That’s the headline. Perhaps it should have read “Christian pastor withdraws from Obama inauguration after it is discovered that he’s a Christian.”
A website, ThinkProgress, published a sermon Reverend Louie Giglio preached in the 90’s in which he said these “shocking” words:
If you look at the counsel of the word of God, Old Testament, New Testament, you come quickly to the conclusion that homosexuality is not an alternate lifestyle… homosexuality is not just a sexual preference, homosexuality is not gay, but homosexuality is sin. It is sin in the eyes of God, and it is sin according to the word of God. You come to only one conclusion: homosexuality is less than God’s best for his creation.”
The Bible condemns homosex, so it should be no surprise that a Christian pastor will also condemn homosex as sinful.
Not only did the Reverend Giglio withdraw from the inauguration, but the Presidential Inaugural Committee threw him under the bus for his views as well. Spokeswoman Addie Whisenant said, “We were not aware of Pastor Giglio’s past comments at the time of his selection and they don’t reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this Inaugural.” So what will they do now? “As we now work to select someone to deliver the benediction, we will ensure their beliefs reflect this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans.” That’s right, they’ll only accept a minister who approves of homosexuality.
Welcome to the new America! This is what so-called “gay rights” leads to: censoring all those who disagree. Where is their tolerance?
Thinking to Believe 
January 10, 2013 at 3:08 pm
But those words are shocking, because the Bible doesn’t say homosexuality (that is, the desire for or interest in homosexual intimacy) is sinful. It only speaks against homosexual offenses (arsenokoitai). Recognizing the difference is vitally important.
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January 10, 2013 at 4:24 pm
I can see it now, requirements for benediction inauguration spokesmen:
Must accept homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle
Must accept same-sex marriage
Must be pro-choice
Must believe in religous inclusivism and promote interfaithism
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January 10, 2013 at 4:34 pm
Jesus plainly taught as a basic premise that actions come forth from the heart ,(Mk.7:21). This is Christainity 101.That is, actions, such as those of homosexuality, spring forth from heart desires. Thus what is shocking is that anyone would use the Bible in a pretense claiming that heart desire and the committed deeds are unrelated. Neither do secular references define homosexuality as not including the actual deed :Homosexuality – “2- erotic activity with another of the same sex”- Mirriam Webster. Thus of course the Bible condemns homosexuality ! But why then does not this very same passage from Mark not include it ? It is obviously because sins condemned elsewhere in scripture like idolatry & infanticide, and beastiality as well as homosexuality were not specific sins that Israel was guilty of at this exact
time frame.
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January 10, 2013 at 9:23 pm
For a heterosexual male it seems outlandish that a man would be attracted to another man sexually and a woman attracted to another woman in the same way. But the simple fact is that we have moved on from stoneagism.
You know, it use to be that you could get a diagnosis of demonic possession, I mean that was a reasonable thing to believe you had if you were having seizures but now we have the science of neurology and we know about epilepsy so now when your kid has seizures, you don’t go to the church to get him diagnosed and treated by exorcism.
We didn’t understand why it rained, so we created a Rain God. When we came to understand meteorology, the Rain God was sacrificed on the alter of science.
Christianity use to kill people for blasphemy; religions still isolate atheists and apostates at the very least, especially the religion of Islam. But if you want to run for public office in the US you better get a church.
Jesus himself was crucified for blasphemy and people of other religions still routinely kill people for blasphemy. The Ten Commandments are all capital offenses with the first four being capital offenses relating to decrees by religion.
The trouble with all religions is that they take the concept of Deity from imagination and carve it up into factions that become a bunch of Theities all claiming to have the one true church, the one true religion, the one true messenger, promoting the One True God.
Today we take care of the mentally challenged; we cater to the disabled but only recently; we understand that anomalies exist in humans and we do not kill minorities in the interests of producing a master race. Sin by and large is what other people see in your behaviour that they do not agree with.
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ This is the clergy talking mind you.
Life is all about sex. Who told you that you have to try your best to prevent your desires/craves/natural instincts from happening? Religion! Religion takes all that is natural and twists it into the unnatural. Blessings of Religion? Parasitism is the sole practice of the church, a conspiracy against health, beauty, well- constitutedness, instinct, bravery, intellect, benevolence of soul, against life itself.
It is very well that Giglio withdrew from the Inaugural address before suffering the embarrassment of being himself rejected by the secular community that has moved on from the stoneagism of the past; in fact the benediction prayer itself should be eliminated from all future Inaugurations and all government functions as religion by its very nature is an exclusion club renown as much for who they despise and turn away as for those they love and recruit.
Tell me what part of Religion, Church, Clergy, Rituals, Jesus loved! Or was a member of? NONE! Jesus was an atheist and the religious wingnuts of his day sought to imprison him, throw him over cliffs, stone him, whip him, beat him, mock him and crucify him, which is no different than religious wingnuts do today to atheists and gays alike, especially in Muslim countries, Supernatural god myth followers do it in words, online. Most religious regurgitating minions, proxies and proselytes think that Jesus was a Christian. So Lolable.
If Jesus was around today he would be the first to tell the hypocrite Giglio to pack his robes and vacate the seat he purports to sanctify, begone and never take the name of Jesus in vain again!
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January 11, 2013 at 2:06 pm
Al Mohler on the issue: http://www.albertmohler.com/2013/01/10/the-giglio-imbroglio-the-public-inauguration-of-a-new-moral-mccarthyism/
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January 11, 2013 at 2:13 pm
Stan,
I agree with you about the distinction between same-sex attraction and same-sex behavior. Indeed, the term “homosexuality” can be confusing because some people use it to refer to one or the other, or both. That’s why I prefer talking about “homosex” to refer to the behavior, and “same-sex attraction” to refer to the desire.
But I don’t see anything in the quote that leads me to think that the pastor was talking about anything other than same-sex behavior. Of course, we would need the full context to know for sure.
Jason
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January 11, 2013 at 2:13 pm
Michael,
Yes, exactly. Only the most liberal Christians would ever be able to participate. And other religious adherents wouldn’t fare much better.
Jason
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January 11, 2013 at 2:14 pm
Christian Truth? Here is the only Christian(and religious) truth:
“The CORPORATE RELIGIOUS Collective serves only ITSELF & has no real life of ITS OWN. ITS minions, proxies and proselytes, are like robots of Protocol without discretionary insight or common sense. “IT” has no innate capacity for moral or ethical action of independent volition & has no capacity to respond truthfully to the moral & ethical concerns of real human beings. To the RELIGIOUS COLLECTIVE, the people are viewed as inventory to be managed and cattle to be prodded.”
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January 11, 2013 at 2:38 pm
SEX & WITHDRAWAL – Giglio or Gigolo
Sin, like Beauty, IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER:
This generation of religious zealots is no different than the religious zealots of Jesus day and this is what scripture says in support of the “sin in the eye of the beholder” concept:
Luke 7:32-34
New King James Version (NKJV)
32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, saying:
‘We played the flute for you,
And you did not dance;
We mourned to you,
And you did not weep.’
33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, that is what sin is “in the eye of the Beholder”.
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January 11, 2013 at 10:46 pm
Leonardo,
Stoneagism? There is nothing stoneage about it. The biology of sexually is very obvious: Men are not intended to function with men sexually, and women are not intended to function with women sexually. It is unnatural, functionally speaking. You may choose to see no moral significance to that fact, but don’t pretend that those who affirm that homosex is not normal are from the stoneage.
Sin is in the eye of the beholder? So it’s all just person-relative, eh? So if I chop up a 2 year old for the fun of it, I’ve done nothing wrong so long as I don’t see anything wrong with it? C’mon! You know better than that. There is an objective right and wrong.
Jason
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January 12, 2013 at 1:06 am
Jason: Indulge me for a moment please:
You are not being clever. Religion and the religious insanity that continues to control the world mindset to this day is what I call stoneagism including laws from the Old Testament, religious laws that came into existence I am reasonably sure, ten thousand centuries ago, before man invented the wheel.
My, my, chopping up a 2 year old is rather a bit of an exaggeration don’t you think, comparing that to the despise of homosexuality and in many instances “gay bashing” in the so called civilized Christian cultured countries that often leads to severe injuries and even death; and, in other even more sinister religious cultures like Islam, where actual premeditated death by hanging, stoning and beheadings takes place regularly. Is that modernity or stone age barbarianism, all because of what? religious insanity!
Sin is for the most part (notice I said for the most part, not referring to chopping up 2 year olds) is exactly what religious decree (dogma) dictates. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life after a trial for heresy, providing he recanted his agreement with Copernican theory that put the sun as the center around which the earth revolved going against the religious decree that the earth is immovable in Deuteronomy. Galileo went to Rome to try to persuade the Catholic Church authorities not to ban Copernicus’ ideas. In the end, a decree of the Congregation of the Index was issued, declaring that the ideas that the Sun stood still and that the Earth moved were “false” and “altogether contrary to Holy Scripture”. His offending Dialogue was banned; and publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future. This remained for more than 200 years because of the darkness of religious insanity.
And it is worth noting that Jesus himself said that sin was in the eye of the beholder when he gave the example of John the Baptist: who came fasting and not drinking and it was said he had a demon; in other words, he was “FULL of sin. Yet the Son of Man came eating and drinking and was called a glutton and winebibber keeping company with sinners(in other words himself full of sin) by the clergy and their generation. Two different lifestyles and yet the clergy claimed that both were sinners Would you be prepared to tell Jesus that your analogy of “sin in the eye of the beholder” as illustrated by him, was likened to the ludicrous claim that chopping up a 2 year would be okay in the eye of the beholder, if that was all sin was?
Think for a moment with a little common sense depth and not with the shallowness of religious insanity.
We understand enough about modern medicine to know there many quirks of genetics take place within the animal world. We know for instance that the female brain and the male brain function differently in many respects, not the least of which is the processing of sexual identity. Imagine then for a moment that an embryo for reasons unclear, forms a female brain, mentally, emotionally, spiritually but physically with male genitalia or vice versa. Imagine again that such a person matured with an XX brain and an XY body. Wouldn’t that be a dilemma? Well maybe not: the female brain would be sexually attracted to the male body but wait, she also has a male body so theoretically she really is a male because that is how society determines sexual orientation by, physical genitalia. OMG. And then another female brain is attracted sexually to the male body with the female brain and OMG homosexuality! attracted to each other.
Can you for a moment just imagine how their attraction then, can develop with as much passion and love for each other? Because in theory they are both male and female and have every bit a right to develop their love with another human being as any of us do, as their orientation dictates not because of environment, not because it is a life style choice, certainly not as the clergy of religious insanity preaches but because nature in its quirkiness got some things mixed up and for us hetero humans to deny others their just relationships, their time of living life with their own kind would be like taking dwarfs to “Tall Rehab” and try and make them grow from “Little People” to the more acceptable “normal people” size. Or take a disabled with a spinal deficiency to “walking school” and demand that they learn to “walk”.
Homosexuality is after all heterosexuality with a twist with the anomaly of same “physical” appearance. But this anomaly is not unique to humans; in fact, female/male – brain/genitalia conundrum can be manipulated in some animals to demonstrate the anomaly. And remember this: for a female brain to be attracted to a male body is as much a hetero trait idea as it can possibly be, because the female heterosexual brain attraction is toward the male genitalia physique(a hetero trait to be sure) so in essence, the homosexual community is every bit as normal as I am in my heterosexual attraction so please use the common sense that Jesus talked about and demonstrated, not as the clergy presumed to believe then and still preaches the belief today in the religious insanity of supernatural dogma.
If you want to be friends with the world, you have to show yourself friendly. You can’t go up to your neighbor shaking a fist in her face and say, “You’re going to be my friend”, and expect that’ll work okay. Did you get your wife that way? I didn’t get my wife that way; I keep her that way but I didn’t get her that way!
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January 12, 2013 at 4:02 am
Leonardo, you sure can write up a nasty polemic. Well done. Worthy of Nietzsche himself.
Just a question, though.
Why on earth did you say Jesus was an atheist? Seriously! The man talked more about the reality of God than anyone in the entire Bible.
And then you deem yourself able to speak for Him!
Friend, if you think Christ was an atheist, then you really don’t know Him well enough to be His spokesperson.
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January 12, 2013 at 10:57 am
How can leonardo be so mad about the “evils” of religion? IF he is an atheist, there really IS no objective evil here to speak of, just a difference of opinion. A GOD is needed as a moral authority with which to root his outcry of the evils and injustices of the clergy ,if it is to be argued objectively. WIthout a moral authority, he is merely spouting off opinions. Without GOD, injustice is an illusion….a delusion of the mind homosapiens developed over time. On athiesm, once you understand this revelation, there should be no reason to waste energy getting so worked up over opinions and delusions . “Sin is in the eye of the beholder” after all,….”bread and water for you! You hear that galileo?!” what??…did I do something…. WRONG?
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January 12, 2013 at 1:27 pm
Yes Jaysen:
I clearly hear your confusion so allow me, please, to clarify a few things. Religion itself is not evil, religion is merely the psychology method employed by deceitful people called the Clergy. Religious psychology is used on people more prone to the reptile part of the human brain that remains unevolved and yet required necessarily for involuntary reflexes such as breathing and many people are still shackled there, being less able to exercise the rational brain for one reason or another; i.e., lack of education, lack of environmental stimulation, parental neglect or intellectually deficient family members, poverty; the rational brain that HAS evolved beyond the involuntary fight/flight aspects of ; well, of reptilian behavior.
Among the reptilian behaviors for example is an inability to process a twig being blown by the wind across your path as something that has no life of its own; a shadow’s reach or glittering twinkles of sunlight reflections, the bubbles forming in the babbling brook. Such inabilities of understanding and reasoning eludes the reptile brain and elicits a certain fear in the reptile brain from where the supernatural spawns and where there are always ghostly beings recessed in the shadows, under the bed, in the closet, behind the trees, in hollywood paranormal TV series.
The reptile brain is also that part of the brain where ritualism resides; that is, the ritualistic behavior when practiced often enough becomes to be accepted as the truth because of the “way it is”, like the conditioning of the Pavlovian canine. And so religion utilizes the main features of the reptile brain, supernaturalism, fear, and ritualism to enforce religious behaviors to support a “Belief System” based on the unknown with deceptions like magic, hidden microphones for faith healing seances and the like. And all religions practice their religious agenda to gain proselytes using various ritualism technics like, finger beading, chants, repetitious prayers, physical behaviors like sign of the cross or genuflecting, bowing or hen pecking style at the wailing wall and of course who could fail to mention the Benediction just after the collection plate offerings.
Now please understand this: all religions derive from a person and all supernatural entities derive from a person, all morals derive from people and man is the engineer of all holy books, writings, rituals, gods, angels, demons and prayer. No imaginative story from mythology was ever inspired by anyone other than a person, not a miracle ever happened but that a person conjured it up; the laws of physics, of the universe are never suspended to support clergy’s ludicrous claims of miracles; none, not one, nada, non, nein, nyet.
You have heard about the sanctity of the Sabbath, or the Sunday observance ritual in religion; some call it “divine” because it is the word of God that on the seventh day man should rest as God rested after the creation; well, Jesus answered this question quite succinctly too when he was questioned about it and his answer in all its sheer simplicity is as profound as what I, using many more words than he, just tried to explain: Mark 2: 23 And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn.
24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?
25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?
26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him?
27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Mankind is a bundle of experiences, sensory perceptions, trials and errors, learned behaviors and meticulous observations all housed in a fantastic brain that essentially functions as the guiding spirit within from all of the above and if there ever was a personal god, it is this brain function in conjunction with memory that is the true Father and the true Kingdom of Heaven.
Oh and did I mention where the Father resides? In his Kingdom. Oh and did I mention where that Kingdom is? Actually Jesus expressed the same thought when he was asked by the clergy when the Kingdom of the Supernatural Gods of men would come, which was not the God that Jesus spoke about, prayed about or alluded to: here is the conversation just to familiarize yourself in case you are a little rusty on the truth about Jesus and why he was indeed an atheist, not an atheist about the true god of man but an atheist of the supernatural gods of men:
Luke 17:20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Let me ask you this: If the Kingdom of God is within you where do you think morals come from?
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January 12, 2013 at 2:04 pm
Aaron:
Thank you for your question; you deserve a fair answer and I will attempt to explain the difference.
The Clergy in Jesus day, the Scribes and Pharisees were typical religionists out to gain as much materialism, money, support and power from the people they were able to deceive with false claims of miracles, supernatural gods, demonic possessions(now called epilepsy) and healings of hollywood proportions.
Religion has always been the domain of deception for the clergy then as it is today and the clergy today use the same old, same old methods of deception and falsehoods: the supernatural, fear and rituals. From these they fabricated laws to exercise power and basically forced the people into the belief system about the supernatural God from whom they received their divine revelations for the people and to whom they alone were the appointed mediators of god for the people.
An atheist is someone who does not believe in God but that definition is not sufficient to understand why Jesus was an atheist and why I myself am an atheist since we both speak about god, the kingdom and so on.
Jesus did not believe in the supernatural gods of the clergy nor do I; supernaturalism is so much caca del toro as we say down on the common sense farm and Jesus himself debunked the myth that the supernatural god dictated weather conditions, famines, prophets and the like, all made up stuff by a deceiving clergy for their own selfish financial gain and well being.
The real definition should be that an atheist does not believe in a supernatural god. Because, although Jesus talked about the god concept a lot he usually always referred to god as the Father; unlike the clergy who never did… The reason Jesus did so was because he was of the same mindset that I am, that the guiding spirit of humans comes only from within and not from without where supernatural god myths are created to be, in a ghostly world somewhere up in the northern sky perhaps but not within; the only thing the clergy admitted to being within someone were demons, they were “possessed” by a demonic spirit or the devil himself or the scriptural “our name is Legend for we are many”.
Jesus rightly concluded that the Father, the true Guide of mankind resided in his Kingdom and then went on to tell the clergy where the Kingdom was: Luke 17:23. “…..the Kingdom is within you”. Now if the Kingdom is within you and the Father resides in his Kingdom and the Father is God the Guide where does the concept of God live? Within you. As I explained in a previous, recent post, the Kingdom consists of a fantastic organ called the brain with phenomenal functions; it is a bundle of experiences, sensory perceptions, trials and errors, learned behaviors and meticulous observations all housed in a fantastic brain that essentially functions as the guiding spirit within from all of the above and if there ever was a personal god, it is this brain function in conjunction with memory that is the true Father and the true Kingdom of Heaven and indeed the only God and therefore by extension we too are Gods.
Now just before that concept of people being Gods throws you for a loop consider how Jesus responded to this when questioned by the Clergy, again being infuriated by Jesus common sense, perfect interpretation of scripture and different understanding about the human condition: Jesus asked the clergy why they wanted to stone him: John 10:33 “The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’? 35 If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” 39 Therefore they sought again to seize Him, but He escaped out of their hand.”
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January 12, 2013 at 4:22 pm
Leonardo,
alright, so after all that. the question still remains..what makes “religious psychology” evil? Unevolved reptilian portions of the brain or not, why be on such a crusade to push such things that you see as “truth” and “injustice” when evolution cares nothing about truth but survival, and injustice is a delusion of the mind. We are just molecules after all. What is the purpose of spending so much energy on this website complaining of religious psychology and man made religion when such things are not evil nor good.. they just are.
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January 12, 2013 at 5:35 pm
Jaysen:
If people would have had knowledge perhaps Jonestown and similar tragedies might never have happened:
Almost three decades ago an unusual series of events led to the deaths of more than 900 people in the middle of a South American jungle. Though dubbed a “massacre,” what transpired at Jonestown on November 18, 1978, was to some extent done willingly, making the mass suicide all the more disturbing. Relatives of cult members grew concerned and requested that the U.S. government rescue what they believed to be brainwashed victims living in concentration camp-like conditions under Jones’s power, (of clergy/religious deception)
My mission is akin to the natural inclination to root for the underdog when you know the underdog is being taken advantage of by deceptive practices giving them false information and false hope only to suck their money and leave them groveling in the blind ditch. Why do people root for the underdog and find underdogs appealing? Researchers propose that those who are viewed as disadvantaged arouse people’s sense of fairness and justice — important principles to most people.
People despite all else deserve to have the best education and knowledge for their pursuit of happiness. People may only be a bunch of molecules but this molecule has an assembly of other molecules called compassion to serve the downtrodden.
Knowledge is truth and only knowledge can set you free, belief never can; therefore, I have returned to retrieve fools from their folly and a good place to start is who the real person Jesus really was:
The life of Jesus covers the whole spectrum of human experience. The characters he encountered range from tyrants, murderers, bullies, thieves, jealous schemers, liars and assassins to noble kings, tender lovers, doting parents, roistering drunks, swaggering soldiers, philosophers, gravediggers and country bumpkins. How could one man, who lived all his life within a small area of the Middle East, have achieved such an encyclopedic knowledge of mankind?
The answer of course is by looking inside himself. In his own head and heart he found every possible trait of character and twist of emotion. His dialogue rings true because Jesus knew that he himself was Everyman. He had only to consult his own soul to imagine how any character would react in a given situation because he—-as a human being—- was also a microcosm of the whole human race.
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January 12, 2013 at 9:39 pm
Leonardo….
But what makes jonestown such a “tragedy”? Survival of the fittest, the weak unevolved mind being removed from the gene pool serves humanity best does it not? Your very mission to free the underdog from deception is no better morally objective than jim jones’ very mission to deceive.You simply only lack, at this time ,the might to make right…. YOUR right.
Compassion? Fairness? justice? There must be some unevolved portion of your brain, for indeed It is true, as you say,these ARE important principals to most people– but NOT to the enlightened atheist mind that “knows” better! Self preservation is king to producing offspring with superior genes that have no such weaknesses!
Say I’m wrong!..but then… that IS the question isn’t it…..?
If I understand correctly you spend much energy here as an assembly of molecules because you have a mission? A movement that includes interpreting for the weak minded who the REAL jesus is ( an atheist) and what he REALLY taught, bringing to light the false teachings about him that religion x y or z doesnt seem to get?
Your movement by many could hardly be distinguishable from the religions started by “people” that you spend so much energy complaining about… minus the claim of miracles of course. Maybe if you could perform a few miracles it would verify your claims otherwise the seventh day adventist church down the street has one up on you and you are behind the eight ball ,being just another truth claim…
So Jesus was an atheist and you are his apostle?
Atheism often leads to materialism and the ideology followed consistantly must lead us to conclusions that shape a world view that few of its disciples can follow nor accept…perhaps because there really ARE morally objective truths that are rooted in a moral authority whos very attributes and being emanate these truths making them self evident even to some of the darkest of minds.
If one offers the gospel of atheism as the lense from which to view all things, no good news is offered at all. it is not an offer of compassion but of survival of the fittest! A purposeless begining and an hopeless ending for mankind- for the universe came into being FROM nothing, BY nothing, FOR nothing and the earth will eventually end drifting lifeless through the dark cold expanse of the universe.
Even if I accepted athieim … it would not be by choice or because of rational arguments that led me to good conclusions. But matter in motion…laws of nature setting in motion the processes that lead to thought in the brain, NOT some immaterial soul that gives the ability to choose, for free will is an illusion.. and the word “ought” OUGHT to be removed from the dictionary.
Or rather, an atheist could not RATIONALLY blame me for not accepting atheism, after all, I am simply thinking what my brain TELLS me to think.
Although, the atheist that ridicules one for not believing atheism cannot be blamed for ridicule rationally could they?… after all THEY have no choice .
What a world view atheism has to offer..
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January 13, 2013 at 11:54 am
Jaysen:
Stand by and I will comment more fully on your interesting commentary, interesting but bizarre, nevertheless.
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January 13, 2013 at 11:59 am
Jaysen:
Maybe I just twisted my comment just a tad perhaps, maybe it should read:
Stand by and I will comment more fully on your interesting commentary, bizarre but interesting, nevertheless.
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January 13, 2013 at 6:54 pm
Jaysen:
I always find it humorous when religionists cannot debate religion and the gods myths they promote, go on the ad hominem trying to denigrate Atheists with claims, god knows where they get them from: atheism is a religion, atheism often leads to materialism; I can only guess where that one came from.
And who claims that survival of the fittest is a tenet of atheism; indeed, that atheism is a movement? Darwin? So lolable. Of course atheism often gets dragged into comparison with religion-like societies: north korea, russia’s stalin, china’s Mao and Cambodia’s pol pot; and the universe came into being from nothing, by nothing and for nothing and eventually end drifting lifless….” OMG why all the drama trying to define atheism with ideas that you conjure up? Atheism always existed but like gays had to hide in the closet to keep from getting killed by religious maniacs and they are still hiding in the closet in countries that remain obsessed with religious insanity especially Islamic countries.
Do you have a purpose? Presumably you do since you state sarcastically that atheists offer only survival of the fittest, a purposeless beginning and a hopeless ending….” But where do you ever get such messages of definitions, certainly not the dictionary? Only religionists would come out with such fabrications as a crutch to lift up their failings perhaps? Religion is a failed science and is losing the argument on every front.
I never heard of an atheist ridiculing someone for not believing atheism, atheism is not something to believe in; atheism is a-theism, a non belief in theism’s supernatural god. Theism is the entity; if you didn’t “believe in atheism you would have to be an a-atheist (aatheist) without theism there would be no such thing as a-theism; as one is a-moral without morals, or as sexless: a-sexual.
Here is one of the best summaries on religion and atheism by a famous atheist:
“……I live in a society where everyone’s beliefs are respected, as long as they believe in god. But, despite that there are still some good reasons to be an atheist. Personally, I like the hours, 24/7. I find they suit me very well indeed.
Now people often ask me about being an atheist and certain questions crop up all the time. For example, how can you know good from evil without religion to guide you? Well that’s just the point isn’t it, religion does guide me. Most of the things I see religion do, I think are evil. And I find that’s a pretty useful benchmark. If religion is involved I know evil won’t be too far away.
Another question is, isn’t atheism itself just another religion? Well, I suppose atheism is a religion in the same way that creationism is a science or Islam is a religion of peace; in other words, when language no longer really means anything. How can atheism be a religion? Who do we worship and who’s going to kill us if we don’t? Atheism doesn’t demand absolute unquestioning obedience or make threats about eternal damnation nor does it take childish offense over trifles. It doesn’t treat women like livestock.
In a way it’s a shame it’s not a religion because we might be able to get a few tax breaks out of it but no; atheism doesn’t get any special privileges, there are no schools teaching atheism to children as a belief system, paid for with public money. Nor does atheism require anyone to tithe part of their income to keep a few cynical con-men in luxury so you see it doesn’t begin to qualify as a religion worthy of the name.
Atheism is another word for reality, it means not seeing any need to apologize for being human. And to be happy to live the life we have and not just wish it away on some celestial wingnut that tells me heaven is right there waiting and all you’ve got to do, is DIE. That’s some price to pay for admission to a place that is likely to be full of clergymen, born again christians and suicide Muslim JigSaw puzzles which I reckon makes it a fate worse than death.
but surely people need religion to answer certain questions, well yes, questions like, How best can we stifle the human spirit? How much can we squeeze from the poor and gullible? and how many palaces can we live in at once? without blushing. These questions religion answers very well indeed. But unfortunately there are other questions to which it doesn’t have answers so it makes them up. This is where atheism comes in.
Atheism says, Hey you just made that up. And religion says no, this is what we call theology.
What’s the difference between a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Theology? One prescribes drugs and the other may as well be on drugs. A theologian is somebody who is an expert in the unknowable. And has all the qualifications to prove it. Yeah, a real specialist.
And this is why I think the question we should be asking is not whether atheism is a religion but why theology is regarded as a branch of philosophy and not as a creative art? Because it is very creative. You can dress your god up in whatever set of the king’s new clothes you like and it must be great fun for all concerned. But personally I don’t see any more reason to teach it in universities than there is to teach astrology.
Okay, okay, we get it. You don’t believe in god but at least religious organizations do a lot of good work especially in the third world. Surely you can’t knock that? So what are you telling me? If they weren’t religious, they wouldn’t be doing this work? It’s not really coming from their hearts? They’re just doing it because they’re following orders? Is that what you’re saying?
To be fair I do actually sympathize to some extent, I mean, it must be quite galling for religious people to see atheists like me going about their business without a shred of guilt or self loathing and not in the least inclined to pray or to do penance of any kind and not in the slightest bit worried about any form of eternal punishment.
I have to admit, if I was religious, I’d probably think to myself, well, how come I’ve got all this weight on my shoulders while these bums are getting a free ride. And I don’t even think I’d be comforted either as some of you clearly are by the prospect of their eternal torture in the flames of Hell, roasting in agony, and tormented by demons…” pcondell
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January 14, 2013 at 2:55 pm
Leonardo,
I never cease to be amazed at how many “rational atheists” can’t identify an argumentum ad absurdum. This is basic logical thinking. I did not equate the immorality of homosex to the immorality of child dismemberment. I was challenging your moral relativism by giving you a clear example of something that is objectively immoral. This is so clear that I can’t help but to conclude that you either did not read my comments carefully, or you are purposely evading my point with a red herring.
Your quotes of Jesus do not back up the claim that sin is in the eye of the beholder. Jesus was pointing out their hypocrisy. They would level any charge necessary to avoid the truth. John was a man of fasting and prayer, but they did not like his message so they accused him of having a demon. Jesus was not a man given to fasting, so since they did not like his message they accused him of being a glutton and drunkard. In other words, damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
As for your biological thought experiment, at best a biological cause for same-sex attraction tells you why someone has the experience/desires they do. But it tells you nothing about whether they should act on those desires. Moral questions are separate from biology questions. Indeed, what if a genetic cause is discovered for pedophilia. Would that make pedophilia just an alternative sexual preference? Would it make it moral? Obviously not.
And BTW, I agree with you that it’s a mistake to say that gay people simply choose to be that way. But one need not root their attraction biologically to make that point. There are plenty of reasons to think that same-sex attraction is formed from fractured relationships in early childhood. That too explains why they have these attractions, and it does not mean they “choose” them. What they do choose is whether to act on those desires.
Who is not showing themselves friendly? I am expressing moral disagreement with certain behaviors, but since when did moral disagreement equate to unfriendliness? You disagree with Christianity on a host of intellectual and moral issues. Should I interpret your disagreements as mean-spiritedness? What makes someone unfriendly is their attitude, and how they communicate their moral views. I don’t think my posts are unfriendly in the least. I am very respectful of the people whose views I oppose. You, on the other hand, appear disrespectful and condescending in what you say and how you say it. Perhaps you should take your own medicine on this one: If you want to be friends with the religious world, you have to show yourself friendly.
Jason
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January 14, 2013 at 4:51 pm
Jason:
I disagree with your opinion about sexual orientation and submit that there are no “plenty of reasons to think that same-sex attraction is formed from fractured relationships in early childhood.” Heterosexuality is genetically based entirely and not subject to the environment other than perhaps the environment in the womb(or mutation) that influences genetic formation, as crocs, turtles, alligators and some fish and reptiles for example orient by temperature.
It’s a phenomenon that happens in lots of reptiles and it also happens in some fish as well. Instead of having genes or chromosomes that determine whether or not an embryo turns into a male or female, as in humans, theirs depend on temperature. So for example, alligators lay their eggs in a nest, and if they’re incubated at around 30 degrees, they will all turn into females. If they’re incubated at 33 degrees, they will all turn into males. And if you get temperatures in between those two, you get a varying mixture of males and females in a different ratio.
A study in Nature last year by Daniel Warner and Rick Shine from the University of Sydney worked with creatures called Jacky Dragon Lizards from Australia that have this temperature-based sex determination.
What they’ve shown is that a key event in the sex determination of these lizards is the conversion of testosterone into oestradiol, a form of oestrogen. This is brought about by an enzyme called aromatase, happens at very low temperatures and tells the developing dragon to become a female.
What they did in the paper was to override the enzyme, and by blocking it they could artificially turn males into females even if they were being incubated at a female temperature.
I would also like to point out again in case you missed it in my commentary of Jan. 12th, 1:06am: “Homosexuality is after all heterosexuality with a twist with the anomaly of same “physical” appearance.” In other words homosexuality is a misnomer as the biological explanation I gave clearly illustrates. The female brain is acting purely on the predetermined sexual orientation of her brain. We know that everything that we perceive happens in the brain; we don’t hear in our ears, where we hear is in the brain; where we see is in the brain, we don’t see in our eyes, all sensory perception is in the brain via various conduits.
However, the female brain or the male brain is aroused by mere vision and chemical reactions through the eye and other sensory conduits react on reptilian reflexes I submit and I further submit that it is immoral for the religious community to condemn heterosexual brain behavior based only on the same sex attraction at the physical level.
We can see how religious control of this phenomenon is utilized in the Islamic world that forces women to hide their physical bodies by wearing a burka in order to interfere with the visual stimulation that causes chemical reactions and arousal in the male brain. This is Islam’s way of sexual control and ultimately people control. Nuns in Christendom were covered in the same way; in school growing up we were taught by Nuns who looked like penguins and all us kids could see is if they were tall, short, skinny or fat.(we did see their front faces though not just the eyes through a burka slit so we did see facial expressions of smiles or anger and so on.
Heterosexuality is generally between consenting adults or between adults at least. But comparing heterosexuality between adults with pedophilia sexuality with children is an apples and orangutang comparison and you seem to grasp at straws of ludicrity (root word ludicrous) when discussing morals or sin but morals like sin is in the eye of the beholder sometimes it’s a question of geography or a matter of culture; case in point, religious morals vs secular tolerance. Some Christians, Michelle Bachman comes to mind in the US, want to open schools to change the sexual orientation of people, how smart is that? Iran wants to hang heterosexuals for being human based only on same genitalia attraction which you call “same sex” attraction without regard for brain orientation because same sex attraction is not between a person’s legs but between their ears and how smart is that? They are losing the battle of progress because education is passing them by as they continue to think in terms of pre knowledge of modernity. It’s like my computer, already 3 operating systems(6 years) behind the times.Yikes
A few more closing points on sexual orientation and our evolving community from: The concepts of gender identity and transgender identity differ from that of sexual orientation.(^ Blanchard, R. (1989) The classification and labeling of nonhomosexual gender dysphorias from Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 18, Number 4, August 1989. Retrieved via SpringerLink on 2007-04-0)
Sexual orientation describes an individual’s enduring physical, romantic, emotional, and/or spiritual attraction to another person, while gender identity is one’s personal sense of being a man or a woman.(Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “GLAAD’s Transgender Resource Page”, “GLAAD”, USA. Retrieved on 2011-02-24.)
In the past, the terms homosexual and heterosexual were incorrectly used to label transgender individuals’ sexual orientation based on their birth sex.(^ Blanchard, R. (1989) The classification and labeling of nonhomosexual gender dysphorias from Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 18, Number 4, August 1989. Retrieved via SpringerLink on 2007) Professional literature now uses terms such as attracted to men (androphilic), attracted to women (gynephilic), attracted to both or attracted to neither to describe a person’s sexual orientation without reference to their gender identity.(^ APA task force (1994) “…For sexually mature individuals, the following specifiers may be noted based on the individual’s sexual orientation: Sexually Attracted to Males, Sexually Attracted to Females, Sexually Attracted to Both, and Sexually Attracted to Neither…” in DSM-IV: Sections 302.6 and 302.85 published by the American Psychiatric.)
Therapists are coming to understand the necessity of using terms with respect to their clients’ gender identities and preferences.(^ Goethals, S.C. and Schwiebert, V.L. (2005) “…counselors to rethink their assumptions regarding gender, sexuality and sexual orientation. In addition, they supported counselors’ need to adopt a transpositive disposition to counseling and to actively advocate for transgendered persons…” Counseling as a Critique of Gender: On the Ethics of Counseling Transgendered Clients from the International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, Vol.) For example, a person who is assigned male at birth, transitions to female, and is attracted to men would be identified as heterosexual.
Why do you think surgery that “odd” gendered men and women opt for so they can have genitals their brain were formed to behave by?
AT last, I apologize if I do sound disrespectful; sometimes I mean to and sometimes I don’t but some words I use seem often more brash in their definition than the softer intention of my attitude intends and with a lot more editing I could tone down the rhetoric so ask you once again, please indulge my communication level; having said that, I do wish to tell you that I appreciate the respect and tone of your commentary, thank you.
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January 14, 2013 at 5:00 pm
Leo,
In response to your reply to me (and I see you have your hands full with many streams here–thanks for taking the time to dialogue with my question)
Jesus, when speaking of the Father within Him, said in John 14:10,
10. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
And what were the works the Father did from within Christ? They were divinely inspired supernatural acts only a God could perform, such as:
– changing water into wine
– walking on the water
– raising the dead
– healing leprosy
– curing blindness
– feeding five thousand people with a few loaves of bread and two fish
– etc.
You can’t get around it. Jesus was not an atheist. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and is the only access point (i.e. door) to the Father, i.e. Almighty God.
To say that we are all gods because “the kingdom of God is in you” and the Father lives in His kingdom is a severe twisting and perversion of Christ’s intent.
And I can prove it. Since Christ performed supernatural works, including the one you like to pick on, i.e. exorcism of demons, because the Father was in Him, if what you say is true, then you should be able to perform the same divinely inspired supernatural acts of a God.
Can you? Or do you deny all divinely inspired supernatural acts, even the ones performed by Jesus? And if you do, then I ask, why do you take as true a couple of verses attributed to Christ in the Gospels to make your whole argument, but then reject the others parts of the Gospels that ascribe divinely inspired supernatural acts to Christ as the Son of God?
PS. By the way, people who are truly filled with the Spirit of God through faith in Jesus Christ, can and do “greater works than these” because the Father is in us (Ephesians 4:6).
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January 14, 2013 at 5:19 pm
Leonardo,
I feel you say a whole lot of nothing. I do not retract my comments, they still stand. You are peddling an ideolgoy that includes an atheist jesus that no serious scholar of history, never mind theology, would accept. You also oppose yourself spending much time & energy defending a self refuting truth claim that by its very nature makes truth unknowable.
Perhaps you can be persuaded of the truth with sound arguments, perhaps you cannot. I believe men like Jason dulle and web sites like theosophical ruminations can give us thought provoking arguments. Perhaps it is no accident that you care to frequent this site. I believe in a God that knows exactly what to bring into your life that you might seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him. 1 Cor 2:5 ;acts 17:27
I am not ashamed to say that I will be praying for you leonardo, sincerely. Yes, I understand you will accuse me of wasting my time and energy in doing so & that miracles do not exist, ….suffer me then, please, to waste my time in prayer for you and a miracle is exactly what Ill be praying for in your life.
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January 14, 2013 at 6:05 pm
votivesoul:
Thanks for your reply:
I disagree that any act Jesus did was supernatural. Jesus was a common sense person. The events that happened are explainable and I can easily explain most but remember that the masses were brainwashed by the clergy to expect that everything not easily understood would bean act of supernaturalism, Jesus debunked this supernaturalism and debunked the supernatural gods of men.
“Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”
Jesus is merely acknowledging that the internal brain is where resides the essence of a man, not that which comes by observation which the religionists always believed. the Kingdom consists of a fantastic organ called the brain with phenomenal functions; it is a bundle of experiences, sensory perceptions, trials and errors, learned behaviors and meticulous observations all housed in a fantastic brain that essentially functions as the guiding spirit within from all of the above and if there ever was a personal god, it is this brain function in conjunction with memory that is the true Father and the true Kingdom of Heaven and indeed the only God and therefore by extension we too are Gods.
Now just before that concept of people being Gods throws you for a loop consider how Jesus responded to this when questioned by the Clergy, again being infuriated by Jesus common sense, perfect interpretation of scripture and different understanding about the human condition: Jesus asked the clergy why they wanted to stone him: John 10:33 “The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.” 34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’? 35 If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” 39 Therefore they sought again to seize Him, but He escaped out of their hand.”
I submit that the suspension of the Laws of Nature, the Laws of Physics, the Laws of the universe are not suspended to accommodate clergy’s claims that supernatural event happen regardless of if the Pope says so or not in order to canonize the Catholic Saints.
Chris Mindfreak and other Magic Makers walk on water, to give a modern day illusion but I think that perception of events was based more on the delusion of the uneducated followers rather than the deliberate illusion of Jesus although in the case of Lazarus Jesus certainly did emphasize the the God illusion in much the same way that Moses used his showmanship when he whacked the water with his sceptre as the tide was going out or threw it down in front of Pharaoh where it turned into a snake, for it story goes on to say that the Pharaoh’s own magicians mastered that same sceptre/snake trick a short time later to discredit the “magic” of the God of Moses.
Regarding the Bread and fishes and wine. Who was one of Jesus best friends, a member of the Sanhedrin and one of the wealthiest men in town with immense influence? Joseph of Arimathea. I submit that Joseph was a supplier to the military, owned bakeries, fish plants, wineries and most businesses in the village. And who did Jesus go to when he needed a place? When he needed bread and fish to feed the Billy Graham type Crusades of crowds who followed him to the Retreats? I have no doubt whatsoever that wagons of bread and fish, the main staples of the day, were packed up into Joseph’s carts and hauled to the Retreat and unloaded at the cache that Joseph and Jesus had built beforehand. So when Jesus bade the crowds sit down and sent the servers out to gather what they could among the crowds for sharing they gathered baskets of bread and fish and brought what they gathered back to Jesus. Jesus then in a manner of showmanship said to the disciples(before the gathering when the disciples said the crowds should be sent away for they were getting hungry so Jesus said, “You Feed them”, Jesus was teasing them of course) And so Jesus told the servers to sbegin the distribution and when they baskets were emptied, to return them. They did so and when the baskets were returned, Jesus was ready with the cache to now load the baskets again and again and again ’til the crowd had all eaten their fill. And the miracles of the loaves and fishes was noised throughout the country.
The wine happened in a similar way I submit. And the blind I submit was not blind from birth nor was the cripple, crippled from birth. In many cases, as it is today, street beggars and pan handlers make their living feigning sickness or handicaps and other such crutches to gain sympathy and spare change; their are groups that send out packs of recruits on a daily basis for employment like pimps with armies of girls to do their bidding. It was the same then. Peter saw such a one in Acts 3, a lame who I believe Peter knew was a ruse and everyday he was carried there to collect money and I think Peter said listen I know you are a false cripple so listen to me, I want you to be healed and walk away from this Temple and never come in deceit again or else I will expose you to the crown who will not take it lightly for you having defrauded them all this time. I think the cripple made a correct decision to go along with Peter rather than face the wrath of a crowd who may very well have stone him to death for such a ruse.
3 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. 9 When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
Call me a skeptic if you like.
I submit that Lazarus was suffering from a disease, not even very well known today called cataplexy; in fact there is a youtube video that describes how a woman taken for dead three separate times because she collapsed as though dead and paramedics took her to the morgue, no heart beat , no breathing, no pulse, for intents and purposes no life; she was dead. watch this astounding account and imagine that lazarus had the same condition…of course it would appear as a miracle and for showmanship purposes no one need ever know about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD4wMRzOMFE
Take care.
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January 14, 2013 at 7:06 pm
Jaysen:
Thank you. I appreciate the sentiment
I have been contemplating and meditating on Jesus and his life, on religion and the clergy on the religious and the secular since I was 12 years old. I read the gospels instead of listening to the priests.
I know many people have long since adopted the notion of Jesus as God but I have been more inclined to know Jesus the man and hardly anyone I communicate with knows anything about Jesus the person; when he was a kid playing in the streets with his village pals, falling down scraping his knees and elbows and run crying, clinging to his mother’s skirt; when he spoke and questioned profound things of philosophy with the elders when he was 12; plying his trade as a carpenter going to the neighbor’s house to fix the window when it jammed; being alone postulating the great proverbs and reading the stories of previous great men, understanding what some went through, what some died for, what others lived for; I was with him when he went into the desert and pondered what he should do with his passion for truth, his common sense for understanding and the reality of nature and what was this thing about supernaturalism? I was with him when he contemplated the clergy and how they deceived the masses at every turn, at every opportunity they deceived for material gain regardless of the poor they hurt, despite the downtrodden when none of them matter to religion except for tithing; when the fitting and usual practice was to use sleight of hand, trickery and magic to deceive and confuse and deny the truth to everyone, preventing them from knowing the truth about the Kingdom, understanding the Kingdom and going to the Kingdom and refusing to go in themselves for deceit cannot enter the Kingdom of Good; how easy it would have been, Jesus thought, to use the same ploys of deceit to devour the property of widows, and for a pretense make a long and lengthy show of prayer words and excuses to rationalize greed’s insatiable appetite; to encourage the poor to give all they could afford and patiently wait for a supernatural miracle from on high to reward them for giving their all to the clergy; but no, he would never use his talents to do as the clergy did.
These were some of the thoughts of Jesus we read about that are called the Temptations; that the Devil lead Jesus into the wilderness, alas a bunch of rubbish isn’t it? Jesus being led by the devil to be tempted? sure you can take these stones and with a little magic and sleight of hand you too can cunningly devise a switch to loaves of bread and feed the hungry and sure everyone would grovel at your feet and they would all give you their wealth for a touch of your garment for a piece of the supernatural power you have surely been given and that might rub off on them by the great supernatural god of men; yes the ego was flying high when the realization came that one so powerfully more brilliant than the average villager; in fact you are so brilliant you are as smart as the wealthy members of the Jewish Council for all their deceit that you could see right through them and they would welcome your intelligence. OMG you could throw yourself down the cliff and survive with your physical prowess and strength but no!
Jesus was a man of common sense and he would work on behalf of and for the common man, the man who was poor, the downtrodden, not the deceptive clergy taken people for a ride all their lives under falsehoods and lies about the rewards and treasures in the heaven in the afterlife which Jesus knew no such afterlife existed.
BUT he did know and accept that the Kingdom of God, the real god he called Father did exist but existed not externally but indeed existed internally, within you, in a place where all men could enter that flesh and blood could not go and partake of, if only, if only, they masses knew. Then would they see that heaven is not a place you go to but a place that you bring here to earth from within and so he coined the famous Lord’s Prayer, Father who art in heaven, (within), hallowed and holy and revered is your name for you are the true God that exists; your Kingdom come, and we ask that thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
And a typical example of the will in heaven coming to earth was the invention of the simple and beautifully healthful thing called the bandaid, from heaven to earth, where it can be seen and used and enjoyed and benefited by others.
If the religious based their understanding on knowledge instead of belief, they would not be praying, chanting, finger beading, bowing, hen-pecking and praising the supernatural gods of men; they would be reflecting on the inner self witness, the righteous conscience that Jesus always referred to within, the Father, not Zeus or Gods by any name then would we civilize as a human race at one ment instead of factions fractured by divisive religions, myths, miracles, magic and mayhem. Amen.
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January 15, 2013 at 9:37 pm
Well, Leo
If that’s where you’re at on things, what can I say?
I think you’re about as far off as anyone could possibly ever be. But you have that freedom.
Thanks for the chat.
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January 15, 2013 at 10:42 pm
PS. By the way, people who are truly filled with the Spirit of God through faith in Jesus Christ, can and do “greater works than these” because the Father is in us (Ephesians 4:6).
Would you say Aaron that Benny Hinn and Peter Popoff are truly filled with the spirit and doing “greater works than these”? To name just a couple not to mention Jim Bakker anymore than a passing name: They are supernaturalists too; anybody can be if you have a gullible audience who already believe in such nonsense as the uneducated of 2000 years ago.
Benny Hinn Ministries is a fraud and Benny Hinn is a fake who claims to heal, speak in tongues, perform miracles. Teams have uncovered a shocking tale of trickery and deceit on the part of several popular faith healers including Peter Popoff who have used their religious authority and media coverage to mislead millions of people.
You have the same freedom to go with the flow of the religious river or be your own person and be “being lead” by the spirit within instead of seeking the approval of others. Jesus never did but his role has been twisted and misshapened and distorted that nobody among the Christian world knows the real Jesus, the clergy would never let you know; it would ruin their cozy security blanket that has worked for centuries to provide them with a luxurious living all for the deception by myth, magic and miracle.
Yes we all have a freedom to be where we choose and there is a mighty gulf that separates us.
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January 15, 2013 at 11:04 pm
Leo, there are plenty of misguided kooks and fakers. When I think of truly Spirit-filled people, I do not think of the people you mentioned. While they are perhaps famous, they are also, as you implied, infamous. I don’t countenance their “ministries” one bit.
“…nobody among the Christian world knows the real Jesus…”
Really? But you somehow do? Gnostic narcissism at its worst.
Your cynicism knows no bounds, does it? Some conspiratorial mythological secret society you keep calling “the Clergy” just doesn’t exist the way you portray it. Whatever your past hang ups or bad experiences were, forgive and let it go.
There really are down to earth, true, believing followers of Jesus Christ who aren’t in it for the money, or the fame, or whatever else you might accuse them of, even if–gasp!–they hold some ministerial position in a local, regional, or national church group.
You’ve got to get outside your own brain for awhile, and maybe off the internet and go meet some real people who have faithfully taken up their cross, denied themselves, and paid the cost of being a Christian. Because they really are out there, if you take the time to look (and not assume, prejudge, accuse, and etc., which you seem to only want to do, before you meet them–if you ever do).
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