If And When Those Preachers Get Control

Mark my word; if and when those preachers get control of the (Republican) party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem.  Frankly those people frighten me.  Politics and governing demand compromise.  But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise.  I know. I’ve tried to deal with them.
……………..

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)

Advertisement

Atheism In The 1700’s

 ABSTRACT OF THE TESTAMENT OF JOHN MESLIER

By Voltaire

Excerpted from a longer volume

In regard to the Lord’s Supper, the first three Evangelists note that Jesus Christ instituted the Sacrament of His body and His blood, in the form of bread and wine, the same as our Roman Christ-worshipers say; and John does not mention this mysterious sacrament. John says that after this supper, Jesus washed His apostles’ feet, and commanded them to do the same thing to each other, and relates a long discourse which He delivered then. But the other Evangelists do not speak of the washing of the feet, nor of the long discourse He gave them then.

On the contrary, they testify that immediately after this supper, He went with His apostles upon the Mount of Olives, where He gave up His Spirit to sadness, and was in anguish while His apostles slept, at a short distance. They contradict each other upon the day on which they say the Lord’s Supper took place; because on one side, they note that it took place Easter-eve, that is, the evening of the first day of Azymes, or of the feast of unleavened bread; as it is noted (1) in Exodus, (2) in Leviticus, and (3) in Numbers; and, on the other hand, they say that He was crucified the day following the Lord’s Supper, about midday after the Jews had His trial during the whole night and morning.

Now, according to what they say, the day after this supper took place, ought not to be Easter-eve. Therefore, if He died on the eve of Easter, toward midday, it was not on the eve of this feast that this supper took place. There is consequently a manifest error.

They contradict each other, also, in regard to the women who followed Jesus from Galilee, for the first three Evangelists say that these women, and those who knew Him, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary, mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s children, were looking on at a distance when He was hanged and nailed upon the cross. John says, on the contrary, that the mother of Jesus and His mother’s sister, and Mary Magdalene were standing near His cross with John, His apostle. The contradiction is manifest, for, if these women and this disciple were near Him, they were not at a distance, as the others say they were.

They contradict each other upon the pretended apparitions which they relate that Jesus made after His pretended resurrection; for Matthew speaks of but two apparitions: the one when He appeared to Mary Magdalene and to another woman, also named Mary, and when He appeared to His eleven disciples who had returned to Galilee upon the mountain where He had appointed to meet them.

Mark speaks of three apparitions: The first, when He appeared to Mary Magdalene; the second, when He appeared to His two disciples, who went to Emmaus; and the third, when He appeared to His eleven disciples, whom He reproaches for their incredulity.

Luke speaks of but two apparitions the same as Matthew; and John the Evangelist speaks of four apparitions, and adds to Mark’s three, the one which He made to seven or eight of His disciples who were fishing upon the shores of the Tiberian Sea.

They contradict each other, also, in regard to the place of these apparitions; for Matthew says that it was in Galilee, upon a mountain; Mark says that it was when they were at table; Luke says that He brought them out of Jerusalem as far as Bethany, where He left them by rising to Heaven; and John says that it was in the city of Jerusalem, in a house of which they had closed the doors, and another time upon the borders of the Tiberian Sea.

Thus is much contradiction in the report of these pretended apparitions. They contradict each other in regard to His pretended ascension to heaven; for Luke and Mark say positively that He went to heaven in presence of the eleven apostles, but neither Matthew nor John mentions at all this pretended ascension. More than this, Matthew testifies sufficiently that He did not ascend to heaven; for he said positively that Jesus Christ assured His apostles that He would be and remain always with them until the end of the world.

“Go ye,” He said to them, in this pretended apparition, “and teach all nations, and be assured that I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Luke contradicts himself upon the subject; for in his Gospel he says that it was in Bethany where He ascended to heaven in the presence of His apostles, and in his Acts of the Apostles (supposing him to have been the author) he says that it was upon the Mount of Olives.

He contradicts himself again about this ascension; for he notes in his Gospel that it was the very day of His resurrection, or the first night following, that He ascended to heaven; and in the Acts of the Apostles he says that it was forty days after His resurrection; this certainly does not correspond.

If all the apostles had really seen their Master gloriously rise to heaven, how could it be possible that Matthew and John, who would have seen it as well as the others, passed in silence such a glorious mystery, and which was so advantageous to their Master, considering that they relate many other circumstances of His life and of His actions which are much less important than this one?

How is it that Matthew does not mention this ascension? And why does Christ not explain   clearly how He would live with them always, although He left them visibly to ascend to heaven? It is not easy to comprehend by what secret He could live with those whom He left.

I pass in silence many other contradictions; what I have said is sufficient to show that these books are not of Divine Inspiration, nor even of human wisdom, and, consequently, do not deserve that we should put any faith in them.   JEAN MESLIER

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org

This piece was reformatted. Words are in the same order, none are added or subtracted, but paragraphs were changed for easier reading on-screen.

Chaos And The Rapture May 21st.

Well, its around 8:00 pm Friday night and I’m ensconced in my air-tight, water-tight bunker, checking on my survival supples and firearms, with the radios tuned to the emergency channels. I’m fully prepared for the coming rapture tomorrow May, 21st., 2011 I suspect that the visions of a few million people floating up to heaven will totally freak out most people who witness it from the ground (knowing that they aren’t going to heaven) and they will go berserk and chaos will prevail…thus beginning the end of civilization as we know it.

🙂 Just kidding; I’m actually relaxing with a tall cold one in my favorite chair and contemplating tomorrow and all the cacophonous and raucous laughter that I will direct at the people who believe this kind of Sh*t. With all that has been disproven about religion there are still idiots that think there is a God looking down on us with disapproval, and chomping at the bit to start the killing. Is it just Christians, or are other religious sects aching for the end of life on earth…I sure hope not

You know, if you are an atheist you don’t have to bother with this kind of crap. 🙂

He says…”Starting in the Pacific Rim at around the 6 p.m. local time hour, in each time zone, there will be a great earthquake, such as has never been in the history of the Earth,” Party starts at 7:00 pm

UPDATE: It’s past 6pm Saturday in some parts of the world now and there have been NO reports of gigantic earthquakes anywhere on earth
.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!
.

.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Infidels and Skeptics

Quote of the day

“For the civil authority to pretend to establish particular modes of faith and forms of worship, and to punish all that deviate from the standards which our superiors have set up, is attended with the most pernicious consequences to society. It cramps all free and rational inquiry, fills the world with hypocrites and superstitious bigots–nay, with infidels and skeptics; it exposes men of religion and conscience to the rage and malice of fiery, blind zealots, and dissolves every tender tie of human nature. And I cannot but look upon it as a peculiar blessing of Heaven that we live in a land where everyone can freely deliver his sentiments upon religious subjects, and have the privilege of worshipping God according to the dictates of his own conscience, without any molestation or disturbance–a privilege which I hope we shall ever keep up and strenuously maintain.”– Samuel West, 1776

see more Political Pictures

Is There a Heaven

Quote of the Day

“Heaven is constantly shifting shape because it is a history of subconscious human longings. Show me your heaven, and I’ll show you what’s lacking in your life. The desert-dwellers who wrote the Bible and the Koran lived in thirst – so their heavens were forever running with rivers and fountains and springs. African-American slaves believed they were headed for a heaven where “the first would be last, and the last would be first” – so they would be the free men dominating white slaves. Today’s Islamist suicide-bombers live in a society starved of sex, so their heaven is a 72-virgin gang-bang…”  Lisa Miller,  Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife

see more Political Pictures

God bless atheism Pat Condell

Do you Believe in a Trinity?

It seems all of the evidence for a trinity in the Bible…is man’s interpretation, as the Bible does not state this in certain, terms. It is not established beyond doubt or question. Well some sect’s believe they have, but they haven’t.

However, in the matter of the Son/Jesus being a separate entity of the God/Father, the Bible is perfectly clear. It minces no words and flat-out says, many times, that Jesus is the SON of God. Occam’s razor needs to be applied here. Stop going through all of the theological nonsense and read the words that ARE there, not what someone is interpolating = “Insert words into texts, often falsifying it thereby”

Mat 3:17 and lo a voice from heaven, saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Mat 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Mat 27:43 He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

John 3:35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.

1 John 4:9 Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.

John 5:18 On this account, indeed, the Jews began seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath but he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God.

John 5:19 Therefore, in answer, Jesus went on to say to them: “Most truly I say to YOU, The Son cannot do a single thing of his own initiative, but only what he beholds the Father doing. For whatever things that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner.

John 5:20 For the Father has affection for the Son and shows him all the things he himself does, and he will show him works greater than these, in order that YOU may marvel.

John 5:21 For just as the Father raises the dead up and makes them alive, so the Son also makes those alive whom he wants to.

John 5:22 For the Father judges no one at all, but he has committed all the judging to the Son

John 5:23 in order that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He that does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

John 5:25 Most truly I say to YOU, The hour is coming, and it is now, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who have given heed will live.

John 5:26 for just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted also to the Son to have life in himself.

John 5:30 I cannot do a single thing of my own initiative; just as I hear, I judge; and the judgment that I render is righteous, because I seek, not my own will, but the will of him that sent me.

John 8:42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

John 8:58 “…. (Jesus) Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” Jesus meant he existed in heaven with the Father before Abraham was born.

John 16:28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.

John 17:1 These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

2 John 1:9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.

Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

Proverbs 30:4 Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?

When Christians pray, they pray to the Father in the name of Jesus, by the grace of the son, while acknowledging that the Father is God.

Everyday Christian prayer evidences that there is no Trinity.

Answer to Life

Hi Mathew Paul,

I’m going to answer your reply in a column instead of in the leave-a-reply section because I need to blow off steam. Nothing personal, have just heard all of these platitudes before, and never really answered fully. I hope you don’t mind.

You wrote: I submit that the earth as created by God was an ideal place to live in with every blessing in it.

I submit to you…that when the earth came into being that it was (and still is, mostly) a beautiful place…but also deadly. The earth harbors deadly diseases, deadly animals, and is a cruel environment for puny humans. Man/woman have fought, for a million years (out of over 4 billion) or more, to establish their control of the environment they live in. In all those years we endured unbelievable suffering. For hundreds of thousands of years, 50% or more of our children died before they were 2 years old. People that made it to adulthood probably only lived into their 30’s, or 40’s. Near starvation was probably the norm for humans up to, probably the 1600 to 1700’s.

The earth has in its lifetime supported well over 40 billion souls, and it’s only recently that there has been some security in people’s life. This, of course, does not count Africa, which is probably a lost continent.

Where was God when the Neanderthals were fighting to live on a European continent that was largely covered with ice, 75,000 years ago? Where was God when our ancestors were barely surviving by hunting and scavenging in the African veldt, over 100,000 years ago? All of the DNA evidence, both mitochondrial, and Ychromosomal, points to Africa as humanities original home.

The fact that humans and Neanderthals have inhabited this earth for hundreds of thousands of years is not even remotely questioned in the scientific community. It is accepted fact. All, and I repeat, All, of the available physical, natural evidence on this earth supports this fact. The fundamentalist and evangelical religions, mostly in the US, are the most numerous doubters of these facts, but it doesn’t really matter…they are true facts nonetheless.

I will repeat something I think I spoke of elsewhere on this blog. As our society and science advances on this earth, religion is more and more being disproved. God is only left in the gaps, and those gaps are quickly being filled with natural facts.

You wrote: I submit that man chose to obey the enemy (rather?) than God and the present world is the result of the same.
Also: I submit that the world is under the power of the Evil One and all the sickness and mysery that we see all around are his making.

I submit to you…the world we live in has…always…had both good and bad people. There are millions or billions of people alive today, that are every bit as good and loving as are a lot of Christians, and they believe in no God, or Buddha, or any of the Brahmin Gods, or a thousand and one others. Believing in a “God” does not guarantee goodness. Witness the Catholic priest scandal of recent times…and I’ll bet you it’s gone on for 2000 years, and all over the Christian world. I have some limited personal experience with people high in the Protestant community, that is not good, and not Christian. As to the “enemy” all I know is that I do not obey any “Devil or Satan.” Any misdeeds I do are strictly my own responsibility, and I KNOW that. The “devil does not make me do it.”

I’m reminded of (are you in the US?) the recently defrocked preacher in Colorado who preached on and on about the evil of homosexuality, all the while having a homosexual relationship with a male prostitute. “The devil took hold of me.” He says. “No, lust took hold of you.” I said. We are a society that tries to shift any responsibility for our wrong actions to others. The Devil or Satan is one of those “others.”

You wrote: I submit that God in Christ came as a man and redeemed the world and the process of redemption is going on now as people choose to believe God in Christ over against the devil.

I also submit that the myseries of sin will soon come to an end and a king will rule in righteousness and peace on this earth soon.

I submit to you that Paul invented that myth of original sin, and the early Catholic priesthood invented the “trinity.” Why does God say in one breath: the son inherits the sins of the father.” 2SA: 1,19 and IS 14: 21-22, and EX 20:5 and in another; the son does not inherent the sins of the father. DE 24:16, and EZ 18:20. Why does Jesus reference his Father in Heaven, and say that only the Father knows the time of the end. MT 10:32,33 and MT 7:21 and MT 24:36.

You said: Now I wish you would give me an explanation of the existence of the earth and mankind and their present predicament. Is it going to continue endlessly without a hope or what is to be expected for the future? Please give me in black and white as to what you believe about the given issues and your reasons for doing so. I will truly appreciate your reply and jokes apart, if you give me a better expanation than what I hold which can show practical results as I produced in my life, I will whole=heartedly accept your position. Waiting earnestly for your immediate reply. Thanks in advance!

I…don’t know the explanation of the existence of us…and I wish I had the answer to the predicament of man/woman kind. But, I also do not give up reasonable, logical thought processes and submit my brain to a magical creature of myth.

My own prediction for the future is: Who knows? I suspect that man will continue to strive on. There will probably be a revolution or two in the western world, millions more will die and be born. The wealthy and the politicians of the world will continue to F__k over the rest of us. Life will go on, as it has for over a million years. Whether the world/earth will continue to be healthy for life, is up in the air, but will probably continue to deteriorate; as it always has.

What you are doing in your life is obviously working for you. Why would I want to change that for you? I have a hard enough time being responsible and caring for my own wonderful family.

No, you continue to do what gives you joy, and occasionally we will chat and gently berate each other’s lifestyle or beliefs. Peace out to you.