Category Archives: Religion

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we bring you good news from the Vatican

If you have been in the pursuit of holiness and found yourself restricted by many rules or conditions, we have good news for you. And this news comes to you from St. Paul’s ambassador or the guy with the direct link to Peter, pope Francis.

Redemption, for those seeking it, comes from god. And to receive it, you need faith in the gospel message. And in case you are Jewish and still confused, the Pope ain’t making this up. He says pick your battles with St. Paul, not him.

Now you have got the message, you cannot claim ignorance when you find yourself in hell. I told you already.

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If you are Jewish, you need Christ

And before you come crucifying (no pun intended) me pick it up with the pope.

Maybe the pope was misquoted [(is he a politician?) since that’s the line our politicians use even when quoted verbatim] when he said

The Law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. The Law is a journey, a journey that leads toward an encounter… Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ

Popeye

We are hoping to hear the pope’s response soon after he consults with Peter. Stay tuned brothers and sisters not in the law 🙂

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The definitive list of those (lost) who are hell bound

Who ends up in Hell?

Many fundamentalist ‘Christians’ maintain that Hell is reserved for people who are immoral. Helpfully, they are able to narrow this down into a few specific types of people:

  • People who voted for Clinton, Obama, Biden, or any democratic president in history
  • Liberals
  • Communists
  • Liars (unless they are also elected Republicans)
  • Thieves
  • Murderers
  • People who are violent
  • People who question my constitutional right to bear arms under the second amendment
  • People who question my right to invade other countries so that we can find and remove their weapons from them
  • People who don’t live in the United States of America
  • Atheists
  • Agnostics
  • Catholics (according to protestants)
  • Protestants (according to Catholics)
  • Hypocrites
  • Pagans
  • Muslims
  • Critics of Israel
  • Jews
  • Hitler
  • People who believe that a vaccine is more effective than prayer
  • People who believe in evolution
  • People who believe the earth is more than six thousand years old
  • Christians who don’t take the Bible literally
  • People who disagree with my interpretation of an ancient Jewish manuscript written in a completely different time, culture, and context to my own
  • Christians who don’t own and read the King James Version of the Bible
  • Christians who go to a different church than me
  • Christians who believe in free will
  • People who have not asked Jesus into their heart of their own free will
  • People who have never heard about Jesus
  • People who believe that people who have never heard about Jesus will end up in heaven
  • People who don’t believe in Hell
  • Fornicators
  • Masturbators
  • Goats
  • Gymnasts
  • People who dance
  • People who engage in pre-marital hand-holding
  • Women who speak in church
  • Women who wear pants
  • Women who cause men to sin by wearing dresses that are too short
  • Men who wear dresses
  • Women who think they are men
  • Men who think they are women
  • Women who support men who think they are women
  • Men who support women who think are men
  • Men who like men
  • Women who like women
  • Men and women who affirm and support men who like men and women who like women
  • Adulterers (unless they are men)
  • Rapists (unless the rapist and their victim are married)
  • Drunkards
  • People who like rock music
  • People with tattoos
  • People who have read any of the Harry Potter books
  • People who watch horror movies
  • People who enjoy life
  • Witches
  • Fortune tellers (unless you call it a prophetic word from the Lord)]
  • People who gossip (unless it’s to collect prayer requests)
  • People who are greedy
  • People who are absurdly rich (unless they are a televangelist)
  • People who walk away from the evangelical church after three and a half decades
  • Dead people
  • People who see dead people
  • Cats
  • You

Hey, it’s because I love you that I am warning you that you’re going to end up in Hell if you don’t repent and start believing exactly the same things I do. In fact, you’re pretty darn lucky that I am so enlightened and can show you the error of your ways.

Don’t you feel better now that you’ve heard the ‘Good News’ of the Gospel?

I sure do!

In fact, I’m sure glad that I have faithfully administered my Christian duty by warning you about Hell.

Hallelujah

Source document

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Maybe it is time for a new schism

I am one of those people who, whenever I can, read anything interesting that comes my way especially when I am relaxing after a long evening run, where long is anything more than 5km.

There has been a bit of pushback since popeye Francis released an encyclical that prohibits saying the Latin Mass unless with authority of the bishop. And some people feel that without that rite, their being catholic is very watered down or something close to that.

The author of this article says exactly that. For example, he writes

For Catholics, how we pray shapes what we believe. The old ritual physically aims us toward an altar and tabernacle. In that way it points us to the cross and to heaven as the ultimate horizon of man’s existence. By doing so, it shows that God graciously loves us and redeems us despite our sins. And the proof is in the culture this ritual produces. Think of Mozart’s great rendition of faith in the Eucharist: “Ave Verum Corpus” (Hail True Body).

Michael Brendan Dougherty

In opposition to this, he writes, the new mass

The new ritual points us toward a bare table, and it consistently posits the unity of humankind as the ultimate horizon of our existence. In the new Mass, God owes man salvation, because of the innate dignity of humanity. Where there was faith, now presumption. Where there was love, now mere affirmation, which is indistinguishable from indifference. It inspires weightless ditties like “Gather Us In.” Let’s sing about us!

M B Dougherty

And maybe it is time for a new schism. You know like how it happened in the beginning.

NB. That article maybe behind a paywall.

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where to search for truth and other stories

I know you have been wondering where your search for truth should begin. I have the answer for you, even you Jeff. The whole truth and nothing else is to be found in the bible. Every other book is fiction. And wait, this is big. In fact, we can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that every word in the Bible is true. I want proof that the ass spoke with Balaam. Barry, like you, I wonder if these people believe what they write.

I didn’t know Imagine by the Beatles is Atheist National Anthem- that is, I didn’t know there is a nation of Atheists. But it does seem some unhinged fellow took umbrage with the song because a version of it was played at the Japan 2020 Olympics Opening ceremony. Even the comments on that site are unhinged.

Americans must be at a loss where there is polarization at home. I got the answer. It is in sex/ sexuality. The nation has accepted the atheist view of sexuality and it is wrecking havoc. You should adopt the Mormon view or the Islamic view. This will help heal the rifts in the nation sooner than you can say sex.

But the best is this 2013 article from AIG on the flood. The good fellows at AIG say of the gods in the Epic of Gilgamesh that they are

capricious, cowardly, and dependent upon humans for either worship or nourishment. Because the gods cannot “tune out” human noise, they have to seek ways to reduce human population

forgetting that the god of the bible destroys the tower of Babel because it can’t tune out human noise, chases the first family out of Eden because they have become like the gods, and is dependent on human worship. There are laws/ commands and punishments for worshiping other gods among other things. Maybe the good fellow didn’t read those parts.

They tell us the story of Noah bears internal consistency. How many pairs of birds boarded the Ark? I will wait.

I like how the writers dismiss the similarities between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah’s flood by saying the 300 year gap between when they were written means they were all written close to the actual flood.

The best part is this

Moreover, the rest of Scripture considers the events of Genesis 6–9 to be factual history. For example, the writer of 1 Chronicles records Noah as being the ancestor of Abraham (1 Chronicles 1:4, 1:27). Jesus mentions Noah as a real historical person and the Flood as a real historical event (Matthew 24:37–39). Luke includes Noah in the genealogy of Christ (Luke 3:36), while Peter twice mentions that Noah built the Ark and was one of only eight people saved (1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5).

How do you know the bible is true? Because the bible says in this part that it’s claim in an earlier chapter is true. Jesus whose historicity is doubtful is called upon to support Noah whose historicity is even more doubtful. I love these fellows at AIG.

Have a great week everyone.

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Terrible essay on religion or lack of it

There are terrible essays, then there is this by J Maren. He says in an interview with a Ferguson, he (Ferguson) said atheism is a religious faith that he was brought up in. He went on to say it is as much a faith as Christianity or Islam. And finished by making the observation that

atheism, particularly in its militant forms, is really a very dangerous metaphysical framework for a society

And at this point, I have questions. Creeds such as Christianity or Islam have books, or tenets of beliefs, they often have founders and a lot of other requirements. Now what could be the similarities between atheism and Islam or Judaism? How, in its militant form, whatever that means, is it a danger to society? Do they kill believers?

What else had Ferguson to say?

I know I can’t achieve religious faith,” he went on, “but I do think we should go to church. We don’t have, I don’t think, an evolved ethical system. I don’t buy the idea that evolution alone gets us to be moral. It can modify behavior, but there’s just too much evidence that in the raw, when the constraints of civilization fall away, we behave in the most savage way to one another. I’m a big believer that with the inherited wisdom of a two-millennia old religion, we’ve got a pretty good framework to work with.

This is interesting. For thousands of years, our loving and merciful father forgot about his creation. Left men without a religion. Without morals and remembered to send this information much later and topped it up with a suicide or is it a deicide.

If Maren is right, we must believe that before Christianity there was no forgiveness. Maren tells us, in part

What we do know is that he thought Christianity was in many ways the soul of Western civilization, and that the uniquely Christian concept of forgiveness was utterly indispensable to its survival.

I don’t know about you, but I know I am have not

My fear is that the Church is not doing what so many of us on the outside want it to do, which is preaching its gospel, asserting its truths and its claims

wanted the church to do anything except that believers keep their faith private.

Maren then tells of an interview with D MUrray who

believes that Christianity is essential because secularists have been thus far totally incapable of creating an ethic of equality that matches the concept that all human beings are created in the image of God

Which is interesting from where I stand. It appears there has been a difference between belief and practice. But the less said about this the better. Reminds me of when Haitians revolted following the French declaration of Freedom, Liberty and Fraternity, there were locked in a revolt with the French for 12 years until the defeat of Napoleon’s army.

In his conclusion, Maren writes that the west and Christianity are tied at the hip. The west will not long survive without Christianity. The sooner you all start joining the church nearest to you, the longer the western civilization will last. It is all up to you.

Or maybe I am wrong.

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how did you meet da lawd

it was in a philosophical argument. And no, I am not kidding. So if you have been looking for a reason to believe in god, maybe the place to begin is to read the Ontological argument by Anselm. Or maybe Pascal’s wager for those easily scared into submission. I will be here waiting for your confessions as to which argument brought you closer to god. I will be waiting to hear how you moved from the teleological argument to a believing that Krishna is the true god and no other truer god can be found.

Have a great week everyone.

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Do fronkeys exist?

The fact that asking “Does fronkey exist?” assumes fronkey exists is quite important. It reminds us that fronkey’s existence is intuitive and known by everyone. Fronkey is not hiding, but maybe we are.

If you think the above premise is sound, you have a problem. It implies if we can think something, the object of our thoughts must really exist beyond our thoughts. This is the species of argument some theists make as an apology for their belief in god. They however, argue that god occupies a special category of objects unlike unicorns or fronkeys so that my restatement of the argument above would not apply to Santa Claus but only to god. I think that is a case of special pleading.

An apologist, Andrew Sveda, in his post, thoughts on god’s existence, argues that to ask the question does god exist implies or assumes god exists in three distinct ways. One, that had we evolved by natural selection, we would not have developed truth seeking abilities; we would have no desire for truth and finally because our lives have meaning and purpose.

Since adaptation improves chances of survival- that is the organism that is best adapted (fittest) to its environment survives, and if truth seeking helps with this adaptation, then it will be developed. And while we have this cognitive ability, how many people use theirs? We have people believing asses talked and Jonah ate a fish and it remained alive for three days in his stomach!

He writes To say someone should believe something because it’s true can only hold if man has some objective purpose, which the atheist must deny. Which is quite interesting. Many people believe as true things that are patently false without any help from atheists. And believing something is true has nothing to do with objective purpose whatever that is. 1+1 is 2 whether your life has purpose or not.

I don’t know, but it seems to me some religious apologists don’t take time even to read on what has been written by other apologists and the responses to those arguments.

And finally, it should always be remembered that however great an argument is, it would take a leap of faith to come from argument for something to the something being actual.