Intrepid wrote: Funny that the same people who hate god and Christians are the same people who usually advocate abortion and war.
Rubbish. Why d'you say people hate god - when they're simply saying they don't believe in him? How can anyone hate something that doesn't exist for them?
As for the war part:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice
And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
(Tony) Blair, a committed Christian who keeps the Bible by his bed, knows he is taking a risk by revealing the importance he places on religion in informing his politics. He also knows that many of his key officials feel uncomfortable about the central role that God plays in his life. There were furrowed brows of consternation when Blair, asked who he would answer to for the deaths of British soldiers, replied: 'My Maker'.
Sunday August 3, 2003
The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/blair/story/0,11964,1011478,00.html
Then there's G.W.Bush and the USA (God Bless America)
Quote:
One only has to check out Bush's record as Governor of Texas to see his own preference for death over life. During his tenure as Governor, Bush presided over a record-setting 152 executions, including the 1998 execution of fellow born-again Christian Karla Faye Tucker, a convicted murderer who later led a prison ministry. Forty of Bush's executions were carried out in 2000, the year the Bush presidential campaign was spotlighting their candidate's strong law enforcement record. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen reported in October 2000 that one of the execution chamber's "tie-down team" members, Fred Allen, had to prepare so many people for lethal injections during 2000, he quit his job in disgust.
Bush mocked Tucker's appeal for clemency. In an interview with Talk magazine, Bush imitated Tucker's appeal for him to spare her life pursing his lips, squinting his eyes, and in a squeaky voice saying, "Please don't kill me." That went too far for former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer, himself an evangelical Christian. "I think it is nothing short of unbelievable that the governor of a major state running for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to put to death," said Bauer.
http://www.serendipity.li
Not to mention the death Bush has reaped around the world.
Why should anyone, who sincerely wants the world to be a better place, defend religious cults? Why follow bible quoting war mongers?
The bible is about death, revenge, suppression and fear.
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Naturalists can see religion as wish-fulfillment, a coping strategy for death anxiety (Bertrand Russell), a way to make a powerful being in our own image (Ludwig Feuerbach), a way to retain a father figure when you no longer (or never did) have a strong father figure or when you mature and can't rely on a human parent for everything (Sigmund Freud), or as a way to keep the masses in line (Karl Marx).
http://parablemania.ektopos.com
I have a major question here for Frank:
Frank... Why do you bother? I get the feeling that you really want to free christians - to enlighten them, but you are an intelligent chap, surely you can see that they have been indoctrinated and brainwashed. They are not listening because they don't want to hear... so, why d'you bother?
Personally, I find it too frustrating.
