Well, don't forget about peer review. That's the crucial thing that sets science apart from religion. No hypothesis becomes a theory until it's been road tested like a motherfucker. Since religion relies on "revealed wisdom," it can't possibly hope to keep up.

For instance, did you know that Galileo might have been wronged back in 1632 when he was ordered to stand trial in Rome for heresy?...and that this was revealed to the Pope...in 1992??

That's correct, it took 360 years for the Vatican to admit that the earth is not the center of the cosmos. Granted, there wasn't a lot of peer review happening in 1632...but it did happen eventually. More importantly, it happened in spite of religion, not because of it.

So with religion's impressive track record of getting it wrong, and more impressive foot-dragging, why should they be the authority about the age of the cosmos? Or condom use? Or homosexuality? They have proven themselves quite unable to do so.

Science is the one with the winning track record, fuckers.

Well Sluice, here is the problem. The catholic church teaches you that to follow God, you must do it through their church. In other words, they have made themselves the mediator between God and man. They have also supplanted the truth in the word of God with their traditions. They actually put the Pope, the traditions of the church, and the scripture on an equal level. So, to be a Catholic you must follow all of their traditions, agree with everything the pope says, do all of the sacraments, go to confession, etc etc etc. The issue is that none of this has anything to do salvation. You cannot come to know God by doing any of these things. So while you may have been talking to God, that doesn't mean you knew Him. To know God you have to be born again. This is what Jesus says about those seeking Him through traditions:

Mark 7:7

They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'

It's like this. If you needed to get to Los Angeles, and you took a plane to New York, would you expect to arrive at Los Angeles? Of course not. Trying to know God through Catholicism is like trying to reach Los Angeles by flying to New York. There are some Catholics, who, having read the bible and understood it, may have come to know God, but this would be in spite of their religion, not because of it.

Now, you bring up the question of why do some ministers fall away? Well, anyone can go to seminary and get a degree and call themselves a pastor. That isn't what makes someone a Pastor. Pastors are not educated, they are called.

Yes, some people may come to know God and still fall away. Look at what Jesus said:

Rev 3:14 "And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: 'The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation.'

Rev 3:15 "'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!

Rev 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

He promised the church in Laodicea that He would eject lukewarm believers from the faith. For those who know God and continually willfully sin, He says this:

Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Basically, those who come to God but don't really want to serve Him and they refuse to change, He lets them fall back into unbelief. If they ever turn around and want to come back, He will take them back again.

Right now, if you truly wanted to know God, He would reveal Himself to you. Pride may be the only thing that is getting in the way. He is knocking on your door right now; that's why we're having this conversation. It's up to you to answer it.

Halloween is also thought to have been heavily influenced by the Christian holy days of All Saints' Day (also known as Hallowmas, All Hallows, and Hallowtide) and All Souls' Day.[17] Falling on November 1 and 2 respectively, collectively they were a time for honoring the saints and praying for the recently departed who had yet to reach Heaven. Pope Gregory IV ordered its church-wide observance in 837.[18] By the end of the 12th century they had become holy days of obligation across Europe and involved such traditions as ringing bells for the souls in purgatory and "souling", the custom of baking bread or soul cakes for "all crysten christened souls".

So basically, these people are blaspheming the edict of the Catholic church. Good to know Christians never look at the meaning of anything before changing it's meaning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

>> ^bareboards2:

Jezebel lists all the claims http://jezebel.c
om/5948186/birth-control-is-turning-the-men-gay-14-lessons-from-the-most-bizarre-anti+contraception-video-ever
1. Birth control will make it so no man wants to have sex with you.
2. Contraception confuses men and has led to an exponential increase in sluttery.
3. Whore pills will cause your monkey husband to divorce you, and then turn gay.
4. Taking The Pill will literally kill you.
5. Those harlot-enablers you're taking once a day? The same thing as baby murder.
6. Estrogen is in the tap water and it is turning us all into transsexuals.
7. Birth control causes adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, promiscuity, adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, promiscuity, adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases,and promiscuity.
8. Let's just come out and say it: birth control means not enough white babies.
9. "The whole birth control mentality" means we get to decide when and how life comes about.
10. That stuff about there not being enough babies? J/K, we only mean there aren't enough babies when we're talking about babies who aren't born from IVF.
11. Contraceptecons are leading to beastiality and sex with children.
12. Sterilization bad because people are more important than racehorses.
13. Pregnancy is not a risk, it's a privilege.
and finally
14. A bunch of dead guys think that contraception is bad.
Popes, guys with woodcut portraits, out-of-context quotes from the Bible. Who can argue with a bunch of dead guys who were never pregnant?


I wish I could *promote this summary...

Jezebel lists all the claims http://jezebel.com/5948186/birth-control-is-turning-the-men-gay-14-lessons-from-the-most-bizarre-anti+contraception-video-ever

1. Birth control will make it so no man wants to have sex with you.
2. Contraception confuses men and has led to an exponential increase in sluttery.
3. Whore pills will cause your monkey husband to divorce you, and then turn gay.
4. Taking The Pill will literally kill you.
5. Those harlot-enablers you're taking once a day? The same thing as baby murder.
6. Estrogen is in the tap water and it is turning us all into transsexuals.
7. Birth control causes adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, promiscuity, adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, promiscuity, adultery, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases,and promiscuity.
8. Let's just come out and say it: birth control means not enough white babies.
9. "The whole birth control mentality" means we get to decide when and how life comes about.
10. That stuff about there not being enough babies? J/K, we only mean there aren't enough babies when we're talking about babies who aren't born from IVF.
11. Contraceptecons are leading to beastiality and sex with children.
12. Sterilization bad because people are more important than racehorses.
13. Pregnancy is not a risk, it's a privilege.

and finally

14. A bunch of dead guys think that contraception is bad.
Popes, guys with woodcut portraits, out-of-context quotes from the Bible. Who can argue with a bunch of dead guys who were never pregnant?

@ReverendTed
Many issues to address here, but first, some clarifications. My analogies (wonky as they are) were to point out the immorality of the “you’ve got to live with the consequences” stance, they were not about who’s harmed. But speaking of harm, it would be more ethical to let the two analogical characters “suck it up” than to demand of a woman she bring an unwanted pregnancy to term. In the first cases, there is only one victim, but in the latter there are two. When I say abortion is “punishment enough”, what I mean is that it is already a disagreeable outcome of mistake-making/poor-choice-making, while obliging a woman to give birth to (and raise) an unwanted child not only negatively affects the mother’s life, but that of the child as well; it is a disproportionate price to pay for the former and completely unfair for the latter. Hence, imo, abortion is by far the lesser of two “evils”.

Adoption instead of abortion is “a non-solution and worse” for several reasons. First, there are already more than enough children already alive who need parents, and you know very well that most people prefer making their own than adopting, so many of these will never have a family (not to mention the often inferior care-giving in foster homes and social centres). Now imagine that every abortion is replaced with a child given up for adoption; can you not see the horror? It’s that many more neglected lives, not to mention the overall problem of overpopulation.

I’m going to go on a slight tangent, but a relevant one. I have a certain amount of experience with humanitarian aid in Africa, and one thing that causes me no end of despair is the idiotic, selfish way much of it is performed. Leaving aside corruption, proselytization, etc., the “West” pours food and medicine into Africa with that whole “life is sacred” “feed the poor” mentality – good intentions of course – but with disastrous results because education and contraception (not to mention abortion) are almost always left out, even discouraged, with the support of the usual religious suspects (remember the pope on condoms causing aids?). The result is simple, and simply appalling: despite aid and funds increasing globally every year, starvation and child mortality continue to rise. Why? Because the people being barely maintained keep making kids who grow up to starve and die in turn, instead of focusing on the education of one or two children to get them out of the vicious cycle (there is another argument to be made about the education of women, but I’m ranting enough as is).

The point of this digression is to show that the non-pragmatic “all life is sacred” stance is terribly counter-productive, and the same holds for abortion (viz: on adoption above). As for lack of pragmatism, the same goes for your comment on abstinence:
I appreciate that "don't have sex if you can't accept being pregnant" is not a magical incantation that makes people not have sex, but it has to be a part of it, because no method of contraception is 100% effective, even if used correctly.
What you’re saying basically is “people shouldn’t have sex unless they’re ready for childbearing/-raising”, which is absurd when one considers human nature and human relations.

All of the above arguments weigh into the question of the “ball of cells” vs “human being/identity”. The “sacred life” stance is one of quantity over quality, and in the long run devalues human life altogether. To quote Isaac Asimov on overpopulation: “The more people there are the less one individual matters”. In the abortion debate, what we have is one side so intent on protecting the abstract “life” that they disregard the lives of the two individuals in question, namely the “individual who is” (the mother) and the “individual who might be” (the child). The former is already a human individual, with memories, relationships, a personality, etc. The latter is not. The abortion question takes into account the future quality of life not only of the mother but of the would-be child as well, something the anti-abortion stance does not. Abortion doesn’t end an individual’s life, it prevents a ball of cells from becoming one. Here is where the religious aspect is crucial, because while embryologists see a complex mass of cells with no capacity for cognition/sensation, superstitious people assign an individual “consciousness” or “soul” to it, thus making abortion feel like murder instead of like the removal of a tumour. The question of potential is an emotionally manipulative one that does not hold up to criticism, because as @packo sarcastically (and the Monty Python brilliantly ) point out, you can go a long ways up the stream of potential.

I like the first half of @gorillaman’s tomato analogy for that reason (the second half is hyperbolic absurdity), that it underlines what is important in the debate: the living “thing”’s capacity for sensation/cognition/interaction. If you grew up with a tumour on your body which giggled when you tickled it and cried when you hit it, you would probably think twice before getting rid of it. That does not mean I’m categorically against late-term abortions, but for me the scale seriously tips between the 20-25th weeks when the nervous system of the foetus centralises. Of course, it is preferable that should an abortion take place it would be before the foetal stage, for the sake of medical and psychological comfort, but unfortunately one cannot always know so soon that one is pregnant.

The pope's must have a fanciful origami fold-up mechanism then... can't be out-hatgizmoed, can we.

"Everyone has AIDS!
My grandma and my dog 'ol blue (AIDS AIDS AIDS)
The pope has got it and so do you (AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS)
C'mon everybody we got quilting to do (AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS)
We gotta break down these baricades, everyone has, AIDSaids aids aids aids aidsaidsaidsaidsaidsaids, AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS,AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS, AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS, AIDS!!!"

>> ^A10anis:

What is the difference between a "cult" and any other "faith?" There is NO difference. They all take advantage of the weak, desperate, and gullible. They all have leaders who exploit these peoples weaknesses for their own ends. They will all end up consigned to the history class when we realize that education is the key. When you are educated you begin asking questions, which is exactly what these cult leaders want to prevent. Stay stupid and a slave, or get educated and be free.


My definition is that with a religion, the leaders believe the stuff they're peddling, whereas with a cult, the leaders don't. So whether or not Catholicism is a religion comes down to the age old question: is the pope a catholic? I suspect so, therefore in my view, Catholicism is a religion. Do the leaders of Scientology believe in Xenu and Thetans and such like? I suspect that these bunch of bast<<Removed following legal advice>>n't.

"if you don't have a god"

once again, god and religion are being melded into one thing. God and religion are two separate things.

"does a creator exist?" That's one question. There could be a creator, or there may not be one. I'm an agnostic because I say "I don't know." The definition of atheism that I *repeatedly* see states "no, there is no creator" so by that metric, agnostics are NOT atheists

Assuming you do believe that there is a creator, that leads to the second question, "what do you think that creator wants you to do?" That's where religion comes into play. What if there is a creator, but that creator doesn't care what you do? or what if that creator wants you to find your own way instead of being dictated to by commandments and popes and priests. So now you have a creator..but no religion. Personally, I've never had any problem with the idea of a creator, but this notion that a creator wants you to worship it and constantly give thanks is pretty absurd. Why would a creator NEED worship? why would it want it's creation spending a large amount of time worshiping it and doing it's bidding? Why would a creator need minions? why would a creator NEED subservient subjects? People refer to "God's Army" What does a creator need of an army? It's ridiculous.

A creator is one question, religion is another. There could be a creator, but even if there is, most, if not all religions are demonstrably stupid and/or harmful.

I've always suspected that there must be many, many, intelligent clerics who have come to realise, after serious scrutiny, that there is no supernatural being. Just imagine the Pope saying; "look, we never believed the nonsense we've been selling to the masses. But It stopped them thinking for themselves and is a powerful job with great perks." If they all were to "come out" their actions would be hugely influential, and may just save us from the religious zealots who are intent on dragging us back to the bronze age.

In defense of the comment you quote.
The pamphlets discussed in the video, of which I link to one of them, looks genuine.

The extra link I threw in IS questionable, which is why I threw it in.
I mentioned, "Several sites seem to have posted it" because when you go looking for the pamphlet discussed in the video, it's hard because this one keeps poping-up and I didn't want people to confuse it for the one in question. Removing that white elephant from the discussion, sort of speak.



>> ^speechless:

Is there some way to get these alleged documents from any actual government agency or website? Or in any other official way whatsoever? FOIA? I guess the alternative is to just believe anything posted by anyone from anywhere. Some pdf's at some site. Not that Russia Today would ever skew anything, gee.
I'd really like some facts on this and "several sites seem to have it posted" doesn't cut it.

Hey! Thanks!

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
*promote the *comedy!

>> ^messenger:
First, you've made the assertion many times here that if we will only just invite Jesus into our lives, he will reveal himself to us, etc. I've told you somewhere here that my own family did just that. We were all faithful Catholics. My parents have been practising for over 70 years. My sisters were Catholic for varying lengths of time from 15-26 years. I was Catholic until I was 14. We all fervently believed, but at no point was anything revealed to any of us. Nobody in my family has ever directly experienced anything like what you claim will happen in 5 minutes.

That isn't really surprising. There are two kinds of Christian out there, those who have a religion and those who have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Catholics primarily fall under this first category of Christian. The Catholic religion, if you've done your research, is essentially Christianity blended together with paganism. There is no pope in the bible, no nuns, no monks, no sacraments, no confession, no mary worship, no bowing to statues, no praying to saints, etc. These is very little resemblence between what catholics practice and the Christian faith. That is why so many catholics do not know Christ. My mother, who attended the catholic church when she was a child, told me she barely ever heard about Jesus while she was there.

A Christian who has a religion is someone who simply has a head knowledge about Jesus. They were most likely brought up in the church, and have inherited their parents religion. They don't know why they believe what they believe, it is just simply what they were indoctrinated with. They believe Christianity is going to church, reading the bible, and praying. These people do not know God and are not born again.

A Christian who has a relationship with Jesus Christ is born again and supernaturally transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. They have intimate knowledge of God because they have the Holy Spirit living within them and experience the presence of God on a daily basis. These are those who have given their entire lives and personalities over to God, as Lord and not just Savior.

While by a miracle some catholics are actually born again, most are not. You do not know the Lord for the reason that you had a religion and not a relationship. I don't blame you for running away screaming from the catholic religion. I empathize with anyone who escapes that madness. What I pray is that you consider Christ without the burden of that religion, and look at what He actually taught about how to know Him.
>> ^messenger:
Second, most times that you make the assertion that if you look for Jesus wholeheartedly that you'll find him, I remind you that the same can be said for every religion on Earth. If I gave myself to Islam, I would become Muslim and believe. If I gave myself to Judaism, I would become Jewish and believe. You gave yourself to Jesus, so you believe in him, not Mohammed. If your test for your claim of Jesus's divinity is that if we seek him we'll find him, then by that exact same test, we could also prove that Islam and Judaism are also true. Can you give me something other than statistics on the predominance of Christianity in the world to support the claim that Jesus is the true god and the other religions are false?


If you invite Jesus into your life as Lord and Savior, you will receive the Holy Spirit, whom will supernaturally transform your being and give you an undeniable revelation of Gods existence. You will experience true joy, a lasting peace, and have intimate knowledge of the love of God. I am not saying this as some sort of metaphor..that is what will literally happen to you. You will know when you encounter the living God, versus some feel-good experience with false religion.

>> ^bamdrew:

I used to note 'artistic inspiration' in conversation as a plus-side to Religion, but then grew to understand that the majority of great artists actually painted religious themes for exactly the same reason they painted important people of the times... money. So now, that plus-side is just 'funding some great artists'.
One look at the Pope and you can see religion has money to burn on ornamentation, and so great artists sought to be on great terms with that major patron.


Undoubtedly true, but at the same time I think it would be wrong to say that none of the artists involved in creating great works were not genuinely inspired by their faith. I don't just mean the likes of the Sistine Chapel either, but lots of smaller non-commissioned work.

Although you could argue that that is art inspired by faith rather than religion.