Priests and their obsession with Status and Wealth

Das Reich wrote: »

"His church"?

I'm not sure I understand your question. Catholics (if I remember correctly, it has been some time) consider their faith the faith of Jesus and thus their church his church.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Jesus (if he even existed) lived and died as a jew. Christianity was invented decades after his death/lost weekend.

Unarguably so. I was making the point that the accumulation of wealth by the organisation that purports to live by his teachings is at odds with their description of his teaching.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

"Sin" is a ridiculous concept (never mind original sin.)

I don't attack christianity as such, people can believe what they want however silly it may be (and, let's face it, an awful lot of stuff believers of all types are expected to swallow is just utterly silly). I just want it to stay out of my life, stop screwing the taxpayer to fund its activities, stop trying to brainwash my kids in school and stop trying to influence the civil laws to reflect their doctrines.

It's why the world is so messed up. Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve were deceived by the devil and creation has fallen ever since. It's important because we exist in this world in the physical and spiritual. When we die the soul leaves this world and the sin we've committed can only be washed away by a saviour. The alternative is not to adhere to God, people decide their own morality and society becomes more broken as people choose more sinful lives rather than humbly living godly lives.

Gooey Looey wrote: »

We've got a live one here folks!

I'll soon be kicked out for not adhering to the atheist worldview the MSM push.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Whatever about the rest of that supernatural conjecture, genetics proves that humans did not descend from one male and one female - there was no Adam and Eve. There was no seven day creation. There was no global flood and animals two by two. The earth is not the centre of the universe, etc. So if the book of genesis is all demonstrably bunk, why should we pay any heed to the rest of it?

Genetics can't prove there wasn't one man and woman created from the beginning. No proof to say 7 day creation didn't happen. There is evidence flooding in Iraq and other Sumerian cities. The old cities of Sodam and Gomorrah exist today covered in white sulphur which cannot be found anywhere else and shows old temples that melted inwards. Bible also says earth hangs on nothing. Book of genesis can't be disproven and there is some evidence that verify it is correct.

jaxxx wrote: »

Genetics eh. Tell me, since humans share over 70% of their DNA with dogs, over 95% with chimpanzees, then how is that not proof of shared ancestry and thus evolution? Where was your precious religion when nuns were taking babies away from their mothers and priests abusing kids WORLDWIDE? Just continue to defend the indefensible, you flippin'.. .. ..

No Jaxxx, play nice now.. .. ..


DONKEY! (channeling my inner Gordon Ramsey)

PLEASE tell me you're a flat earther btw?? And that dinosaurs never existed and entirely made up ????

Sounds like you think humans and animals evolved from nothing. DNA shows high intelligence creator used detailed instructions in a module determining the development, functioning and reproduction of all organisms.

Bible mentions dragons. After the flood alot of these would not exist. The word dinosaur was created when the first one was found and they have the same description as that of dragons.

one world order wrote: »

Jesus took the punishment for our sin by dying on the cross.

Human sacrifice, and moral scapegoating. Two barbaric human practices that I am glad to see are mostly dying off. And people like yourself who harken wistfully to those old days an increasingly rare breed.

one world order wrote: »

This is why we have so many people attacking Christianity because they love their sin.

"Sin" is just a word YOU put on things YOU morally disagree with. Things that, on previous attempts, you are seemingly unable to actually construct a moral argument against. So rather than say "X is morally wrong because Y" you simply shout the label "sin" at it and run away.

Run Forest, run!

one world order wrote: »

they choose to attack Christianity instead and will have to meet God's wrath on their time of judgement.

That would be this "god" I keep asking you for ANY evidence actually exists, and you have repeatedly been able to offer nothing but long winded assertions that it exists?

one world order wrote: »

When we die the soul leaves this world

Define "soul" exactly. What is it meant to be?

Have you any argument, evidence, data or reasoning on offer to lend even a modicum of credence that human awareness, experience and subjectivity survives the death of the brain? Or is it just to be more assertion that it is so from you?

one world order wrote: »

The alternative is not to adhere to God, people decide their own morality and society becomes more broken

How is it become "more broken" exactly? We are living in the best times in human history it would seem. We have challenges for sure, but in terms of personal well being, safety and more I can think of no time in human history I would prefer to live than right now.

I do not see our species or our society as "broken". I see them as struggling in a difficult world, in a universe where life and surviving is the exception not the rule. And we are doing pretty good at it, and getting ever so slowly better at it as time goes on.

And riding ourselves of baseless superstition and unsubstantiated nonsense about the supernatural, is one step in that process of improving. People and society SHOULD be deciding it's own "morality" because at the end of the day "morality" is just a fancy term for the rules we want in our relationship with one another.

one world order wrote: »

Drugs, crime, awful music, multiple sexual partners, STDs, depression, anxiety, performance based workplaces, lack of purpose, the list is endless are far worse now.

Many of those things are not bad. YOU just personally do not like them. If there are types of drugs, sexual activity, or music that YOU do not like that is fine. Stay away from them. No one is asking you to partake. But that OTHER people like things YOU do not like.... is something you need to go to the drawing board.... design a bridge.... build it.... and get over it.

Other things on your list are actually in many ways DOWN not UP like crime. Just like your nonsense fantasy above that society is getting "More" broken, you would do well to read a book like Pinkers "Better Angels of our Nature" to see the reality on such statistics. The problem here is the media and news outlets which click bait crime so much it FEELS like there is more of it, while there is actually less.

Finally one issue with things like depression, anxiety and some medical conditions is not that there is more of it. It is that we have become better at diagnosing it, facing it, recognising it, and talking about it. The statistics on these things are absolutely up, but not simply because cases of it are. Your agenda of pessimism is quite transparent here.... because when you can make people hopeless, you can sell them concepts like gods.

one world order wrote: »

I'll soon be kicked out for not adhering to the atheist worldview the MSM push.

Bull. The only people ever kicked out of here are done so not because they do not adhere to our views here, but because they conducted themselves poorly, agressively, or rudely.

While you have so far be espousing abject and unsubstantiated nonsense, you have been doing so in a cordial and coherent fashion. It would be a shock to me if you even get a mod WARNING for this, let alone actively removed.

Sorry you will likely not get to be the martyr you want to be today.

one world order wrote: »

Genetics can't prove there wasn't one man and woman created from the beginning. No proof to say 7 day creation didn't happen.

"Proof" is the wrong word. There is ample evidence on both of these subjects which SUBSTANTIATE the conclusions people reach off the back of that evidence.

What there is NOT is any evidence at all of a 7 day creation (I thought it was 6?). Forget proof. You have no evidence of it at all.

What you certainly have not got seemingly, as I have asked you multiple times in the past, is a SHRED of argument, evidence, data or reasoning that whatever the explanation for our existence is..... that it has anything to do with the machinations of a non-human intelligent and intentional agent.

one world order wrote: »

Book of genesis can't be disproven and there is some evidence that verify it is correct.

Evidence that is..... forthcoming? Or are you yet ANOTHER one of these "I am going to keep saying there is evidence, while contriving to present none of it ever" artists we get so many of around here?

one world order wrote: »

There will always be people that choose evil over good, but to abandon God and for everyone to live ungodly lives means the temptations of sining become far too easier.

Speak for yourself. If you suffer from temptation so much that you need an imaginary god to prevent yourself acting on them.... then I can honestly say I hope you never lose your faith.

I always love the theists who say with no shred of irony things like "If you do not think there is a god, then what stops you from murdering or raping babies?".

THATS what is stoping THEM? Good grief.

I do not murder, rape, steal, or use violence not because I think there is a god but because I operate on the simple axiom that if morality is "for" anything, then it is for maximising the well being of sentient agents. Simple as that.

I want to live in a society where crimes do not happen, so I do n ot commit any crimes. I want to live in a society where my elderly mother is given a seat on a bus if none are free, so I myself move to always give my seat on a bus to anyone at all who requires one.

It is called, I believe, "Enlightened self interest". Though in the past I called it a "socio-economic working of the golden rule". And there is simply no god required.

If you think you are good but are only good because you think someone is watching and judging, then I question whether you are "good" at all. So you do not appear to have the platform you believe you have to lord your high horse morals over the rest of us.

Das Reich wrote: »

If they consider then they should read the bible a bit more. Islam is way closer to Christianism than Catholicism is.

I don't see how you could reasonably make that argument. Whatever characteristic you use to compare Islam with Christianity vs. Catholicism with Christianity, its difficult to see how Islam could be more closely aligned with Christianity than Catholicism. The conception of God, soteriology, the Islamic concept of Sunnah, just to name a few all make Islam markedly different from any Christian sect.

Yes, there are differences between Catholicism and other Christian denominations but since there are over 33000 different denominations of Christianity, pointing out that any one of them is not like the others seems a bit redundant.

one world order wrote: »

It's why the world is so messed up. Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve were deceived by the devil and creation has fallen ever since. It's important because we exist in this world in the physical and spiritual. When we die the soul leaves this world and the sin we've committed can only be washed away by a saviour. The alternative is not to adhere to God, people decide their own morality and society becomes more broken as people choose more sinful lives rather than humbly living godly lives.

Well, no. I know that this is something that Christians believe but the original story makes no mention of the devil. Its just a talking snake. Talking animals were a thing in the OT, just look at Balaam's talking donkey in Numbers 22.

At the time when Genesis was being compiled/edited/redacted there wasn't really a conception of Satan being the singular malevolent force that Christians believe in. The character of Satan had darkened somewhat from his earlier appearances in places like Job and Numbers but the real development of this malevolent angel wouldn't take place until long after Genesis was written, so the idea that the writers of Genesis are referring to Satan is ridiculous.


Plus, its worth pointing out that since you've already acknowledged that you're in the Atheist forum, most of the readers here are unlikely to be convinced by stories from the bible that are borrowed from older myths.

SouthWesterly wrote: »

Absolutely, let's bring back slavery and child labour. After all, it was Christians who campaigned for their abolition.

Indeed, it was Christians who campaigned for the abolition of slavery, however equally it was other Christians who vigorously defended slavery on Biblical grounds.



For example, in 1823 Frederick Dalcho an Episcopal pastor from South Carolina wrote a long treatise titled: "Practical Considerations Founded on the Scriptures, Relative to the Slave Population of South Carolina by a South-Carolinian"


where he explained that slavery was not only condoned by the Bible (in passages like Exodus) but also mandated by Biblical prophecy:


"The prophecy of Noah, was to be fulfilled, not in the individuals named, but nationally in their descendants. Canaan's whole race was under the malediction."



Thus Dalcho explained that while Jews and Christians descended from Noah's sons Shem and Japheth, Africans (the descendants of Canaan) were descended from Ham and thus destined for "servitude and subjection".



Similarly, in 1820 during the debates over the statehood of Missouri, a long treatise with many biblical citations appeared in the Richmond Enquirer (15 Feb 1820) regarding the morality of slavery. It concluded with 5 take away points:

• That the volume of sacred writings commonly called the bible, comprehend-ing the old and new Testaments, contains the unerring decisions of the word of God.
• That these decisions are of equal authority in both testaments, and that this authority is the essential veracity of God, who is truth itself.
• That since there can be no prescription against the authority of God, what ever is declared in any part of the holy bible to be lawful or illicit, must be essentially so in its own nature, however repugnant such declaration may be to the current opinions of men during any period of time.
• That as the supreme lawgiver and judge of man, God is infinitely just and wise in all decisions, and is essentially irresponsible for the reasons of his conduct in the moral government of the world—so it is culpably audacious in us to question the rectitude of any of those decisions—merely because we do not apprehend the inscrutable principles of such wisdom and justice.
• That if one, or more decisions of the written word of God, sanction the rectitude of any human acquisitions, for instance, the acquisition of a servant by inheritance or purchase, whoever believes that the written word of God is verity itself, must consequently believe in the absolute rectitude of slave-holding.

From the middle of the 15th century (when this Noah "prophecy" first seems to have appeared) until at least the time of abolitionism, slavery was justified by mainstream Christians and other groups* through Biblical citations.


*By other groups here I'm referring to Mormons. Early Mormons like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young justified slavery by reference to the curse of Ham but while references to the curse of Ham largely waned in mainstream Christianity after abolitionism, it remained an important idea in Mormonism into the 20th century. The ban on African-Americans serving as priests only ended in 1978.

SouthWesterly wrote: »

And as for murder, theft, adultery, lying. Sure they were Judeo/Christian concepts and were deemed to be wrong by followers of a fable.

If you really think that prohibitions on murder, adultery, theft, lying etc. were Judeo-Christian concepts, then you really weren't paying attention in history class.


Take this, for example:



This is the stele of Hammurabi, an extant copy of the code of Hammurabi a Babylonian law code dating to 1754 BCE. For reference that's 804 years before Genesis was completed. The code includes laws governing trade, slander, divorce etc. We didn't need Christianity or Judaism to come along to teach us that murder was wrong. People already knew that.


Even from the Bible it is apparent that laws and commandments concerning moral behaviour didn't originate with the commandments. In Exodus 2:11-15 Moses kills an Egyptian and hides the body, knowing what would happen if he didn't. When the crime is discovered he flees to Midian in fear. If you really needed God to spell out that murder is wrong then how did Moses know to hide the body?

one world order wrote: »

Slavery and child labour was never encouraged. Another false lie created.

No, as I've pointed out above, slavery was defended loudly, vociferously and in great detail by southern Christians in the United States in the period before abolitionism. There is an excellent summary of these defenses in the Journal of Religious Thought:


The religious defense of American slavery before 1830

one world order wrote: »

Genetics can't prove there wasn't one man and woman created from the beginning.

Actually, it can. And does. First of all humans weren't created. We evolved from pre-existing species. Second, the problem of minimum viable population is a well studied concept in biology. There is a certain minimum population, below which a species will die out. This is because there needs to be sufficient members of a species such that harmful mutations have an escape valve and won't build up within a species. Although there is still some debate over the precise number that would be required for humans, the average minimum population for vertebrate species is roughly 4000.



Minimum viable population size: A meta-analysis of 30 years of published estimates


With specific regard to humans, its likely that the original population of humans was no bigger than about 26000. The genetic evidence for the human population 1.2 million years ago was somewhere between 18500 and 26000. So, not 2 people.


And just to recap on a point I made above, its not just our observation of population data that tells us there never was an Adam an Eve (or single breeding pair), its that there are fundamental genetic reasons why a population that small could not be sustained.

one world order wrote: »

No proof to say 7 day creation didn't happen.

Before we get into talking about the formation of the earth (and the Universe for that matter), its worth talking about the burden of proof.



Just in case you've never studied formal logic or been on a jury or however else you might have missed this, let me explain. The burden of proof for any positive claim lies with the person making the claim. So, in this case, anybody making claims to there being a seven day creation needs to prove that this really is the case, its not encumbent on the skeptic to disprove the claim. A claim isn't considered true until its disproven. In fact, the world works the other way around. We don't let drug companies market drugs until they have been proven to work. This might help to explain things further:





Getting back to the Earth, we know that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old and that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. So unless you stretch the meaning of "day" to the point of ridicule, then yes we can say that 7 day creation didn't happen.



Besides which, we know that Genesis isn't a historical account. Its a syncretic retelling of earlier creation myths, in particular the Enuma Elish. We can piece together the pieces of earlier myths that are found in Genesis (the perfect garden, Adam's rib etc.) such that there's not really much room left for a real history to be behind any of it.

one world order wrote: »

There is evidence flooding in Iraq and other Sumerian cities.

Indeed, there is evidence of flooding in southern Iraq, in what was once the city of Shuruppak. But it was, of course a local flood, not a global one. And it is yet another example of a story that Jewish writers just borrowed from an earlier civilisation. The story of this local flood had been told by all the cultures in that region for thousands of years before Genesis was written. The epic of Gilgamesh (in its present form) dates back to around the 18th century BCE (or around 1300 years before Genesis) and tells the story of Utnapishtim (or Ziusudra or Atrahasis). As you can see below, it bears remarkable similarities to the story found in Genesis:


"Like the apsu you shall roof it" Gilgamesh XI,31
"Make a roof for the ark" Genesis 6:16

"pitch I poured into the inside" Gilgamesh XI,66
"cover it inside and out with pitch" Genesis 6:14

"into the ship all my family and relatives" Gilgamesh XI,84
"Go into the ark, you and all your household" Genesis 7:1

"I entered the ship and closed the door" Gilgamesh XI,93
"And they that entered...and the Lord shut him in" Genesis 7:16

"All mankind was turned to clay" Gilgamesh XI,133
"And all flesh died...and every man" Genesis 7:21

"I opened the window" Gilgamesh XI,135
"Noah opened the window of the ark" Genesis 8:6

"On Mount Nisir the boat grounded" Gilgamesh XI,140
"the ark came to rest upon the mountains" Genesis 8:4

"The dove went out and returned" Gilgamesh XI,147
"sent forth the dove and the dove came back to him" Genesis 8:10-11

"When a seventh day arrived" Gilgamesh XI,145
"He waited another seven days" Genesis 8:10

"I sent forth a raven" Gilgamesh XI,152
"Noah... sent forth a raven" Genesis 8:7




Yes, there was a local flood in the region. But this one fact doesn't in any way lend credence towards the story told in the Bible. Just because there's a New York doesn't mean that there's a Spiderman.

one world order wrote: »

The old cities of Sodam and Gomorrah exist today covered in white sulphur which cannot be found anywhere else and shows old temples that melted inwards.

OK, first things first. What they found at the site where they think Sodom and Gomorrah existed (note the use of the word think here, not know) is white monoclinic sulphur, a different crystalline form of sulphur than the more typical yellow orthorhombic sulphur. If you think that white sulphur can't be found anywhere else then perhaps you should pay a visit to White Sulphur Springs in Montana. Or the one in West Virginia. Monoclinic sulphur is formed from orthorhombic sulphur when the latter is exposed to temperatures in excess of 94.5 degrees. So it shows up a lot in places like hot springs.



The formation of the white sulphur in the Lisan formation is explained through natural geologic processes but the details are too long-winded to discuss in detail here. However, it does not provide any evidence for a fire and brimstone rain outlined in the Bible.

one world order wrote: »

Bible also says earth hangs on nothing.

Yes, and it also speaks about the Earth being flat (e.g. Isaiah 40:22). You see if you're going to talk about all the science that the Bible gets right, then you're also going to have to deal with all the science that the bible gets wrong, like that bats are birds and whales are fish and that you can show striped patterns to pregnant cattle to get striped offspring.

one world order wrote: »

Sounds like you think humans and animals evolved from nothing. DNA shows high intelligence creator used detailed instructions in a module determining the development, functioning and reproduction of all organisms.

No, humans evolved from earlier species just like other animals. If you're talking about life itself, then we don't really know how life got started. Its not that we're completely clueless about it, in fact we have several different hypotheses about possible origins for life, but barring the invention of time travel, we can't go back and figure out which one is the correct one.


We have a perfectly competent naturalistic mechanism for explaining the origin of life. We don't need to suggest the existence of a god to balance the equation, as it were. But if you are going to suggest a god to get the ball rolling, then you should have a good reason for doing so, and it should be better than because we don't know or because you can't think of something better.

one world order wrote: »

Bible mentions dragons. After the flood alot of these would not exist. The word dinosaur was created when the first one was found and they have the same description as that of dragons.

Once again, just like the serpent in the garden of Eden, Christians try to connect dots that aren't there. While Satan is described as being like a dragon throughout Revelation, the only thing that comes close to being a dragon in the Old Testament is Leviathan, first mentioned in Job. Once you set aside his obviously fictional characteristics, the creature depicted as Leviathan more closely resembles a Nile crocodile.



Second, what about the standard depiction of dragons would mean that they died out in the flood. Shouldn't they be able to fly above the flood waters just like the birds.


Finally, no, the first dinosaur fossil found doesn't have the same description as a a dragon. The earliest dinosaur fossil to be discovered was Megalosaurus by William Buckland in the 1820s, but it wouldn't be until Richard Owen in the 1840s that they were given the name dinosaur. And they didn't think that they were dragons but rather large monitor lizards.



Its hard to see this:


as being remotely like a dragon (the lack of wings for a start). Besides the earliest depictions of dragons were as giant sea serpents and not land creatures.

And I get a reputation around boards for writing long posts

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Human sacrifice, and moral scapegoating. Two barbaric human practices that I am glad to see are mostly dying off. And people like yourself who harken wistfully to those old days an increasingly rare breed. [...] If you think you are good but are only good because you think someone is watching and judging, then I question whether you are "good" at all. So you do not appear to have the platform you believe you have to lord your high horse morals over the rest of us.

The only human sacrifice was that of Jesus and that was done by those that didn't want to hear his message. He replaced the old covenant of sacrificing animals for peoples sins. This was to be an everlasting sacrifice that Jesus took the punishment for our sins and he would pour out the holy spirit for those that accepted him as their saviour.

Sin is an act that goes against the law set down by God. The law was given to correct people and show them the way God would like to see his creation to live by. It also helps to keep people in check from living sinful lives and maintaining good standards in society.

A soul is the spiritual part of a human that is capable of reason, character, feeling, perception, etc. When death occurs the soul leaves the body. Jesus overcame death by the resurrection. He was witnessed by 500 people and so proved life exists after death.

As faith in God has decreased, you have to accept people have become more lost, depressed and anxious. People have turned to mediation, yoga, reki, etc. to try fill that void.

25% of families in Ireland are one parent, and this continues to increase. A lot of men don't treat women with the same respect due to how they view them on certain sites and the type of music they consume. Again this has to do with people choosing more sinful lives rather than obeying God.

The theories put forward by atheist's for our creation are nonsense. People did not evolve from Apes that came from fish that came from bacteria that came from atoms that came from nothing. Big bang theory again crazy, what are the chances that earth is the appropriate distance from sun to sustain life, moon exists for gravity, right atmosphere for us to breath and food provided so we can live, among multiple factors involved. This does not happen from a random bang of a big rock in the middle of nowhere. All around you is Gods creation but you choose to ignore it, instead accepting crazy theories.