By Carls S ~
There's another term for "intelligent design" - "Not Paying
Attention." Home schooling is the last-ditch effort to keep kids from
finding out how Nature really works. Huge blinders are required and
denial is indoctrinated. Talk about failure to evolve and adapt!
The ligne is still used by French and Swiss wa...
The ligne is still used by French and Swiss watchmakers (Photo credit:
Wikipedia)
Darwin first started thinking about evolution by noting how breeders
and plant hybridizers selected for certain traits, with results such
as beefier cattle, faster race horses, splendid flowers, larger,
tastier fruits, etc.
Humans design for purposes, but evolution is not itself designed.
Natural selection is a hit-and-miss system, with a lot of misses
strewn all along the trips, and what's left is just practical enough
to get by. Adapt or perish is usually the prime criteria. There's no
designer designing nature. And what's the "purpose" of a black widow
spider, a 17 year locust, newly-discovered crabs deep in the ocean at
poisonous vents, planet quakes on nearby planets, billions of stars?
"Choice" is not a word you would use to describe their existence.
"Chaos" would be more realistic, honest.
During the few years my brothers and I spent in parochial school, we
were taught that, "God created us, and each of us had a purpose"
(outside of the obvious eventual purpose to be with him in heaven).
"Guidance" through the school years consisted in telling us how, as
individuals, just what directions God was guiding us in making choices
according to his wishes. In other words, "God has a plan for you,"
because after all, you were specifically designed to follow that plan,
that intelligently designed purpose for us, one and all. Surely, this
is a very "romantic" and reassuring way to answer life's multiple
questions and demands - one size fits all? (Don't laugh; millions
ascribe to this.) This "explanation" is itself a construct of
imaginations, except that it is by nature, incompatible with nature,
which couldn't care less what you believe, and goes on doing what it
does; you work with it. Nature has no intelligent purpose, and we are
ALL of nature, made up of all the elements of the universe, subject to
change, circumstances, bodily limits, limitations on what we can
change for our purposes. We, too, design, procreate, make tools, and
survive through adaptation and thinking, just like most organisms. If
we didn't, we wouldn't last.
The fossil record shows us that all previous species on this earth
ultimately failed. My father made a very good living adapting and
designing large scale equipment for earth-moving equipment. If he had
a similar 99+% failure rate, his family would have starved to death;
i.e., he would have been an "Intelligent Designer." If you could
compare the corn Columbus found, eaten by native Americans, with the
corn you eat today, you would see and taste the results of manipulated
hybridization, and it becomes obvious that there is no designer behind
it doing it 'right' in the first place. As that farmer being told to
"thank God" for his abundant crops said, "You should have seen it when
God ran the place alone." The very process of human tampering is
necessary to make food more fruitful, tasty, abundant - evidence of
it's inadequacy in the first place.
So, wait just a damned minute, before you go any further. Whatever
your purpose in giving MY life a purpose is, I'm skeptical. Like a
non-trusting Pinocchio, I'm not entering your Pleasureland, lest I
become a beast of burden ass, a trained slave to no purposes than
those of others. And no one else should, either. Nature and my nature
don't work that way. Are we not the designers of our own mental lives?
Sunday, 10 June 2012
Hey God, I am OK
By Dano ~
Every now and then I find myself wondering if there really is a way to
communicate with whatever force that caused us to exist. The thought
that I just might accidentally stumble upon a way to ask our creator
for favors, and get answers is a reoccurring, futile mental exercise,
that I delve into on occasion. The simple answer, to which, I suspect,
has always been right in front of me all along.
Big Bang!!!
Big Bang!!! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Perhaps we are already in communication, by default with whatever
pulled the trigger for the 'Big Bang'. Maybe in that millisecond of
pure energy explosion, we became a part of whatever is, was, or ever
will be. We were preordained to evolve from slime on some prehistoric
beach, and be made of the stuff of the universe.
I keep thinking that life has been difficult for some time now and I
sure would like to hit the god lottery. I've thought and thought about
it, and even looked at the writings of those who claim to speak to the
guy who made us, but to no avail. None of them appear sane enough to
me that I would want to emulate their success. Maybe it's just that
they are so entwined in the bliss that they claim has been bestowed
upon them by the big guy in the sky, that they are willing to forsake
all rational and critical thought, and just want to wallow in the
splendor of their success.
I'm sure you know a few folks who will tell you that their faith in,
say, Bible God and Jesus, is all that matters to them. I am sure that
if I had to become as gullible as a child, as the bible recommends in
several verses of that "GOOD BOOK", and had to give up the cherished
skepticism that has served me so well these many years, that I not
only would become poor in material wealth, but my mind would
degenerate into the same disconnected, circular, credulous way
thinking that I see in all Jesus freaks and bible-thumpers. No I just
instinctively , and logically feel that whatever god is, It is above
all else, by necessity, rational.
God in my humble opinion, certainly wouldn't look like, act, or
demonstrate any of the qualities of a human male. (Maybe a female)
Humans kill each other for frivolous reasons, are jealous,
narcissistic, vain, greedy and need to be loved -- qualities that a
god would have no need to possess. The fictional "Bible-god" has all
of these deficits and more.
I'm not the first person to hope that I will be rewarded somehow for
remaining true to the belief that everything is as it should be, and
that any force powerful enough to explode everything from that
infinitesimally small speck of matter with the potential of becoming
our universe, wants no part of our attempts to trivialize our
beginning with the self relevant, pathetic, magical, mystical,
cartoonish concepts of the Bible, and its anthropomorphic, very
flawed, main character.
I'm sorry to report at this writing that life is still a mystery to
me, and the older I get, not having a clue as to what or why "It" put
us here, is starting to somehow be OK with me.
Every now and then I find myself wondering if there really is a way to
communicate with whatever force that caused us to exist. The thought
that I just might accidentally stumble upon a way to ask our creator
for favors, and get answers is a reoccurring, futile mental exercise,
that I delve into on occasion. The simple answer, to which, I suspect,
has always been right in front of me all along.
Big Bang!!!
Big Bang!!! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Perhaps we are already in communication, by default with whatever
pulled the trigger for the 'Big Bang'. Maybe in that millisecond of
pure energy explosion, we became a part of whatever is, was, or ever
will be. We were preordained to evolve from slime on some prehistoric
beach, and be made of the stuff of the universe.
I keep thinking that life has been difficult for some time now and I
sure would like to hit the god lottery. I've thought and thought about
it, and even looked at the writings of those who claim to speak to the
guy who made us, but to no avail. None of them appear sane enough to
me that I would want to emulate their success. Maybe it's just that
they are so entwined in the bliss that they claim has been bestowed
upon them by the big guy in the sky, that they are willing to forsake
all rational and critical thought, and just want to wallow in the
splendor of their success.
I'm sure you know a few folks who will tell you that their faith in,
say, Bible God and Jesus, is all that matters to them. I am sure that
if I had to become as gullible as a child, as the bible recommends in
several verses of that "GOOD BOOK", and had to give up the cherished
skepticism that has served me so well these many years, that I not
only would become poor in material wealth, but my mind would
degenerate into the same disconnected, circular, credulous way
thinking that I see in all Jesus freaks and bible-thumpers. No I just
instinctively , and logically feel that whatever god is, It is above
all else, by necessity, rational.
God in my humble opinion, certainly wouldn't look like, act, or
demonstrate any of the qualities of a human male. (Maybe a female)
Humans kill each other for frivolous reasons, are jealous,
narcissistic, vain, greedy and need to be loved -- qualities that a
god would have no need to possess. The fictional "Bible-god" has all
of these deficits and more.
I'm not the first person to hope that I will be rewarded somehow for
remaining true to the belief that everything is as it should be, and
that any force powerful enough to explode everything from that
infinitesimally small speck of matter with the potential of becoming
our universe, wants no part of our attempts to trivialize our
beginning with the self relevant, pathetic, magical, mystical,
cartoonish concepts of the Bible, and its anthropomorphic, very
flawed, main character.
I'm sorry to report at this writing that life is still a mystery to
me, and the older I get, not having a clue as to what or why "It" put
us here, is starting to somehow be OK with me.
conversion from Christian to a healthy person
By Joseph
My story of my conversion from Christian to Critical Thinker:
This will not be a list of the contradictions that show the
reasonability of my unbelief, but more of a personal background and
narrative.
I, like many, was raised in "christian home". Religious activity was a
formative part of our family life, going to church/youth
group/lock-ins etc. We prayed before meals and before bed time.
I converted to Christianity at the age of 15. I was part of a youth
group that had a annual meeting every year called Ascension
Convention.
This is was the solidifying follow up to a conversion experience that
preyed on my fatherless home trauma. In this meeting I was shown how
to be drunk in the holy spirit. which I know now I faked, but this is
the beginning of the damage.
The modern church, with their emphasis on entertainment and fun, is
only there to sweeten the tart cautionary tale of the gospel. Believe
or suffer.
(the medieval church wasn't entertaining teens, they were scaring them
half to death by oppressing secular ideas and threatening actions)
My oh my how the modern church has evolved.
I was totally apart, my entire basis of friends and community was not
based on what we liked to do or similar interests but instead all
interaction
was predicated on the union of belief. We believed first and then
interacted. Now, I had a lot of fun and lived a relatively un
controversial life.
Except for an average amount of friction with my mom about regular
teenage things I had good relationships.
I continued my growth in the faith by becoming a veracious reader of
Christian apologetics. I always wanted to sharpen my understanding so
I could answer the objections non christians would bring up. Even then
I was probably seeking solace in the mental gymnastics of Christian
apologetics to help seal the work I wanted so badly to be complete and
absolute. It was neither, and it would never be sealed.
I went to Europe to complete a course in biblical studies, I was asked
to leave because I objected to the manipulation i saw in the
teachings.
I had traveled a bit before and maybe wasn't so enthralled by being
away from home and just "wanting to be apart" like a lot of the
others.
One teaching was when they asked the students link arms around a
wooden cross and the teachers would pretend to be demons trying to
break through. It was hardly aggressive but certainly misleading. I
was a christian then and objected based on the inconsistent metaphor.
Traditional christian teachings would realize that a believer has no
capacity to protect jesus as well as no capacity to "save" another
person.
How powerful is this god who needs us to rally together to protect him anyways?
Fast forward over the last 8 years and I spent time touring, going to
school, working and trying to figure out my path. I thought of myself
as
a christian but was nothing like the image i had in my mind as a 15
year old. I got married, had a beautiful baby boy who is now 2.5. I
love my son.
I was in counseling for the past 2 years with a christian counselor
but she didn't really talk about faith much.
My wife and I had stopped going to church, because we were generally
perplexed by the whole thing and didn't really fit.
One day in a counseling session I had a breakthrough... I was
frustrated by lack of power of my faith to change me,
to make me into the man I wanted to be. I was thinking about the
scriptures telling me that "if you love me, you'll obey me",
I knew then I didn't love god. I contrasted then the care and love and
powerful connection I have to my son to this god I had served with so
many of my years.. or tried.
Nothing really to compare there. I saw like a flash all the
sensational moments I had claimed god at work in and found them full
of my own self deception.
The spell is broken:
i lack a belief in god or any gods. This process has been wonderful
really, I have enjoyed the rediscovery of the world with much
gratitude.
I have experienced the impact of responsibility that I formally put on
a ghost but now gladly work harder for the life I want with more
optimism and joy than ever before.
My hope is that more people with think through the contradictions of
religious belief and object without fear to the inconsistency and
reclaim our responsibility and our humanity.
Thanks for reading!
Joseph
My story of my conversion from Christian to Critical Thinker:
This will not be a list of the contradictions that show the
reasonability of my unbelief, but more of a personal background and
narrative.
I, like many, was raised in "christian home". Religious activity was a
formative part of our family life, going to church/youth
group/lock-ins etc. We prayed before meals and before bed time.
I converted to Christianity at the age of 15. I was part of a youth
group that had a annual meeting every year called Ascension
Convention.
This is was the solidifying follow up to a conversion experience that
preyed on my fatherless home trauma. In this meeting I was shown how
to be drunk in the holy spirit. which I know now I faked, but this is
the beginning of the damage.
The modern church, with their emphasis on entertainment and fun, is
only there to sweeten the tart cautionary tale of the gospel. Believe
or suffer.
(the medieval church wasn't entertaining teens, they were scaring them
half to death by oppressing secular ideas and threatening actions)
My oh my how the modern church has evolved.
I was totally apart, my entire basis of friends and community was not
based on what we liked to do or similar interests but instead all
interaction
was predicated on the union of belief. We believed first and then
interacted. Now, I had a lot of fun and lived a relatively un
controversial life.
Except for an average amount of friction with my mom about regular
teenage things I had good relationships.
I continued my growth in the faith by becoming a veracious reader of
Christian apologetics. I always wanted to sharpen my understanding so
I could answer the objections non christians would bring up. Even then
I was probably seeking solace in the mental gymnastics of Christian
apologetics to help seal the work I wanted so badly to be complete and
absolute. It was neither, and it would never be sealed.
I went to Europe to complete a course in biblical studies, I was asked
to leave because I objected to the manipulation i saw in the
teachings.
I had traveled a bit before and maybe wasn't so enthralled by being
away from home and just "wanting to be apart" like a lot of the
others.
One teaching was when they asked the students link arms around a
wooden cross and the teachers would pretend to be demons trying to
break through. It was hardly aggressive but certainly misleading. I
was a christian then and objected based on the inconsistent metaphor.
Traditional christian teachings would realize that a believer has no
capacity to protect jesus as well as no capacity to "save" another
person.
How powerful is this god who needs us to rally together to protect him anyways?
Fast forward over the last 8 years and I spent time touring, going to
school, working and trying to figure out my path. I thought of myself
as
a christian but was nothing like the image i had in my mind as a 15
year old. I got married, had a beautiful baby boy who is now 2.5. I
love my son.
I was in counseling for the past 2 years with a christian counselor
but she didn't really talk about faith much.
My wife and I had stopped going to church, because we were generally
perplexed by the whole thing and didn't really fit.
One day in a counseling session I had a breakthrough... I was
frustrated by lack of power of my faith to change me,
to make me into the man I wanted to be. I was thinking about the
scriptures telling me that "if you love me, you'll obey me",
I knew then I didn't love god. I contrasted then the care and love and
powerful connection I have to my son to this god I had served with so
many of my years.. or tried.
Nothing really to compare there. I saw like a flash all the
sensational moments I had claimed god at work in and found them full
of my own self deception.
The spell is broken:
i lack a belief in god or any gods. This process has been wonderful
really, I have enjoyed the rediscovery of the world with much
gratitude.
I have experienced the impact of responsibility that I formally put on
a ghost but now gladly work harder for the life I want with more
optimism and joy than ever before.
My hope is that more people with think through the contradictions of
religious belief and object without fear to the inconsistency and
reclaim our responsibility and our humanity.
Thanks for reading!
Joseph
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
testimony of a former UCC
By Zaphod
I've been posting sporadically here on Ex-C for months, so I thought
I'd finally make a formal introduction. Like so many before me, I have
written a very long story of my loss of faith. I grew up in the Church
of Christ denomination (aka the "churches of Christ.") What mainly
sets this denomination apart from others is a lack of instrumental
music in the worship services and the belief that willful baptism by
immersion is an essential step in salvation. That last bit was
particularly awkward as a kid since it implied that even the
overwhelming majority of even my church-going friends were not saved.
When my mother referred to someone as a "Christian" or as a "member of
the church," I knew she meant someone who attended a Church of Christ.
The other denominations didn't count as "Christians." I think they're
loosening up a bit on that last point, but it was how we were raised.
I didn't question Christianity a whole lot as a kid. I was baptized at
age 11 because I didn't want to go to hell. Any doubts I may have had
were usually confined to questioning the peculiarities of our
particular branch of Christianity. I do remember one Wednesday night
service when I'd been asked to give that night's lesson, as the
baptized youth were occasionally invited to do, I stood in front of
those people and told them of a recent struggle I'd had with my faith,
but I'd decided that God must exist because Jesus had said, "In my
father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told
you," and I trusted Jesus. (It made sense at the time.) I also
specifically remember telling these people that I'd also decided to
accept the Gospel for my own sanity -- I just couldn't handle the idea
of a world without God. One little old lady came up and told me how
much she'd enjoyed my lesson, but I remember feeling surprised because
I really didn't think I'd done a very good job of justifying my faith.
That was about the extent of my questioning of my faith in general. I
always hated talking about baptism and musical instruments with my
friends. These issues made my church "weird" compared to the others.
(For those interested, baptism was required because of the way we read
Acts 2:38, and musical instruments were not used because there was no
biblical record of their use in worship in the first-century church.)
I took my faith seriously in my youth. I moved away for college and
joined up with the student group at the biggest Church of Christ in
town. My entire social life revolved around church. Didn't hang out
with classmates, and even had little interaction with guys in my dorm.
The summers of my freshman and sophomore years I went on mission trips
to Ukraine to bring Jesus to the former communists, and to finally put
my foreign language skills to use. I ended up flunking out of college
my junior year just because I've taken longer than most people to grow
up, but I got a local job and stayed in that college town.
Shortly after flunking out, I talked a young teen into being baptized.
I took that event as a sign from God and decided I would become a
missionary. Our church there ran a missionary training program that
consisted of one semester of full-time bible study followed by an
18-month apprenticeship overseas. It was during this bible study that
I really came to realize that the bible was not literally true. I
remember the specific incident. We were doing a comparative study of
the gospels, and I saw something that I had never noticed before. It
was one of those things that make you ask, "How is it possible that
I've never noticed this?" It was the story of Jesus going ape-shit in
the temple and wrecking the money-changers' tables. There's a HUGE
discrepancy between the way John tells the story and… whichever other
gospel tells it, but it's not one you'd really notice when the story's
read to you out of context. John's gospel puts this incident at the
beginning of Jesus' ministry, but the other gospel portrays this as an
incident at the end of his ministry, the week of his crucifixion. This
was huge for me. At this point in my life I was OK with the fact that
Genesis might just be a non-literal, poetic allegory about creation,
but this Jesus rampage story was something else entirely to me. John's
gospel was a book of history. This wasn't about two witnesses with
different viewing angles getting different parts of the same event.
This was a change in the timeline, a rewrite. This had happened in the
editing room. I was beginning to realize that the gospels probably
tell us as much fact about Jesus as the movie "Tombstone" does about
Wyatt Earp.
So I finished my bible study and told everyone I was going to go
overseas. Long story short, I kept dragging my feet until the day a
roommate of mine told about his summer mission trip to Kenya, and how
one man had lost his children because his family objected to his
conversion from Islam to Christianity. I decided I wasn't certain
enough in my faith to rip a family apart, and I dropped the idea of
becoming a missionary.
I was probably about 22 when I decided missionary life was not for me.
At 24, after six years in this town attending the same church, I came
out of the closet as a homosexual. That journey is a whole book unto
itself. Friendships did wither about that time, but maybe my sexuality
wasn't as big a deal as it seemed since I was in my sixth year living
in a college town and my friends had mostly graduated and moved away
by then. After coming out, I stopped going to church altogether for a
few months. I remember that I read The Case for Christ in those days
and was disappointed by it. It was at a time when I was trying
desperately to cling to my faith, but Strobel sounded to me like a
lawyer questioning his own client on the stand. I was not impressed at
the questions he was lobbing at his interviewees. I still wasn't quite
ready to give up on God, though. After a few churchless months I
landed at the town's gay-friendly church, a United Church of Christ
(similar name, but completely different denomination).
It was during this time of attending church that two things happened
that were the final nails in the coffin of my Christianity. First,
internet prayer requests started to become a big thing, at least in my
inbox. You've likely seen 'em. "Little Betty Sue in Tuscaloosa is
seven and has brain cancer. Imagine what would happen if 3.7 zillion
Christians prayed for her healing!" I realized that I wasn't
comfortable with the fact that Betty Sue, an American who is a day's
drive from St. Jude's, would be getting even more preferential
treatment because she was born into a society that worshipped the
"right" god and had electronic access to other worshippers of the
right god, none of which was available to a seven-year-old girl with
brain cancer in an Amazonian jungle.
Second, I found the book Why Christianity Must Change Or Die by John
Spong. (Well, I say now that this was the final nail in the coffin,
but it's been weeks since I wrote the previous paragraph and now I'm
not entirely certain that this is what I was originally talking about.
It'll do, though.) Spong is a retired Episcopal bishop who in this
book makes the case for a non-theistic version of Christianity. I
don't think he ever used the term "atheistic" to describe his outlook.
He says that Christians have to acknowledge the reality that we live
in a world where Darwin and Einstein have been shown to be right, that
there is no afterlife, that God may not actually be an intelligent
agent, and, most heretical of all, that Jesus was not born of a virgin
and today is still dead. Finally I had found a form of Christianity
that was consistent with the world around me. It allowed me to attend
church with a clean conscience for another few months, but eventually
my work schedule changed in a way that interfered and I quit going
again. I've been calling myself a deist or an agnostic for eight or
ten years now. Though it can be depressing and disorienting at first,
the most beautiful thing I have ever discovered is that life is empty
and meaningless. It's beautiful and liberating because it means that I
can go out there and find out what life means to me, and not worry
about fitting my life into a plan laid out by a bronze-age author who
didn't even know the earth orbits the sun.
Today I find myself in the awkward position of living with my parents
as I return to school to finish the degree I didn't finish nearly
twenty years ago. I've been here for just over two years. I have told
my folks I am a deist and I went to church with them with some
regularity for close to a year after I moved in. A couple of different
sermons over the past six months have pissed me off so much that I
have quit going. However things are especially awkward because my dad
is an elder in the church, a formal position of leadership. I'm not
sure how much their church friends have figured out about me, but some
in the church might argue based on scripture that my dad should be
disqualified from that post for having a son who is an apostate and an
unrepetant homosexual. I'd feel bad for potentially taking away this
post because it's the highest honor our sect can bestow on a layman.
I'm trying to walk a balance and live my life without screwing up
everyone else's as a result. Right now, though, I don't go to church
with them and they don't hassle me about it, even though I know it
disappoints them. We all still love each other, but I'm really looking
forward to transferring to an out-of-town four-year university.
I've been posting sporadically here on Ex-C for months, so I thought
I'd finally make a formal introduction. Like so many before me, I have
written a very long story of my loss of faith. I grew up in the Church
of Christ denomination (aka the "churches of Christ.") What mainly
sets this denomination apart from others is a lack of instrumental
music in the worship services and the belief that willful baptism by
immersion is an essential step in salvation. That last bit was
particularly awkward as a kid since it implied that even the
overwhelming majority of even my church-going friends were not saved.
When my mother referred to someone as a "Christian" or as a "member of
the church," I knew she meant someone who attended a Church of Christ.
The other denominations didn't count as "Christians." I think they're
loosening up a bit on that last point, but it was how we were raised.
I didn't question Christianity a whole lot as a kid. I was baptized at
age 11 because I didn't want to go to hell. Any doubts I may have had
were usually confined to questioning the peculiarities of our
particular branch of Christianity. I do remember one Wednesday night
service when I'd been asked to give that night's lesson, as the
baptized youth were occasionally invited to do, I stood in front of
those people and told them of a recent struggle I'd had with my faith,
but I'd decided that God must exist because Jesus had said, "In my
father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told
you," and I trusted Jesus. (It made sense at the time.) I also
specifically remember telling these people that I'd also decided to
accept the Gospel for my own sanity -- I just couldn't handle the idea
of a world without God. One little old lady came up and told me how
much she'd enjoyed my lesson, but I remember feeling surprised because
I really didn't think I'd done a very good job of justifying my faith.
That was about the extent of my questioning of my faith in general. I
always hated talking about baptism and musical instruments with my
friends. These issues made my church "weird" compared to the others.
(For those interested, baptism was required because of the way we read
Acts 2:38, and musical instruments were not used because there was no
biblical record of their use in worship in the first-century church.)
I took my faith seriously in my youth. I moved away for college and
joined up with the student group at the biggest Church of Christ in
town. My entire social life revolved around church. Didn't hang out
with classmates, and even had little interaction with guys in my dorm.
The summers of my freshman and sophomore years I went on mission trips
to Ukraine to bring Jesus to the former communists, and to finally put
my foreign language skills to use. I ended up flunking out of college
my junior year just because I've taken longer than most people to grow
up, but I got a local job and stayed in that college town.
Shortly after flunking out, I talked a young teen into being baptized.
I took that event as a sign from God and decided I would become a
missionary. Our church there ran a missionary training program that
consisted of one semester of full-time bible study followed by an
18-month apprenticeship overseas. It was during this bible study that
I really came to realize that the bible was not literally true. I
remember the specific incident. We were doing a comparative study of
the gospels, and I saw something that I had never noticed before. It
was one of those things that make you ask, "How is it possible that
I've never noticed this?" It was the story of Jesus going ape-shit in
the temple and wrecking the money-changers' tables. There's a HUGE
discrepancy between the way John tells the story and… whichever other
gospel tells it, but it's not one you'd really notice when the story's
read to you out of context. John's gospel puts this incident at the
beginning of Jesus' ministry, but the other gospel portrays this as an
incident at the end of his ministry, the week of his crucifixion. This
was huge for me. At this point in my life I was OK with the fact that
Genesis might just be a non-literal, poetic allegory about creation,
but this Jesus rampage story was something else entirely to me. John's
gospel was a book of history. This wasn't about two witnesses with
different viewing angles getting different parts of the same event.
This was a change in the timeline, a rewrite. This had happened in the
editing room. I was beginning to realize that the gospels probably
tell us as much fact about Jesus as the movie "Tombstone" does about
Wyatt Earp.
So I finished my bible study and told everyone I was going to go
overseas. Long story short, I kept dragging my feet until the day a
roommate of mine told about his summer mission trip to Kenya, and how
one man had lost his children because his family objected to his
conversion from Islam to Christianity. I decided I wasn't certain
enough in my faith to rip a family apart, and I dropped the idea of
becoming a missionary.
I was probably about 22 when I decided missionary life was not for me.
At 24, after six years in this town attending the same church, I came
out of the closet as a homosexual. That journey is a whole book unto
itself. Friendships did wither about that time, but maybe my sexuality
wasn't as big a deal as it seemed since I was in my sixth year living
in a college town and my friends had mostly graduated and moved away
by then. After coming out, I stopped going to church altogether for a
few months. I remember that I read The Case for Christ in those days
and was disappointed by it. It was at a time when I was trying
desperately to cling to my faith, but Strobel sounded to me like a
lawyer questioning his own client on the stand. I was not impressed at
the questions he was lobbing at his interviewees. I still wasn't quite
ready to give up on God, though. After a few churchless months I
landed at the town's gay-friendly church, a United Church of Christ
(similar name, but completely different denomination).
It was during this time of attending church that two things happened
that were the final nails in the coffin of my Christianity. First,
internet prayer requests started to become a big thing, at least in my
inbox. You've likely seen 'em. "Little Betty Sue in Tuscaloosa is
seven and has brain cancer. Imagine what would happen if 3.7 zillion
Christians prayed for her healing!" I realized that I wasn't
comfortable with the fact that Betty Sue, an American who is a day's
drive from St. Jude's, would be getting even more preferential
treatment because she was born into a society that worshipped the
"right" god and had electronic access to other worshippers of the
right god, none of which was available to a seven-year-old girl with
brain cancer in an Amazonian jungle.
Second, I found the book Why Christianity Must Change Or Die by John
Spong. (Well, I say now that this was the final nail in the coffin,
but it's been weeks since I wrote the previous paragraph and now I'm
not entirely certain that this is what I was originally talking about.
It'll do, though.) Spong is a retired Episcopal bishop who in this
book makes the case for a non-theistic version of Christianity. I
don't think he ever used the term "atheistic" to describe his outlook.
He says that Christians have to acknowledge the reality that we live
in a world where Darwin and Einstein have been shown to be right, that
there is no afterlife, that God may not actually be an intelligent
agent, and, most heretical of all, that Jesus was not born of a virgin
and today is still dead. Finally I had found a form of Christianity
that was consistent with the world around me. It allowed me to attend
church with a clean conscience for another few months, but eventually
my work schedule changed in a way that interfered and I quit going
again. I've been calling myself a deist or an agnostic for eight or
ten years now. Though it can be depressing and disorienting at first,
the most beautiful thing I have ever discovered is that life is empty
and meaningless. It's beautiful and liberating because it means that I
can go out there and find out what life means to me, and not worry
about fitting my life into a plan laid out by a bronze-age author who
didn't even know the earth orbits the sun.
Today I find myself in the awkward position of living with my parents
as I return to school to finish the degree I didn't finish nearly
twenty years ago. I've been here for just over two years. I have told
my folks I am a deist and I went to church with them with some
regularity for close to a year after I moved in. A couple of different
sermons over the past six months have pissed me off so much that I
have quit going. However things are especially awkward because my dad
is an elder in the church, a formal position of leadership. I'm not
sure how much their church friends have figured out about me, but some
in the church might argue based on scripture that my dad should be
disqualified from that post for having a son who is an apostate and an
unrepetant homosexual. I'd feel bad for potentially taking away this
post because it's the highest honor our sect can bestow on a layman.
I'm trying to walk a balance and live my life without screwing up
everyone else's as a result. Right now, though, I don't go to church
with them and they don't hassle me about it, even though I know it
disappoints them. We all still love each other, but I'm really looking
forward to transferring to an out-of-town four-year university.
The change I can't believe in
By J Smith
The year was 1993 and my mom talked me into a Billy Graham Crusade. I
remember my mom pushing me at the end to go down and accept the lord;
I refused. Later that year I got myself into some trouble and ended up
in jail for a weekend. At that point in my life I needed a change. I
called my mom and told her I was ready to go to church with her. She
was over excited to lead me to her charismatic church on Sunday
morning. What happened after that has been 19 long years of change.
Confusion, guilt, shame, arrogance, and my new found judgmental
attitude was not the change I was looking for.
At the beginning of my journey it was just like buying a new car,
fresh, clean, and exciting! I couldn't get enough of reading the bible
and going to church. The promises were out of this world! I would
drive down the road and shout "Jesus loves you" to people on the
sidewalk. I tithed, prayed, studied, and fellowshipped just like every
new Christian does at the beginning. I felt like I was floating on a
cloud! The floating started to fade after two years into studying the
bible, because I realized something was wrong with this charismatic
thing (tongues was faked, miracles were always something internal that
no one could really verify, prophecies were everywhere and few if any
ever came to pass, and everyone just kept on believing this phony
stuff without ever questioning it). Great, let's go to a reformed
Calvinist church and get the "real" truth. After five years of
crawling through theological mud, at three different Calvinist based
churches, and condemning everyone who wasn't a Calvinist I walked away
from it. For the next ten years my family and I moved from church to
church seeking out the elusive church that had the truth. Two years
ago I threw my hands up in the air with two BIG giant fingers pointed
to the sky. That's right, I flipped god the bird. I have spent the
last two years trying to make sense of all this. I have scoured the
Internet, talked to Christian and non-Christian alike, read books on
church history, the canonization of the bible, Evolution, creation… I
sit here today so screwed up in my mind I can hardly function in life.
"Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened" really? I
sought hard, and knocked a lot, but the more I did the more I fell
away from the faith realizing there was no one listening to my
prayers.
One of the main reasons I walked away was Christians themselves. The
examples I see from them are for the most part enough to make me throw
up in my mouth. Sure, there were some decent examples, but then I see
that in Atheists and other non-Christians as well (Shhh, Christians
don't realize that there are non-Christians that live moral lives and
love people more than they do). My brother's family was laid to waste
by Christianity. One kid ran away, one went to jail, and the other one
was forced to marry someone she didn't want to because of a
"prophecy", and now their divorced with three kids. I am still dealing
with Christian neighbors that are absolutely destroying their kids.
Their kids come to me in tears so that they can live at our house
instead of theirs. I was told they wished their parents would die so
we could adopt them. Before you Christians say, "Oh those parents are
in the wrong church", no, they go to a local bible believing
non-denominational church where everyone wears big smiles. My dad is a
Christian and the most judgmental man I know. To him all homosexuals
and democrats should be put to death, and the bible says so.
Leadership in churches is nothing more than a power grab and mind
control game. There are some decent leaders trying to do what is
right, granted, but many are control freaks who only care for
themselves and their doctrine. If you don't believe me go to a church
and take a stand against what they believe. Every Christian has an
opinion, none of them have answers. I am sick and tired of hearing,
"real miracles happen over in Africa", "if you just ask the Holy
Spirit he will lead you into all truth", "you have a faith issue",
"you're in sin, that's why your prayers aren't being answered", and my
all-time favorite: "Satan is leading you astray". Christians have
canned answers for everything. Over the years you build up this
repository of answers to any skeptic's questions. On the surface they
sound good, however, if any thought is put into them you will
immediately expose them for what they are, "excuses".
The bible itself is mass confusion, thus the thousands of different
denominations within Christianity. I for many years believed the bible
to be the inerrant word of god, hook, line, and sinker; you could not
convince me otherwise. A strange thing happened one day. I asked
myself why if dinosaurs lived with man do we not find dinosaurs and
man buried in the rock layers together. Surely they were all buried by
the flood and killed together and therefore should be found together,
civilizations, dinosaurs, dogs, cows, humans. Why? My research led me
far and wide. The bottom line is the earth is not 6000 years old, and
dinosaurs did not live with humans, thus the Genesis story is nothing
more than that, a story. Christians are easy prey to brainwashing by
the likes of the Creation Research Institute and Answers in Genesis. I
was at a natural history museum last year and there was a Christian
mom and dad in the dinosaur exhibit. The dad said, out loud, "Boy I am
glad we didn't let our kids in here to see all this old earth
Evolution crap". A few years back I would have been the one saying
that. I looked at him and realized he didn't have a clue what he was
talking about, just regurgitating what he has been told or read
without ever looking into what evidence science has to offer. It is
absolutely sickening to hear Christians working their pie hole out of
complete ignorance. What is even more sickening is I did it for 17
years. At one time I believed the flood of Noah destroyed the world
and god preserved life on the ark and all these "millions of dead
things buried in rock layers around the earth" were there because of
the flood. A simple study in geology and fossil order debunks that
myth. A man living in a fish's belly for three days and nights,
talking donkeys and snakes, mysterious hands writing on walls, men
riding chariots of fire into heaven, the sun stopping in the sky for a
day and on and on it goes. All easily believed and yet absolutely no
proof of any of it other than ancient texts. Yet, evidence staring
them right in the face for an ancient earth and evolution, and they
laugh at it calling it from Satan. It is easy to see why people would
sacrifice their lives for Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the Heavens
Gate crew. The most powerful people in the world are those standing
behind pulpits on a Sunday morning; they can destroy lives with a
word.
The bible is riddled with contradictions. Yea, I know all the
arguments for the "supposed" contradictions, because I believed there
were none at one time also. It is unbelievable the tap dance that
Christian Apologists have to do to reconcile contradictions. I started
looking at these contradictions and then finding the answer to them on
apologist websites. I found out that most of them had different
answers to the contradictions, and they all believed they were right.
I can't take it when an apologist says, "all we have to do is show
that there is a possible answer and the contradiction is resolved".
Are you kidding me? Hell, anyone can come up with a "possible" answer
to any contradiction. "The guy is black - the guy is white" Well
there's a contradiction, he can't be both! Christian answer: The guy
that appeared to be black was actually a white guy standing in the
shadow of a tree during a full lunar eclipse on a blue moon Tuesday,
and he appeared to be black, "no contradiction". After going through
hundreds of these contractions and seeing the answers presented, I
threw my arms up the air. My question at this point was why would god
so confuse people with his "written word" that no one knows how to
interpret it correctly, and no one can really figure out the truth of
it? Why is he hiding behind a word that confuses everyone? It is like
a bunch of rabbits all running in different directions? I heard a
Christian say that god purposely designed his word for confusion so
that the message would spread around the world! WTF, they have an
answer for everything!
One of the main reasons I walked away was Christians themselves. The
examples I see from them are for the most part enough to make me throw
up in my mouth. For a Christian/theologian to say that we have an
inerrant bible is a JOKE. I know, now the war cry is, "the originals
were without error, the bibles we have do have copyist errors". What
part of the word "errors" don't they understand? Better yet they are
never told there are errors, because I never once heard it in 17 years
of church going. Christian leaders do not share this with the flock,
or they wouldn't have their steady stream of $$ coming in. Oh, by the
way, does anyone have an original gospel so I can examine it to see if
there are no errors? Just reading through the book of Matthew (or
whoever wrote it) one can see how he so twisted the Old Testament
wording to become a fulfilled prophecy for the messiah. Hell, even
Matthew couldn't figure out how to interpret the Old Testament!
(NIV)Mark chapter 1 verse 2, "as it is written in Isaiah the prophet",
clearly the rest of the verse is from Malachi, and verse 3 is from
Isaiah. Some honor student recognized this when writing the
manuscripts that were eventually used for the King James Version of
the bible and said, "as it is written in the prophets". He saw the
error and corrected it. Is this what we are to believe is the "Word of
God"; they just wily-nilly correct it when needed to hide errors? How
much more of this has happened over the centuries without our
knowledge? The bible is riddled with problems, but when you're looking
at it through inerrant tinted glasses, it is perfect. My eyes are now
open to how much religion, cults, and the like are so deceptive and
brainwashing. I believed this stuff with "all my heart" for many
years, now I am ashamed to have fallen to such man made brainwashing.
I can hear the Christians reading this now, "You just never had a
personal relationship with Jesus". You are greatly mistaken, I did
have a personal relationship with him, but he was never on the other
end. Now I hear the Calvinist, "You were never one of the elect to
begin with". Answer; if your god condemns people to eternal fire just
because he desires to and never gives them the opportunity to be
saved, I don't want anything to do with such a monster. Now I hear the
seeker sensitive Christian, "Just give Jesus a chance and he will love
you like you've never been loved before". REALLY? He said he would
never forsake me, but here I am. He said nothing can separate me from
the love of god in Jesus Christ, yet here I am. Do I need to continue?
You have all the answers don't you Christians? Don't you? Just wait
till your writing your letter for this website, and then you won't be
so damn arrogant about what you think you know.
Where does this leave me? I'm pissed off and frankly don't give a damn
anymore about religion of any kind. Christians can leave me alone and
stop making my life a f'ing misery. I'm sick of hearing their
judgments on mankind; I'm sick of seeing children be ground to dirt
because of religious zealots; I'm tired of being told there is one
truth and one way when that road is filled with delusion, dishonesty,
and manipulation. I want my life back, but fear that all these years
of brainwashing are permanent and cannot be eradicated out of my mind.
There will always be a fear of mind numbing screaming in an eternal
fire. I can sweep it under the rug, throw it out the door, ignore it
and say I don't believe it, but the fact is it will always be sitting
back there somewhere haunting me for the rest of my life, if I don't
recommit myself back to lord and go through this nightmare all over
again. Can someone please give me a poisoned cup of cool-aid, a
compound to move to in Texas, or a comet to live on before I go out of
my mind? That may sound a bit sarcastic but this shit has really
screwed me up.
The year was 1993 and my mom talked me into a Billy Graham Crusade. I
remember my mom pushing me at the end to go down and accept the lord;
I refused. Later that year I got myself into some trouble and ended up
in jail for a weekend. At that point in my life I needed a change. I
called my mom and told her I was ready to go to church with her. She
was over excited to lead me to her charismatic church on Sunday
morning. What happened after that has been 19 long years of change.
Confusion, guilt, shame, arrogance, and my new found judgmental
attitude was not the change I was looking for.
At the beginning of my journey it was just like buying a new car,
fresh, clean, and exciting! I couldn't get enough of reading the bible
and going to church. The promises were out of this world! I would
drive down the road and shout "Jesus loves you" to people on the
sidewalk. I tithed, prayed, studied, and fellowshipped just like every
new Christian does at the beginning. I felt like I was floating on a
cloud! The floating started to fade after two years into studying the
bible, because I realized something was wrong with this charismatic
thing (tongues was faked, miracles were always something internal that
no one could really verify, prophecies were everywhere and few if any
ever came to pass, and everyone just kept on believing this phony
stuff without ever questioning it). Great, let's go to a reformed
Calvinist church and get the "real" truth. After five years of
crawling through theological mud, at three different Calvinist based
churches, and condemning everyone who wasn't a Calvinist I walked away
from it. For the next ten years my family and I moved from church to
church seeking out the elusive church that had the truth. Two years
ago I threw my hands up in the air with two BIG giant fingers pointed
to the sky. That's right, I flipped god the bird. I have spent the
last two years trying to make sense of all this. I have scoured the
Internet, talked to Christian and non-Christian alike, read books on
church history, the canonization of the bible, Evolution, creation… I
sit here today so screwed up in my mind I can hardly function in life.
"Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened" really? I
sought hard, and knocked a lot, but the more I did the more I fell
away from the faith realizing there was no one listening to my
prayers.
One of the main reasons I walked away was Christians themselves. The
examples I see from them are for the most part enough to make me throw
up in my mouth. Sure, there were some decent examples, but then I see
that in Atheists and other non-Christians as well (Shhh, Christians
don't realize that there are non-Christians that live moral lives and
love people more than they do). My brother's family was laid to waste
by Christianity. One kid ran away, one went to jail, and the other one
was forced to marry someone she didn't want to because of a
"prophecy", and now their divorced with three kids. I am still dealing
with Christian neighbors that are absolutely destroying their kids.
Their kids come to me in tears so that they can live at our house
instead of theirs. I was told they wished their parents would die so
we could adopt them. Before you Christians say, "Oh those parents are
in the wrong church", no, they go to a local bible believing
non-denominational church where everyone wears big smiles. My dad is a
Christian and the most judgmental man I know. To him all homosexuals
and democrats should be put to death, and the bible says so.
Leadership in churches is nothing more than a power grab and mind
control game. There are some decent leaders trying to do what is
right, granted, but many are control freaks who only care for
themselves and their doctrine. If you don't believe me go to a church
and take a stand against what they believe. Every Christian has an
opinion, none of them have answers. I am sick and tired of hearing,
"real miracles happen over in Africa", "if you just ask the Holy
Spirit he will lead you into all truth", "you have a faith issue",
"you're in sin, that's why your prayers aren't being answered", and my
all-time favorite: "Satan is leading you astray". Christians have
canned answers for everything. Over the years you build up this
repository of answers to any skeptic's questions. On the surface they
sound good, however, if any thought is put into them you will
immediately expose them for what they are, "excuses".
The bible itself is mass confusion, thus the thousands of different
denominations within Christianity. I for many years believed the bible
to be the inerrant word of god, hook, line, and sinker; you could not
convince me otherwise. A strange thing happened one day. I asked
myself why if dinosaurs lived with man do we not find dinosaurs and
man buried in the rock layers together. Surely they were all buried by
the flood and killed together and therefore should be found together,
civilizations, dinosaurs, dogs, cows, humans. Why? My research led me
far and wide. The bottom line is the earth is not 6000 years old, and
dinosaurs did not live with humans, thus the Genesis story is nothing
more than that, a story. Christians are easy prey to brainwashing by
the likes of the Creation Research Institute and Answers in Genesis. I
was at a natural history museum last year and there was a Christian
mom and dad in the dinosaur exhibit. The dad said, out loud, "Boy I am
glad we didn't let our kids in here to see all this old earth
Evolution crap". A few years back I would have been the one saying
that. I looked at him and realized he didn't have a clue what he was
talking about, just regurgitating what he has been told or read
without ever looking into what evidence science has to offer. It is
absolutely sickening to hear Christians working their pie hole out of
complete ignorance. What is even more sickening is I did it for 17
years. At one time I believed the flood of Noah destroyed the world
and god preserved life on the ark and all these "millions of dead
things buried in rock layers around the earth" were there because of
the flood. A simple study in geology and fossil order debunks that
myth. A man living in a fish's belly for three days and nights,
talking donkeys and snakes, mysterious hands writing on walls, men
riding chariots of fire into heaven, the sun stopping in the sky for a
day and on and on it goes. All easily believed and yet absolutely no
proof of any of it other than ancient texts. Yet, evidence staring
them right in the face for an ancient earth and evolution, and they
laugh at it calling it from Satan. It is easy to see why people would
sacrifice their lives for Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the Heavens
Gate crew. The most powerful people in the world are those standing
behind pulpits on a Sunday morning; they can destroy lives with a
word.
The bible is riddled with contradictions. Yea, I know all the
arguments for the "supposed" contradictions, because I believed there
were none at one time also. It is unbelievable the tap dance that
Christian Apologists have to do to reconcile contradictions. I started
looking at these contradictions and then finding the answer to them on
apologist websites. I found out that most of them had different
answers to the contradictions, and they all believed they were right.
I can't take it when an apologist says, "all we have to do is show
that there is a possible answer and the contradiction is resolved".
Are you kidding me? Hell, anyone can come up with a "possible" answer
to any contradiction. "The guy is black - the guy is white" Well
there's a contradiction, he can't be both! Christian answer: The guy
that appeared to be black was actually a white guy standing in the
shadow of a tree during a full lunar eclipse on a blue moon Tuesday,
and he appeared to be black, "no contradiction". After going through
hundreds of these contractions and seeing the answers presented, I
threw my arms up the air. My question at this point was why would god
so confuse people with his "written word" that no one knows how to
interpret it correctly, and no one can really figure out the truth of
it? Why is he hiding behind a word that confuses everyone? It is like
a bunch of rabbits all running in different directions? I heard a
Christian say that god purposely designed his word for confusion so
that the message would spread around the world! WTF, they have an
answer for everything!
One of the main reasons I walked away was Christians themselves. The
examples I see from them are for the most part enough to make me throw
up in my mouth. For a Christian/theologian to say that we have an
inerrant bible is a JOKE. I know, now the war cry is, "the originals
were without error, the bibles we have do have copyist errors". What
part of the word "errors" don't they understand? Better yet they are
never told there are errors, because I never once heard it in 17 years
of church going. Christian leaders do not share this with the flock,
or they wouldn't have their steady stream of $$ coming in. Oh, by the
way, does anyone have an original gospel so I can examine it to see if
there are no errors? Just reading through the book of Matthew (or
whoever wrote it) one can see how he so twisted the Old Testament
wording to become a fulfilled prophecy for the messiah. Hell, even
Matthew couldn't figure out how to interpret the Old Testament!
(NIV)Mark chapter 1 verse 2, "as it is written in Isaiah the prophet",
clearly the rest of the verse is from Malachi, and verse 3 is from
Isaiah. Some honor student recognized this when writing the
manuscripts that were eventually used for the King James Version of
the bible and said, "as it is written in the prophets". He saw the
error and corrected it. Is this what we are to believe is the "Word of
God"; they just wily-nilly correct it when needed to hide errors? How
much more of this has happened over the centuries without our
knowledge? The bible is riddled with problems, but when you're looking
at it through inerrant tinted glasses, it is perfect. My eyes are now
open to how much religion, cults, and the like are so deceptive and
brainwashing. I believed this stuff with "all my heart" for many
years, now I am ashamed to have fallen to such man made brainwashing.
I can hear the Christians reading this now, "You just never had a
personal relationship with Jesus". You are greatly mistaken, I did
have a personal relationship with him, but he was never on the other
end. Now I hear the Calvinist, "You were never one of the elect to
begin with". Answer; if your god condemns people to eternal fire just
because he desires to and never gives them the opportunity to be
saved, I don't want anything to do with such a monster. Now I hear the
seeker sensitive Christian, "Just give Jesus a chance and he will love
you like you've never been loved before". REALLY? He said he would
never forsake me, but here I am. He said nothing can separate me from
the love of god in Jesus Christ, yet here I am. Do I need to continue?
You have all the answers don't you Christians? Don't you? Just wait
till your writing your letter for this website, and then you won't be
so damn arrogant about what you think you know.
Where does this leave me? I'm pissed off and frankly don't give a damn
anymore about religion of any kind. Christians can leave me alone and
stop making my life a f'ing misery. I'm sick of hearing their
judgments on mankind; I'm sick of seeing children be ground to dirt
because of religious zealots; I'm tired of being told there is one
truth and one way when that road is filled with delusion, dishonesty,
and manipulation. I want my life back, but fear that all these years
of brainwashing are permanent and cannot be eradicated out of my mind.
There will always be a fear of mind numbing screaming in an eternal
fire. I can sweep it under the rug, throw it out the door, ignore it
and say I don't believe it, but the fact is it will always be sitting
back there somewhere haunting me for the rest of my life, if I don't
recommit myself back to lord and go through this nightmare all over
again. Can someone please give me a poisoned cup of cool-aid, a
compound to move to in Texas, or a comet to live on before I go out of
my mind? That may sound a bit sarcastic but this shit has really
screwed me up.
Christian's bullshit
By Peacefully Hiding ~
Mankind can be a very cruel animal. When we think of cruelty it's easy
to distance ourselves from that reality because most of us are not
actually subjected to cruelty. For instance, who here has served time
in an interrogation room being water-boarded? Who has seen their
family massacred as part of a political statement? Who among us has
had the women in our family raped in front of our eyes for a burglar's
personal amusement? These things, these atrocities against one
another, are typically headline news that are soon forgotten.
Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bo...
Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1850) (Photo
credit: Wikipedia)
A particular case of this comes to mind. The burglary, assault and
murder of the Petit family. To skip to the details, the mother
cooperated giving the robbers $15,000 from her savings to their
assurances they would leave the family unharmed. Soon after one of the
criminals raped her in her living room and strangled her with her fine
silk scarf until her face turned purple and eyes literally bulged from
her skull. This was after molesting her 11 year old daughter and
taking cell phone pictures of it. After murdering the mother the two
criminals poured gasoline over the mother's two daughters faces and
bodies, one 17, the other 11, and lit them on fire. The two burned
alive.
These two criminals are on death row and will be for awhile appealing
their conviction, though they were caught immediately after they set
the house and family on fire and confessed to the slaughter.
Mankind can be a very cruel animal.What, then, should we do to these
two criminals? If you read the full report online you'd be tempted to
give them the worst punishment you could imagine, for they deserve no
less and no mercy. One member of the jury didn't believe they deserved
the death penalty. They even have supporters. Yes, men who rape 11
year old girls and set them on fire have supporters.
Again we return to the question of 'what do we do to these two when
death isn't enough?'
Many who oppose the death sentence immediately opt for them being put
in jail for the rest of their lives and given 'prison justice'.
We can imagine the details of prison justice but what we fail to
recognize is the lack of responsibility on our part to punish these
people. Rather than punish we put them in the hands of human 'devils'
so to speak, who do their bidding for the eternal remainder of their
life on Earth.
Does this sound anything like the bible's description of hell? A place
where WE have no bloodshed on our hands. We hand that over to God and
his 'hell' device.
Hell, to me, seems like a mirror of prison justice. We need not feel
any guilt because 'we' aren't responsible for what goes on inside-
right? It's all God's decision.
Just as I feel allowing prisoners to rape and kill one another is
fundamentally wrong I feel that the idea of hell is wrong. It is an
extension of human thought, clear and simple, and we know human
thoughts are not divine, no matter how inspired they may be. If God
existed as he is written to be in the bible there would be no hell for
there would be no allowing criminals to allow themselves choices which
lead to hell. Why allow the birth of a murderer? To send them to hell?
It's more fair to say we do not understand what happens to us when our
lives end on this Earth. There may be a god who may punish but the
bible does a very poor job in describing such a phenomenon in a divine
manner devoid of human interference.
Mankind can be a very cruel animal. When we think of cruelty it's easy
to distance ourselves from that reality because most of us are not
actually subjected to cruelty. For instance, who here has served time
in an interrogation room being water-boarded? Who has seen their
family massacred as part of a political statement? Who among us has
had the women in our family raped in front of our eyes for a burglar's
personal amusement? These things, these atrocities against one
another, are typically headline news that are soon forgotten.
Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bo...
Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1850) (Photo
credit: Wikipedia)
A particular case of this comes to mind. The burglary, assault and
murder of the Petit family. To skip to the details, the mother
cooperated giving the robbers $15,000 from her savings to their
assurances they would leave the family unharmed. Soon after one of the
criminals raped her in her living room and strangled her with her fine
silk scarf until her face turned purple and eyes literally bulged from
her skull. This was after molesting her 11 year old daughter and
taking cell phone pictures of it. After murdering the mother the two
criminals poured gasoline over the mother's two daughters faces and
bodies, one 17, the other 11, and lit them on fire. The two burned
alive.
These two criminals are on death row and will be for awhile appealing
their conviction, though they were caught immediately after they set
the house and family on fire and confessed to the slaughter.
Mankind can be a very cruel animal.What, then, should we do to these
two criminals? If you read the full report online you'd be tempted to
give them the worst punishment you could imagine, for they deserve no
less and no mercy. One member of the jury didn't believe they deserved
the death penalty. They even have supporters. Yes, men who rape 11
year old girls and set them on fire have supporters.
Again we return to the question of 'what do we do to these two when
death isn't enough?'
Many who oppose the death sentence immediately opt for them being put
in jail for the rest of their lives and given 'prison justice'.
We can imagine the details of prison justice but what we fail to
recognize is the lack of responsibility on our part to punish these
people. Rather than punish we put them in the hands of human 'devils'
so to speak, who do their bidding for the eternal remainder of their
life on Earth.
Does this sound anything like the bible's description of hell? A place
where WE have no bloodshed on our hands. We hand that over to God and
his 'hell' device.
Hell, to me, seems like a mirror of prison justice. We need not feel
any guilt because 'we' aren't responsible for what goes on inside-
right? It's all God's decision.
Just as I feel allowing prisoners to rape and kill one another is
fundamentally wrong I feel that the idea of hell is wrong. It is an
extension of human thought, clear and simple, and we know human
thoughts are not divine, no matter how inspired they may be. If God
existed as he is written to be in the bible there would be no hell for
there would be no allowing criminals to allow themselves choices which
lead to hell. Why allow the birth of a murderer? To send them to hell?
It's more fair to say we do not understand what happens to us when our
lives end on this Earth. There may be a god who may punish but the
bible does a very poor job in describing such a phenomenon in a divine
manner devoid of human interference.
hoax of hell
By Peacefully Hiding ~
Mankind can be a very cruel animal. When we think of cruelty it's easy
to distance ourselves from that reality because most of us are not
actually subjected to cruelty. For instance, who here has served time
in an interrogation room being water-boarded? Who has seen their
family massacred as part of a political statement? Who among us has
had the women in our family raped in front of our eyes for a burglar's
personal amusement? These things, these atrocities against one
another, are typically headline news that are soon forgotten.
Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bo...
Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1850) (Photo
credit: Wikipedia)
A particular case of this comes to mind. The burglary, assault and
murder of the Petit family. To skip to the details, the mother
cooperated giving the robbers $15,000 from her savings to their
assurances they would leave the family unharmed. Soon after one of the
criminals raped her in her living room and strangled her with her fine
silk scarf until her face turned purple and eyes literally bulged from
her skull. This was after molesting her 11 year old daughter and
taking cell phone pictures of it. After murdering the mother the two
criminals poured gasoline over the mother's two daughters faces and
bodies, one 17, the other 11, and lit them on fire. The two burned
alive.
These two criminals are on death row and will be for awhile appealing
their conviction, though they were caught immediately after they set
the house and family on fire and confessed to the slaughter.
Mankind can be a very cruel animal.What, then, should we do to these
two criminals? If you read the full report online you'd be tempted to
give them the worst punishment you could imagine, for they deserve no
less and no mercy. One member of the jury didn't believe they deserved
the death penalty. They even have supporters. Yes, men who rape 11
year old girls and set them on fire have supporters.
Again we return to the question of 'what do we do to these two when
death isn't enough?'
Many who oppose the death sentence immediately opt for them being put
in jail for the rest of their lives and given 'prison justice'.
We can imagine the details of prison justice but what we fail to
recognize is the lack of responsibility on our part to punish these
people. Rather than punish we put them in the hands of human 'devils'
so to speak, who do their bidding for the eternal remainder of their
life on Earth.
Does this sound anything like the bible's description of hell? A place
where WE have no bloodshed on our hands. We hand that over to God and
his 'hell' device.
Hell, to me, seems like a mirror of prison justice. We need not feel
any guilt because 'we' aren't responsible for what goes on inside-
right? It's all God's decision.
Just as I feel allowing prisoners to rape and kill one another is
fundamentally wrong I feel that the idea of hell is wrong. It is an
extension of human thought, clear and simple, and we know human
thoughts are not divine, no matter how inspired they may be. If God
existed as he is written to be in the bible there would be no hell for
there would be no allowing criminals to allow themselves choices which
lead to hell. Why allow the birth of a murderer? To send them to hell?
It's more fair to say we do not understand what happens to us when our
lives end on this Earth. There may be a god who may punish but the
bible does a very poor job in describing such a phenomenon in a divine
manner devoid of human interference.
Mankind can be a very cruel animal. When we think of cruelty it's easy
to distance ourselves from that reality because most of us are not
actually subjected to cruelty. For instance, who here has served time
in an interrogation room being water-boarded? Who has seen their
family massacred as part of a political statement? Who among us has
had the women in our family raped in front of our eyes for a burglar's
personal amusement? These things, these atrocities against one
another, are typically headline news that are soon forgotten.
Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bo...
Dante And Virgil In Hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1850) (Photo
credit: Wikipedia)
A particular case of this comes to mind. The burglary, assault and
murder of the Petit family. To skip to the details, the mother
cooperated giving the robbers $15,000 from her savings to their
assurances they would leave the family unharmed. Soon after one of the
criminals raped her in her living room and strangled her with her fine
silk scarf until her face turned purple and eyes literally bulged from
her skull. This was after molesting her 11 year old daughter and
taking cell phone pictures of it. After murdering the mother the two
criminals poured gasoline over the mother's two daughters faces and
bodies, one 17, the other 11, and lit them on fire. The two burned
alive.
These two criminals are on death row and will be for awhile appealing
their conviction, though they were caught immediately after they set
the house and family on fire and confessed to the slaughter.
Mankind can be a very cruel animal.What, then, should we do to these
two criminals? If you read the full report online you'd be tempted to
give them the worst punishment you could imagine, for they deserve no
less and no mercy. One member of the jury didn't believe they deserved
the death penalty. They even have supporters. Yes, men who rape 11
year old girls and set them on fire have supporters.
Again we return to the question of 'what do we do to these two when
death isn't enough?'
Many who oppose the death sentence immediately opt for them being put
in jail for the rest of their lives and given 'prison justice'.
We can imagine the details of prison justice but what we fail to
recognize is the lack of responsibility on our part to punish these
people. Rather than punish we put them in the hands of human 'devils'
so to speak, who do their bidding for the eternal remainder of their
life on Earth.
Does this sound anything like the bible's description of hell? A place
where WE have no bloodshed on our hands. We hand that over to God and
his 'hell' device.
Hell, to me, seems like a mirror of prison justice. We need not feel
any guilt because 'we' aren't responsible for what goes on inside-
right? It's all God's decision.
Just as I feel allowing prisoners to rape and kill one another is
fundamentally wrong I feel that the idea of hell is wrong. It is an
extension of human thought, clear and simple, and we know human
thoughts are not divine, no matter how inspired they may be. If God
existed as he is written to be in the bible there would be no hell for
there would be no allowing criminals to allow themselves choices which
lead to hell. Why allow the birth of a murderer? To send them to hell?
It's more fair to say we do not understand what happens to us when our
lives end on this Earth. There may be a god who may punish but the
bible does a very poor job in describing such a phenomenon in a divine
manner devoid of human interference.
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