularist commentators have done, rather damaging their
argument in the process. But that there were a host of resurrection myths in
the ancient world, there can be no doubt.