Shiny once accused me of watching Zeitgeist as well... I always thought it was a 9/11 conspiracy film... I half want to see the film now to see how it goes from Christ myth to 9/11 conspiracy...

Apologist always like pointing out that things that don't matter when talking about the stuff like Horis, the Babylonian Lord of the Harvest and other gods who died and resurrected. There is plenty of pre-Christian stories of them. True the specific details are often post-Christianity, but the general concept has been around long before the Old Testament was put down to paper, back when was just a verbal story passed from generation to generation... somehow avoiding the issues that come up when one plays the telephone game... and somehow avoiding all the errors that we know and can prove cropped up after it was written and copied by hand. When the Israelites were in Babylon, they learned of a Babylonian god which was a god of harvesting, and he sacrificed himself and rose again. It doesn't matter if the time frame of the resurrection was added after Christianity came around, the general story itself existed before Christianity, indeed even before the Old Testament was written in any sort of form we have available today.

I think two important videos relate:
http://videosift.com/video/A-History-of-God-Part-1
http://videosift.com/video/Dr-Bart-Ehrman-Historically-accurate-criticism-of-the-Bible

<snipped a long rant about Christians shopping or going to restaurants on Sunday after church, thereby making people who may have wanted to be at church have to work instead and a lot more...>

There is just so much one has to take on faith... not only the existence of God, but that the errors from repeating the stories, even after they were written down, were God's will, and that the version used by translators is the one God wanted to use, not earlier, supposedly more accurate to the source versions (the Dr. Bart Ethrman video linked above is a nice one for that, in regards to the story of the woman at the well not being in the original texts or commentaries for centuries, but then it appears and everyone likes it so it stuck). You have to take it on faith that not only did fallible men who preserved the word, copied it (errors made not being a result of fallibility but of divine will), translated it, etc. did everything they did perfectly in regards to the Bible. Then fallible men at the Council of Nycea and others that established the books that are generally accepted, somehow were the only ones to become infallible when picking the books that would be in the Bible... differences between the Catholic Bible and Protestant Bible being ignored because many protestants say Catholics aren't even Christian anyhow...Then you have to take it on faith that every person since those times who has had a revelation from God is crazy. You also have to take it on faith that every book or document relating to the church that has been found since then was hidden by God. All to create the perfect infallible word of god...

Anyhow, I am getting off track and enough feeding the troll.

>> ^messenger:

Just about everyone's speaking English now (thanks to me and my army) so God clearly has given up in that regard.>> ^honkeytonk73:
NO DONT BUILD IT!!!! Don't you remember what happened after the Tower of Babylon Babel was built? God got real pissed off and made everyone in the world speak different languages. Just imagine what sort of punishment he'll dish with the ultimate of building height offenses!



Quite true. So potentially we are all forsaken and destined for hellfire. Oh well. PARTY ON DUDES!!! WOOHOO!

Just about everyone's speaking English now (thanks to me and my army) so God clearly has given up in that regard.>> ^honkeytonk73:

NO DONT BUILD IT!!!! Don't you remember what happened after the Tower of Babylon Babel was built? God got real pissed off and made everyone in the world speak different languages. Just imagine what sort of punishment he'll dish with the ultimate of building height offenses!

>> ^kymbos:

This is fascinating. Is the fundamental religious critique of presidents focussed on their interpersonal behaviour because God is deciding on their policies and those aren't up for debate?
Maybe God is making Obama 'rude' to people too - should you be judging that?


The policies are up to debate, especially those which contradict Gods word, however the man himself should be respected. I don't have to agree with him, but I respect him because God put him there (and also because he is a human being made in the image of God). There is a good example of that from scripture regarding Daniels friends..you can see that even though they did not agree with the Kings policy, and were sentenced to death, they still treated him with honor and humility (because his authority was ordained by God):

Daniel 3:14-30

Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good.c But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.d But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated. And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics,e their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. Because the king’s order was urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”

Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set asidef the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.” Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

Not that the founders were without religion, but that they realized the danger of letting religious "opinions" guide legislative policy. It speaks volumes of their intellect that these men, even when living in a society where being religiously aligned was the norm, even having attended seminary and church on a regular basis, still sought fit to vote against aligning their new country to any one religious sect

You certainly are a master of quoting. Too bad you don't go the extra mile and use your brain to analyze what is actually being said, put it in context and honestly apply it to the discussion we're having. The weird thing I've noticed is you quote me, James Madison and the Constitution of North Carolina all in the same manner. Not really engaging much with the ideas and myopically drawing conclusions filtered through your allegiance to Christian dogma.

I guess I asked for it. Serves me right. When dealing with a Christian I should have expected every tiny detail to be taken literally. Let me be blunt: I was joking about getting into a quote war.

What I was doing was attacking the foundations of your argument, and providing evidence for my positions. What you have provided is a lot of speculation based on loose interpretations of our history through a secular lens. I would say I have had some success being that the claims you are making have become progressively more modest:

first post: "Maybe you should do some research on "Deism" a popular philosophy many of our founders were exposed to and followed. It doesn't mean that some of the founders weren't traditional, god-fearing men"

second post: "I grant, and did grant in my previous posts, that many of the founders could be considered "Christians."

third post: "Because all of the founders were Christians (again, a point I never denied)"

first post: "Yes, our government was intended to be secular."

second post: "More importantly, they let deism inform how they set up American government."

I'm going to be sparse in my reply. Since you have seen fit to do a hit and run, I don't intend to spend much time on this.

3. Your point, which seems to be that Christianity has always existed and been an important part of American history. Let me be clear: On this, I agree with you. But not when you continue a step further, saying religion was meant to perform a controlling role in government and that government works better because of it.

No, my main point was that the establishment clause does not mean seperation of church and state, which is the basis for all of this hullabaloo. You've basically conceded this point to me:

"I think the purpose of the establishment clause was to protect the country from any one religious sect from dominating the others. Because all of the founders were Christians (again, a point I never denied), even the ones who were influenced by Deism, the purpose of explicitly stating that there would be no nationally sanctioned religion was, initially, to keep one sect of Christianity from gaining control over the others."

You're admitting here that the purpose of the establishment clause was to keep one denomination from gaining control over the others. It wasn't to protect the country from Christian theism, it was protect the country from a particular flavor of Christian theism from gaining power. What "religion" meant was denomination religion, not doctrinal religion. So if this was the purpose of the establishment clause, it can't mean what you argue it does elsewhere.

"And yes, I knew what I was doing when I included the letter from Jefferson as my sole quote. I'd hoped it'd cause you to pause and reflect, but you were too busy getting up on that high horse with Jesus to care."

I think the letter is a valid example of an instance where we have one of the architects of the Constitution explaining, in his own words, why it is written as it is. I think Jefferson's aim was to keep religion and state separate, and his opponents called him an atheist for it. As you pointed out and I agree, he was indeed a Christian


This is a bizzare comment and it shows you still haven't grasped my point. If you knew what you were doing, you would known that the whole idea of "seperation of church and state" is based on that letter. Obviously I was well aware of that, and fundementally disagreed with that interpretation, which is why I was busy providing you evidence that proved that this was a misinterpretation of Jeffersons intent. If he meant what you and others say he did, then he wouldn't have acted so contrarily to it during his time in government. Barbar got it; he knew exactly what I was saying. It has apparently gone completely over your head.

Where you see a "shocking moral decline" I see human rights being extended to all genders and races. All too often nowadays, organized religion supports authoritarian ideas. It often supports unhealthy psychology and grassroots movements that would be laughably anti-scientific if the situation weren't so serious.

When I say "shocking moral decline", I am not talking about womens rights or homosexual rights. I am talking about degeneration of civil society, the increase in crime, drug use, teen pregnancy, and many other factors which paint of picture of a country that is morally debased and getting worse by the year. I'm not saying it was ever perfect, but it had a foundation; biblical morality. Now that the foundation has been removed we are in a moral free fall.

Here are some statistics:

http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html

Humanity might have needed ages of development aided by organized religion to figure out how to behave morally. But, we're smarter now. We can objectively consider our history and defer to our own individual morally whenever an ancient book that sometimes advocates slavery, infanticide and magic would tell us we are sinning for even thinking about how we can make things better. Don’t worry, though the "whole thing will crumble," we've got a solid secular foundation, preserving the ideas most important in building a better future.

Perhaps you're just very young and have no context, but in my observation things in this country have gotten palpably worse in the short time I've been alive, and most of that time I have been observing this I was agnostic. Worse yet, this effect appears to be expodential. Not only is America losing its place on the worlds stage, but internally it has become something like babylon.

The bible doesn't say you need to be a Christian to be moral. It says we all have a god given conscience that tells us right and wrong. This relativism that you're talking about is exactly the problem. If its your truth and my truth, then there is no truth, and no one has a rock to stand on. The thing about Truth is that it the same regardless of when it was written or where it came from. It is the same regardless of what people believe. And the bible is true. There is a God, and He has imposed a moral law, and those who violate it will face judgement. That is why Christ came, to save us from our sins, because all have sinned and fallen short. Are humans smarter? In terms of knowledge, sure. In terms of wisdom? Not a bit. Human beings are no more wise than they were when the bible was written. The words of Christ are wise and they are for all time. In them, there is life, and that abundantly.
>> ^LukinStone:

Tags for this video have been changed from 'apocalypse, Babylon, America, God' to 'apocalypse, Babylon, America, God, william tapley' - edited by xxovercastxx

They seem to miss the point that it doesn't matter if god blessed Job more in his latter life, what matters is that a kind and loving god felt the need to prove something to the devil by letting the devil destroy that man's life. Who cares if god was right, it is a jerk thing to do, and not the actions of a god who loves his children.

God wasn't proving anything to Satan, He was acting as a Judge. Satan is like a prosecuting attorney in the court of God. Satan brought Job to trial by laying a false accusation against him, and Job was tested and tried and found innocent.

If that was a human dad who let some people in to destroy his children's lives they would condemn him, it is their dual standards. They let god get away with stuff they would find reprehensible in humans simply because some blokes thousands of years ago picked Jehovah out of a local pantheon and promoted him to the top spot. If they are young Earth creationists, they somehow ignore the part that says the Earth doesn't move and that the heavens move around it.

The problem with this analogy is that you're comparing God to a human being. God isn't like a human dad, he is God. He deals in matters of life and death, matters which extend to every human life. He is the sovereign King and Judge over this world. It is His job to bring judgement, and to decide the course of life. He is the only one who could.

I also see that you're misinterpreting I Chronicles 16:30. It's fairly clear it is saying that nothing is going to move the Earth off its course, not that it doesn't move.

Despite cultures being over 6,000 years old, trees being over 6,000 years old, not to mention stars billions of years away, somehow all that was put in place by God to full the wise and make the believers rely on faith... again a jerk move. It is like the dirty cop who plants evidence against an innocent man, but here it is god so it is okay.

This idea that God plants evidence is a myth, and the people who perpetrate it are the same kind of people who think that Satan rules in hell. No one has a handle on distant starlight; it is a problem with big bang cosmology, check out the "horizon problem". Tree ring dating, much like radiocarbon dating, is predicated on unprovable assumptions, such as a constant rate of growth. The specific trees you are talking about have been proven to grow multiple rings per year in drought conditions and in other circumstances. You say that there are cultures that go beyond 6000 years but its funny that written history only begins around 4000 years ago.

It is also funny that written history begins with advanced civilizations that suddenly spring into existence out of nowhere. You would think if we had been around for 100k years after evolving, there would be 100k years of history, cities, civilizations, etc..but it isn't there. It is much like the cambrian explosion where every major animal body type suddenly sprang into existence into the fossil record. All the major families, orders, classes, and phyla can all be found there, which turns darwinian theory on its head. Which is why they came up with "punctuated equilibrium", which is theory that explains that the reason there is no evidence for transitional forms in the fossil record is because reptiles laid eggs that would sometimes hatch birds. This is also known as the hopeful monster theory.

They ignore the documented evidence of copy errors made in the Bible while it was a written piece, let alone the errors that would have cropped up while it was a verbal tradition. Who cares if the story of the woman at the well doesn't appear in any copies of John, or the commentaries on it, for hundreds of years after the earliest copies of the book, it is there now, which means god wanted it there.

There is greater manuscript witness for the New Testament than any other historical document. The accuracy and integrity of the copies is proven, with over 24000 manuscripts for the NT alone. We can see from the earliest to the latest there is very little discrepency. The same is proven for the OT, when the dead sea scrolls were found. There was virtually no difference in copies with over thousand years between them. In regards to the woman at the well, I have failed to find any controversy about it.

And the hundreds of other biblical texts that were existed when the books of the bible were picked were not discarded for the social/political reasons they appear to have been ignored, but because the books that are there now are the only ones god wanted, and those guys were divinely led to pick just those ones... of course the Catholics or the Protestants have it wrong since their versions don't match. Still, it many cases, save for the King James only crowd, it is okay to use newly found, more reliable texts in modern translations, but still ignore other texts found at the same time.

There isn't any conspiracy. The texts you are referring to were either written by pagans, the gnostics, or were always known to be heretical. Feel free to bring up any examples and I will show you works that have been thoroughly discredited from the outset.

I look at shame during my blind faith period. I would point out all the typical talking points, and get angry at those who challenged what I perceived as the truth. I was never a young earth creationist, but would still point out the stupid things even old earth creationists like pointing out, not caring that those points have been disproved over and over again. I went from Republican to Libertarian and would get mad at the lazy out of work people on welfare and the poor for believing the lies of the liberals and the Democrats, thinking if only they would educate themselves on the truth, they would see the Republicans and Libertarians were their best hope.

It sounds like you were raised in the faith and only believed because of what other people told you. Then, when your faith was challenged by the unbelieving secular world, you fell away because you had no foundation.

Then I did something, I opened my mind. I started watching the sources of information. They said in church and on right wing media that the Constitution doesn't say "separation of church and state" and that comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson, true enough, but then they said that if you actually read that letter, you'll see that he was talking about keeping the government out of church affairs not the other way around. And I repeated that for years. Then, during my awakening, I actually read the letter in full context, I read the original drafts, and I realized they lied. He clearly was talking about keeping the church out of government. I also read the bible critically for the first time, not just accepting the traditional meaning. I saw Jesus as a man who hung out with the sinners, and cared about the poor and sick, and keeping what belonged to god just to god and what belonged to the government with the government.

Even the most unkind and biased analysis of the founders intentions will be forced to conclude that they intended to found this nation on biblical principles. Do you think our freedoms being based on unalienable rights granted by our Creator are just mere words? Or are they the foundation?

this nation was founded not by religionists, but by christians, not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ

Patrick Henry

You are correct about one thing. The church is completely apostate, and has strayed far from the teachings of our Lord. You cannot frame Jesus as a mere man, however. He claimed to be God, the judge of the living and the dead, and the Savior of this world.

All things 100% opposite of what the church, the Republicans and Libertarians seemed to be promoting. I noticed how the bible in Genesis call god...well, god, and then in Psalms, the exact same word is suddenly translated as Angels, because it talks about how god lifted us up to be level with him, and that won't do, we are below god and with the angels... and more and more I noticed that while we are not Jesus, we are equal heirs, and equal children, which doesn't take away any of the majesty, but again pointed to deception on the part of the church leadership. I then noticed other biblical contradictions, and started studying the origins of Christianity and how similar it was to much older religions.

Perhaps you missed these passages?:

Romans 8:17

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Galatians 4:7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.

No, we are not Jesus, but we are co-heirs and sons. Again, there isn't any conspiracy. As far as the translation of Elohim, this has led to many errors. Check out http://www.gci.org/God/Elohim2

How the Israelites, while in captivity in Babylon, would have known about the Babylonian god of the harvest who sacrificed himself and resurrected... and boy this seems to be a reoccurring theme among ancient pre-Christian religions, a god, sometimes mono-theistic, sacrificing himself for mankind...

Sounds like you've seen Zeitgeist, which is filled with actual bald faced, blatant lies. For example, it makes a connection between Jesus and the various sun gods by drawing a parallel between the word "son" and "sun". The problem with this connection is that they are only similiar words in the English langauge, and not in the langauges of the time. The connection between Jesus and the so-called dying and rising gods in paganism has been thoroughly debunked. Watch:



I went to a pagan service with an open mind and had the same deep, spiritual, emotional connection that I had at the most charismatic of Christian churches... and things started clicking, this whole thing... is fake.

It's no wonder that you had the same spiritual experience in charismatic churches as you did at pagan rituals. That's because they're fueled by the same spirit, which is *not* from God:



I read more, became more educated, and realized the deep and purposeful misleading of the faithful, and my switch became complete. Now I get angry at the Republicans and Libertarians and the religious leaders who keep their flocks in ignorance, while making them think they are free thinking people by controlling the information and encouraging a wrong view of the information that is there..

Even if by some miracle I came to have faith in god again, I could never go back to church again. The lies and nonacceptance of potent truth is just too much. They don't even believe what Jesus himself taught, which was love and compassion, the modern day church is the Pharisees that he campaigned against

Friend, what you never realized is how true this verse is:

Revelation 12:9

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Just as 2+2 has an innumerable number of wrong answers, there are uncountable lies and deceptions, half-truths and myths about Jesus Christ. They are in the church and they are outside the church. All you've done is just go to the other extreme but you still have no idea who Jesus really is.

What you've missed is that to know Jesus is God is to know Him personally. It isn't merely believe what the bible says, it is to invite Him into your heart, to mold you, to change you, and to accept His Lordship over your entire life.

You're right about one thing. To be restored to faith in God would be a miracle, because faith is a gift from God. If you want to know the truth, then ask Him. Pray to Jesus, invite Him into your life, and ask Him to show what the truth really is. Once you know He is everything that He claimed to be, the rest will sort itself out.

>> ^RFlagg:believe what Jesus himself taught, which was love and compassion, the modern day church is the Pharisees that he campaigned against.
</preaching to the choir time

Agreed, stuff like this can help the on the fence people, and as we can see from the religiously brainwashed masses chiming in already, it does nothing for them.

<Preaching to the choir time>

They seem to miss the point that it doesn't matter if god blessed Job more in his latter life, what matters is that a kind and loving god felt the need to prove something to the devil by letting the devil destroy that man's life. Who cares if god was right, it is a jerk thing to do, and not the actions of a god who loves his children. If that was a human dad who let some people in to destroy his children's lives they would condemn him, it is their dual standards. They let god get away with stuff they would find reprehensible in humans simply because some blokes thousands of years ago picked Jehovah out of a local pantheon and promoted him to the top spot.

If they are young Earth creationists, they somehow ignore the part that says the Earth doesn't move and that the heavens move around it. Despite cultures being over 6,000 years old, trees being over 6,000 years old, not to mention stars billions of years away, somehow all that was put in place by God to full the wise and make the believers rely on faith... again a jerk move. It is like the dirty cop who plants evidence against an innocent man, but here it is god so it is okay.

They ignore the documented evidence of copy errors made in the Bible while it was a written piece, let alone the errors that would have cropped up while it was a verbal tradition. Who cares if the story of the woman at the well doesn't appear in any copies of John, or the commentaries on it, for hundreds of years after the earliest copies of the book, it is there now, which means god wanted it there. And the hundreds of other biblical texts that were existed when the books of the bible were picked were not discarded for the social/political reasons they appear to have been ignored, but because the books that are there now are the only ones god wanted, and those guys were divinely led to pick just those ones... of course the Catholics or the Protestants have it wrong since their versions don't match. Still, it many cases, save for the King James only crowd, it is okay to use newly found, more reliable texts in modern translations, but still ignore other texts found at the same time.

I look at shame during my blind faith period. I would point out all the typical talking points, and get angry at those who challenged what I perceived as the truth. I was never a young earth creationist, but would still point out the stupid things even old earth creationists like pointing out, not caring that those points have been disproved over and over again. I went from Republican to Libertarian and would get mad at the lazy out of work people on welfare and the poor for believing the lies of the liberals and the Democrats, thinking if only they would educate themselves on the truth, they would see the Republicans and Libertarians were their best hope. Then I did something, I opened my mind. I started watching the sources of information. They said in church and on right wing media that the Constitution doesn't say "separation of church and state" and that comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson, true enough, but then they said that if you actually read that letter, you'll see that he was talking about keeping the government out of church affairs not the other way around. And I repeated that for years. Then, during my awakening, I actually read the letter in full context, I read the original drafts, and I realized they lied. He clearly was talking about keeping the church out of government. I also read the bible critically for the first time, not just accepting the traditional meaning. I saw Jesus as a man who hung out with the sinners, and cared about the poor and sick, and keeping what belonged to god just to god and what belonged to the government with the government. All things 100% opposite of what the church, the Republicans and Libertarians seemed to be promoting. I noticed how the bible in Genesis call god...well, god, and then in Psalms, the exact same word is suddenly translated as Angels, because it talks about how god lifted us up to be level with him, and that won't do, we are below god and with the angels... and more and more I noticed that while we are not Jesus, we are equal heirs, and equal children, which doesn't take away any of the majesty, but again pointed to deception on the part of the church leadership. I then noticed other biblical contradictions, and started studying the origins of Christianity and how similar it was to much older religions. How the Israelites, while in captivity in Babylon, would have known about the Babylonian god of the harvest who sacrificed himself and resurrected... and boy this seems to be a reoccurring theme among ancient pre-Christian religions, a god, sometimes mono-theistic, sacrificing himself for mankind... I went to a pagan service with an open mind and had the same deep, spiritual, emotional connection that I had at the most charismatic of Christian churches... and things started clicking, this whole thing... is fake. I read more, became more educated, and realized the deep and purposeful misleading of the faithful, and my switch became complete. Now I get angry at the Republicans and Libertarians and the religious leaders who keep their flocks in ignorance, while making them think they are free thinking people by controlling the information and encouraging a wrong view of the information that is there...

Even if by some miracle I came to have faith in god again, I could never go back to church again. The lies and nonacceptance of potent truth is just too much. They don't even believe what Jesus himself taught, which was love and compassion, the modern day church is the Pharisees that he campaigned against.

</preaching to the choir time>


>> ^hpqp:

Tsk tsk, let's not be so pessimitic, 'kay? Sure, the thoroughly convinced will make excuses, but the "on-the-fence" people just might have their moral compasses jarred into working properly.
>> ^A10anis:
Perfectly succinct. Sadly, those who understand it, need not listen, those who don't will not.

@persephone reminds me of Mira Furlan.

I miss Babylon 5...

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

I was an agnostic until I was suddenly given special revelation of Gods existence.
I found out later that this means I am elected, in that God already knew before He made anything that He would create me here and now for His purposes
Some Christians think everyone is elected. I don't, personally.

All I have to say is get the fuck over yourselves. You're not as smart as you think you are. How about you be honest and stop playing the philosophical gotchya game and admit there isn't a shred of evidence in your corner, what so ever, and if we want to get real, morality is inconvenient for your sinning so of course it has to go

Lacking an objective standard for morality, what makes it wrong? Why is it bad to have sex with animals, hurt people, rape people..

Now on your example of rape victims, there are different translations for the particular hebrew word. It's not clear that is what it is talking about. However, I'll address it in the literal sense, though I won't commit myself to this definition. Sex is considered the spiritual act of marriage. When people have relations they are cleaved together in the spirit. That's why fornication is forbidden. So, whether it was unfortunate or not, the couple were married spiritually at that point and thus they would only compound the sin by being seperated.

What Dan Savage does isn't sex. It's consensual sodomy. Thats part of what evil does is redefine the meanings of things. The love that two gay men have for eachother is not beautiful, it is repulsive. God does not approve of their union, and they should never be married. What they love is sin, and sin is not beautiful. It is an abomination before the Lord.

fornication is just plainly a sin, and for the reason that sex is a spiritual marriage between two people. You are spiritually joined to whomever you have sex with, forever.
maybe you reprobates can't imagine giving up your carnal lusts because its what you're living for, but that lifestyle is meaningless, sad and no better than what animals do.

Do you have even a modicum of dignity or self respect? You have promoted yourself as a harlot and you draw mens attention with lasciviousness. You are prostituting yourself and it is revolting.

If you care to give an argument that isn't based on hyperbole, I might actually engage you. Otherwise, you're just making yourself look foolish, even if the ignoramouses on this site happen to agree with you. Any objective person who has studied this at length would find your conclusions childish at best.

I find it amusing that atheists like to say they are all great happy loving people who actually do more good works than the average Christian does. LOL This must be your non-neckbearded internet dwelling variety. Not at all the bitter, purile, egotists who love to trash believers at any opportunity that I've experienced. I'm sorry but atheists are terrible people. Immoral, selfish and apathetic to a T. Violent and angry too. Atheists are usually the worst kind of people you could imagine.

I'm not surprised by the bias of the sift, nor the childish behavior of its members..I was interested if anyone here had an inherent sense of fairness and could look past their own bias..but I guess not

Christians love atheists..just because we think you're wrong doesn't mean we don't love you. Atheists on the other hand seem to have nothing but hatred and derision for us..

You have the gall to impringe on my witness and imply im crazy..hey, at least im internally consistant.

I really think passive aggressive people are the worst kind of people besides atheists. Put them together and you've got a front seat to the 7th circle of hell. To me, you might as well be banging rocks together if you don't know you have a soul, or there is a God. People like this are mostly automated because they don't really know how anything works, or that God controls everything.

I don't deride anyone who doesn't believe me, I just happen to know anyone who isn't interested has become self-satisfied with the worldly understanding..which is worthless.

you can always look back on the glory days when you were a talking turd on the internet..

if he wants to be civil and converse like real people instead of rabid animals, I'll be here.


How is it that atheists seem to believe they can just go around and treat someone like garbage and talk down to them like children because they think they're right about something..why is this socially acceptable?

Yes, you're free to do whatever you want. Like any other slack jawed yokel idiot, you can live life the charlie sheen way, shallowly indulging yourself in all the puerile tripe you identify with a winning lifestyle.

You'll get to mock God for a little while and do what you want, until His mercy runs out and He takes you off of this world. You'll be found guilty at the judgement and then you'll join the devil and his angels in the lake of fire. Do you think you'll think it was worth it then? I'm betting not.

If you want to have an actual debate on civilized terms, I'll engage you. I've already answered enough of this bullshit. God is sovereign and can adjudicate His creation as He pleases. He destroyed the entire world in a flood, and that's everyone on the planet except for 8 people or so, and I don't think He was wrong.
Personally, if I was God I probably would have blown this fucking planet up a long time ago.
It's not an atrocity to take a life when you were the one who granted it in the first place and the one who sustained it daily.

What is contemptible, vainglorious and infinitely evil is the desire to disobey God and sin without consequence. Anyone who adovocates that deserves their punishment.

Gay rights? Sinners have no rights, they are a slave to sin. America is becoming more like babylon every day, especially in what it deserves as punishment for its actions.

Apparently homosexual atheists are in force these days.

as usual the sift turns off its brain

I am a highly rational and logical person , who has reasoned these things out to a much deeper level than any of you would be willing to give me credit for

You're entitled to your malformed, tumor-swollen opinion. Mine happens to have biblical justification.

In the context of a bunch of googly eyed mouth breathers saying God doesn't exist, where Satans special little helpers file in to preach their faith, not much is going to come out of this which is positive.

Wow, emote much? See what actually happened here is that you posted a bunch of information that wasn't true (while being rude and childish to boot), and I corrected you. Now, you send me a comment filled with personal attacks and call me immature. I'm guessing you're probably..15? Give me a break. Go do your homework and clean your room while you're at it.

I have better things to do than waste my time arguing on the internet for fun, and it's not fun to argue.

I'm commanded by God to preach the gospel and it's a joy for me to do so. I also enjoy a lively debate. That's why I am here.

You ever notice how hypocrites usually contridict themselves within a few sentences? I do..

The devil was once an ArchAngel who was created faultless,
He was in fact just an arrogant, prideful being who wanted all the power for himself.

One day, people will thank me for opening their mind up to how they've been lied to every day of their life and indoctrinated into a world system thats literally trying to drag them straight to hell.

Satan has you.

You need professional help. Seriously. Not kidding about this.



Preach on, brotherman. It's a sick kind of irony to do the very same thing you're accusing someone else of doing, especially whilst doing said accusing.



>> ^shinyblurry:

You think you were sent by God? Try again..
And no, being openly degraded and treated as inhuman isn't something I enjoy. I would rather have a civil conversation any day.

>> ^darkrowan:

Notice, at 0:51, just as she says the line the actor in the background gives her the "WTF?" look from behind. That's attention to detail right there


Good catch! Really liked the themes in this show. For those that haven't watched B5, you should. Compared to the dramas today, it is a little slower, episodic, and showing its age...even so, pretty decent. They take on more of a totalitarian kind of role as "peace keepers", a little more so than I like. But the Meta themes are really spectacular.

Why don't you upvote it then? Also, since you downvoted my * lies invocation, I can assume you believe this to be true? Care to explain how Babylon is "the source and fountainhead of evil", for example?

>> ^marinara:

good stuff. this would get sifted easily if there were more christians on here. but i don't expect people to be christian.

BULLET IN THE HEEEEAAAD.

Now I'll be listening to Rage all day, thanks.

In reply to this comment by acidSpine:
Yes I know my enemies. They're the teachers who taught me to fight me. Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite. All of which are American dreams

The American dream is the status quo masquarade..peace and safety, bread and circuses, white picket fences and well manicured lawns, 2.5 kids and keeping up with the joneses. It's go to school, get married, get some kids, get some stuff, pay your taxes, retire, remenisce about the good ole days, get old, become irrelevent and die. It's the leading cause of death in America, this saccurine delusion about meaning and purpose..yes we can't.

>> ^acidSpine:
Yes I know my enemies. They're the teachers who taught me to fight me. Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite. All of which are American dreams