Brava!

Indeed!

I just said a prayer for this wonderful person's soul, just after the prayer for my late wife.

Words of wisdom. Very much like: "If you demand perfection of yourself, you will be  frustrated. If you demand it of others, you will be disappointed."

That's because you have the luxury of living in a free country where independence supercedes any hand of "the church,"  and you haven't done enough reading about church history to understand that what you are practicing now is Americanized Christianity--a/k/a basterized and/or watered down version of what the true movement was all about.  

Example: But of the cities of these peoples, that Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth; but thou shalt utterly destroy them: the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; as Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee.

Doesn't get any plainer than that.  God, in Deuteronomy, commanded his faithful to "utterly destroy" whole tribes of people.  If you read the rest of the story, He elaborates punishments for not carrying out the utter destruction of them.  

If you think this verse and the others in the Old Testament that command utter destruction of people, stoning of disobedient children, killing of unfaithful wives,  etc., are verses that "shouldn't be read" then why did the church fathers keep those verses in their transcripts?  They cut out a whole bunch of things that had absolutely nothing to do with executing people that didn't toe the line -- why leave these bloody, hateful verses in?  Why doesn't the Pope declare them null and void?  

The Bible isn't the only bloody Holy book.  The Koran is pretty big on describing the glorious destruction of the nonbelievers, if you take the time to read it--not to mention the extreme sexism and dehuminizing commandments that faith has against women.  If reading these divine works the way they were written is "wrong" -  then why does the supreme deity even allow those works to exist?  Why would a supreme deity even allow the opportunity for one of His/It's creation to misinterpret "The Word" and cause pain and destruction by allowing ambiguous texts to survive persecutions?

Untold amounts of recorded words were utterly destroyed at the ancient library Alexandria (destroyed a few times, once as ordered by Christian Emperor Theodosius I in 391 A.D. because of the library's "pagan" books, and the last time in 642 A.D. at the hands of the Muslims).  We can only guess at the cultural and academic advances we'd have had those books survived (would be nice to know how the pyramids were created).  The entire Olmec/Toltic/Mayan/Aztec academic works were utterly destroyed by priests and conquistators because "they were pagan" and we can only guess at what we could have learned had their records survived...so if this deity is so supreme, and so loves His creation as the holy books depict, why allow verses that can easily be misread and used to hurt others, to be preserved, when obviously lesser works that weren't able to be  misconstrued as an order to attack were utterly destroyed by people who belonged to the church and were carrying out the church's orders?

 

I'm positive your mother was a wonderful woman, and the world is a crueler place because she is no longer in it....but she had the entire wealth of the Catholic Church behind her!  Your mother may have run her particular churches ministry, but the money to run that ministry came from the coffers of the Catholic Church; there were priests, bishops, cardinals and at the top, the Pope himself, that controlled her ministry.

And choosing to only seeing things in good light removes any hope of correcting the downsides.

Interesting little research study you should read about that took place at Santa Clara University:  http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11283475?source=most_emailed

The study, using paid volunteers from the South Bay, is similar to the famous 1974 "obedience study'' by the late Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. In the wake of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann's trial, Milgram was troubled by the willingness of people to obey authorities — even if it conflicted with their own conscience...

"The conclusion is not: 'Gosh isn't this a horrible commentary on human nature,' or 'these people were so sadistic,'' said Burger.
"It shows the opposite — that there are situational forces that have a much greater impact on our behavior than most people recognize,'' he said.


It's not the people wishing to blame their excuses, EH...it's the dynamic.  As an atheist, it was only a hop, skip and a jump for me to become simultaneously, a naturalist.  I believe that it's human nature for people to behave in certain ways, and I don't believe in the concept of free will the way most people define it--I believe that behavior is CAUSED, that the cause of a person's behavior is determined by their chemistry, their environment, and their history.  If their history tells them that there's a god that demands they exterminate an entire race of people, then they will not see reason, and they won't know that they're behaving in an evil way, because they're TRUTH is that their god determines what is evil and what is good and if their god tells them extermination is good, then to not exterminate, is evil.

LOL!!!

But yeah, people usually have ulterior motives and give to get something in return, it kinda goes against the entire reason for giving in the first place, which is an act of selflessness, not selfishness

 

 

true, but the way you put it you made all those within church or those doing deeds for the church sound like they are only doing so for some sort of gain, or power. Neither of which my mom got or wanted..

 

Now you must realize that the Bible was not written by god. Even if you believed in him, you must realize it was written by the hand of man, and such will be tainted by the very mind set of the one's writing it. it also comes to mind that over the thousand's of years like History books, it has been reshaped to fit the Ideals of those in charge during subesquent rewritings. * current history books omit or alter things I was taught in school.*  So to Hold the book in the fullest sence as the *True word* is silly at best.  not to mention Deuteronomy was not of the orginal writings but after deemed not to be written by moses, to be claimed that "the High Priest Hilkiah finds an ancient lost scroll in the Temple and takes it to king Josiah; what Josiah reads there causes him to embark on a program of religious reform, suppressing the worship of all other gods".  thus not of Jesus's teachings but some scroll some one found and claimed to be the next book of the bible. but in reading the works and teachings of jesus, this scroll does not fit. It would look as more of a king or other trying to write religion to fit his agenda and use it as an excuse to wage war on others as well impress his morailty on those he subdues, all in the name of god.

As well as doing such would violate the commandment * thou shall not kill*. So I find it hard to believe this scroll Was coined by the almighty who sent his son to preach love, humility,forgiveness, etc..

I see the bible as more of a guideline to live by, i read the good works and the wisdom behind it, while realizing the hatred and unjust entries could be nothing more than historians/ Kings etc, trying to use it for their own purposes. As we all know It has been added to and edited, by those in power.

If people chose to blindly follow what leaders told them God said, as throught much of time the masses were not able to read to verify, and willingly break a commandment. Then they are as guilty as those who chose to send them off. Using the Excuse " I was ordered to do it" Is still just an excuse.

You must concede that religion also helped shape morality even in todays most basic laws some of the 10 commandments still hold.

thou shall not kill. Murder is against the law.

Thou shall not commit adultery. Adultery is still one of the top reasons for Legal divorce and often used to win a divorce against ones spouce.

Thou shall not steal. Still illegal last i remembered..

Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. perjury is still punishable in a court of law.

The seven deadly sins helped shape the face of morality even more.

Most morality comes from some sort of spiritual and or religious teachings. So for some to say Religion and spiritual enlightenment only brings hatred and death is IMO silly.

Also, While I choose to focus on the good in things and go with the betterment of Human kind, I do not turn a blind eye to those who would use any excuse, "even religion" to subdue me or others. I realize there has been tons of Atrocities in the name of religion, but I do not believe *God came down and told them to* Most of what ive read can be chalked up to Humans changing religion to fit thier wants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I said to follow the money.  I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear on that.

There are countries in this world where if you said that publically, you wouldn't  live to see daylight.



Since Josiah was born long before Jesus was, you can't say he wasn't following the teachings of Jesus, because the teachings of Jesus didn't exist during Josiah's time period.  However, Jesus claimed that he came not to change the law, but to fulfill it, so therefore Jesus's teachings would be in line with King Josiah's reforms.

This is all hypothetical, of course, spoken from a perspective of a biblical studies.  Taken from a purely historical perspective, in light of the fact that ostensibly it was the responsibility of The Church (Roman Catholic) to keep the law and the scriptures, and dictate to the people the traditions of faith, if anything is in the Bible that shouldn't be there, then the very foundation of the Christian faith is faulty and none of it is to be trusted, and none of it can be relied upon as "truth."  Martin Luther was brave enough to rock the world by saying the Pope was not the mouthpiece of God, but he did claim that the Bible was infallible. By what you're saying, all of it is fallible--just what CAN you trust in, if the very basis for everything you hold as truth you also hold as based on dubious foundations?




The commandment ISN'T "thou shall not kill" - in the Hebrew, it's "thou shall not commit murder."  When carrying out the will of God to utterly destroy pagan civilizations to prevent "the truth" from being perverted, one is not committing murder; one is executing the will of God.  If you read the book all the way to the end, you see that Jesus comes back and does a little cleaning up of His own, sending people like myself to everlasting torment, in a place of torture God created to inflict pain on beings He created for all eternity with no hope of release, so Deuteronomy isn't really all that contrary to Jesus's teachings afterall.  As for that love, humility, and forgiveness--in the end, all deals are off.

No, I'm not going to give you that.  "Thou shalt not kill" (and thou shalt not steal, covet...that last six), were all just plagiarism of the code of Hammurabi, which predated Moses by about 500 years. (There were also moral codes from ancient China which pre-date Moses, instructing that people refrain from committing murder and stealing).  There is nothing original about the 10 commandments (except those first four about how you're suppose to behave towards God), I will NOT concede that religion shaped morality.  I think morality exists outside of religion.  One does not need a deity or a particular sect or religion to have morality.  Kindness and respect are natural laws, like gravity, in that if one violates them, one ends up hurting oneself in the long run.  Murdering someone, means you're going to inflame the wrath of the family of the murder victim, and they're going to come after you--just a natural law!  Steal from someone, and your going to inflame that person's wrath, and they're going to come after you!  These are all just various forms of the golden rule, which predates Moses, too!  (Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, ancient Etyptian religions, paganism...they ALL contain the law of reciprocity--do unto others as you would have them do unto you.).

As for the seven deadly sins...those are pretty much in the eye of the beholder.  We've made an empire banking on the deadly sins.  Apply enough of Pavlov's science to the deadly sins and you have a well oiled machine, a living thing that performs out of compulsivity!  (It's how I trained my dog!).

I don't think you read the article I posted about the study out of Santa Clara University -- it says people obey authority, even to the point of carrying out orders of torture, not because they want to, but because their programmed to.  When I talked about the DYNAMIC of religion, what I meant was, the system of supreme authority being held over those who need to belong to that authority's movement (for whatever psychological reason), FORCES those followers to carry out the things ordered of them without seeing the evil it in.  There are very few humans who have the power to change their religion (and you can find THAT in the Bible, Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.")

How true. Just goes to prove that if you give a stick to a barbarian he will hit you with it...

Oh how I wish we hadn't colonized the world. Brittania would still rule the waves and half the population on earth would still be running around in loin cloths.

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished

Not at all. Just because I defend your right to believe in something doesn't mean I have to agree with it as well.

If my belief that religion is a scam is insulting to someone...not much I can do about that...especially when I believe what I do. And I don't actively go around calling people nut jobs for believing in some religion or telling them they shouldn't believe in them...until they start to try and push it on me.

But when those beliefs impact my life in any way...honestly...I don't care who I insult...since they don't seem to care about how what they believe affects me. Thus...the "keep thy religion to thyself" comment. I also firmly believe that all religions should be taxed since they all seem to want interject these religious beliefs into government...which affects me and forces those beliefs into my life. So they should pay the admission price like everyone else.

I'd venture to say that "people" and not religion based charities do more to help soup kitchens than any religion based group. I've heard from numerous people I know how they asked a church for help and were turned down.

And...there really is no "true form" of religion...since you can take people of the same religion...ask a question and get conflicting responses. Also...no one follows any religion to a T...they take bits a pieces of a religion...the parts they agree with...and interject them into their lives and call it religion.

Now that we can agree on! I can see people and what they do. I can't see invisible men that have no impact in the world other than supposedly existing somewhere with all this perceived power but doing nothing to help.

By the sounds of it...I would venture to say your mother was the kind of person that would have done this even without religion since these kind of actions are not limited to people of religion.

But back to the original question...I feel there is more terrorism in the world now than there ever has been. And we know who we can thank for that...at least I do. Thanks for the crusade George! Oops...He really didn't mean to say crusade...it just kinda slipped out.

Quite possibly she would have, but without the church backing her and giving her the ability to help others she may have not been able to help as many as she did. I really posted it to show Religion does do good in the world when people use their faith for good. Stemming from comments that religion only causes suffering and death that was posted earlier.

Well...in all fairness HG...religion to some degree has its good points...in that in the beginning of a childs upbringing that has been exposed to religion it teaches how to be a good person...after that it gets kinda iffy. But the same can be said of good parenting.

 

You assume Ive ever met any of those I have sent donations off to.. Muchless sent them a book or that I even follow only one book.. Contrary to popular belief not all religious people use kindness to pressure others in to thier religion. As I stated with my mom, she asked nothing, welcomed all, and handed out only love,food,and compassion. it was never about propogating the faith.

I do not and would never push my beliefs on others. As true faith must come from within.

I also respect the beliefs of others as they have the Right to believe as they wish.  I also would expect the same in return, those who do not believe what I believe should no more call me names nor insult my beliefs in general, just because my beliefs are not the same as their own.

I love the true meaning of freedom of religion, as any one can believe or choose not to believe whatever they wish. *as long as they dont force it on others*

The poor? As long as there are rich people there will be poor ones. Only when human kind has achieved total economical balance between the haves and have nots will poverty be fully abolished.

 

herman I applogize for  hijacking this thread, as it has nothing to do with religion. As you have stated the attacks etc are not of religious backing.

thank you Tails. I agree people should do good deeds because it's the right thing to do. And if their faith has inspired them to become an active and positive force in the community around them, then cool.

Spread the love folks.

 

herman keep a chin up, you have friends here who care and hope things go well for you.