Sam Harris – Misconceptions About Atheism
This is so well stated, and so profound, I don’t know how a religious person could hear it and not be swayed. I have to assume they have not seen it.
See the entire video here: Clash Between Faith and Reason
If you never thought there was something seriously wrong with the Holy Bible, maybe you should see what devout Bible teachers have to say about it and its foretelling of prophecy:
The way to identify the beast is by counting. In ancient times, letters of the alphabet served as numbers. The first nine letters stood for the numbers one through nine, and the next nine for the numbers ten through ninety, and so on. In Greek, the current alphabet did not have enough letters, so certain obsolete letters and signs supplemented the system. Every name yielded a number.
However, the identity of the person represented by the number 666 should not be a subject of speculation until that person arrives on the earthly scene. The person to whom 666 applies must have been future to apostle John’s time, because John clearly meant the number to be recognizable to someone. If it was not discernible to his generation, the generation to whom it will be discernible must have lain in the future. If 666 is the number of a future individual, attempts to identify past entities through the number are futile.
This is just sad. There is an entire Bible Prophecy class if you are so inclined. How about judging the Bible in its historical context versus establishing basic human rights for all:
Often Bible verses that seem unfair or discriminatory to us need to be viewed within their historical or cultural context. For instance the Bible does not condemn slavery and in fact the Bible actually codifies the rules for keeping slaves. Today we find slavery abhorrent and for some of us the idea that the Bible codifies how slaves are to be treated is very upsetting. But in its historic and cultural context that codification of how slaves are to be treated was in fact a hard thing for people of that time to live up to. In other words, that codification made the life for the slave in Israel better than the slaves life would be someplace else.
Jesus H. Christ in a hand basket… slavery has always been abhorrent. You think that GOD – the creator of the universe, good, evil, etc. would have clued humanity in a couple of millenia ago if it slavery was bad, right? This alone should invalidate the Bible for any right-minded person. And then there is Gordon Atkinson who successfully made it out of the muck, but then slid back:
I looked in the restroom mirror and said, “I do not believe in God.” I knew this was the truth and felt the need to say it out loud. I was on the other side now. I was an unbeliever. It was like waking up in Tokyo and noticing to your great surprise that you’ve become Japanese. You weren’t raised in Japan, and you have no idea how to use chopsticks. What the hell are you gonna do with yourself? [Huh?]
It wasn’t the experience with Jenny [a woman that died of breast cancer that could not be saved with prayer] that caused my break with God. It was the kids in Mexico, my difficulty in believing parts of the bible, the phony Christians I met along the way, and the hundreds of prayers that seemed unanswered. Jenny was just the last ping of a hammer that had been working on my foundation for a long time.
It breaks my heart. Here is a man that “works his ass off” [his words] helping people and doing good works, and then he gives the credit to God. What the hell?! Dude… there are plenty of people doing good in the world that are not beholden to mythology. I wish you would reconvert to your birth state (non-believer, pre-brainwashing) and join us without the distraction of God looking over your shoulder. I think meditation (aka prayer) is wonderful, but don’t pretend someone is listening.
I accidentally found this when writing my Bryant Wright post! Too funny. You should try it. Amazingly, I could not score less than 51 after three tries! What the hell? That only gets me to purgatory. I guess with lame questions about income and questioning my beliefs, it skews the result. For instance, I never question my beliefs, but neither would a devout suicide bomber I imagine. See what you can score and post your results here.
Enjoy:
Headed to Hell, I Guess...
Sampling of the questions for your reference (non-functional):
DO NOT ANSWER — USE LINK ABOVE!! |
Shamelessly copied from The Afterlife Test, by Heaven Hell Purgatory.
Agnostic, Atheism, Graphics, Polling, Religion, Science, Statistics
I was watching TV tonight and an ad for “Right from the Heart Ministries” came on… I first met Bryant Wright back in 1991 when Johnson Ferry Baptist Church (JFBC) was just a little tyke, at least compared to the huge monster it is now. He was always an affable fellow, and I attended his church for several years as a member. While I attended with my family, the church started to really grow (and grow) and the monster had an ever increasing appetite for money. Religion quickly fails without a steady stream of funds… faith may last, but organized religion is dead without cold, hard cash.
Over time, that aspect of church life among others really wore on me, intellectually and financially. We were driving more than 20 miles one way to attend his little slice of heaven, and I was amazed at how little our attendance, time, and money was appreciated. It was more of an expectation of a good Baptist. Bryant frequently reminded the congregation about his business background before he was “called” to Johnson Ferry. He was not so subtly making the point that for the church to prosper, it had to be run like a business. Um, duh. That’s how this stuff works. It was an important lesson for me and one of the many curiosities that interfered with the worship time that might have kept me in the flock. N-E-Way… I thought I would do a quick search for Pastor Wright and the second hit on Google was this nut case from Flickr.
I couldn’t help but think, “Hey, that looks just like Bryant Wright!” What do you think? Twins? Separated at birth? Long lost, pissed off brother?
Bryant Wright?
I thought it would be a fun thing to write about. In the course of my “research”, I ran across this:
Belief in the Lordship of Jesus Christ Baptists believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation and eternal life. We believe a personal decision must be made by each individual to repent from sin and trust Him as their Lord and Savior. We do not inherit our Christianity from our parents.
I disagree. The vast majority of people inherit their beliefs from their parents. Maybe he’s just pandering to the latest Pew survey that indicates many people switch faiths implying that if you find “Christianity” or “Baptistness” that you must truly have found salvation. Sigh. Honestly, I am shocked and saddened that it took me so long to wake up and walk away. Seriously, read this with fresh eyes and an open mind:
Baptists believe all Christians should read and study the Bible. We are not a creedal people. Our only creed is the Bible. In 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a revised confession of faith entitled “The Baptist Faith and Message” which says this about the Bible: “The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which human conduct, creeds and religious opinions should be tried.
Come on! No error? Totally true and trustworthy? The Bible is masochistic and misogynistic garbage with a little of grandma’s tall tales and common sense mixed in written by primitive men with approximately zero scientific knowledge of the world.
Holy crap is what it is.
Additional search terms for those seeking common sense and a new church or intellectual home:
Good luck in your search for truth.
In David Waters latest Under God column he posits that McCain is with some likelihood not a believer in God. I would only add to that… Duh. Look at his life. Why would he believe in God? I won’t drag you through the entire history. I’m just saying, it seems unlikely given what he has been through. Hell, I’ve been through a whole lot less and I don’t believe in God. I have never been witness to a miracle or even had a credible account of someone experiencing one.
And the people replied…