Religion = weapon of mass destruction

[Cliffy]

Religion, the Oldest Weapon of Mass Destruction in Human History

Most likely the first human who invented the first god was some smart tribal guy who saw that it was a very effective way to protect himself from bodily harm by the stronger ones if he made them and the less smart members of his tribe believe he had a very strong friend living across the mountains. A friend so strong that he could make the mountains rumble by stamping his feet on the ground. Others would not dare to attack him fearing the revenge of such a powerful friend and even though no one ever saw this friend it was better to be safe than sorry.
It probably did not take long for this smart guy to discover that his fellow tribesmen were easily led to believe that this thunder ally would make them nearly invincible in battle with rivaling tribes and could even conquer these tribes. The smart guy was well aware that in reality he was not safe at all so he turned to the strongest one around, usually the tribe leader and made him believe that he was favored by the mighty thunder-friend across the mountains.
As history progressed the tribal leaders became the Kings of the later times where the smart guys became the holy men, and priests.
Of course the strong friend story was revised when people could cross the mountain and were likely to find nothing there. As time passed the powerful friend moved to a place where no man could travel, places like in the sky, the deepest sea, or the top of unclimbable mountains.
Religion became the most powerful way of making people compliant and even the Roman Empire saw that its culture of countless god families would not work if they wanted to maintain power over Europe. In the 4th century Emperor Constantine the Great started a change when he decided to go for a new approach that seemed to work in the eastern territories so he threw out the old God families with their immensely complex mythical stories and started simplifying things by adopting the one single god of the Jewish culture combined with folklore about a prophet who claimed to have been the son of this Jewish god; this was a wise decision because in this way he would not cross the Jews, who he saw as a nuisance and wished he could get rid of.
He appointed a group of smart guys, that you will find in any era, and gave them the task of creating this system of a Father, a Son and a Mother who was chosen to bare this son of God, Jesus.


More: http://churchandstate.org.uk/2016/04/religion-oldest-weapon-of-mass-destruction-in-human-history

 

[Cliffy]

 

[Cliffy]

 

[Walter]

Drivel.

 

[darkbeaver]

Trent and the beginning of Christianity

[FONT=&quot]Usually it is said that at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church have been clarified in response to the Reformation and that within the framework of the Christian tradition that already existed for fifteen centuries.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]On the other hand, according to my colleague from the blog https://theognose.wordpress.com/, the council of Trent was the foundation meeting of Christianity. I can agree with that, provided the nuance that the council of Trente concerns the reform leading to Christianity as we know it within the already existing Catholic church.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Jean Hardouin declared around 1700 that the acts of the Council of Trent where the only authentic council acts. He meant to say that all earlier acts have been forged. But I can at least accept his claim that the acts of the Council of Trent are authentic. All this kind of documents can be found on the website [/FONT][FONT=&quot]www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In the third session of the council, the creed was proclaimed. This is the creed of the Catholic Church, it is said, and the text is quoted. In general, reference is made to "the fathers," but it is not said in the acts that Christian faith has been established on the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople and that the creed of Nicaea-Constantinople has been normative since Antiquity. So at the council of Trent, the creed was new, and the historical justification was only made up afterwards.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In the fourth session the canon of the Bible has been fixed. The writings belonging to the Catholic Bible are listed in a decree. There was a dispute on the canon with the Protestants who returned to the so-called Hebrew original for the Old Testament. But would there be any dispute over the Bible canon if it had been recorded for more than a thousand years ago? No, the Bible was still new at that time. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In the fourth session it is stated that the Latin version of the Bible that is called the Vulgate is authentic and the version used in the Catholic Church. At that moment there is no concern for the Greek original of the New Testament. On the other side, the official text of the Vulgate will be fixed only at the end of the sixteenth century. There is not yet a fixed Bible text in the time of the council of Trent.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In the fifth session of the council one finds, among other things, a reform decree, which stipulates that the Holy Scriptures must be read in the churches. Where there is a prebend for theology, the prebend must also be used to read the Scriptures, either by the holder of the prebend, or by a substitute. In cathedrals and collegiate churches the first prebend that has to be reassigned, must be devoted to the reading of the Scriptures, and where there is insufficient prebend, the bishop must organize in another way the reading of the Scriptures. [/FONT]

 

[darkbeaver]

Liberating man from religion

[FONT=&quot]Through our reading of the book Genesis we are discovering that man has been created as a slave by superior beings and that religion has been used to organise the slavery of man.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]1[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The gods went away, and religion remained. This circumstances explain the paradoxal character of sacral religion, on the one hand a universal phenomen that generates passion and devotion, on the other a set of activities that are without any utility. The gestures have remained the same : bowing, kneeling, honoring, trying to get favors, trying to avoid punition. As long as the gods are there, life depends on religion. But the gods have gone. People have still the impression that life depends on religion, but sacral religion has become void of sense.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]2[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]As religion has been used to organise the slavery of man, liberation of man supposes liberation from religion. As it seems that with or without sacral religion, life does not change essentially, liberation from religion should be easy. But this is not at all the case, because behind sacral religion the religious structure as such belongs to the constitution of humanity. Three false gods are haunting humanity : money, power and religion. Religion is the worst, not only because in the religion of religion godlessness reaches its peak, but also because the three have the same structure : the religion of money, the religion of power, the religion of religion. What we see is that men abandon institutional religion, and become devotees of money. Or the opposite, men abandon The System of Money, and become funamentalists of the religion of religion. If we want to free ourselves from religion, we have to free ourselves from the Three Cruel Sisters at the same time.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]3[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In the meantime we see that, even if people in western civilization think that they have left behind sacral religion (and it is incredible how much this has changed in the last fifty years) the constitutional religion is always there, and without religious concepts we will never be able to understand what is happening. Capitalist fundamentalism and islamist fundamentalism[/FONT]

 

[Cliffy]

Study finds that children raised without religion show more empathy and kindness

A study conducted by the University of Chicago has found that children raised in non-religious households are kinder and more altruistic than those raised with religion.
The study which was published in the journal Current Biology looked at 1170 children between the ages of 5 and 12 years in six countries (Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, USA, and South Africa) and examined “the religiousness of their household, and parent-reported child empathy and sensitivity to justice.”
The study found that “family religious identification decreases children’s altruistic behaviors” and “children from religious households are harsher in their punitive tendencies.”
In other words, children raised in the absence of religion are more giving and generous, as the study states:

Across all countries, parents in religious households reported that their children expressed more empathy and sensitivity for justice in everyday life than non-religious parents. However, religiousness was inversely predictive of children’s altruism and positively correlated with their punitive tendencies. Together these results reveal the similarity across countries in how religion negatively influences children’s altruism, challenging the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior.


More: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danth...thout-religion-show-more-empathy-and-kindness

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[Jinentonix]

The Jews thought Christ was a heretic. Christians believe he was the son of god. Muslims believe he is simply a prophet (second in importance only to Mohammed) with no virgin birth or any of that other nonsense. They do believe he ascended into heaven but only his soul, not his physical body.

Religion is all crap. The ancient Jews stole/borrowed from older religions. Christianity does the same and so does Islam.

And all of it because people want to desperately believe there is more to life than what there really is. We think we're so damn special that we started creating gods who "created us to be special". Oh sure, we can create art and engage in abstract thinking (we only assume animals cannot) etc, but the reality is, there's very little that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. And gods are a part of that abstract thinking. We created the gods. We created religion.

 

[Danbones]

Go God Good Goth Government Goad Gonads...Gone.

Got it?

I can do longitude without a chronometer - unlike most religious and scientific types. Funny enough, you need to really understand the dictionary to do it. Also, did you know there are several very important irrational numbers you never get taught in school nor at church where they deliberately hide them in plain sight?

Some facts can't be argued with - there is a difference between believing and knowing.

 

[Jinentonix]

Go God Good Goth Government Goad Gonads...Gone.

Got it?

I can do longitude without a chronometer - unlike most religious and scientific types. Funny enough, you need to really understand the dictionary to do it. Also, did you know there are several very important irrational numbers you never get taught in school nor at church where they deliberately hide them in plain sight?
Some facts can't be argued with - there is a difference between believing and knowing.

Or as Frank Zappa once said, "And remember folks, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over."

 

[Cliffy]

In my humble opinion and experience....in general people who are "religious " adhere to the tenets of a particular religion and believe that theirs is the only way. People who are "spiritual " believe that no God or religion is better than others or the only one but rather follow the tenets of love one another, being a good and moral person, taking care of our most vulnerable peoples, and knowing there is something bigger than themselves that gives them their faith. - DeAnn Hill

 

[MHz]

We created the gods. We created religion.

. . . only until you study the Bible using the skills and tools available to 21st Century Christians. Some of the more popular concepts accepted today seem to be more childish than 'studied believer'. The book predicts there will be more 'false Christians' than 'children of the light'. This only supports that prophecy.

 

[Danbones]

Well, royalty is descended from "heaven" and look at them...goth neanderthal human hybrids.

One has to wonder why "angels" are named after "An", as also are Angles...and ankhs...and Banks.

Not to mention the only complete anagram for "Jesus Christ" is R.I.C.H. J.E.S.T.S. U$. The "secret society" clowns behind this whole charade are into word games, puns, and ciphers.