Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts

Monday, March 18, 2024

The Republican Party: A Puppet On Many Strings

"Republicans have been trending toward Putin fandom for more than a decade but with each passing year the stakes get higher, the propaganda gets more brazen, and what they're willing to support gets more grotesque."

Click on the link below to get the full picture of what is controlling the US Republican Party presently:




Tuesday, March 12, 2024

An Evangelical Pastor Helps In Getting Democratic Party Votes

"Our guest this week recently traveled down to the border to confront the so-called “Army of God” as part of a larger project of providing alternative ideologies to Christian nationalism. Doug Pagitt is a pastor, author and the executive director of Vote Common Good, an organization aimed at influencing evangelical Christians. His group has been on a nationwide tour focused on directly engaging evangelicals in key swing states with the hope of swaying a critical percentage of them against former President Donald Trump. Pagitt believes a small portion of these voters are swayable and that if they are engaged, election outcomes can be flipped. He joins WITHpod to discuss the trajectory of evangelical politics, what he’s learned on tour, and what’s at stake in this year’s election."

Click on the link below for an hour podcast that delves into what one evangelical pastor is doing in an attempt to get fellow evangelicals who are wavering over Trump/MAGA to see enough reality regarding the 2024 vote to do the right thing:


Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Christian Nationalists: A Wide Demographic

"Based on a substantial survey of 22,000 adults from across the country, new polling from the Public Religion Research Institute on Christian nationalism confirms that Christian nationalism is strongly linked to voting for Republicans, higher church attendance and white evangelical Protestant affiliation. But not for everybody. The poll finds that a substantial percentage of Black and Hispanic Americans are Christian nationalists. It also finds that Black people who identify as Christian nationalists diverge politically from their white and Hispanic counterparts."

Click on the link below for more:


Monday, February 5, 2024

Sex & Christian History: What You Don't Know

"Was Adam androgynous? What did the apostle Paul say about sex? What does Christianity say about gender roles? Was sex allowed in early Christianity? Here I discuss all of these issues, citing the writings of Paul, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, Polemon the Stoic, Acts of Thecla, and more."

Click on the link below for the bizarre history of sexual attitudes in the history of Christianity:


Tuesday, January 30, 2024

And You Thought The Catholic Church Was Bad

"For most of us, it is clear not just beyond reasonable doubt, but ALL doubt, that Donald Trump is manifestly unfit for office. And yet, he’s making a third tilt at the presidency. The biggest reason is that the religious right is still bowing and praying to an orange god it helped make—and is attempting to bully the nation into doing so. We shouldn’t have been surprised when the nation’s so-called moral guardians told us that Trump’s debauched comments didn’t matter nearly as much as his promises to give them everything they wanted and then some on policy–and above all else, stack the courts with conservative judges.

"Granted, we already knew why the nation’s so-called moral guardians prostrated themselves before Trump. But how they were able to do so remained far less clear. How could the prospect of rolling back abortion and marriage equality be so important to them that they were willing to condone this man?

"A large part of the answer to that question can be found in the way a number of evangelical leaders have responded to sexual assault in their own ranks. In recent years, we have heard stories of survivors turning to their churches or other faith communities for support, only to be greeted with indifference or even outright hostility. If these leaders are willing to take such a cavalier and unsupportive attitude toward their own, it should come as no surprise that many of them were willing to dismiss Trump’s depravities with women.

"For example, when Guidepost Solutions delved into the extent of a years-long cover-up of sexual assault in the Southern Baptist Convention, it revealed that one of the SBC’s longtime titans, Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, willfully and recklessly disregarded his legal and moral duty to protect children. According to the report, when Graham learned his youth pastor, John Langworthy, had molested a number of boys, Graham simply hustled him out of town rather than report him to the police. Langworthy would remain at large for 20 more years, during which he molested boys at his new church in Mississippi."

Click on the link below for more sordid details of the bastards:


Sunday, December 31, 2023

The Universe Is Probably Eternal, No God Necessary

"- - - there was no when there was no Universe. There was never a time when the universe did not exist. The Universe is the SpaceTime Continuum so whenever there is time there is a universe, even if there was nothing but time. Time isn't an extension of the universe. The reason I don't believe that the Universe could have a cause is because to cause something to exist means to do something that results in a change from a time when that thing does not exist to a time when it does exist. Since there never was, or even coherently could be, a time when the SpaceTime Continuum didn't exist, the universe could not have had a cause."

Click on the link below for a strong rejection of the Cosmological Argument for a God. Actually, ALL arguments for a God are generated from the intuitive parts of the brain, which are unreliable for determining what is real. Also, they have NO way to test their validity/justification because they don't come from science:


Thursday, December 28, 2023

An Excellent Tool For Teaching Critical Thinking To Children

Don't be put off by the title:

"The Sunday school teacher is out. Good thing a substitute is available: Satan! 

"SATAN'S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE is an animated documentary. Join Satan as he shares Bible secrets, secrets the students' pastor learned at Christian seminary but is afraid to share. Thankfully, Satan's not afraid of losing his job. 

"Satan has amassed an impressive list of biblical scholars ready to reveal the 'standard stuff' taught in Christian seminaries: Bart Ehrman (UNC Chapel Hill), John J. Collins (Yale), Dale Allison (Princeton Seminary), Susan Niditch (Amherst), Ron Hendel (UC Berkeley), and Hector Avalos (Iowa State). This is an established seminary curriculum about biblical history, biblical morals, authorship claims, and early Christianity — a curriculum never shared with the congregation. 

"Darkly comedic, but thoroughly researched, SATAN'S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE is a fascinating journey into the secrets of the world's best-selling book.

Directed by documentary filmmaker Zeke Piestrup (APOCALYPSE LATER: HAROLD CAMPING VS THE END OF THE WORLD) and produced by animation filmmaker Tim Johnson (ANTZ, OVER THE HEDGE, HOME)"


Saturday, October 28, 2023

Why Jews Have Been Hated For 2,000 Years

The conflict in the Middle East between the State of Israel and the Palestinians is relatively new in the history of the Jewish people. After the beginning of Christianity, there was a movement called the Jewish deicide:

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"Jewish deicide is the notion that the Jews as a people will always be collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus, even through the successive generations following his death.[1][2] A Biblical justification for the charge of Jewish deicide is derived from Matthew 27:24–25. Some rabbinical authorities, such as 12th-century scholar Maimonides and, more recently, ultranationalist Israeli rabbi, Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891–1982), have asserted that Jesus was indeed stoned and hanged after being sentenced to death in a rabbinical court.

"The notion arose in early Christianity, the charge was made by Justin Martyr and Melito of Sardis as early as the 2nd century.[3] The accusation that the Jews were Christ-killers fed Christian antisemitism[4] and spurred on acts of violence against Jews such as pogroms, massacres of Jews during the Crusades, expulsions of the Jews from England, France, Spain, Portugal, and other places, and torture during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions."

"In the catechism that was produced by the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century, the Catholic Church taught the belief that the collectivity of sinful humanity was responsible for the death of Jesus, not only the Jews.[5] If one were to claim that only the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death, the logical corollary to this would be that Jesus’ redemptive suffering, death and resurrection was for the sins of Jews alone and not all of humanity, as is taught by the Church. In the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI issued the declaration Nostra aetate that repudiated the idea of a collective, multigenerational Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus. It declared that the accusation could not be made 'against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today'.[1]

"Most other churches do not have any binding position on the matter, but some Christian denominations[which?] have issued declarations against the accusation.[6][7][8]"


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"CHRISTIANITY’S UNDERSTANDING OF ITS ORIGINS centers on the New Testament, particularly the poetic rendering in the gospels of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus, which is traditionally known as the Passion.5 In the gospels’ rendition and as interpreted for centuries, the Jews are perceived as 'the Christ killers,' a people condemned forever to suffer exile and degradation. This archcrime of 'deicide,' of murdering God, turned the Jews into the embodiment of evil, a 'criminal people' cursed by God and doomed to wander and suffer tribulation to the end of time. No other religious tradition has condemned a people as the murderers of its god, a unique accusation that has resulted in a unique history of hatred, fear, and persecution. When it came to Jews, the central doctrine of Christianity, that Jesus was providentially sent into the world to atone by his death for mankind’s sins, was obscured."


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"After a few centuries of freedom from harassment during the Carolingian period (800-1000), the Jews of western Europe began to suffer new indignities as the crusades came on. The Muslims were the 'infidel' targets in the attempted recapture of the holy places in Palestine. However, the pillage and slaughter committed by Christian mobs against Jews on the way linger long in Jewish memory."

" - - - Martin Luther in his early days naively imagined that the Jews, to whom he was attracted by his studies, would flock to the Church in his reformed version. When nothing of the sort happened, he denounced them in a set of pamphlets written in vituperative fury. He had produced the early, favorable "That Christ Was Born a Jew" in 1523, but after he turned on this so-called "damned, rejected race," he wrote Against the Sabbatarians (1538) and On the Jews and Their Lies (1543)."

"Germany was populated with more Jews than any country in Western Europe when Hitler came to power. It also had the same ugly heritage of anti-Jewish sentiment as all Christian Europe. The short-lived Weimar Republic could not deliver Germany from the severe economic hardships it experienced after World War I. Jews had been the Republic’s strong supporters and a few of them were the architects of its constitution, a fact that Hitler capitalized upon. Huge inflation in 1923 and the depression of 1929 increased Germany’s problems. Some leading capitalist families, gentile and Jewish, managed to escape these problems, but the eyes of the angry populace were trained on the Jews rather than the gentiles."


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My comment on the above:

It is clear to me that, without Christianity, the Jews would not have been subjected to the horrors of the last two centuries. Ah, religion. Isn't it wonderful?

It is also clear to me the irony of the strongest supporters of the State of Israel, besides conservative Jews, are conservative Christians. Could it be because of how they interpret Scripture regarding "The End Times?"

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

The US Supreme Court: It's Worse Than You Thought

"The U.S. Supreme Court — that over sixty years ago ruled against state-led prayer in public schools — has swung back the other way with a vengeance. The ultra-conservative majority on the current court has reversed 60 years of progress and put the rights of non-believers in jeopardy.

"In this episode, Jim Underdown speaks to Nick Little, former Director of CFI’s Legal department, and Eddie Tabash, Chair of the CFI Board of Directors. The two lawyers talk about the state of the court, recent decisions, and the problematic future for secular Americans."

Click on the link below for a podcast exposing, not just its destruction of the separation of religion and government, but essentially the foundation of the entire US Constitution:


Saturday, October 7, 2023

Conservatives And Child Welfare

"Spanning the gamut of terrible policy choices and their impacts on children, we look today at the perverse reality at odds with conservatives' claim to be standing up for 'family values' and saving children from the abuse of Democrats."

Click on the link below for a podcast presenting the details of how, in many ways, conservatives are child abusers:


Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Evangelical Christians Have A Lot To Answer For

"On May 29, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed a new anti-gay law that puts the country’s already persecuted LGBTQ+ community at risk of life imprisonment for same-sex relations and calls for the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.” This draconian legislation is the latest blow to fundamental human rights in Uganda, and it has deep links to American evangelicals who have for years sought to export US culture wars over gender and sexuality to African countries and Uganda in particular."

Click on the links below for the evil details. Christian morality is an oxymoron 😡:

The Unholy Relationship Between Uganda's Anti-LGBTQ+ Law and US Evangelicalism


How U.S. Evangelicals Helped Homophobia Flourish in Africa

Monday, September 18, 2023

Another Christian Apologist Attempting To Explain Free Will

 Click on the link below for a short video of a Christian apologist attempting to support the discredited concept of Free Will:

Goofy Arguments About Free Will

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This video clarified the subject 2 years ago: 
("We don't have it, but should live like we do.")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_BTVN68-ZA

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Sacred Frequencies: The Worst Of Quackery?

I was watching one of my favorite YouTube channels and came across this advertisement. It's so bad, it could pass as a parody. I reported it to YouTube.

In my efforts to find out more about it, I found a similar one, here, almost as bad. 

"Sacred Frequencies", my arse. That said, much music is calming and therapeutic, just not in the category of working miracles!!

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Some reading this may have heard the term "Solfeggio Frequencies." The term was new to me. It was found in researching "Sacred Frequencies" and appears to be similar to such (maybe the same thing?). In any event, below are some links describing it as quackery:









Monday, September 11, 2023

A Debunking Of Christianity

 "God is dead, Friedrich Nietzsche predicted it over a century ago. No, God did not die. We just came to the realization he never existed in the first place. We no longer need him to explain what needs to be explained. We now have better natural explanations of the existing phenomena.

"1) The science of Philology first did this when it was learned that texts could be dated based on grammar, vocabulary, and dialect. Lorenzo Valla (c.1406-1457) used it to show the Donation of Constantine decree was a forgery. In this forged decree the Emperor Constantine transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the pope. From the science of philology we've learned there are many forgeries in the canonized Bible (2nd Isaiah, Pastoral Epistles, II Peter, and so on) and that certain other books in the Bible reveal an evolutionary history.

"2) The next big hit came from Astronomy. The Copernican astronomical revolution as defended later by Galileo showed us that we do not live in a geocentric universe. Never did.

"3) An even bigger hit came from Biology, specifically but not limited to Darwinian evolution.

"4) Archaeology has debunked many stories in the Bible.

"5) Psychology shows us we are largely products of our environment, that we think illogically many times, that we believe what we prefer to be true, that human beings are not evil so much as ill, largely because of their social environment.

"6) Anthropology has shown us from the fact that there are many different cultures around the globe and with it a great deal of religious diversity, that there are many rational ways to understand our place in this world.

"7) Neurology shows us there is an extremely close relationship between our beliefs and neuron firings, which can be drug induced, or even surgically removed. There is therefore no need for the supernatural explanation of the soul."

(https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2010/08/top-seven-ways-christianity-is-debunked.html)

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

The Way Christian Counter-Apologetics Should Be Done

"In this episode, @TheCounselofTrent responds to critics like Paulogia and Candida Moss who critique the evidence for the Resurrection in the apostle's willingness to die for their faith in Christ."

One of my favorite Christian counter-apologist is the YouTuber Paulogia. Click on the link below for an example of his knowledge and skill in debunking Christian dogma. In this example, he picks apart virtually every statement of Trent Horn, one of my least favorite people, let alone apologists (link to my prior blog posts addressing his actions), regarding his claim that, because the apostles died for their beliefs, Jesus' resurrection is true. Oh, also read at least some of the comments, as there are essentially none that support Trent:

This Resurrection Argument Doesn't Add Up (Trent Horn response)

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Syncretism: The History Of Christianity

Click on the links below for a clear understanding of how Christianity began and developed, just like virtually all of today's religions:

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"The word 'syncretism' comes from a Greek word first used to describe rival Greek armies who joined together to fight a common enemy. It later described the combination of religious ideas to form a new religion.

"Syncretism is not a distinct religion. It is the practice of combining teachings and practices of various religions, changing the tenets or beliefs of anyone. The combinations may result in a new theology for a religion, or even in a new sect."


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"For @ColdCaseChristianity J Warner Wallace, he used to consider the Bible to be more like mythology than history... and not even original mythology at that. But now, the good detective seems to think that God inspired all the false religions before Christianity as a way to signal how really-real Christianity is.

"Dr. Dennis MacDonald is probably known best for a methodology called mimesis criticism. That's the use of imitation of classical Greek poetry in particular in the composition of the gospels and the acts of the apostles. He's joining me today to see if Wallace's claims make sense."

Yahweh Inspired FALSE Religions to Prepare for Jesus??

Monday, May 29, 2023

Incorruptibility

"Incorruptibility is a Catholic and Eastern Orthodox belief that divine intervention allows some human bodies (specifically saints and beati) to completely or partially avoid the normal process of decomposition after death as a sign of their holiness.

Incorruptibility is thought to occur even in the presence of factors which normally hasten decomposition, as in the cases of saints Catherine of Genoa, Julie Billiart, and Francis Xavier."[1](Wikipedia)

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Click on the links below for an expose' of this ancient scam to hook the gullible into unsupported dogma, which is always dangerous:

Incorruptibility - RationalWiki


Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Exposure Of The Delusion Of Christian Apologists

 Why atheists accept Christianity, according to one major Christian apologist organization:

1. GOOD LITERATURE AND REASONABLE WRITING.
THE BIBLE IS A COLLECTION OF INCOHERENT, MAGICAL STORIES WRITTEN BY UNKNOWN AUTHORS AFTER THE SUPPOSED EVENTS
2. “EXPERIMENTATION” WITH PRAYER AND THE WORD OF GOD.
SCIENCE REJECTS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRAYER OTHER THAN THE PLACEBO EFFECT
3. HISTORICAL STUDY
AS A WORK OF HISTORY, THE BIBLE FAILS MISERABLY  
4. HONEST PHILOSOPHICAL REASONING.
ALL SYLLOGISMS IN SUPPORT OF CHRISTIANITY HAVE AT LEAST ONE FALSE PREMISE
5. REASONABLE BELIEVERS.
BELIEF IN CHRISTIANITY IS UNREASONABLE BECAUSE IT REJECTS THE FINDINGS OF SCIENCE AND ACCEPTS THE UNSUPPORTED "GOD OF THE GAPS" FALLACY 
6. MODERN ADVANCES AND LIMITATIONS IN SCIENCE.
THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE OF ANYTHING SUPERNATURAL
7. EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS
8. BEAUTY.
A GOD IS NOT NECESSARY TO EXPLAIN APPRECIATION OF BEAUTY

Additional comments:

1. Atheists are more knowledgeable about Christianity than Christians generally.
2. Only 15% of professional philosophers are theists.
3. Morality is explained by evolution and nurturing.
4. The less religious the society, the more well-being is present

BOTTOM LINE:

The most common reason atheists reject Christianity is the same reason they reject all theism, there is no objective evidence. Obviously, if an atheist converts to Christianity or any other religion, critical thinking is lacking.

Monday, February 20, 2023

A Look At Reality Through The Eyes Of Writers During Biblical Times

One of the most controversial claims by some atheists is that the Jesus of the Bible is mythical. I have posted many times regarding the issue. There is not enough evidence to settle the issue either way. However, clearly, many of the stories about him are mythological in nature. Recently, Richard Carrier, a noted historian of Christianity and a proponent of Christian mythicism, was recently interviewed and presented in-depth how the writers of that time in history viewed reality. Click on the link below for a video of the interview:

Why People Don't Understand Mythicism

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Choose how you look at reality wisely. Yes, it is a binary choice.

Choose how you look at reality wisely. Yes, it is a binary choice.
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