A writing colleague and cohort in dismantling organized religion - ah-hem ..
Christianity .. posted a comment on my article "How Dare You" as a
response to one of her critics .. &Austinstar wrote ..
"You can call us Atheists, Satanists, Devil Worshipers or whatever
you want. We will be the first to tell you that you are entitled to your
opinion. We are also entitled to our opinions."
"Personally, I wish you
and all your little friends would just go be with your 'Lord and Master'
and RESPECT human beings who want to speak for themselves. If you want
to Praise Jesus, God, Allah, Yahweh or whichever other cloud you have
named, then just do it. But organized, forced and unwelcome religion has
got to go!"
My response to her was, "Hear Hear, Austinstar, you hit the nail
on the head. We speak out not because we despise the believer, some of my best friends are Christians. As you stated, 'organized,
forced and unwelcome religion has got to go', and I agree."
The homeless man on the street needs your dollars much more than Joel
Osteen. Oh, my bad, you're concerned that the homeless beggar will buy
wine with the $0.50 that you give him, but you're not worried about what
T.D. Jakes or Creflo Dollar does with the $1000s that you give them, oops sorry, $1000s that you give to 'God'.
Many churches have non-profit organizations, they have schools, some
even support homeless shelters and other worthy programs. However, the
Robin Hood facade is no different than the drug dealer who makes
millions in illegal, immoral and illicit funds, then hands out turkeys
in his local community on Thanksgiving day.
He's still a criminal, a gangster, a thug, a hood and a hoodlum, and so
is the Church; a canonical conglomerate that has orchestrated the most
colossal ponzi scheme in the history of humankind.
Unbeknownst to the fundamentalist, enlightened beings who speak out against the ills of organized religion are really doing them a favor. The masses of gullible, metaphysically challenged individuals are simply too brainwashed to appreciate our efforts.
Archaic, primitive, backwards religious beliefs are on the way out. This
is why the popular thing for Christians to say today is, "Christianity
is under attack" .. as well it should be.
Of course, benighted believers are countering with, "the bible
predicted this," so it must be true.
Biblical and Christian apologist,
going back several centuries knew at some point and time, their colossal Ponzi Scheme would come to an end. This is why their holy book includes words like "heretic," "apostate," "pagan,"
etc., to discourage any free-thinker who decides to challenge canonical
authority.
Your "Holy Bible" is a book that is no more than a compilation of
articles, written over a thousand-year period, collated at the Council
of Nicaea in 325 AD. This is when the Jesus myth was created, patterned
directly after Horus of Egyptian mythology, 3000 years prior. Horus also
had a "miracle birth," born of the Virgin Isis. Horus was
baptized by Anup the baptizer; Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist
and get this, both Anup and John were beheaded. What a coincidence!
Whenever scriptural inerrancy is challenged, Christian apologist lean on
the belief of prophecy fulfillment as proof that the Bible is the word
of God. This is a dubious argument at best because the premonitions are
extremely vague, ambiguous, replete with double entendres, fallacious
reasoning and when all else fails, evangelical supporters resort to the
"God of the Gaps" theory (whatever can't be explained scientifically, God did it).
Evidence most often cited by prophecy-fulfillment proponents tend to
fall into two categories:
- Allegorical claims are made by biased
advocates.
- The plethora of specious prophecies were written long
after the fact.
Here's another example: If I wrote a book in 1991 in Aramaic, Hebrew
and Greek and chapters 1-10 were based on something that happened
between 1900-1940 and chapters 11-20 dealt with what occurred between
1940-1990. Someone else writes a book in 2014, paraphrasing in English,
what I wrote 24 years ago and the reader has no knowledge of the
aforementioned languages, nor is the reader aware of the principles of
interpretation required to comprehend such literature. How reliable do
you think the prognostications would be?
Christianity is under attack and it will continue to be under attack
until the colossal ruse orchestrated by the Roman Catholic Church comes to an end. The Church and the Vatican are a trillion-dollar industry and they profit off the most notorious fabrications the world has and will ever know.
Be objective for one moment and ask yourself this question? What is the
product of the Church? Please spare me the 'saving souls' malarkey, you
really should know better than that by now.
The Roman Catholic Church and its millions of subsidiaries worldwide,
are the most profitable organization in the world and her biggest
commodity is superstitious, benighted, 'god-fearing' people.
Does the Christian God really need 10% of your income before taxes? Do you need a middleman to do good; to give to others?
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On my morning stroll around the subdivision, I had a conversation with a new neighbor who inquired about my church affiliation (yea, I know, he asked the wrong person).
I told him that I don't "do church" anymore, as I no longer have any interest in attending. Of course he wants to know why and my response was, "without going into a long story, just research the history of religion, specifically Christianity, and maybe you'll see why I no longer subscribe to religion."
The neighbor then asked me if I believed in God. I told him that I do not identify with Atheism and do believe there is a divine presence that orchestrates the universe, and not just this one tiny planet. His response, "so you believe in God?" I stated, "you can call it what you want." He says, "no, it's God." This statement ignited the fuse which forced me to share my perspective regarding religion and Christianity.
He attempted to quote Bible scriptures to me and I told him that I'd read the Christian holy book, that I grew up in the Christian faith, that my mom and dad were devout Christians, thus, there's no need to recite archaic, primitive scriptures to me.
I told the guy that Christianity never set well with me, it never resonated, so I began to study independently, over 30 years ago.
The rest of the dialogue went something like this (my neighbor, we'll call him Bob):
- Bob: "Was it one event that led you away from the church?"
- Me:
"No, just an accumulation of evil, going back to the Crusades, the
Inquisition, and a plethora of other sinister events throughout history.
Also, consider this Bob, our ancestors that were brought over on slave
ships, Christianity was forced on them and the institution of slavery
itself is supported by Bible scripture."
- Bob: "But the Bible says ..."
- Me: "Bob, the Bible is not the 'be all that ends all' in evangelical
debates, as you and most Christians believe it to be.
First of all, If you study religious history objectively you'll see that approximately 40 men wrote the articles that would later become what we know as the Holy Bible. The men who wrote these manuscripts, inspired or not, were not writing the articles to include in a holy book. Articles written over, at minimum, a 1000-1500-year time frame were collated by 300 or so churchmen (bishops) at the Council of Nicaea in 325AD. The meeting was presided over by Emperor Constantine I."
"Second, the men who wrote those articles, thought planet Earth was flat; thought our planet was the center of the universe, and it's not even the center of its own planetary system."
"Third, when astronomers like Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno, from their cosmological findings, pointed out major discrepancies between the book purported to be from God and the actual universe (which was in stark contrast with the Church) Galilei was censored and placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life and Bruno was burned alive."
"Research the Crusades, the Inquisition, and on up through the 21st century and you will see nothing but evil associated with your belief system. You've been religiously conditioned since birth. In other words, you have been brainwashed to the highest degree."
"Bob, we could go on and on, all I ask is that you do the research. I'm not trying to proselytize to you, not trying to steer you in one direction or the other, all I ask is that you research independently as I've done for the past 32 years."
What African Americans who identify with Christianity are dealing with is referred to as the "Stockholm Syndrome." Stockholm Syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a "psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors."
At this point (surprised that he was still listening), Bob attempted to change the subject.
- Bob: "What do you think about gay people?"
- Me: "To each his own, I'm heterosexual, as long as they don't bother me, I'm OK with whatever lifestyle they choose."
Bob also asked me whether I was married or not, and if I had a girlfriend. It's then that I realized that Bob may have had an ulterior motive.
Anyway, after my rather odd conversation with Bob, the title of this article came to mind: "Hamstrung By Ignorance."
Fundamentalist believer's are so benighted by blind faith and utter ignorance where metaphysical matters are concerned, that it will take another one or two incarnations before they begin to see the real truth about our amazing universe and who we really are as energetic, thinking beings.
In closing, I'll leave the reader with three quotes that just might assist in enlightening those who remain shackled by canonical folklore, myths, and outright fabrications.
"Do not believe in the strength of traditions, even if they have been held in honor for many generations and in many places; do not believe anything because many people speak of it; do not believe on the strength of sages of old times; do not believe that which you have yourselves imagined, thinking that a god has inspired you. Believe nothing which depends only on the authority of your masters and priests. After-investigation believe that which you have yourselves tested and found reasonable and which is for your good and that of others." ~ The Buddha
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ Martin-Luther-King
"Our Bible reveals to us the character of our God with minute and remorseless exactness. The portrait is substantially that of a man—if one can imagine a man charged and overcharged with evil impulses far beyond the human limit; a personage whom no one, perhaps, would desire to associate with, now that Nero and Caligula are dead. In the old Testament His acts expose His vindictive, unjust, ungenerous, pitiless and vengeful nature constantly. He is always punishing—punishing trifling misdeeds with thousand-fold severity; punishing innocent children for the misdeeds of their parents; punishing unoffending populations for the misdeeds of their rulers; even descending to wreak bloody vengeance upon harmless calves and lambs and sheep and bullocks, as punishment for inconsequential trespasses committed by their proprietors. It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading, by contrast." ~ Mark Twain
© Copyright 2015 - All Rights Reserved. Author, Taskeinc
