Christians need to face the facts!

reply to post by HugmyRek

thus resulting in an imposter dying on the cross-and the missing 30 years of his life.

Yes, there are many speculations. Some do believe that there was an impostor on the "Cross."

It is possible that he did not die a sacrificial death at all and traveled to Egypt with his wife Mary and their children. Or perhaps they traveled together to France and left a legacy (Holy Grail) there!

Isn't it all interesting!

Why all the Jesus and Christian hate lately. There is almost as many threads about this as there are about Obama.

It is starting to feel a little biblical around here. You will be persecuted if you believe in the word of Christ!

I guess the Skeptics are the only gods here so...

Pics/vid or it didn't happen!

Originally posted by PowerSlave
Why all the Jesus and Christian hate lately. There is almost as many threads about this as there are about Obama.

It is starting to feel a little biblical around here. You will be persecuted if you believe in the word of Christ!

perhaps because christians ( mostly ) persecute everyone else they deem unholy....maybe?

persecuting christians.. i needed a good laugh right now.

About the "persecution" of christians...
It seems to me that christianity asks for it. It has become one of the most well-known religions in the world, and so everything is laid bare fore everyone's criticism. Its writings have been translated into so many languages that there is far more availability to completely analyze it, that the lies and half-truths come forward more readily than with other religions. It's a simple matter of availability so far as I see it. Of course, that's just my opinion, take it or leave it.
About the "stealing" from Sumeria:
If you actually study the bible, you'll see that Abram (as Abraham was formerly called, or so say the translations) originally came from a city called Ur, located in.... drum roll.... yep, you guessed it, Sumeria! The writings that the christians hold so sacred say themselves that this whole thing originated in Sumeria!
It was the custom of these people to choose one of the MANY gods to worship for life. They would devote their lives to this one god, so that the whole civilization had all their bases covered, so to speak. Abram did nothing different. He simply chose one of the Sumerian gods and went with it. That's where things got funny. They spent some time in Egypt, where their religious beliefs were affected by that culture as well. On and on the story goes, picking up little religious tidbits on the fly, until, today, we get "the bible".

You have no understanding of the Hebrew traditions. Christianity has absorbed the customs God deemed acceptable, such as those used by Abraham.

Unbelievers also fail to see that Christian faith is not about religion or droning on with various traditional practices. It's all about the faith, people! Here's where it's at:

I, joesomebody believe that Jesus is the Son of the Living God, who died on a cross and paid my debt by being sinless, a perfect lamb, and defeated death by rising from the grave in three days, as a result of His being both God and man, having power over death. Father God is the eternal omniscient omnipotent Ruler of the Universe, who indwells me with His Holy Spirit. Father (Abba) God (Yahweh), Jesus (Yeshua), and the Holy Spirit are all separate entities that also are one at the same time, forming the Godhead. We as humans have trouble with this and unbelievers see it as polytheism, but this is due to lack of faith, as well as our own ignorances regarding the workings of the spiritual realm. Thanks to the sacrifice of my Lord, I am not only saved from everlasting damnation, but am commissioned as His servant to spread His truth to the world, so that more may be saved from their mistakes. That's what being a Christian, a believer in Christ is all about. It's not church, the pope, or practices. It's faith, living, and working for Christ by spreading him with others and being a decent person, attempting not to sin.

Furthermore, Sumerian evidence actually supports Christianity, not Christianity being a spin of some Sumerian garbage (yes, this site is slanted slightly, so see the next section for no bias):
evidenceforchristianity.blogspot.com...

And, does this sound remotely similar to Christianity? I think not:

The Sumerians believed that the world was created out of an an ancient sea from whence the universe, gods, and people were created. They believed that the universe was ruled by these gods, who were anthropomorphic (they had human features and personalities) and who represented various natural phenomenon. Each Sumerian city-state had its own patron deity to whom the citizens paid homage. Temples, known as ziggurats, were often erected in the cities to honor and house each city's god. The city of Ur, for example, constructed a ziggurat for Nanna, the god of the moon.

The key gods of the Sumerians were Enki (god of water), Ki (god of earth), Enlil (god of air), and An (god of heaven). These main gods were believed to have created the rules of Sumerian society to which all people were expected to adhere. Sumerians also believed that the reason for their existence was to delight the gods. The observance of certain rituals and animal sacrifices were considered necessary in order to satisfy these often capricious deities.

Sources:

Tom B. Jones, "Sumer," Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia, 1993; Samuel Noah Kramer, Cradle of Civilization, New York: Time Incorporated, 1969; World History, Volume One, St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, 1991; www.ee.ucl.ac.uk...

[edit on 8-12-2008 by joesomebody]

[edit on 8-12-2008 by joesomebody]

[edit on 8-12-2008 by joesomebody]

Why dont you all leave the Christians alone!! As someone said here 5 years olds niveau !! It will be much more interesting if You attack np Hindu religion-mithology, islam or even Orthodox jewish religion...and lets see what will come of it. Really weChristians dont need to, or must to, know this or that.
There is much better mission for You: Some says that there isnt any Santa Clauss , maybe new mission for You...go tell that milions of fooled children the Truth!!!!

Originally posted by OldMedic
"I don't hate Christians. I just hate what they do."

I guess you hated Mother Theresa, and what she did,

I guess you hateed Pope John Paul II, and what he did.

I guess you hate Christians that give up their own lives to feed and clothe the poor.

Strange that you do not attack other religions, ones that justify the murder of girls and women for wanting to learn to read; or religions that mutilate girls and women; or religions that encourage the murder of people that do not believe in the correct way.

No, you just attack Christians.

I wonder what behavior you atre engaging in that is not approved by the Bible? Behavior that you feel horrible about, so you turn your self hatred around and attack the Christian religion.

I assume this pious rant was meant for me ?

Mother Terressa ? No I didn't hate so let's take a look at what she was all about shall we. PART 1 OF 3

Thank you for reminding me to remind myself how completely repugnant christianity can be.


Please bare in mind, when you quote christians doing wonderful things there plenty of atheists acting in the same way, with no ulterior motive or hidden agendas.

No I don't reserve my loathing exclusively for christianity , I have a loathing for all religous delusion.

I happen to live in the western world where the christian delusion is rife but thank god on the decline, should you have been born in Iran no doubt you would have been raised a muslim and you yourself would probably be attacking christianity.

I would be grateful if you could give an example of one hateful act, commited by a Muslim in the name of god that has not been commited by a christian in the name of god.

What is noteworthy is that atheists act compassionately for compasssions sake alone never to appease an imaginary god.

Enjoy the mother teressa expose' take a long hard look at the roots of your cult, its' history of genocide, rape , torture , misogyny,pedophilia, homophobia,ritual killing, witchcraft, infantacide, incest etc etc etc.

For your information the way I live my life is my choice which I will defend to the last drop of blood in me should I need to. I live under secular law which is designed to protect other should I act in such a way that would impinge upon their lives or knowingly harm them.

Should I behave in some of the ways prescribed by your bible I certainly wouldn't be able to sleep at night, and would in all probability be faced with a stretch in jail.



[edit on 8-12-2008 by moocowman]

reply to post by moocowman


Why are you an atheist?

I will spell it out for you people because most of you seem to be avoiding the point of the thread.

Sure and althought the perceptual abilities of men might be questioned, reality is based in, hopefully, logical perceptions that can then be reasoned out in a scietific local functioning of the mind.

The fact that the jews did make up their part of the bible from the more ancient sumerian records, and that their records strech back into the dark void of ancient mythology is NOT in question. This is FACT.

The fact that members of the Church that became the differing branches of "Christianity", clearly associated KNOWN and RECORDED mythological stoires around the really quite human story of a man named Joshaua. This is the reason their are several "christian churches" instead of a united one.

The Facts are there for every logical mind to see CLEARLY.

I am not bashing Christianity, because Christianity should FACE THE FACTS and readjust it's religious traditions to FACTUALLY fit into the way "God" has made the laws of nature is not saying that Christ didn't exist. It is saying that he did in fact exist, only in a more realistic way.

Until that day does come when the church opens their eyes and stops believing the lies, the christians will be doing the very pegan behavior of IDOL Worshiping.

Originally posted by GTORick
reply to post by moocowman

 

Why are you an atheist?

I'm not an anything, I don't give myself a label I'm a human being same as you (unless your a programme lol)

Perhaps your question should have been, why am I not a this or that .

Originally posted by Incarnated
One of these days soon Christians are going to have to be brave enough to face the Truth. They are going to have to make adjustments to their false faith to make it more realisticly based.

yawn, really? why? how about this for a plan, you start a christian church that has been adjusted to suit your beliefs and anyone who agrees with you can join up.

The facts that christians need to face is that the Jews stole many of their "holy writings" from the sumerians and then to back date the Jews as a people they spun the taken writings and put them in nationalistic and self grandizing documents that they felt were the leadings of God.

what rubbish, this i completely unfounded speculation. there is very, very little that matches up between sumerian writing and judaic, except the flood story. the thing about the flood story is that every culture seems to have one, and so they would if the judaic story is a true account.

The facts that christians need to face is that Paul and the early chruch fathers, to make the story of jesus more acceptable to the masses of the day and future generations, took great liberties in spinning well known and accepted mythologies of the time and sprinkeled those well known mythological stories upon the unseasoned story of Jesus.

okay? so you were there? enlighten me as to what paul has changed?

let's clear ip at least one zeitgeist duh that's been thrown out in this thread already, christians celebrate the birth of christ midwinter mostly because there was a big feast in midwinter already. christian scholars believe christ was probably born in late april or may. jesus didn't mention his birthday, so who knows for sure. the catholic encyclopedia

there is a feast at around that time, but that commemorates his death so the two are separated. besides, there is a certain level of humanity to be found in the idea of celebrating new life in deepest winter and death in mid spring, which fits nicely with the teachings of christ.

reply to post by moocowman


Since you brought up Mother Theresa, might be interested in this, as well...


from a Time article


...she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "Jesus has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

... The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist."


It's quite an interesting article.

reply to post by Incarnated

Not that I'd want to disagree in principal, at the end of the day the sumarian tablets etc had to be interprated by a person or persons.

Not unlike the bible we are still left at the mercy of someones' oppinion which is normally swayed by their belief.

However it is hard (or arrogant) to argue that biblical accounts in no way relate to Sumarian accounts.

What is very sad indeed is that supposedly intelligent people (we can forgive the uneducated) refuse point blank to even consider picking up a book or watching a documentry unless it has been written by another christian.

This is the stumbleing block I'm afraid, christians will argue with you till they're blue in the face but (mostly) never even consider try to see where your coming from, either out of fear of the truth or blind stupidity.

At the end of the day christianity is a cult no more nor less, whos leaders are petrified of the flock coming to knowledge such as raised in this thread, for fear of the the house of cards built by the lords of delusion should come crashing down.

What is very noteworthy indeed, is that the most religious nation on earth has invaded the one country where christianities dirty little secret (?) can be found, is there is far more than oil neath the sands of Iraq ?

reply to post by Jomina


Indeed, the contents of this article was raised in the revealing documentary I posted, it just goes to show how shallow and delude christianity really is.

The sad thing is that so many christians would consider this article the work of their imaginary satangod, and would criticise it heavily without actually reading it.This being yet more evidence of a self deluding fear based and arrogant cult.

Originally posted by moocowman
The sad thing is that so many christians would consider this article the work of their imaginary satangod, and would criticise it heavily without actually reading it.This being yet more evidence of a self deluding fear based and arrogant cult.

just wondering, it's not clear weather you are saying that to dispute the article is proof of a cult, mother teressa's strength of faith is evidence of a cult or the beliefs you think christians may hold about the article are proof of a cult.

in any case, how so?

what rubbish, this i completely unfounded speculation. there is very, very little that matches up between sumerian writing and judaic, except the flood story. the thing about the flood story is that every culture seems to have one, and so they would if the judaic story is a true account.

The ancient Canaanaite term EL was used to identify a great Lord or Lofty One - as in El Shaddai, the Lord of the Mountain from whom Moses received the tablets in Sinai. The old Hebrew text of Exodus 6:3 explains that El Shaddai was a term also used in Abrahams' day. Retained in the Vulgate Bible from c.AD 385, the description "El Shaddai" is found 48 times in the canon, but in every case has been rendered in Authorized English- language Bibles since 1611 as "Almighty". In the earlier Mesopotamian tradition, the equivalent was Illu Kurgal "Great Mountain Lord", while in Sumariian tongue El related more specifically to a "Shining One".

It is, pretty hard to ignore connections such as these and no doubt the open minded will endevour to follow up with further open minded investigadion. However the deluded or brainwashed cult followers will continue to wear anoraks and note train numbers.

[edit on 8-12-2008 by moocowman]

Originally posted by pieman

Originally posted by moocowman
The sad thing is that so many christians would consider this article the work of their imaginary satangod, and would criticise it heavily without actually reading it.This being yet more evidence of a self deluding fear based and arrogant cult.

just wondering, it's not clear weather you are saying that to dispute the article is proof of a cult, mother teressa's strength of faith is evidence of a cult or the beliefs you think christians may hold about the article are proof of a cult.

in any case, how so?

I think I made myself quite clear I did not discuss those who would dispute the article, to dispute the article having read it is completely different to criticising with out reading it or watching the documentary.

I did not in any way imply that MTs' strength of faith (whatever that is actually supposed to be) is evidence of a cult.

Originally posted by moocowman
It is, pretty hard to ignore connections such as these and no doubt the open minded will endevour to follow up with further open minded investigadion. However the deluded or brainwashed cult followers will continue to wear anoraks and note train numbers.

describing phonetic similarities between languages originating in the same area isn't particularly enlightening seeing as A) we have absolutely no idea how sumerian sounded and B)it would be normal.

suggesting the only reason we disagree is my stupidity, being under the influence of brainwashing, inability to research or anything else is pretty dishonest. argue the point, not the poster.

I think I made myself quite clear

i don't agree and i'm still not sure what you were saying, what was the evidence of a cult you were referring to and how is it evidence?

by process of elimination i must conclude that your belief that christians would assign this article to something other than what it claims to be is evidence of a cult.

your belief is evidence of nothing more than your prejudice.

[edit on 8/12/08 by pieman]

[edit on 8/12/08 by pieman]

Originally posted by Incarnated
"God" has made the laws of nature is not saying that Christ didn't exist. It is saying that he did in fact exist, only in a more realistic way.

Until that day does come when the church opens their eyes and stops believing the lies, the christians will be doing the very pegan behavior of IDOL Worshiping.

I have faith. But people do need to challenge theirs. Seriously...what you said is something every christian needs to ask themselves, and then say, ya know...it probably didn't happen "exactly" like that. There is something I have said before on here, and I believe that one of the most peculiar things about the bible is that it appears intentionally vague explaining how things happened, and descriptive on why.

Is that bad? or is that good? well that's the thing about vagueness, it is set up in such a way, no matter the amount of investigation, your interpretation ends up making the reality. Either you have faith in the end result, or you are internally skeptical because it is vague - because it didn't tell you everything...

People must understand something about history. It is Testimonial. Before databytes and cameras it was all word of mouth - and it was all based off the memory of the testimony - something science has confirmed as very tricky and unreliable at times. - To investigate history you must use science to cross check physical references that are observable (obviously) against the testimony. When things don't add up, we double check, and check some more.

Public enemy # 1 against christianity is the "copy-cat" effect people come to when explaining origins. Until science cross-references the history of the anti-testimonies, I will say, I'm skeptical of them as any ancient testimonies were during those times - just because it was secular means you won't take it with a grain of salt? I would be more skeptical if "everything" in the bible was vague, but there are too many specific places it mentions that are real and that are verified.

[edit on 8-12-2008 by juveous]

reply to post by pieman



First off, in relation to the MT article or the documentary have you checked out either of these ?

If you have then hatsoff to you as from my experience many christians will not, for whatever reason.

You may or may not disagree with the article and may choose to debate it, so be it but you have a point of disagreement.

I have put forward my opinion (allbeit poorly by the looks of it) and not my belief, that, as a whole christianity appears to me to be a cult.

One of the many attributes of cult like behaviour, is to completely refuse to look at anything that may contradict the beliefs of the cult.

So often i hear so called "real christians" or "true christians" slaging off others beliefs, an example being the Latter day Saints.
Time and again various christians claim LDS to be a cult or not "Real" etc, but when they're asked if they've ever gone to a LDS service or actually read the book of Mormon the answer is allways no but I've been told about them.

I find it quite retarded for a religious person for example, calling the writings of let's say Richard Dawkins the work of the enemy or other childish frases. Without actually reading a single word of what he's written or ever watching just one of his documentaries.

It is certainly cult like behaviour to allow some pastor, priest, book or prophet dictate to an individual how to think by using reverse psychology etc.








[edit on 8-12-2008 by moocowman]