Wow, that jesus flla sure was arogant huh?

Yep, he's the most arrogant non-existant Midrashic fable I've ever had the displeasure of knowing of.

Havoc, I know it's a little hypocritical. I don't mind. Everyone is hypocritical sometimes. But come on. Xenu? Thetan levels? This is all based on fiction that some modern day writer has come up with. He wasn't a prophet. He was an author. I'm not even certain if he took everything he was saying as fact. It makes me wonder if some random guy just took some of L. Ron Hubbard's fiction and turned it into a full-blown religion.

Besides, you're talking to the wrong person. I've explained (or at least implied) in this thread that, being a deist, I am much more skeptical and less literal when dealing with scripture. It's not like I would take the Bible and say "Oh. This version of the story is the right one and the Muslim one is wrong." or whatnot, and I wouldn't say that about the ridiculous statements in Scientology either. In other words, I don't draw my spirituality from writings; I draw it from worldly experience. Wrong person to criticize. Criticism denied. :p

Havoc. Read this stuff. Even as an atheist, you know that there are different levels of "unbelievability" when it comes to religion. Scientology takes the cake. End of story.

SeaRex has it down pretty well, I spose. Not only is it bizarre as to how a person looked at a piece of fiction and decided to found a religion on it, but who in fuck would want to have L. Ron Hubbard as their messiah? The man was a crappy author and a pedophile.

To Havoc's remark about the bible being blown out of proportion: All religions have apects that seem truly unbelivable. You can't say one religion is more believable than the other. In fact, most religion is utter crap to the logical mind. But it's faith, you either believe or you don't. That's religion in a nutshell. Except Buddhism in some cases, perhaps. They seem to be the only order which I have actually found enlightenment from when I explored it a little.

Here's something else Jesus said:

John8: 12-19
Jesus said to the peole, "I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you wont be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life."
The Pharisees replied, 'You are making false calims about yourself!'
Jesus told them, "These claims are valid even though i make them about myself. For i know where i came from and where i am going, but you don't know this about me. You judge me with all your human limitations, but i am not judging ;anyone. And if i did, my judgment would be correct in every respect because i am not alone. I have with me the Father who sent me. Your own law says that if two people agree about something, their witness is accepted as fact. I am the witness, and my Father who sent me is the other."

Searex: Who says the bible isn't written by someone who happened to have a good imagination and good sense of creativity? That guy is probably laughing in his grave as we speak for the sheer stupidity his little story turned out to be.
Religion based on experience, rather then a book, is at least something I respect. So go you, Searex!

Erm, pretty sure the Bible's books came from several different authors in several different times. >.>

I really have no idea what's going on in this thread. XD

I used to be down on Scientology, too. But when somebody starts talking shit about Scientology I don't defend it, I just say something like
"Yeah, Scientology is retarded. Scientology is a bunch of ridiculous fairy tales. But how is that any different than the goofy crap you believe?" Then I have a field day revelling in the preposterous stories of Religion X.
Also, people say Scientology is bad because it costs money. Bullcrap! Ever see how much money the poor people give to the collection plate? What about mandated alms and tithes? As far as I'm concerned Scientology isn't some revolutionary money grabbing scheme, its just the same bullcrap with a different name. L.R. Hubbard got it, I think. He unleased an absolutely epic practical joke on the whole world and even though I don't believe in an afterlife sometimes I like to think that scheister is laughing his head off. Little Know Fact: Emilo Estevez used to be a Scientologist. When he was a Scientologist he was in many movies. Ever since he dropped out his career has been in the toilet. Is this a part of a vast Scientology conspiracy, and if so what level must I obtain to learn what Emilio did to deserve this?

Nath, if your going to quote scripture you should acnologe that the only part of the bible {be it new or old} that was actualy said to be written by God him/her/it-self are the 10 commandments. The rest was all Man.

...also, scriptures are seldom straight-forward. And some are of very questionable decesncy/legality.
e.g.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Deuteronomy 13:6-10
Deuteronomy 22:10

Adder, if you're going to comment on religious thought, you should acknowledge that you don't know shit.

For religious people, the entire first five books of Moses were dictated to him by God. For non-religious people/biblical revisionists; they were written down and collated much later as the collective legends of the Israelite/Judean people. (For more info on biblical revisionism, read here.

Adder, bone up a little before you make a statement. Ever heard of verbal inspiration?

lol, uga buga African Religion.

I'm an atheist, though I was raised uga buga. (No, not really)

I said "written by God". Not "inspired by / quoted from God".
I admit I don't have a whole lotta faith in taking the bible literaly {after all, it was origional written without punctuation which makes it very open to interpretation beyond current language use. It has also been translated endlessly}. Nothing is going to make me think that a dictated version of something is as reliable as a hard copy by the origional producer. There is human error.

Statikk HDM, I hadn't heard of "verbal inspiration". After checking its meaning, I had heard the concept before. Again, there is still human error. If a person was 'possesed' by God/Holy Spirit, then that person could make a scripture that would be as good as His word IMO. Anything short of that... probably not as good.
This is something we did in Religion in 2nd year of Secondary School {equivalent to High School, around 4 years before college}. If you ask someone to say something, they'll tool the vocabulary to the audience or formality expected/wanted. The counter arguement is that people though Scripture too important to alter astheticaly.

...I still side with "God didn't say that. God said something to someone who passed on the message, which was written down and translated a good few times before it reached you"

It can't get any clearer than passages saying things like "All scripture is God-breathed and useful" or "Men wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit". The bible says that it is inspired by God and the Holy Spirit and entirely true throughout. While that statement is certainly debatable the fact that the Bible repeated and clearly makes such statements isn't.

And the fact the bible has been amended notably since the Dead Sea Scrolls says that there's error. Heck, one of the differences between Protestism and Catholisim is the placement of a comma; a comma which didn't exist in the origional writings of the bible.

Thats not what I mean. I mean scientific impossibilities, absurdities, and contradictions in the text itself.
Check this out:
http://www.ffrf.org/books/lfif/?t=stone
Its about how absurd and contradictoy the story of the Easter resurrection is. This guy says what I've thought even from my days of being a Christian:
The Easter story is the most confusing cluster**** ever put to page.

Actually, what most scholars noted was the fact that very little has changed. There were some scrolls that told the same stories in different ways but those that were the same as the bible are remarkably similar - generally no changes at all in 2000 years.

If you want to point fingers due to changes in the bible, point to craptastic translators who say stuff about Moses having horns and somesuch.

Anybody else think Moses is overrated? He was a murderer, a braggart, an ingrate and worst of all a terrible leader. He sucked so bad that the Jews were constantly mutinying and pissing off God, which led the Jews in the desert to be slammed with one curse after the next and ultimately be denied passage into the promised land. And while we are on that, the land of milk and honey? More like the land of sandy death and car bombs.

Hmmm...

Murderer - it was justifyably homocide; killing a slave-master who was beating someone to death.
Braggart - not sure what you mean by this; he's often called the most modest man who ever lived.
Ingrate - I assume you meant the whole 'beating a stone' incident. Never really understood that one myself
Terrible leader - perhaps. He was definately too forgiving of their foibles.

But Israel is the land of milk and honey. Car bombs and sandy death is just a bonus.:D

[/me getting overdefensive]

Moses had a cool name, Stat, show some respect.

I like the whole Moses story, 'cos all of it can be explained Scientifically (Burning bush aside), which makes people either believe more or believe less.

...that is all.

Im a christain. WOOH GO JESUS! :p

WOOH GO LIONS! :p

Okay, a guy writes a book calling himself the most modest man on earth and you believe him rather than burst with laughter? Talk about tooting your own horn! Also, that murder was not justified. The Bible says its okay to beat a slave, look it up! Moses sees something fairly common, an overseer presumably giving a slave a few whip cracks, and flies off the handle. And if this killing was so justified and honorable why did he act like a sneaky bastard when he did it? Look this way, look that way, hide the body in the dirt, and act like nothing happened. Right. Real honorable. If you read a little further you see that Saint Moses tries to stick his nose into some business that it shouldn't be in and some Hebrew with 10 pound balls calls Moses on his shit even after watching Moses kill somebody. Now thats HONOR, baby.
Braggart:Yes, the stone thing. And the whole attitude he exerts during the whole Pentateuch. Why didn't God let Moses into the promised land? Because Moses was a dick and was always talking himself up and taking glory from God. I believe only a select few were allowed into the promised land so on that count Moses was a failure. He also let the Israelites slip frequently into idolatry and break the rules. I can't believe Moses is so idolized, everybody, even muslims, thinks he's such hot shit. Me, I see him as Israel's own little version of George W. Bush.

Recently someone has been writing stuff in the skies of Florida.

"Jesus loves you"; "U + God"; "The rapture is coming!" are all firm favourites.

Has any one else heard of Jack Chick? He does these horrible little cartoons condemming anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus.

The other day my brother sowed me a Childrens' site made by christians. In the fan art page an 11 year old had drawn an animal that represented Jesus throwing a Hindu girl into hell.

That terrifyed me.

- Rexy

children should be out of any faith till they are old enough to decide where they belong.

My cosent (9 year old boy)and his class have had a faith subject {or how do you call that} when priest was telling them that god made earth animals etc. Then my cosent asked him who made god. Priest : Sit down and shut up!
*no comments*

No faith in elementry schools!!!! Kids are just being confused!!!!

-me

I don't believe religion should be in schools (excluding things like Bible Club, religious studies classes), but it's up to the parents to decide whether they want their children to grow up in a religious environment or not.

Religion is not something that should be taught, period. Religion is something you need to experience.

Of course it should be taught, but only at high school and college levels, when (most) students can make decisions for themselves and classes are voluntary.

Whether you're a devout believer or just someone who thinks that religion is the most destructive invention man has ever created, there is no denying that it's a huge part of human studies. Practically every culture has a dominant religion; you can better understand a culture if you understand their belief system.

I can't even see atheists having a problem with Religious Studies. To them, it's just another mythology class. :p

I personally find the whole subject extremely fascinating.

EDIT: Now that I look at Havoc's post again, I think I completely misinterpreted what he was trying to say, but that's OK because I think my little shpeel on Religious Studies is still relevant. XP

Yeah I've heard of Jack Chick. Dark Dungeons anybody?
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp
You can see from the very beginning that Chick doesn't know shit about D&D. From the Light spell that blinds a monster, to the thief dying before he can search for a trap and then the poison killing him, the line "You're dead, you don't exist anymore." Yeah, right, they'd just have her roll up a new character. It gets sillier as you read on, if you can believe that.
About the religion in school thing:Recently UCLA has announced that it wouldn't give accredation to schools that taught I.D. or creationism as science rather than a philosophy or social studies class outside of science. I say good for them. "God did it" is not science.

What I meant was that it should not be taught as a forced subject like Math or English. Some schools over here have it as a steady period for twice a week, forcing you to learn about it. Instead they should make it some after school activity or something. If people want to get involved, they will get involved. If they think it's a load of bullcrap, then they won't go. It should be as easy as that. But unfortunatly the church is still sliding the bible up everyone's asses unasked.

But hey, I went to a christian school for almost 12 years in total and I came out unharmed. :).