What I think of this Jesus and Trinity stuff is that God is not very nice guy... And as such isn't worth worship... And as proxy the Jesus isn't either, because they are the same.
Topic: Does Anyone Else Believe In Jesus Christ ? - page 7. (Read 18105 times)
Vod refuses to discuss his beliefs while ridiculing others. Hypocrisy at it's finest.
I guess we have to add "hypocrisy" to the list of words you cultists have a unique definition for. I would be a hypocrite if I forced you to reveal your beliefs while refusing to reveal mine. Understand the difference bible boy? You are a hypocrite because you demand others follow the commandments you yourself are breaking.
I'm a scientist. I was brainwashed as a child but luckily I was intelligent enough to see the light when I turned 13 or so.
http://www.ask.com/question/how-many-people-have-died-in-religious-conflicts
809 MILLION people have died since the invention of religion.
809 MILLION people have died since the invention of religion.
Vod refuses to discuss his beliefs while ridiculing others. Hypocrisy at it's finest.
Something tells me he is the type of person that goes into weddings uninvited. Than bashes the hosts when they ask him who the hell he is...
Vod, this is a thread discussing Jesus Christ. The creator asked you to butt out. Maybe you should do the opposite of what the little devil on your left shoulder is telling you, and split.
It's obvious you came here to troll as you do in many other threads, so pack up your lunch box, it's time for your nap. You seem a little cranky.
http://www.ask.com/question/how-many-people-have-died-in-religious-conflicts
809 MILLION people have died since the invention of religion.
809 MILLION people have died since the invention of religion.
Oh, and to address your ignorance regarding the Christians and the Dark Ages (lest your ignorance continues):
http://www.quora.com/History/Did-Christianity-cause-the-Dark-Ages#
History: Did Christianity cause the Dark Ages?
Humphrey Clarke, MA in Modern History - University of St Andrews
Votes by Tim O'Neill, Pamela Dennett Grennes, Joe Geronimo Martinez, Rotaru Eugenio, and 37 more.
Did Christianity usher in the dark ages? The term ‘dark ages’ has not been defined by the questioner but it commonly refers to the cultural and economic deterioration that occurred in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. There are normally two aspects to what might be termed the ‘Christianity guilt thesis’; firstly that Christianity was a significant contributing factor to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and secondly that the new religion was hostile to classical learning and did not foster and preserve enough of it as the empire collapsed.
The first theory has an illustrious pedigree as it was promoted by Edward Gibbon in chapter 39 of his Magnus Opus ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’. Gibbon speculated that ‘the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire’. His view was that Christianity broke the ideological unity of the Empire and hindered the state’s ability to win support. Financial and human resources were diverted from vital material ends and discontent was fostered, thus undermining imperial legitimacy.
As a broad general theory Gibbon’s view has very little going for it. In the first instance, any explanation which is proffered for the fall of the Roman Empire has to contend with the fact that the eastern half of the Roman Empire remained relatively strong and stable while the western half collapsed. The Eastern half was even more Christian than the Western half and yet, not only did it not collapse, it continued as the Byzantine Empire into the 15th century.
Does Gibbon’s theory work at a lower level to show Christianity was a contributing factor? Here too it suffers from a lack of evidence. While Christianity ushered in something akin to a cultural revolution following the conversion of Constantine it is hard to see that this had a seriously deleterious effect on the empire. Christian religious institutions did require large financial resources; however these were replacing pagan religious institutions with large endowments (which were progressively confiscated). Therefore the rise of Christian organisations appears to have largely involved a religious to religious transfer of assets rather than a diversion from secular coffers.
Similarly the manpower lost to the cloister appears to have been minimal – maybe something in the region of a few thousand individuals – hardly a massive dent to the Empire’s manpower. A handful of the aristocracy gave up their wealth and power for a life of Christian devotion – a figure which is insignificant compared to the numbers that chose to serve in the imperial bureaucracy.
Did Christianity undermine the ideological unity of the Empire? No; in fact religion and the empire acted to foster unity with the Christian God cast as inspiring Roman Imperialism with a mission to conquer, convert and civilise the world. Emperors were seen as hand-picked by God, thus imbibing them with sacred status. Rejection of the Empire was only a fringe position among Christian thinkers.
Did the Christian squabbling over doctrine undermine the Empire? Again there is little evidence for this. Certainly histories of the time are dominated by theological disputes, thereby giving an impression of religious frenzy and discord. This is because the sources for this period are largely Church histories. It would be like relying on the memoirs of Fred Phleps for a history of the early 21st century United States. In fact secular minded historians like Ammianus Marcellinus barely mention doctrinal disputes. Large scale rioting occurred on a few occasions but by and large conflict was confined to the bishops.
To sum up Christianisation appears to have been effectively subsumed into the structures of the Empire and many historians argue that it acted as a stabilising influence. Gibbon’s theory has thereby been turned on its head.
What about the second theory? Did the rise of Christianity cause a malaise in intellectual culture and usher in a scientific dark age.
There was undeniably a decline in scientific knowledge in the Western Roman Empire as it and collapsed but the roots of this are deep and can be traced to the pagan Romans. After 200 BC there was a fruitful cultural contact between Greeks and the bilingual Roman upper classes. This introduced a version of the classical tradition into the Roman Empire but it was a thin popularised version which was translated into Latin. Bilingualism and the conditions which favoured scholarship then declined rapidly after AD180 as the empire entered the 3rd century crisis. The chaos of the 3rd century AD caused disruption to educational infrastructure and the division of the empire into two caused knowledge of Greek to decline in the west . Roman citizens who were gradually becoming Christian were therefore limited to pieces of the classical tradition which had been explained and summarised by Latin authors.
Intellectual culture then declined dramatically in the west due to the collapse of central control in the west under the barbarian onslaught, the decline of literacy and loss of Greek, the reduction of trade, sharp falls in population density and the sheer amount of destruction. Western Empire was overrun by illiterate Germanic and Northern barbarians from the fourth to the eleventh century utterly destroying the Imperial infrastructure. Meanwhile the richer, more complete version of the classical tradition fell into the hands of the Muslims as they rapidly expanded across Asia and the Mediterranean. It was then translated into Arabic, further developed and moved across North Africa to Spain. As soon as Western Europe had recovered sufficiently its intellectuals travelled to Spain to translate the materials and bring them into medieval culture.
But was there an anti-intellectual streak in early Christian culture which made it a haven of anti-scientific sentiment? Here the most commonly quoted example is Tertullian, who famously said 'What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?' in fiery opposition to the classical tradition. Ultimately however, this counter-cultural point of view was a minority position which lost out to those like Justin Martyr who sought common ground between classical philosophy and Christianity, and (more importantly) Augustine of Hippo. Augustine - while being ambivalent toward Greek learning - applied it vigorously to scripture in his writings and came up with the vastly influential 'handmaiden formula' whereby natural philosophy could be put to use in the interpretation of the bible (Of course we now all think that – in principle - science should be studied for its own sake, but this would have been alien to the classical world in which it was always subordinated to ethics and the wider philosophical enterprise). The handmaiden formula was employed throughout the Middle Ages to justify the investigation of nature.
Ultimately the second theory fails because Christianity is the most important framework within which late-antique culture survived. Far from intellectual dullards, Christians appear to have been very interested in Greek philosophy, science and medicine which they preserved through a laborious process of hand-copying. These include the works of Euclid, Ptolemy, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Simplicius and many more, including a staggering 15,000 pages of Greek commentary on Aristotle dating from the 2nd to 6th centuries AD. The medical works of Galen makes up a full fifth of the entire surviving classical Greek corpus – some two million words all copied out by hand and preserved over the centuries.
Of course some might argue that the Christians should have preserved more works of ancient ‘scientists’- for example the lost works of Neokles of Kroton (who argued that toads has two livers – one poisonous and one healthful – and that the moon was inhabited by the Nemean Lion). To address this I have devised a ‘Dark Ages Boot Camp’ where the critics will be forced to don a monk’s habit and hand-copy Bill Bryson’s ‘A short History of nearly everything’ onto papyrus while extras dressed as barbarians smash up their stuff.
To conclude then, the two Christianity guilt theories suffer from a lack of evidence. They persist purely due to their illustrious pedigree and the fact that people insist on making the past fit into a modern framework.
http://www.quora.com/History/Did-Christianity-cause-the-Dark-Ages#
History: Did Christianity cause the Dark Ages?
Humphrey Clarke, MA in Modern History - University of St Andrews
Votes by Tim O'Neill, Pamela Dennett Grennes, Joe Geronimo Martinez, Rotaru Eugenio, and 37 more.
Did Christianity usher in the dark ages? The term ‘dark ages’ has not been defined by the questioner but it commonly refers to the cultural and economic deterioration that occurred in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. There are normally two aspects to what might be termed the ‘Christianity guilt thesis’; firstly that Christianity was a significant contributing factor to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and secondly that the new religion was hostile to classical learning and did not foster and preserve enough of it as the empire collapsed.
The first theory has an illustrious pedigree as it was promoted by Edward Gibbon in chapter 39 of his Magnus Opus ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’. Gibbon speculated that ‘the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire’. His view was that Christianity broke the ideological unity of the Empire and hindered the state’s ability to win support. Financial and human resources were diverted from vital material ends and discontent was fostered, thus undermining imperial legitimacy.
As a broad general theory Gibbon’s view has very little going for it. In the first instance, any explanation which is proffered for the fall of the Roman Empire has to contend with the fact that the eastern half of the Roman Empire remained relatively strong and stable while the western half collapsed. The Eastern half was even more Christian than the Western half and yet, not only did it not collapse, it continued as the Byzantine Empire into the 15th century.
Does Gibbon’s theory work at a lower level to show Christianity was a contributing factor? Here too it suffers from a lack of evidence. While Christianity ushered in something akin to a cultural revolution following the conversion of Constantine it is hard to see that this had a seriously deleterious effect on the empire. Christian religious institutions did require large financial resources; however these were replacing pagan religious institutions with large endowments (which were progressively confiscated). Therefore the rise of Christian organisations appears to have largely involved a religious to religious transfer of assets rather than a diversion from secular coffers.
Similarly the manpower lost to the cloister appears to have been minimal – maybe something in the region of a few thousand individuals – hardly a massive dent to the Empire’s manpower. A handful of the aristocracy gave up their wealth and power for a life of Christian devotion – a figure which is insignificant compared to the numbers that chose to serve in the imperial bureaucracy.
Did Christianity undermine the ideological unity of the Empire? No; in fact religion and the empire acted to foster unity with the Christian God cast as inspiring Roman Imperialism with a mission to conquer, convert and civilise the world. Emperors were seen as hand-picked by God, thus imbibing them with sacred status. Rejection of the Empire was only a fringe position among Christian thinkers.
Did the Christian squabbling over doctrine undermine the Empire? Again there is little evidence for this. Certainly histories of the time are dominated by theological disputes, thereby giving an impression of religious frenzy and discord. This is because the sources for this period are largely Church histories. It would be like relying on the memoirs of Fred Phleps for a history of the early 21st century United States. In fact secular minded historians like Ammianus Marcellinus barely mention doctrinal disputes. Large scale rioting occurred on a few occasions but by and large conflict was confined to the bishops.
To sum up Christianisation appears to have been effectively subsumed into the structures of the Empire and many historians argue that it acted as a stabilising influence. Gibbon’s theory has thereby been turned on its head.
What about the second theory? Did the rise of Christianity cause a malaise in intellectual culture and usher in a scientific dark age.
There was undeniably a decline in scientific knowledge in the Western Roman Empire as it and collapsed but the roots of this are deep and can be traced to the pagan Romans. After 200 BC there was a fruitful cultural contact between Greeks and the bilingual Roman upper classes. This introduced a version of the classical tradition into the Roman Empire but it was a thin popularised version which was translated into Latin. Bilingualism and the conditions which favoured scholarship then declined rapidly after AD180 as the empire entered the 3rd century crisis. The chaos of the 3rd century AD caused disruption to educational infrastructure and the division of the empire into two caused knowledge of Greek to decline in the west . Roman citizens who were gradually becoming Christian were therefore limited to pieces of the classical tradition which had been explained and summarised by Latin authors.
Intellectual culture then declined dramatically in the west due to the collapse of central control in the west under the barbarian onslaught, the decline of literacy and loss of Greek, the reduction of trade, sharp falls in population density and the sheer amount of destruction. Western Empire was overrun by illiterate Germanic and Northern barbarians from the fourth to the eleventh century utterly destroying the Imperial infrastructure. Meanwhile the richer, more complete version of the classical tradition fell into the hands of the Muslims as they rapidly expanded across Asia and the Mediterranean. It was then translated into Arabic, further developed and moved across North Africa to Spain. As soon as Western Europe had recovered sufficiently its intellectuals travelled to Spain to translate the materials and bring them into medieval culture.
But was there an anti-intellectual streak in early Christian culture which made it a haven of anti-scientific sentiment? Here the most commonly quoted example is Tertullian, who famously said 'What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?' in fiery opposition to the classical tradition. Ultimately however, this counter-cultural point of view was a minority position which lost out to those like Justin Martyr who sought common ground between classical philosophy and Christianity, and (more importantly) Augustine of Hippo. Augustine - while being ambivalent toward Greek learning - applied it vigorously to scripture in his writings and came up with the vastly influential 'handmaiden formula' whereby natural philosophy could be put to use in the interpretation of the bible (Of course we now all think that – in principle - science should be studied for its own sake, but this would have been alien to the classical world in which it was always subordinated to ethics and the wider philosophical enterprise). The handmaiden formula was employed throughout the Middle Ages to justify the investigation of nature.
Ultimately the second theory fails because Christianity is the most important framework within which late-antique culture survived. Far from intellectual dullards, Christians appear to have been very interested in Greek philosophy, science and medicine which they preserved through a laborious process of hand-copying. These include the works of Euclid, Ptolemy, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Simplicius and many more, including a staggering 15,000 pages of Greek commentary on Aristotle dating from the 2nd to 6th centuries AD. The medical works of Galen makes up a full fifth of the entire surviving classical Greek corpus – some two million words all copied out by hand and preserved over the centuries.
Of course some might argue that the Christians should have preserved more works of ancient ‘scientists’- for example the lost works of Neokles of Kroton (who argued that toads has two livers – one poisonous and one healthful – and that the moon was inhabited by the Nemean Lion). To address this I have devised a ‘Dark Ages Boot Camp’ where the critics will be forced to don a monk’s habit and hand-copy Bill Bryson’s ‘A short History of nearly everything’ onto papyrus while extras dressed as barbarians smash up their stuff.
To conclude then, the two Christianity guilt theories suffer from a lack of evidence. They persist purely due to their illustrious pedigree and the fact that people insist on making the past fit into a modern framework.
Let's see...
Millions have been killed in the name of JC
Billions have been stolen in the name of JC
Thousands of young boys have been molested in the name of JC.
And my favorite - the dark ages (400-800AD). All scientific reasoning was blocked. If you were ahead of your time and suggested something like the earth revolved around the sun, people just like AndrewWilliams and BitChick called you a witch and burned you at the stake. If not for this religious nonsense, we would have cured cancer by now and be exploring the stars.
Not to mention the overwhelming hypocrisy. Coveting bitcoins on this very forum. Posting lies about others on this very forum. Are there any commandments that these preachers don't break themselves?
Y'all need Jesus Christ.
Clearly mankind would have been MUCH better off had he never been invented.
Wow, what an imagination you have.
LOL - go ahead and deny it bible boy. These atrocities against humanity in the name of your god are well documented.
Let's see...
Millions have been killed in the name of JC
Billions have been stolen in the name of JC
Thousands of young boys have been molested in the name of JC.
And my favorite - the dark ages (400-800AD). All scientific reasoning was blocked. If you were ahead of your time and suggested something like the earth revolved around the sun, people just like AndrewWilliams and BitChick called you a witch and burned you at the stake. If not for this religious nonsense, we would have cured cancer by now and be exploring the stars.
Not to mention the overwhelming hypocrisy. Coveting bitcoins on this very forum. Posting lies about others on this very forum. Are there any commandments that these preachers don't break themselves?
Y'all need Jesus Christ.
Clearly mankind would have been MUCH better off had he never been invented.
Wow, what an imagination you have.
"In the name of" ... funny, with that same term we can attribute it to any religious leader. Just because some nut says he is doing something "in the name of" does not mean he is part of the religion. I would ask what you think of the Muslim religion, but I think I already know the answer.
Whose coveting Bitcoin you? I certainly am not. You like to put words in people's mouths.
Maybe you should familiarize with the definition: Covet: 1. to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others.
Burning people at the stake? Sounds more like the persecution of Christians rather than the other way around. Way to twist the truth.
I wonder what your deluded selfish mind thinks about Muslim extremists burning Christian churches in Egypt?
It's people like you that love to bash other people's religions, yet never speak of their own belief systems.
It seems you (again) are the one posing lies about others on this forum.
You tongue is like a serpent's, spreading lies in every direction.
Luke 10:19. "I have give you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you."
Amen.
Wow, this thread seems like a gem for my filter,
Could anyone give me a list of the people worth not ignoring in this thread ?
I'd share my ignore list with you and maybe give a 50mBTC depending on the perceived effort.
(PM please, thx)
Might not be a good idea. People can be nuts on one subject and very useful on others. Could anyone give me a list of the people worth not ignoring in this thread ?
I'd share my ignore list with you and maybe give a 50mBTC depending on the perceived effort.
(PM please, thx)
Vod. For one thing, you have been attacking people who believe in Jesus Christ on this thread, even though I have told you many times, that I did ask for people who believe in Jesus Christ to reply to this thread.
You stand in accusation of the brethren all the day long vod.
Do you know who the holy bible says it is, that does that?
The devil, vod.
Jesus Christ died to save sinners
You Have Got To Have Faith.
You stand in accusation of the brethren all the day long vod.
Do you know who the holy bible says it is, that does that?
The devil, vod.
Jesus Christ died to save sinners
You Have Got To Have Faith.
Jesus christ was invented to control people. It works well on the feeble minded.
Vod. For one thing, you have been attacking people who believe in Jesus Christ on this thread, even though I have told you many times, that I did ask for people who believe in Jesus Christ to reply to this thread.
You stand in accusation of the brethren all the day long vod.
Do you know who the holy bible says it is, that does that?
The devil, vod.
Jesus Christ died to save sinners
You Have Got To Have Faith.
You stand in accusation of the brethren all the day long vod.
Do you know who the holy bible says it is, that does that?
The devil, vod.
Jesus Christ died to save sinners
You Have Got To Have Faith.
The problem lies therein itself, medical authorities.
Ah, so because you think the system is run poorly, you'll let millions of people continue to die?
Yep, you're a dick.
The problem lies therein itself, medical authorities.
Weed cures cancer.
Well, that makes you a dick for not telling the medical authorities.
Weed cures cancer. Jesus smoked it, but this is something that has been suppressed by leading powers.
http://phoenixtears.ca/
Yes, power craving people infiltrated religion, it does not make the basis of spirituality or god any less true. It just shows you how premature humanity still is, all the reason more to spread the word of peace, love, and unity.
http://phoenixtears.ca/
Yes, power craving people infiltrated religion, it does not make the basis of spirituality or god any less true. It just shows you how premature humanity still is, all the reason more to spread the word of peace, love, and unity.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet.
Let's see...
Millions have been killed in the name of JC
Billions have been stolen in the name of JC
Thousands of young boys have been molested in the name of JC.
And my favorite - the dark ages (400-800AD). All scientific reasoning was blocked. If you were ahead of your time and suggested something like the earth revolved around the sun, people just like AndrewWilliams and BitChick called you a witch and burned you at the stake. If not for this religious nonsense, we would have cured cancer by now and be exploring the stars.
Not to mention the overwhelming hypocrisy. Coveting bitcoins on this very forum. Posting lies about others on this very forum. Are there any commandments that these preachers don't break themselves?
Y'all need Jesus Christ.
Clearly mankind would have been MUCH better off had he never been invented.
i belev in juses crust. he sav mi
Wow, this thread seems like a gem for my filter,
Could anyone give me a list of the people worth not ignoring in this thread ?
I'd share my ignore list with you and maybe give a 50mBTC depending on the perceived effort.
(PM please, thx)
Could anyone give me a list of the people worth not ignoring in this thread ?
I'd share my ignore list with you and maybe give a 50mBTC depending on the perceived effort.
(PM please, thx)
Some times you just can't understand them...
I'm not one to ignore people, but it might be worth the effort atleast in two cases...
You all do realize that our modern day values are derived from Judeo-Christian values?
Including:
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet.
Most European and American law is based on Judeo-Christian (biblical) law.
If you feel comfortable with any of the above, well, that says alot.
Including:
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet.
Most European and American law is based on Judeo-Christian (biblical) law.
If you feel comfortable with any of the above, well, that says alot.
You know lot of people have done very well those laws under those laws, murdering thousands or millions... They are the most obvious things around, but some how the most vocal believers don't even follow them...
And what about rest of the values? And the rules? Should those be also followed?
Hard to understand what you are trying to say.
If your point is millions of people have been murdered anyways, then it seems you have an issue with the "Why would God let that happen" question.
The Bible talks about people who pretend to be Christians and really aren't; this type of thing effects all religions. It's up to the individual to follow a religion or just pay lip service.
Actually, the very concepts of atheism as expressed in this thread were engendered within and could only be expressed and fit within a Judeo-Christian cultural background.
I don't even know what that means. Or what it is you are trying to say.
..... it's pretty sad how people think it's trendy to put down Jesus Christ and Christianity.
You all do realize that our modern day values are derived from Judeo-Christian values?
....
Most European and American law is based on Judeo-Christian (biblical) law.
If you feel comfortable with any of the above, well, that says alot.
....
Actually, the very concepts of atheism as expressed in this thread were engendered within and could only be expressed and fit within a Judeo-Christian cultural background. You all do realize that our modern day values are derived from Judeo-Christian values?
....
Most European and American law is based on Judeo-Christian (biblical) law.
If you feel comfortable with any of the above, well, that says alot.
....
Wow, this thread seems like a gem for my filter,
Could anyone give me a list of the people worth not ignoring in this thread ?
I'd share my ignore list with you and maybe give a 50mBTC depending on the perceived effort.
(PM please, thx)
Could anyone give me a list of the people worth not ignoring in this thread ?
I'd share my ignore list with you and maybe give a 50mBTC depending on the perceived effort.
(PM please, thx)
Some times you just can't understand them...
I'm not one to ignore people, but it might be worth the effort atleast in two cases...
You all do realize that our modern day values are derived from Judeo-Christian values?
Including:
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet.
Most European and American law is based on Judeo-Christian (biblical) law.
If you feel comfortable with any of the above, well, that says alot.
Including:
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet.
Most European and American law is based on Judeo-Christian (biblical) law.
If you feel comfortable with any of the above, well, that says alot.
You know lot of people have done very well those laws under those laws, murdering thousands or millions... They are the most obvious things around, but some how the most vocal believers don't even follow them...
And what about rest of the values? And the rules? Should those be also followed?
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