I don't follow any particular religion. But I'll say that it does have some positives if not many. I think you just don't like those who proclaim to be of a certain religion but don't really follow it and just try to spread it. Fuck them I hate em too. Like you know most Christians aren't very Christian at all. But if they were actually Christian, then they'd be pretty cool I think. Jesus teaches acceptance, love, compassion, giving, and a bunch of other bomb shit. I think the main problem is the churches trying to make money, the people teling you yr wrong fr not following, and the violence that goes with it.

If people just practiced and studied whatever religion they chose on their own and actually followed it I think the world would be better. Cause that would mean they actually wanted to practice their religion out of interest and free will not out of fear.

The religious tend to consider it rude if the atheist speaks of being as such, all the while we're expected to not say anything negative about religious people as it's offensive.

I say what I want. I believe what I want. Prayer often DOES boil down to general laziness. Why help someone w/ something tangible or w/ time or whatever when ya can just simply pray for them.

already tried. The Church of Mario is barely breathing...

actually the Nazis were a occult group, but most of the useful idiots weren't allowed to know, that was the privilege of the inner core, the SS. Because they still at work among the elite, this isn't publicized. Its not something they want you to think about, like with how the Bush family worked with Hitler or how all Street tried to have a coupe against Roosevelt in the 30's. The imagery you mention was used as a control mechanism, much like porn and flag waving is used now in the USA. Peter Levenda has written about this.

Cults is cults.

everyone is brainwashed to believe a set of rules, which they then feel guilty for not following. That way they can control you, down to the core.

you mean mario from the mario brothers?

http://fuppets.blogspot.com/2008/11/...gy-part-1.html

Yep, that Mario I am the only ordained minister, and there are but three followers so far.

(I am a ULC ordained minister, a Discordian Pope, and a Subgenius as well as being raised Episcopalian, and being a worshipper of big booty women.)

May the Stark Megafist of Slack drag you all to HELL.

Fucking Pinks.

Srsly....where the fuck does a guy gotta go to donate a couch to someone who isn't a gay hating prick? The gay-haters all do pick-ups.

Beware False Slack

The funniest thing is that Jesus the Christ states in the Bible that the followers were not supposed to start a religion, just spread his ideas.

The moment ideas get codified into a set of religious rules the whole shit is ruined. Jesus was actively fighting against religion.

Nope. The Gospels explicitly state that Jesus Christ started an institutional Church, and established it through His Apostles. Further, a great deal of historical evidence post-100AD testifies to the reality that Christianity was never a rouge, anarchistic, loosely organized group but rather was a consistently well-structured, liturgical Church with clergy, rites, and resources. Apostolic Succession isn't a myth, and while Jesus and His Apostles may indeed just be mythological creations, there is solid evidence of the Catholic/Orthodox Church continuing unbroken since the second century..


Ok. That was almost preaching, but I don't care if you chose to be Catholic or not so much as feel the need to clarify for the sake of historical accuracy ;)

folks are free to accept, believe, or feel however they like, I just want to make sure their facts are well-informed to make their decisions.

Jesus started no church. It was started after his death by people who thought his teachings should be "codified into a set of religious rules."

I do hate churches though and I hated going as a child. I could not wait to leave the instant we walked in. So boring.

However, I am interested in religion and do see the positives of it. Like right now Im trying to read the Quran. Cause a lot of dope people I admire are muslim and there are also some deep ass fuckers who say some deep ass real ass shit who are muslim. Like this dude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNfQxnRoPHo

I also want to get into some asian religions as those seem cool as fuck and I feel like I could learn a lot of positive shit from them. I think all religions have mostly good stuff to teach. Its just the humans who try to preach on behalf of the religion are sometimes wrong.

That is simply not true. As again, Jesus strictly speaking is not a historical figure. THERE IS QUITE LITERALLY ZERO PRIMARY SOURCE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THAT JESUS CHRIST EVER EVEN EXISTED. There is no scientific, archaeological, or any other such evidence to suggest Jesus ever existed as a person. That is, aside from the Scriptural and Patristic writings of the organized, institutional Catholic/Orthodox Church. THERE IS LEGITIMATE, SCIENTIFIC, and ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ROME AND THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN EGYPT AND SYRIA HAS CONTINUOUSLY EXISTED SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND CENTURY. End of story. Such are the facts. Jesus is strictly a matter of Faith. To argue about him as a historical figure aside from the Church is silly, its like arguing about a fictional character in an epic novel and taking it too seriously. So SonikJesus and Rob, I will reiterate sans caps, the Church is at the least an 1900 year old continuous institution, and Christianity from its earliest evidence supported beginnings is a rigourously centralized, organized, religion.

Y'all don't have to believe in Jesus or the Church as a religion, but the history of the Church as an institution is legitimate and authenticated.

And a preemptive note to dead_battery, this is not preaching, this is a historical and literary discussion, surely you're intelligent enough to know the difference ;)

Whatever this threads not supposed to be about the historical existence of Jesus but about religion and the assholes who misrepresent it. That's like arguing about abortion; some will agree and some won't. Why don't we start a thread about it.

FYI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_Jesus

It seems to me that most orthodox christianity spits directly in the face of jesus and his words.

"The scribes and the Pharisees speak with the authority of Moses," he told them, "so you must do what they tell you and follow their instructions. But you must not imitate their lives! For they preach but do not practise. They pile up back-breaking burdens and lay them on other men's shoulders - yet they themselves will not raise a finger to move them. Their whole lives are planned with an eye to effect. They increase the size of their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their robes; they love seats of honour at dinner parties and front places in the synagogues. They love to be greeted with respect in public places and to have men call them 'rabbi!' Don't you ever be called 'rabbi' - you have only one teacher, and all of you are brothers. And don't call any human being 'father' - for you have one Father and he is in Heaven. And you must not let people call you 'leaders' - you have only one leader, Christ! The only 'superior' among you is the one who serves the others. For every man who promotes himself will be humbled, and every man who learns to be humble will find promotion.

What are catholics told to call their priest? father. What is the Pope? The Holy Father. Even in the basics of Jesus' teachings the church does the opposite. The Biblical Jesus said that to follow him a rich man must give his wealth away, for it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel going through the eye of a needle. What is the single richest organization in the world? The Roman Catholic Vatican, who claim direct descendance directly from Simon, known as Peter. Even the group supposedly founded by the main disciple slaps a dick in jesus' face by flaunting their disregard for their savior's teachings.

I have been re-reading all of jesus' words in the Bible and have yet to see anywhere where he does not decry organized worship and the authority of supposed church fathers. I cannot find anywhere where he states, "create a church around me, create rules and dogma to follow, create powerful positions of influence and authority to control the world." Maybe I need to read further....

When did you become a Baptist exactly?

when I got baptised against my will at age 6 months? ha!

yo cheeto, this is the bullshit they taught me at catholic school:

Matt.16:18-19: "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

now who the fuck is this "matthew" and why did he write that? that's what i'd like to know. i say he made it all up for profit.

the meaning of "church" is a congregation of fellow believers in that instance. those are scant few words to try and rationalize the hierarchical, bureaucratic institution of a dogmatic belief system. That is my whole point. The person named Jesus was actively fighting against organized religion, seeking to destroy the old rabbinical authority. The roman catholic church (created by political leaders like Constantine just as much as it was created by the descendants of the apostles) has turned Jesus' teachings on their head, and continuously maintained the ignorance of their followers, going so far as to disallow the personal reading of a bible in one's own language for centuries (it still takes place in africa and south america where services are held in latin, and the faithful are told this is how jesus wanted it, even though jesus spoke no latin!)

That is not historically true. You are actually trying to rationalize your own misconception, but the evidence of history disagrees with you. The Church authored, codified, and canonized the Gospel narratives and the New Testament Epistles. How can you argue with the Church about its own book exactly? That seems like arguing with an author about the implied meaning! Silly if you ask me, especially since you don't even have a dog in this fight..

Besides of which, people have had the Bible in their language for centuries now, what has it done for people? Nothing. The Bible by itself is an empty book without meaning. The Bible can only find meaning through the heart and experience of the Church from where it comes. Aside from that, the Bible is just a musty book of epic fiction.

the beurocracy did those things suchfriends, not the "church" of followers. Read up on the Council of Nineveh and the Council of Nicea. Those shits were run by the power elite, not by the faithful

Half the "bible" existed before the catholic church was created, (remember the hebrews?)
It has been edited, to create the illusion that Emmanuel, Jesus the Christ was the direct descendant of King David. It has been edited to bolster the bureaucracies claims as to the one true church. It has been edited to include so many things that the Jesus did not ask for, nor mention. Such is life. The modern church owes more to the greed for power of Constantine than to the devout believers the church seeks to control.

rob, what you're saying has been argued at least since the reformation, but the problem is not "what jesus said" but rather, idealism vs. human nature.

no matter the utopian ideology (marxism, christianity, whatever), power structures will always develop because the human brain is hardwired to look for leaders in hierarchical structures. tribes, supertribes, etc.

part of the problem is the contradiction created by branding such power and hierarchy as "evil", especially because many of these ideologies cater to the oppressed who see power that way. hence, they all exist in permanent discomfort and eventually auto-negate.

and yes, some mutants aren't wired that way, but most people are, including the "revolutionaries" who pretend to hate power but are just sore that they aren't the ones on top, fucking everybody else. every time one of those fuckers wins "for the people" they become dictators for life.

I am really not out to argue or change anyone's mind. I was just describing why it is so hard to deal with churches, any churches, when your goals are to help and theirs are to "save your soul."

Ate 12 years old I could not get a satisfactory answer from anyone, not my dad who had a master's degree in Political Science and a Doctorate in Divinity, to my teachers, to other priests I got to talk to, as to why, when one group of oppressed religious believers are persecuted and tortured for their beliefs, that self-same group, if it survives and prospers, proceeds to find another religion and it's followers to persecute and torture. It made no sense when I was 12 and it does not now at age 39. I lay all the blame for this, not on the individual followers of a religion, but on the hierarchy and bureaucracy of the religions themselves, which is exactly what Jesus preached against.

Priests would tell me stupid platitudes like "human are fallible, son. They make mistakes. " and "that is not god's fault." etc etc and still expect me to accept that everything is created by god, through god, and of his desire, as if that explained what happens. All that tells me is that it is all bullshit, through and through. It has always been bullshit, and will always be bullshit. Mutually contradictory bullshit.

Rob, those are not empty platitudes. You are asking existential questions much deeper than the legitimacy or hypocrisy of the institutional Church. Don't you fail, fall short, or make mistakes in your life? Are you just bullshit because of your mistakes? We ALL have natural contradictions, that is what makes is human, and the Church is a human institution as any other. Further, if God is truly the Almighty, isn't it His prerogative that if HE wants the Universe to be fucked up and flawed, isn't that His right? What if God likes distortion, noise, and off-cadence vocals? Why exactly does life or the world have to so perfect?

well, you might have seen this shit a million times already, but i keep laughing every damn time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfurmrjxo

after that, what can one say?

imperfection is not the same thing as hypocritical.

the question of why religiously persecuted people immediately turn and find a weaker religion to persecute, the moment they gain any power, is not a metaphysical question. It is a political and sociological question.

A quote from the forward in Elie Wiesel's Night, an epic tale about losing Faith in the face of soul-crushing persecution.

"Maybe I should have told that young man this. That if the Almighty is truly the Almighty, than for each of us, the final word is His alone."

what i'd like to know is why christians have no respect for their enemies and feel the need to paint them as "evil" before attempting to destroy them.

fucking mental illness.

it is not just christians, it is all religions. the first thing you do is make the enemy become evil, denigrate their religion, insult their power, etc. There are so many Russian Orthodox devout in Russia yet for decades the USA party line was to call them all godless heathens.


Job should have told Jehovah to go fuck himself.

nah, it's the judeochristian axis (judaism/christianity/islam) that is obsessed with "evil"

in the baghavad gita, arjuna struggles with having to go to war and killing his cousins.

krishna doesn't tell him "kill them cuz they're evil", he says "kill them because it's your job to do it."

later he adds some bullshit about how one can't kill the immortal soul anyway. but he never calls the other party "evil." they are simply adversaries.

christianity is the biggest spread of "evil" in the fucking universe. everything is "evil" in the eyes of those fuckers! *sick*

Sighs.


CANT Y'ALL SEE HOW YOU ARE PERPETUATING THE VERY SAME HYPOCRISY AND PREJUDICE WHICH YOU ARE SUPPOSEDLY AGAINST?

it's an evil weevil! eeeeeeeeeeevil!!!!

power is evil, money is evil, work is evil, corporations are evil, the government is evil, taxes are evil, guns are evil, our appetites are evil, the mind is evil, the other political ideology is evil, the other religion is evil, science is evil (evil scientists!), evil spirits, evil animals, evil pagans, evil practices, evil lies-- evil is in every fucking corner of the abrahamic worldview. eeeeeeevil!!!

i need a fucking nap to get over all that infinitely tiresome evil-counting...

but watch out! don't sleep! evil lurks...

it is only hypocrisy if I claim one thing and act differently. Hating the fact that religion keeps humanity apart is not hypocrisy.

It is only prejudice if I judge without evidence (PRE-judice) I have a lifetime of evidence to support how I feel, and the entire written history of humanity to back it up.

in my opinion modern christianity is the way it is because of paul(saul) and other cunts in the early church who defiled jesus' original teachings to keep their mystery religion alive with a new name. i side with "whack jobs" that believe jesus' actual teachings were very buddhist in nature and were solely about being a better person. the aforementioned cunts used jesus' teachings to make their mystery religion seem fresh/progressive while still maintaining their queer rituals and belief that the resurrection of jesus should be the central doctrine of christianity instead of love. irrelevant really, the point is FUCK religion/cults...just don't be dick. why is it so hard to not be a dick without bullshit rituals and dogma?