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Author Topic:   ~Thomas Jefferson -Unbeliever~
fayte.m
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posted July 15, 2006 10:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for fayte.m     Edit/Delete Message
~Thomas Jefferson -Unbeliever~

"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."

"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. " – Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Humboldt, 1813

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." –Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782.

"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."

"The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."

"The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ."

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors." –Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

"Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies."

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

- Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

------------------
~I intend to continue learning forever~Enigma
~I am still learning~ Michangelo
The Door to Gnosis is never permanently locked...one only needs the correct keys and passwords.~Enigma
The pious man with closed eyes can often hold more ego than a proud man with open eyes.~NEXUS
Out of the mouth of babes commeth wisdom that can rival that of sages.~Enigma
In the rough, or cut and polished..a diamond is still a precious gem.
-NEXUS-

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Lei_Kuei
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posted July 15, 2006 11:09 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lei_Kuei     Edit/Delete Message

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Kat
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posted July 15, 2006 11:56 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Kat     Edit/Delete Message
I think he was a Unitarian??? or am I confusing him with another forefather?

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Psyche-Eros
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posted July 15, 2006 09:10 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Psyche-Eros     Edit/Delete Message
Often when someone is so biased in their attitude, it reflects on their insecurity, weakness, hidden fear in the point of bias. Politicians are often people with extremely developed egos, materialistic, uncompassionate people. For them to accept religion and spirituality ( and not only Christianity) is to give message to others that there is God will or God - Love, which will contradict what they preach (i.e. trust politicians, judgmental wars)

There are different physiological divisions in the world: Eastern and Western, political and compassionate and so on, you can make parallels… western direction of religious growth is often directed towards the rationality, and this direction is very close to politician’s direction. That is why often Church, Christian or Baptist has so much power in Western society. Obviously, competition among those two intuitions – politicians and church- going the same direction, both rational and both centered on the “sin” and “punishment” points is enormous.

Christianity is fundamentally irrational, and Jesus - irrational being, he was closer to eastern philosophers in the message he gave to the world. St Paul, who founded Christianity as an institution was rational person, with the mind of politician. Christianity more belongs to the St Paul than to Jesus who was anarchist in the nature.

That is why between science, political and Church there is a conflict, because they are all rational, all given rational explanation to religious phenomena…

Some orthodox Christian saints (Sergey Radonezskii, Sarovskii, A. Men, and Tolstoi) are closer to the eastern irrational religious spiritual way and give a beautiful example in the way they lived….

I’m going to prepare an article on S. Radonezskii, his Christian meditation developed in Troickii monastery in 1794 year, his religious miracles and healing of others.

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lotusheartone
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posted July 15, 2006 09:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for lotusheartone     Edit/Delete Message
Very interesting, Psyche-Eros!
I look forward to hearing more. ...

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fayte.m
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posted July 15, 2006 09:29 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fayte.m     Edit/Delete Message
I feel he was a rational and logical man not prone to delusion.
His views on Christianity were not based on a mere opinion, but on the study of religons and other mythos, and their affects upon societies, (ancient,historical,and current) and the individuals within said societies. He noted, as have many wise men; that religion is often the root of social dysfunction, bigotry, war, and suffering. Additionally, religion and government make strange and dangerous bedfellows. The two should never partner.

Now for other opinions of mine:
Paul was an evil minded egotistical politically motivated selfserving hypocrite. So was the mass murderer Moses. http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/DarkBibleContents.htm
Jesus Barrabas was an anarchist but Yeshua ben Yousef was not. His teachings were confused with Jesus Bar Abbas(son of the father) while Yeshua'a were in more of an Eastern mind. As the Arthurian legends made Arthur larger than life by attributing to him alone, the acts of several men, until the amalgam became one man in the mythos so tainted that it can no longer be called actual history; so it is with the deeds of Yeshua confused with up to possibly several other men with same and similar names. The gentle man is now confused with the anarchistic egotistical men. That is why there are so many personality descrepancies in the stories of him.

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TINK
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posted July 15, 2006 10:05 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for TINK     Edit/Delete Message
You're not confused, Kat. Jefferson wasn't much of a belonger, he was an intensely private lone wolf sort. But he did attend Unitarian services, and said several times the Unitarian system was closest to his own personal beliefs.

"To the corruptions of Christianity, I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other."

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fayte.m
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posted July 15, 2006 10:07 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fayte.m     Edit/Delete Message
TINK
I saw your reply on this matter at GU.
THANK YOU!

------------------
~I intend to continue learning forever~Enigma
~I am still learning~ Michangelo
The Door to Gnosis is never permanently locked...one only needs the correct keys and passwords.~Enigma
The pious man with closed eyes can often hold more ego than a proud man with open eyes.~NEXUS
Out of the mouth of babes commeth wisdom that can rival that of sages.~Enigma
In the rough, or cut and polished..a diamond is still a precious gem.
-NEXUS-

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Petron
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posted July 15, 2006 10:18 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Petron     Edit/Delete Message
a true believer

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D for Defiant
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posted July 16, 2006 12:29 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for D for Defiant     Edit/Delete Message

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D for Defiant
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posted July 16, 2006 12:30 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for D for Defiant     Edit/Delete Message

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D for Defiant
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posted July 16, 2006 12:31 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for D for Defiant     Edit/Delete Message

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D for Defiant
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posted July 16, 2006 12:32 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for D for Defiant     Edit/Delete Message

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Psyche-Eros
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posted July 16, 2006 03:55 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Psyche-Eros     Edit/Delete Message
Thank you Fayte,

organised christianity - rational movement..how can spirutiality be rational??Amazing that a politician and religious man can be at one, suggestion that there is a great harmony in his mind


something to reserch on Jesus Bar Abbas...Thank you v much Fayte for this key Totally agree on Paul, he was a monster.. opposite to his Teacher.

Thank you LotusHeart for reading it!An article on Serguei Rodonezski is coming, its very hard to find anything on him on the net, i got one picture, but not sure how to insert pictures into the messages...


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Capre Diem :)

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juniperb
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posted July 16, 2006 11:08 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message
2 Tim 4:3 KJV) For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;


and to think Paul isn`t considered a Prophet.

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~
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

- George Eliot

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lotusheartone
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posted July 16, 2006 11:15 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for lotusheartone     Edit/Delete Message
you're welcome Psyche-Eros

Know..that God and The Truth..Wisdom..knowledge..is within each one of you..you have all the information..since you were created..
The Only one you need to know..is YourSelf and the God within..
Walk in LOve and LIght always..there is never any Fear..yeh..absoulute's Never and Always..hehe..kind of like..black and white..

LOve and LIght to ALL. ...

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TINK
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posted July 16, 2006 12:20 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for TINK     Edit/Delete Message
I think Paul is a very misunderstood fellow. Further, I don't believe anything he said or did can be properly understood unless viewed from the perspective of Damascus. In fairness, everything he did and said came from that event. The first of its kind, you might say, and life-altering to be sure.

At the very least I think it needs to be taken into account how very torn (tormented?) he was between his old life and the very different new life which was almost violently thrust upon him.

The dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna regarding blood-ties can be enlighting in view of Paul.

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silverstone
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posted July 16, 2006 01:06 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for silverstone     Edit/Delete Message
I agree with you Tink! Paul altered many things. If I recall properly I think he actually never was much involved like the others.

Cheers,

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~*Silverstone~*

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TINK
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posted July 16, 2006 04:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for TINK     Edit/Delete Message
I'm not sure what you mean by "altered", silverstone.

At any rate, I'm a big fan of Paul's. He was the first of his kind. Namely, to experience the resurected/transfigured Christ solely. As opposed to the Apostles who knew a physical Jesus. In that sense, I believe, he's the first modern Christian. The first type of Christian modern man might become. After all, we have no hope of an encounter with the long-dead Jesus, but we might hope to experience communion with the Christ, as Paul did.

The first Christians never meet Jesus and yet their faith was astounding - I'm thinking of St Stephen, Christians fed to lions and (my personal fav) the Theban Legion. These people really experienced something, something mind-bending and life-altering in the extreme. An experience that transformed them into something we might call fanatical. Paul was the first.

And because the poor guy was the first, I don't mind cutting him a bit of slack now and again.

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D for Defiant
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posted July 17, 2006 02:37 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for D for Defiant     Edit/Delete Message

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fayte.m
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posted July 17, 2006 08:09 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fayte.m     Edit/Delete Message
In the account in the book of Acts, the Pharisee Saul Paulos of Tarsus is self-described as "a Hebrew of Hebrews", and as being "extremely zealous for the traditions of [his] countrymen, and of [his] ancestors". Saul had set out from Jerusalem for Syrian Damascus, in 36 A.D. with letters from the leaders of the Sanhedrin, giving Saul the authority to arrest those followers of Jesus of Nazareth whom he could find living in the city of Damascus. He was to bring them back to Jerusalem in chains for questioning and possible execution. Saul had to the best of his ability stamped out Christianity in the city of Jerusalem; where, according to his own words, he had "laid waste to the Church, arresting the followers of Jesus, having them thrown into prison, and trying to get them to blaspheme" the name of YHWH. Saul had also distinguished himself during the trial of Saint Stephen, the first of the official Christian martyrs, when Saul had "watched over the robes of those who were stoning Stephen".

PAUL, THE POLITICIAN, a liar

Hugh Fogelman

What do we know about Paul? Paul wrote he would gladly become a servant of any and all in order to win them to Christ, “And unto the Jew I became as a Jew, that I may gain the Jews; to them that are under the law (the Torah), as under the law that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law (the Gentiles), I might gain them that are without law; to the weak, I became weak that I may gain them” (l Corinthians 9:20-22). In Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s own letters, Paul shows that he was willing to distort the truth. “If through my lies God’s truth abounds to His glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?” (Romans 3:7) “In every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Jesus is proclaimed and in that I rejoice”. (Philippians 1:18) Sounds like a modern politician. He says whatever the people want to hear!

Jesus had no thoughts about founding a church. As a matter of fact, the NT says he did not want to start a new religion at all. It was Paul (who never met nor talked to Jesus) who really started Christianity. I find it strange that Paul could teach Jesus’ ideas when he never was Jesus’ disciple. Paul wrote 14 books out of the 27 in the New Testament. It was Constantine who accepted Paul’s writings over other writers of his day and made them part of the cannon in the New Testament.

There are unfounded stories that Jesus appeared to Paul in the desert after his crucifixion and spent years (10) teaching Paul. Only Paul verifies this story. How convenient! What does anyone know about Jesus, except what Paul tells us in his autobiography? Where do you think Luke, Paul’s traveling companion received his stories of Paul?

The New Testament says that Paul was born in Tarsus, a Greek city now in Turkey, and was born from Gentile parents. They and Paul were Roman citizens. Paul only converted to Judaism because he fell in love with a daughter of a Priest. Paul came from Tarsus where the mysteries of Mithras are powerful. Read about Mithras and you can see how Paul’s thoughts were influenced by this pagan religion. Paul claims to have the roman citizenship "from birth" and he is driven to the Rome Tribunal because of that to be judged by the Emperor himself. In his writings we can find traces he knows people around Nero. Christians claim that he had duel citizenship. How can it be? How was that verified?

Paul, in his autobiography, claims he was from the tribe of Benjamin, but this tribe was annihilated long before Paul. There are tribal people today living in the Tat Mountains of Caucassia who claim to be a lost tribe of Israel. Some Afghanistan’s claim to be from the tribe of Gad – but is there any way of checking out their claims without proper records? And what proof did Paul show? Nothing, he knew he was on safe ground. Strange, no one ever questioned him – not even Gamaliel, or the Pharisees, or even the Sadducees. Paul says he is a Hebrew and a Pharisee and sent to Jerusalem to study with the leading Pharisee, Gamaliel. But scholars today, from what they have learned from the earlier writings of the Jerusalem Church, doubt all three of Paul’s claims. If Paul learned from Gamaliel, the leading rabbi of the Pharisees, then why did he not obey his teacher and leave the Christians alone? Why did Saul/Paul forget that Gamaliel did not condone killing? Paul was a poor student if he forgot the Pharisees did not go out killing anyone.

Why did Saul/Paul, according to the New Testament, go out of his way to harass Christians, even killing some, when it is a known fact that Rabbi Gamaliel and the rest of the Pharisees did not in any way condemn the apostles as heretics or rebels against the Jewish religion? The answer is simple. Paul made that up, because the simple facts are that Paul was on the payroll of the Roman collaborating High Priest, a Sadducee. Paul admitted he was on his way to Damascus (Acts 22:6) working for the high priest.

He could not be both a Pharisee and a Sadducee because they hated each other. Is this logical? Not at all because Pharisee teaching does not teach killing and because of the hatred between the Sadducees and the Pharisee, if Paul, who admitted to be a Pharisee was a learned Pharisee from Gamael, he would never have gone over to the Sadducee camp and still called himself a Pharisee.

Paul’s job, as working for the Sadducees was to find people, Jew and Christian and even Romans alike, who were causing rebellious talk against Rome. Notice how the New Testament paints the picture that Paul ONLY persecuted the Christians. When in truth, Paul also persecuted Jews too if they threatened the authority of Rome and the High Court of the Sadducees. Many Jews were arrested for sedition and ended up crucified.

Paul then tells the story that on the way to Damascus with a detachment of men, there suddenly shined about him a light from heaven and Jesus spoke to him (Acts 9:3) and although his men heard a voice, they did not see anyone, and it was only Paul that heard Jesus speak words to him. Sounds like the story that the Mormon Joseph Smith told when he said the Angel Moroni spoke to him and no one else. Later Paul changed his story, denying that his men heard anything at all, but instead, they only saw a great light shining around him (Acts 22:9). Perhaps he was afraid his men might have been questioned. Compare Acts 9:7 with Acts 22:9. Did Paul's friends hear the voice, or did they not? Is this another lie or a politician spin? Acts 9:7 (KJV) "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man." Acts 22:9 (KJV) "And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me."

Yes --- Paul would have made a great politician in today’s world. Paul allows lying as a method of spreading Christianity, citing Romans 3:7-8, 1 Corinthians 9:20-23, 2 Corinthians 12:16 as proof texts. In the passage in Romans, the context is the contrast of man's righteousness with God's, and nowhere does Paul say it is okay to lie. In fact, at the end of the passage, he condemns those who say it is okay to do evil so that good may come out of it. Read Romans 3:1-8 to get the full context. Next is the Philippians passage, in which the context is not the use of dishonesty to spread the Christian message, but the motives behind one's preaching. Paul says that while some preach out of love and sincerity, others preach out of envy and rivalry with Paul, or selfish ambition. It is about this motivation that Paul says is unimportant, as long as the preaching gets done and the word is spread (Philippians 1:12-18).

Finally, read the passages in 1st and 2nd Corinthians. These two are keepers, although Paul's remark in 2nd Corinthians, about being crafty and catching them with guile, is so out of the blue it doesn't really fit the context in which it's found, making it hard to pin down what he's talking about. But even in its context the passage in 1st Corinthians clearly condones the deceptive practice of hypocrisy, passing yourself off as something or someone you are not in order to get inside a group or more intimate with a person for the purpose of preaching to them and "saving souls." Deception is a type of lie; hence the charge against Paul can be clearly made with this.

What is discouraging is that Christians will see nothing wrong with deception for the sake of saving souls, and you'll be hard pressed to show them how it is wrong, much less that the deception is so much broader in scope that it encompasses the whole Christian Text, hence their whole religion. We can't really trust everything Paul says, since he believes it's OK to misrepresent himself if he sees the reason as good enough.

Would you put your soul in the teachings of Paul, the liar, the politician, a good car salesman?

Copyright © 2003, John D Stone and Hugh Fogelman. All rights reserved.

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fayte.m
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posted July 17, 2006 08:12 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fayte.m     Edit/Delete Message
More by the faithful

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord's work.

Adolph Hitler, Reichstag speech in 1938

Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another... while the enemy of Aryan humanity and all Christendom is laughing up his sleeve."
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.309

"Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook."
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf p. 171

"What we have to fight for...is the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator."
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 125

Idiots, the lame, the blind, the dumb, are men in whom the devils have established themselves: and all the physicians who heal these infirmities, as though they proceeded from natural causes, are ignorant blockheads.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) German Protestant leader

Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-­glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them.

Martin Luther, The Lies of the Jews, 1543

...but then eject them [Jews] forever from this country. For, as we have heard, God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them! Luther, supra.

I brief, dear princes and lords, those of you who have Jews under your rule­­ if my counsel does not please you, find better advice, so that you and we all can be rid of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews, lest we become guilty sharers before God in the lies, blasphemy, the defamation, and the curses which the mad Jews indulge in so freely and wantonly against the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, this dear mother, all Christians, all authority, and ourselves. Do not grant them protection, safe ­conduct, or communion with us. . . .

Luther, Supra.

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians

Luther, supra.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. (remainder omitted) Martin Luther, supra.


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fayte.m
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posted July 17, 2006 08:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fayte.m     Edit/Delete Message
"The world holds two classes of men -- intelligent men
without religion, and religious men without intelligence."
[Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri (973-1057; Syrian poet)]

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
Isaac Asimov

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
-- Isaac Asimov, I. Asimov: A Memoir

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
-- Mikhail Bakunin (attributed: source unknown)

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.
-- Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State, from The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
-- Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State (1871), quoted from The Columbia Dictionary Of Quotations

Theology is the science of the divine lie
-- Mikhail Bakunin, from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations

Evangelist, n: A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbours.
Ambrose Bierce

Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Infidel, n: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Ocean, n: A body of water occupying 2/3 of a world made for man -- who has no gills."
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce

Religion, n: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the Nature of the Unknowable.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Scriptures: The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
Ambrose Bierce

The idea that a good God would send people to a burning Hell is utterly
damnable to me. The ravings of insanity! Superstition gone to seed!
I don't want to have anything to do with such a God. No avenging
Jewish God, no satanic devil, no fiery hell is of any interest to me."
Luther Burbank, address to Science League of San Francisco, Dec. 1924

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.
Grover Cleveland, 1905

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Joseph Conrad

I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."
Charles Darwin

I believe the spreading of Catholicism to be the most horrible means of political and social degradation left in the world.
Charles Dickens

To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature."
Denis Diderot

If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.

Denis Diderot

If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which he has inflicted upon men, He would kill himself.
Alexander Dumas

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Epicurus

Prayers never bring anything... They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy - but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas
- W. C. Fields

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.
Sigmund Freud, "Future of an Illusion"

At the bottom God is nothing more than an exalted father.
Sigmund Freud

INGERSOLL, ROBERT G

“Salvation through slavery is worthless; Salvation from slavery is inestimable."
"The Gods", 1872

To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead.

The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance called 'faith.'

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane

Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.

Theologians beat the living with the bones of the dead

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.

The Inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it.

The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance called 'faith.'

There can be little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.

The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels.

Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion.

A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wings.

Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.

If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the clergy.
-General Marquis De Lafayette, 1789

The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.

Ferdinand Magellan, Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion

I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance.
-Christopher Marlowe

church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.

H. L. Mencken

Faith may be defined as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

H. L. Mencken

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

H. L Mencken

Imagine the Creator as a stand up commedian - and at once the world becomes explicable.

H. L. Mencken

To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10, 000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.

H. L. Mencken

Belief means not wanting to know what is true."
Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, 1889

The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed.
Thomas Paine, The Theological Works of

Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals; but, however unwilling the partisan of the Christian system may be to believe or acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true, that the age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.—There was more knowledge in the world before that period than for many centuries afterwards; and as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, as already said, was only another species of mythology; and the mythology to which it succeeded was a corruption of an ancient system of theism.

Thomas Paine—The age of Reason

The study of Christian theology … is the study of nothing: it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusions

Thomas Paine, The age of Reason

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."
Dorothy Parker

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry."
Edgar Allan Poe

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Sir Stephen Henry Roberts.

There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
Arthur Schopenhauer

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful

Seneca the Younger (4BCE-65CE)

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
George Bernard Shaw

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?

Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain

A man is accepted into church for what he believes--and turned out for what he knows.
-Mark Twain

The Jews have always been waiting for a Messiah, but their Messiah is for them only, not for us, a Messiah ho will give them mastery over the Christians.

Voltaire—Philosophical Letters

Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool

Voltaire

If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Let us worship god through Jesus if we must. If ignorance has so far prevailed that this name can still be spoken in all seriousness without being taken as a synonym for rapine and carnage. Every sensible man, every honourable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror….

Voltaire

"Inspiration: A peculiar effect of divine flatulence emitted by the Holy Spirit which hisses into the ears of a few chosen of God...."
Voltaire

"Superstition, born of paganism and adopted by Judaism, invested the Christian Church from earliest times. All the fathers of the Church, without exception, believed in the power of magic. The
Church always condemned magic, but she always believed in it: she did not excommunicate sorcerers as madmen who were mistaken, but as men who were really in communication with the devil."
Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 1764

"God created sex. Priests created marriage."
Voltaire

1liners, anonymous

There is no fool like a religious fool

The believer is happy, the doubter wise

Moses saves, Jesus invests.

Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer."

Evolution is both fact and theory; creationism is neither.

Jesus Christ: Imaginary Playmate to Millions of Adults!

Nine out of ten priests who have tried Camels, prefer young boys.

A zealot's stones will break my bones, but gods will never hurt me.

Faith is to the human what sand is to the ostrich"

It is your god. They're your rules. You go to hell.

If Jesus loves me, he’s a faggot!

Why is space a vacuum? God sucks!

Man created God in his own image.

A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.

Theology: the method of philosophy used to dress up the absurd.

Faith: a term used by the gullible when pretending they’re not.

Pope: the fool with a tail.

Cardinal: a birdbrain leader of the flock.

Preacher: a birdbrain teacher of the flock.

Church: a birdhouse.

Religion is the work of the devil.

You Go Yahweh - and I'll go Mine!

Belief in heaven is impossible in the absence of a greedy desire for it.

If god doesn't like the way I live, let him tell me, not you.

Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired."

In the Jewish Bible, their god is more efficient than Adolph Hitler: he killed everyone but Noah’s family.

Jesus loves us like a parent a child, he wishes to control our comings and goings.

“Theology,” the philosophical discourse of schizophrenic and fools.

“Heresy,” a theological position other than the Church’s

Trinity, a 3-for-1 sale in deities.

LONGER QUIPS ANOMYOUS

Since the Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from; how can we trust it to tell us where we're going?"

God hated the world so much that he sent his only son so that whoever does not believe in him will
perish and be denied eternal life.

Losing your faith is a lot like losing your virginity; you don't realize how irritating it was 'til it's gone.

Jesus is real! I saw him at a party last week; he was playing darts with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny

Power corrupts;
Absolute power corrupts absolutely;
God is all-powerful.
Draw your own conclusions

Theists think all gods but theirs are false. Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one.

Philosophy contains questions that may never be answered.
Religion is answers that may never be questioned.

God so hated the world that he sent his only son so that the vast majority of peoples of the world will because of their lack of faith endure eternal damnation.—(JK)

The quest for god is like a blind man in a dark room who is looking for a black cat that isn’t there.

If you are comfortable with a lie, you will never look for the truth.


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TINK
Knowflake

Posts: 3334
From: New England
Registered: Mar 2003

posted July 17, 2006 09:42 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for TINK     Edit/Delete Message
That Mr Fogelman seems to have a lot of issues.

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fayte.m
Knowflake

Posts: 5816
From:
Registered: Mar 2005

posted July 17, 2006 10:26 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fayte.m     Edit/Delete Message
Well the Paul stuff is in the Bible.
And much of it is not nice.

Paul is also said to have been mentally ill as a result of eye disease and a seizure disorder.
Paul suffered from Ophthalmia neonatorum, a disease common in the East in his day (and still prevalent today), based on evidence within his writings. The disease would have caused painful eye weakness that left him nearly blind. He used an amanuensis to write all of us his Epistles save Galatians, and in that letter he comments on how large he makes his letters using his own handwriting (Gal 6:11).

So between the poor vision caused by disease of the eyes and a seizure disorder, who knows what really happened on the road to Damascus. He could have seen and heard alot of things and then took advantage of a good and profitable new shtick and ran with it.

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