Frontline is doing Jesus -- 9 PM EST

FaaR

Golden Member
Dec 28, 2007
1,056
412
136
Christianity as we know it today is largely a sham religion, it wasn't written down at all until centuries after events it purports happened already took place, during which time events carried by word of mouth alone were appropriately magnified, kind of like a fisherman's tale. He not only walked on water and drove demons out of people, he fed thousands of people with a few handfuls of food, and raised the dead as well! Puh-leeze. Anyone believing claptrap like this, well, I got some prime beachfront properties in Arizona to sell you! ;)

The jesus-myth bears striking similarities to a number of (for its time) contemporary and previous religions, and it was also re-written and adjusted further down the road when it was adopted official religion of the roman empire. Jesus born at christmas time, right when the pagans had their big winter feast just a giant coincidence? No, not bloody likely. :D

As for the church itself, well... The catholic church - arguably the single largest of the dozens of major christian splinter factions in existence just today - is home to and cause of near bottomless greed and corruption, it gorges itself on its own wealth and riches and pope-nazi Darth Rat-zinger the second walks around in robes stitched with gold thread while the world's poor wallow in misery. How utterly disgusting.
 

StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
70,150
5
0
Christianity as we know it today is largely a sham religion, it wasn't written down at all until centuries after events it purports happened already took place
Quite wrong, but carry on.
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
6,861
3
76
He said LARGELY a sham religion, when he should have just said, Religion, by default, a sham.

-John
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
6,861
3
76
Skoorb,

I am emmensely powerful, I can walk on water, and FLY!

All I want for you and your family is to live happily in the ever-ever-ever life.

Just worship me, and I will make sure you and your family live forever in the ever-ever-ever life.

-JGod
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
3
0
Regardless if you think the Christian church(s) are shams or not, we can say two basic things about the Christian Church and its shaping of European and Western History after the fall of Rome.

1. That even if a case can be made for the Christian church and its various sects being totally corrupt, at the same time the Christian Church(s) have also nurtured many of our human best virtues.

2. That one cannot really understand much of modern Western history without understanding the role the Christian faith has had in shaping and defining the expansion of Western influences. Other great religions better defined Eastern and Mid-Eastern history.
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
6,861
3
76
There are probably 98 other good things that can be said about Religion, Lemon law.

Like wiping your butt with your left hand, and eating with your right hand.

But, that doesn't mean we can't all learn and recognize how foolish it is.

Jews and Christians talk about how there has been no Muslim reformation... well, here I am telling THEM that there is another reformation going on.

And God, will not survive.

-John
 

FaaR

Golden Member
Dec 28, 2007
1,056
412
136
at the same time the Christian Church(s) have also nurtured many of our human best virtues.
So have many other spiritual and non-spritual movements, and that without the superstition and bigotry against for example women and homosexuals that is built into christianity by default.

IE: we don't need christianity, or any other superstitious mumbo-jumbo hocus-pocus ghosts and goblins flying spaghetti monster religions, to nurture human virtues. In fact, religion is counter productive, as it's something that's innately not real in of itself.
 

StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
70,150
5
0
He said LARGELY a sham religion, when he should have just said, Religion, by default, a sham.

-John
Whether it's a sham or not is hard to qualify. I was talking in regard to when it was actually written. Heck, it says on the OP's link first page that the first gospel was 40 years later.
 

Red Dawn

Elite Member
Jun 4, 2001
57,530
3
0
Whether it's a sham or not is hard to qualify. I was talking in regard to when it was actually written. Heck, it says on the OP's link first page that the first gospel was 40 years later.
Actually what was decided centuries later was which Gospels were going to be included or not in the bible.
 

dahunan

Lifer
Jan 10, 2002
18,191
3
0
Jesus was a friggn joke.. and sadly... the tools who call him messiah wouldn't do so if they couldn't whitewash him and also break the NEGRO NOSES off of egyptian statues


^^^ lmao
 

Atreus21

Lifer
Aug 21, 2007
12,007
572
126
Yes, an enlightened few on this forum believe they stand among the tiny liberated minority who alone carry the torch against mankind's most pervasive superstition. You alone know better than the vast majority, the evil, overwhelming, inexorably violent zealots who insanely believe in...

feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, burying the dead, welcoming strangers, immigrants, and refugees, instructing, advising, consoling, comforting, forgiving, bearing wrongs patiently, and praying for the living and the dead.

The horror and abomination. They must be razed from this earth, once and for all.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
348
126
A siide note about the explosion of the 'evangelical' strain in the US over the last several decades.

Reportedly. central to this growth was some policy with unintended consequences.

Back when our society had more of a notion of society, and tv was young and there more idealism about it, our government had a requirement for 'pulblic service' programming.

This obligation was usually met with religious programming, and the mainstream groups - Catholics, Lutherans, etc. had chat shows.

But then a ruling of some sort came down that while these public interest shows were not allowed to raise money. religious shows were excepted from any such rules out of respect for freedom of religion.

Quickly, the carnival tent type figures who had learned well how to milk audiences found they coulod get an hour of tv and raise big sums. The networks could sell them the shows so they were happy.

The mainstream reliigions weren't too intereswted in fundraising shows, and didn't want to spend big bucks against the ones who did and could pay big bucks, so they left.

That left a glut of these carnival style shows - and millions of Americans exposed to their evangelical brand of religion, and many were influenced and joined, and the group got a lot larger and richer.

Of course, later - starting with Reagan and much more with Bush 43 - this new big demographic was targetted by politicians. The Republicans - the party of the few - had found some more voters.

If anyone is interested in more on the history of American fundamentalists, there's a bok by Kevin Phillips, unrelated to the post above, "American Theocracy".
 

Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
Forum Director
Oct 9, 1999
46,009
8,640
136
A siide note about the explosion of the 'evangelical' strain in the US over the last several decades.

Reportedly. central to this growth was some policy with unintended consequences.

Back when our society had more of a notion of society, and tv was young and there more idealism about it, our government had a requirement for 'pulblic service' programming.

This obligation was usually met with religious programming, and the mainstream groups - Catholics, Lutherans, etc. had chat shows.

But then a ruling of some sort came down that while these public interest shows were not allowed to raise money. religious shows were excepted from any such rules out of respect for freedom of religion.

Quickly, the carnival tent type figures who had learned well how to milk audiences found they coulod get an hour of tv and raise big sums. The networks could sell them the shows so they were happy.

The mainstream reliigions weren't too intereswted in fundraising shows, and didn't want to spend big bucks against the ones who did and could pay big bucks, so they left.

That left a glut of these carnival style shows - and millions of Americans exposed to their evangelical brand of religion, and many were influenced and joined, and the group got a lot larger and richer.

Of course, later - starting with Reagan and much more with Bush 43 - this new big demographic was targetted by politicians. The Republicans - the party of the few - had found some more voters.

If anyone is interested in more on the history of American fundamentalists, there's a bok by Kevin Phillips, unrelated to the post above, "American Theocracy".

:biggrin:
 

Red Dawn

Elite Member
Jun 4, 2001
57,530
3
0
Yes, an enlightened few on this forum believe they stand among the tiny liberated minority who alone carry the torch against mankind's most pervasive superstition. You alone know better than the vast majority, the evil, overwhelming, inexorably violent zealots who insanely believe in...
feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, burying the dead, welcoming strangers, immigrants, and refugees, instructing, advising, consoling, comforting, forgiving, bearing wrongs patiently, and praying for the living and the dead.



The horror and abomination. They must be razed from this earth, once and for all.
Dude what you just described sounds more like Buddhists Monks than Fund A Mental Case Christians.

Speaking of which, RIP Oral Roberts
 

Atreus21

Lifer
Aug 21, 2007
12,007
572
126
Dude what you just described sounds more like Buddhists Monks than Fund A Mental Case Christians.

Speaking of which, RIP Oral Roberts

Go to wikipedia. Look up Catholic Church. Scroll down to Social Teaching.
 
Nov 29, 2006
15,599
4,050
136
Yes, an enlightened few on this forum believe they stand among the tiny liberated minority who alone carry the torch against mankind's most pervasive superstition. You alone know better than the vast majority, the evil, overwhelming, inexorably violent zealots who insanely believe in...



The horror and abomination. They must be razed from this earth, once and for all.

I know plenty of non religious people who do these things. And?
 

Red Dawn

Elite Member
Jun 4, 2001
57,530
3
0
Go to wikipedia. Look up Catholic Church. Scroll down to Social Teaching.
For every Mother Teressa type there's 10 pedophile priests. Also during the Middle Ages the Catholic Church did it's best to suppress scientific discovery, a lot of times through torture and death.
 

Atreus21

Lifer
Aug 21, 2007
12,007
572
126
For every Mother Teressa type there's 10 pedophile priests.

Prove this.

Also during the Middle Ages the Catholic Church did it's best to suppress scientific discovery, a lot of times through torture and death.

So what? Do you call for the destruction of anything that is imperfect?