Science verses Truth and Religion

Been there, done that (back in the 60's),,,, and believe me, it ain't what it is reported to be... really weird hallucinations. Try to resist the temptation.

 

I guess the effects aint ever worn off

 

While I was being facetious in my comment it did reflect the fact that there are religions (beliefs in god) that were exclusively based upon hallucinations. Perhaps all religions are initially based upon hallucinations or delusions by the original followers or practitioners. We've certainly seen that related to cults such as the followers of Jim Jones and David Koresh where the followers were unquestionably delusional. Even members of the Manson Family were delusional believing Charlie to be godlike.

We can even see the "marketing" of Christianity by the early Christians. It really wasn't until the "apostle Paul" joined the "Christians" that they went from being a small cult of Jews to expanding to include non-Jewish individuals. Paul never met Jesus during the life of Jesus and there is a delusional claim that he met him after Jesus died but regardless Paul realized that if Christianity was not expanded beyond just the Jews that it would remain forever a minor cult of Judism at best. Paul was really a marketing genius by expanding Christianity to include Romans and others because it wiouldn't have survived otherwise. Even the claims that Jesus was the child of a woman and god, common in Greek and Roman mythology, and the inclusion of Hades, a Greek god of mythology, in the New Testament was a brilliant marketing tactic to expand Christianity from a small Jewish cult into a world religion. Of course the canonization of the Bible in the 4th Century and the declaration that the Bible was the "inspired work of God" (which was never claimed by the authors) was a brilliant marketing scheme.

People really should take the time to understand the develpment of Christianity from a small Jewish cult into a world religion. It was brilliantly done which is why it has been so successful.

 

wow..........

So the question is were they all having a 'christian' psychosis?

do you know what the pitch line was?

i bet it was 'equality'.

But the fact (truth) is, there is no need of church and leaders to tell each they are capable.

the hope of 'equality' is the single most important 'feeling' each want to experience

the second is 'life'............(to be capable of living longer)

ie... each want to know they are capable.

'religions' enable 'hope'

 

Not equality.

Salvation.

Powerful pitch.

 

If liars are still lying then where is the salvation?

Of even;

(a kids made a cool point some time back)


If Jesus died for our sins, what happens now; He didnt stay dead?

 

For a certainty, you have included a whole bunch of speculation in your little speech.

 

Still in a state of confusion and having to lean on guesses? Somehow that don't surprise me.

 

My question is this: If Jesus was so angry at the money changers in the temple, and called it a "den of thieves", then why do churches need so much money to "minister" to their congregation?

The church I used to belong to wants nothing BUT money for various so-called ministeries. One was to buy a new piano, when they had a perfectly good one. an "endowment fund, which asks for money from the congregation to provide for ministeries of the church. The church is always asking for money for one thing or another. I don't remember the Bible stating that the church needs money to survive. I thought Christianity was nothing more than worshiping Christ, and I didn't know you have to have this big huge place to do it in either.

 

More than even that religions generally promise immortality either directly or through reincarnation. Most people have been very afraid of death and will accept even the most absurd propositions that provide them with a belief they are immortal. It feeds their insecurity of life. They are afraid to die.

Religion feeds on the natural insecurities of the people which is why they're so successful.

 

The money changers where using the temple for their own materiel gains. There is nothing wrong however with Christians donating money to support their churches.

 

Personally, I think it's a wonderful story. Salvation and all inclusiveness was definitely an advantage Christianity had over the other religions of the empire. Hades was simply what the Christians called hell.

If Christianity was simply a brilliant marketing scheme, then what benefit did Paul have in selling it to them? Imprisonment, and even death?

 

The promise of immortality is certainly appealing to people that have a fear of death. People have a history of looking for the "fountain of youth" going back to very early recorded history. Death makes people insecure and so religions feed on that insecurity. Promising eternal life was a great marketing ploy although the concept of "marketing" probably wasn't well developed at the time the principles behind it were.

We also see the "forgiveness for sins" which, in short, establishes that the person can do virtually anything wrong and "god" will forgive it. It's basically the, "I can harm my neighbors violating their Rights but it's okay because god will forgive me" philosophy proposed by Christianity that gave it appeal to many. Under Christianity the greatest philanthorpist of all time could "go to hell" while someone like Jeffery Dalmer, a serial killer, can go to heaven. Dalmer's sins will be forgiven by Jesus if he seeks that forgiveness as proposed in the New Testament and he can go to heaven but an agnostic philanthropist is condemned to hell.

Hades is not the name of hell but instead is referred to as a god (angel) in Revelations in the identical context as Hades is referred to in Greek Mythology where he's the god of the underworld. Christianity embraced Hades from Greek mythology to encourage Romans to join Christianity. Once agian this was a "marketing" ploy that, while possibly unintentional, was highly effective.

Paul was not one of the original disciples of Jesus and we can assume that his claims that he met "Jesus along the road" after Jesus died where there were no witnesses as being either creative writing or delusional thinking. As with many followers of religions that promise immortality the fact that there are those that would die as martyrs is not uncommon. We need only look at the followers of David Koresh, Jim Jones and even Osama bin Ladin to find modern examples of those that will die based upon beliefs in myths. How many Christians believe there are virgins waiting in heaven if a person dies as a "religious martyr" and yet some radical Muslims believe it and do die based upon this belief in a myth. Paul was no different. He believed in a myth and was willing to die for his beliefs in that myth.

 

My problem is that most Christians are so lacking in the ability to think logically that they insult our intelligence by providing 'evidence' that is so risable as to be insulting.

 

I call bs that sounds like a chick track

 

It's possible to believe in something that is false while developing a way to market it to large numbers of people. See, for instance, homeopathy or all those "get out of debt free!" commercials.

And, of course, the same argument can be advanced for Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

 

If you have to resurrect a thread thats more than a year old, could you maybe choose one that isn't total crap?

 

sheesh fooled by a zombie thread

 

This is hilariously wrong. Like, just to be clear, if the following paragraphs don't make it clear how facile and idiotic this point is, then there's no helping it:

Now see, there's clearly something wrong with this. If you don't see the obvious error here, you have NO understand of science. Here's the thing: the professor has felt the professor's brain. It can be seen by CAT scans, observed directly during brain surgery, every human in existence thus far has had a brain, and there are countless lines of evidence that, indeed, the professor has a brain - not the least of which being that no human without a brain has had the capacity to breathe, let alone hold lectures. So how does this connect to the evolution example?

But we have observed evolution with our own eyes. Every child of every species born is a testament to the ongoing, natural process of evolution. That this chain letter would say that it's not even proven to be on-going is simply ludicrous, seeing as the ongoing process of evolution by natural selection is inherent to life as we know it. Life as we know it has the following qualities: everything dies, organisms less suited to their environment are more likely to die before reproducing, and life reproduces with genetic variation. These are intrinsic properties of life as we know it. And the processes behind evolution directly follow from those properties. Hell, you can write your own algorithms for it. What's more, there are directly observed events of speciation, microevolution, and a considerable genetic and fossil record to back up the current state of the theory of evolution. In fact, it may very well be the single most well-understood, well-backed scientific theory in the history of the world.

Most of what needed to be said here's been said already, but you do not (*)(*)(*)(*) around with evolution on my watch.

EDIT: OH GOD(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) that's what I get for not watching the time stamps.

 

Science is not apposed to truth, it attempts to prove it. Religion, eh, not so much.

 

If "God" was omnipotent and benevolent, "He" would clearly be omnipresent. The student's argument in this fabricated story is that "God" is not omnipresent, so "He" can clearly not be both benevolent and omnipotent.
Fail.

 

FYI: The member rubydee2u was a personal friend of mine and she passed away about 10 months ago. So don't construe her non-response as an admission of anything or a voluntary reluctance toward answering your post. Confirming information has been forwarded to the Moderator panel.

 

No further comments Logician0311?

 

Given that you said nothing related to the thread (other than informing me that the person I replied to is unavailable to respond), what is it I was supposed to comment on that I haven't already?

 

Submit your question again perhaps to someone who was already actively involved and is still living.