Monthly Archives: November 2020

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Without the devil

As the fourth and silent member of the trinity, churches, mosques and most likely synagogues would have closed. We must, if we look at the narratives presented to us, take it that the devil has equal power with the god head.

Many a Christian believe themselves monotheistic while they believe in a multitude of gods; god the father, the son, the holy ghost, the devil, Mary mother of god and a multitude of angels and saints.

The priests believe in magic. They persecute magicians only because they think they have commerce with the devil.

The miracles of Jesus do not provide definitive proof of his power. The good book says even the antichrist will do the same but doesn’t tell how we can separate the two.

Nowhere in the bible is to be found a defence of freedom of thought.

There was never a just war. Only defensive wars.

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How faiths spread

But how do you think, then, that my religion became established? Like all the rest. A man of strong imagination made himself followed by some persons of week imagination. The flock increased; fanaticism commences, fraud achieves. A powerful man comes; he sees a crowd, ready bridled and with a bit in its teeth; he mounts and leads it.

Voltaire
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We cannot be certain

Of the justice of men who are capable of fashioning and worshipping an unjust divinity; nor on their humanity, so long as they incorporate inhuman motives in their most sacred dogma; nor their reasonableness, while they rigorously decline to accept reason as a test of truth

Morley

I am sure Barry would disagree and I would too. There are many times humans have acted better than their gods. The Christians at least have stopped using the rake to discover who believes correctly and are no longer stoning their neighbours for having the wrong interpretation of religion.

But on the whole, if one worships a cruel overlord, it is not far fetched to imagine their capacity for cruelty. Look at the Muslims chopping heads in the name of God or it name of the profit?

To be fair to religionists, it can be said any ideology believed in that admits no error and is taken as absolute truth is likely to be intolerant of divergent opinion and can easily lead to inhumane and cruel acts.

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George william Foote

Said many lofty things and I agree with him wholeheartedly. England owes him an apology for jailing him for freedom of speech.

But he is also evidence that intelligent men can be grossly mistaken. In his response to Booth, he of the Salvation Army, he wrote and I agree that people in jail should be treated with kindness that indeed many are not psychopaths & may not be a threat to society if rehabilitated. Where i disagree with him is in saying the weak, the ‘unfit’ should not be supported & this is based on the natural selection- let the fit survive. I think this was a gross misunderstanding of evolution on his part.

He writes, for example

He is not aware that thousands of men and women are born in every generation who are behind the age. They are types of a vanished order of mankind, relics of antecedent stages of culture. Natural selection is always eliminating them, and general Booth proposes to cuddle them, to surround them with artificial circumstances, and give them a better chance. He does not see that most of them, however propped up by the more energetic and independent, will always bear the stamp of unfitness; nor does he see that he will enable them to beget and rear a more numerous offspring of the same character.

Salvation syrup by Foote

He believes there are congenital criminals and prostitutes among other things.

I am also inclined to disagree with Booth when he writes

No change in circumstances, no revolution in social conditions, can possibly transform the nature of man

General Booth

It appears to me these gentlemen misunderstood Darwin or were among the Ryan’s of the 19th century. Or am I missing something as Mike is won’t to say?

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Questions

Happy Monday everyone.

Those who read this blog religiously have, I am sure, read the questions of Zapata. I am not going to re-post them here. No, the questions we have are more interesting, but before the questions something we might all agree with.

Everything for which we love and venerate the man Jesus becomes a bitter and absurd mockery when attributed to the Lord Christ

James Thomson, Satires and Profanities

Now the questions

  1. he went about doing good; if God, why did he not do all good at once?
  2. he cured many sick; if god why did he not give the whole world health?
  3. he associated with publicans and sinners; if god, why did he make publicans and sinners at all?
  4. he preached the kingdom of heaven; if god, why did he not bring the kingdom with him and make all mankind fit for it?
  5. he loved the poor, he taught the ignorant; if god, why did he let any remain poor and ignorant?
  6. he died for love of mankind; if god, why did he not restore mankind to himself without dying? and what great thing was it to seem to die for three days?
  7. he sent apostles to preach salvation to all men; if god, why did he not reveal it at once to all men, and so reveal it that doubt had been impossible?
  8. he lived an example of holiness to us all; if god, how can our humanity imitate deity
  9. why did he ever let the world get evil?

I hope to hear your responses and have a great week everyone.

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Religious disservice

In the satires and profanities of James Thomson, there is an essay about an famous Old Jewish firm that has me in stitches all through. At some place he writes

[…]Jah always kept himself invisible, while the son and mother were possibly seen, during some years, by a large number of persons; and among those who have never seen them their portraits are almost as popular as photographs of the prince and Princess of Wales.

Satires and profanities

And this reminded me of the case of the Muslims who are busy chopping heads in the name of the prophet while no one knows how the profit looked like, if he did live.

I think religious people are funny.