You have in this post, a fellow who starts by saying bravely
If you’ve “studied all religions” and can’t see any difference between them, you haven’t actually studied religions.
And immediately begins an apologia for Christianity!
The author tells us
The Christian gospel is the Bible’s clear and inescapable message that God became man in Jesus Christ, and died to take the punishment for sins that each of us deserve.
which when translated in normal speak should read; the bible is the clear record of a suicidal and malicious god who died to save us from his malice for making us they we are.
And yes, we agree
This “substitutionary atonement” (Jesus paying the price for sin in our place) is the distinctive element of the gospel that sets it apart.
but for the reasons you think but because it is so absurd to be believable that one would entertain the thought that it is a just thing to kill a good person as a substitute for the mistakes of another person.
And I disagree
Religions are not all the same, and any believer who has genuinely studied their own religion will know this.
Religions are all the same but it is the expression of the beliefs that differ.
And the person who believes
And in raising Him from the dead, God showed that Jesus is the one He had chosen to be the saviour of the world, rather than Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, or any other religious leader.
must believe in a god that depends on human or animal sacrifice to achieve it ends. This must, in my view be a very limited god.
And in other news
When will the guns go silent in Syria, Burundi, Lebanon, Nigeria, Palestine/ Israel, Central African Republic, Iraq, France and elsewhere men and women are fighting? What will it take to attain world peace? And is it an achievable prospect or should we be more realistic and accept that it will forever be a dream and nothing more?
And finally for those who are having a bad day
Those who might be wondering whether we have electricity in this part of the world, we do
out cycling with friends
bikers paradise: tea farms, fresh air, cool breeze and little traffic
Random thoughts 
I find the idea of substitutionary atonement appalling. Any deity that requires it isn’t worthy of being followed.
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We agree completely on this
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Glad to see you all wearing your helmets. 🙂
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Safety consciousness.
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Thank you for the beautiful pictures of your homeland. I admit, even as an atheist, I tend to do the American thing in assuming your continent as having only one type of climate with only one type of terrain. I’ve grown accustomed to seeing pictures of a hot and desert like atmosphere. And I know better! Your pictures remind me of the variety and beauty of your home. Thank you!
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Africa is vast. There is the equatorial belt that is green and wet almost all year round, there is the Sahara desert which is hot and dry and Namib desert which I think is quite humid, then highlands and plains. Nairobi is in the highlands so we have quite good weather all year round.
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I was watching a video the other day about the largest inland delta. I think it was Botswana. It sounds like a good trivia question.
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I don’t think I would have got that right. I have forgot some of the land features and their locations that I learnt in high school
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And I know this. I’ve even talked about it with my little boys because they were surprised that you all had forests over there.
I guess it goes back to my days in Church or Christian charities advertising on tv. Talk of how Christian Americans need to deliver poor African children who live in an impoverished state in the desert…..because of the Muslims.
I’ve also known American missionaries over there who fill regular newsletters with pictures of little ones on the brink of death. This is often the only part of Africa Westerners are shown so that we’ll donate lots of money to such ministries.
Such behavior is typical of religionists, keeping people ignorant and divided.
Still, I hope to make it to Victoria Falls one day. I’ve wanted to see it for years.
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We call it slum tourism. When people come here they are taken to the slums and some never get to see other areas and leave thinking Nairobi must be a big slum except for the city centre.
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‘slum tourism, never heard that term before. Who exactly are the target market for the those tours?
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slum_tourism
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And eucalyptus trees! I could feel well at home there.
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It’s a good place
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Please tell me no one actually asked you about the electricity….
You know, the other day I remembered a detail I had forgotten. When I was in high school in art class I used to sit next to a girl who had just moved to the U.S. from Kenya. It was so long ago, I’m not confident in my memory, but I want to say she was American and her father worked for a multinational corporation, was transferred to Kenya and then transferred back to the U.S. some years later. She was probably subjected to all my stupid questions about lions or whatever. Sweet girl. I wanted to be friendlier but I was too shy and our social circles didn’t really over lap, so we only every talked in class.
“when translated in normal speak” – Man, remind me not to get on your bad side.
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Not on electricity but I have been asked about lions on end, and I think once about storey buildings.
We are likely to remain on each others good side
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Maybe the lions are wishful thinking. My mother’s former boss went on one of those “photo safaris”, and it was to Kenya. I think that’s a big association. I’d probably say that the majority of people I meet who want to visit Africa want to go to Kenya and probably one of the things they want to see is lions. It’s almost like a childish idea.
I remember when I was a kid reading about Venice, a city where they had water instead of streets. Then as I got older and you find out a lot of things in children’s books are not real, I assumed Venice was not real. When I finally saw Venice in person, I started to cry because it was like Never Never Land existed. I know, that’s a silly reaction, but still….
Do you have any weird ideas about other places? I remember a woman in Mexico said she thought snow tasted like ice cream – then she said, “I sort of know it probably doesn’t but that’s how I imagine it.”
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No, luckily I don’t think so.
Though I would so much like to visit Europe or the Americas in winter.
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If it was snowing, that would probably be fun for you for about a day. Big snows are fun. I like it when the city almost shuts down. There’s less noise to begin with and then what sound there is is not reflected when everything’s covered in snow so there’s a certain type of quiet. But cold, no snow, with the wind whipping, that is not fun.
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I am still floored by the tea growing out of the ground. I see no boxes or tea bags on those plants. My mind is boggled.
Also, people sometimes ask me if there’s electricity out where I live. I tell them no, that my computer runs on magic. It works every time.
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You made me laugh about your computer using magic.
Next time I will have coffee plantations
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Coffee grows out of the ground too? My entire existence has been a lie.
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I knew coffee originated in Ethiopia, but I had no idea it was in Kenya also. I always envisioned rather dry grassy plains with big herds of animals invading central Nairobi (LOL….not the last part).
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We have coffee and tea.
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wouldn’t it be a hoot if every time we hear the phrase ‘substitutionary atonement’ we retorted with ‘you mean Human Sacrifice?’
as a Christian for 30+ years, and a minister for most of those in various capacities, I never thought of that connection or for that matter why an All Loving and Merciful God would even need such a sacrifice to forgive sin. I ask now, to the silent non response of Christians everywhere, ‘Why couldn’t God just… forgive?’
he could of course, but the next question is why he’d rather have blood for blood, death for death and torture for torture? it seems that the god of the bible, doesn’t matter OT or NT, is obsessed with blood and death and torture, much as the human cultures who wrote the Holy Books in the 1st Millenium BC and first centuries AD.
Why would an All Merciful, All Loving and All Compassionate and Forgiving God prefer and even require Blood, Death and Torture?
Do we think possibly this requirement, made reality in Islam but present in the Holy Books of Judaism and Christianity also, might have contributed to the Ritualistic Murder of these innocents in Paris?
I don’t think Judaism and Christianity can escape the same scrutiny as Islam, even though they haven’t as faithfully practiced what their bibles preach… at least not currently anyway. it’s all from the same rotten core.
-KIA
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I’m more bothered by the malevolent incompetence of our Creator Deity. Given that he is all powerful and all seeing and all knowing, why did he create human beings that he knew would be flawed from the beginning. How petty. Knowingly creating sentient creatures He knew would fall, just to play evil games with them.
This is not only a false doctrine. it is a wicked one.
The Calvinists are right…their Christian God is an awful entity, the Owner of All Infernal Names (h/t Mr. Zande). even if it was not a myth, the only moral approach would be rebellion. Heck, 1/3 of His perfect angelic host, we are told, rebelled. What does that say about the character of this deity? 🙂
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the 1/3 of the angels bit is an interp from the book of revelation regarding the serpent taking a third of the stars in heaven with his tail. but even if it were true god allowed Lucifer to rebel and the third of the angels to side with the rebellion… why cast them into the earth to cause the havoc that they were certain to inflict upon the ‘very good’ earth and A+E? why not just wipe them out of existence as a protective against the temptation of Eve?
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A god who knows what the outcome would be but goes ahead to do it is worse than wicked. Why believers bow to this excuse of a being is beyond me
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I might also note, however, that Christians and Jews in the modern West certainly practice their REAL religion, Mammonism. War is might profitable for the corrupt, connected elites that run the modern West. For people like Dick Cheney, Iraq was not a disaster, it was supremely profitable.
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They are going back to the early days of their religion. Kill the infidel, control the minds of everyone else and if you can restrict the advancement of knowledge
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Aren’t you afraid all those electric lights will stir up the tigers, crocodiles, and elephants and make ’em run rampant through the streets!? 😀 Great pics, BTW. And as for the rambling christian stuff, I must say it’s very nice to see a christian bashing other religions and proclaiming his is the right one. Doesn’t make him, or her, less of an idjit, but at least they’re being honest idjits. I likes that!
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The lions have their cages in the streets. They come out in the morning to hunt.
Yep, honest idjits
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How about this title? “The Self-Inflicted Blindness of Christian Masochists”
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Works very well
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Yawfukweh is all about violence, in one form or another, so naturally ”His children” follow by example.
Why would those ”created in His image honestly expect anything different?
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It is ambitious on our part to expect them to be different but I usually say most believers are better than their religious creeds.
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Very true, Mak. Indoctrination is insidious in this respect, psychologically crippling many individuals.
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In other news, when do you start writing again?
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Shrugs. Haven’t given it much thought.
I am writing, just not blogging. I got fed up!
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Fair enough.
How are things down south.
It’s wet here, I hope the weather gets better soon
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Rained last night. First time in ages. Serious water problems/shortages in some areas.
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