i dont think you have to believe, but if you want to argue against it, you should know what the beliefs and such are for the religions.

"Life is an illusion and a very persistant one at that."-Albert Einstein.

Gods are just people that have once lived on Earth and have done things for people to be viewed as gods (creating a way to deliver water to their people, etc). They're courage lives on through fairy tales and spirits. How they do it could be a different story.
As well as Gods are hierarchies within the human psyche.

By the way, this should have been posted in PaRD.

This post was edited by Gthumb420 on Sep 17 2010 07:57am

Believing in god is a personal choice theres no hardcore proof he exists or that he doesn't. Pushing your opinions onto others (especially when it comes to religion) is stupid as hell and doesn't create anything but wars and arguments.

As pointless as it is to ponder my existence,it is equally pointless to do anything else.

why hello

What do you mean?
Was it a mistake to be christian in the first place, or a mistake to convert to atheism?

vouch

1) The Judaic Heresy


Christ professed himself a Jew. He never at any stage repudiated Judaism. It seems odd that he never stated with crystal clarity that the special status of Jews as the Chosen People was coming to an end and that, upon his death, Jews and Gentiles would be equal in status if they accepted him as their Saviour. Gentiles had never obeyed the Law of Moses and had openly scorned the religious practices of the Jews, yet were now about to be embraced as equals. You would think Christ would have spent a great deal of time explaining that. But it was left to Saul of Tarsus - St Paul - to make it clear that Christianity was open to everyone rather than just the Jews, and that Jewish Law did not have to be obeyed.

Before his death, shouldn't Christ have announced that the Jewish religion was about to be superseded? It seems an extraordinary omission. The Jews are no longer the Chosen People, according to Christianity - Christians are. So what are the Jews now? Refuseniks? Insane? The damned? Evil? The children of Satan? The Unchosen Ones?

The Old Law was fulfilled in Christ. So why does Judaism still exist? Few of the original Chosen People embraced the new religion of Christianity. How remarkable that God's Chosen People, almost in their entirety, rejected Christ/God. The people of the Old Testament became heretics when Christ died, wilfully refusing to accept the New Testament. What kind of God is it who loses the devotion of practically every member of the people he had chosen? Anti-Semitism was inevitable. The Jews were an eternal reminder to Christians that the Jews didn't believe in Jesus Christ, and that the Christians were therefore, in the minds of the Jews, in error and worshipping a false God.



2) The Sabellian Heresy

The followers of Sabellius rejected the concept of the Trinity. They said that there were not three persons in one God, but instead that God presented himself in three different ways to mankind - as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

3) The Arian Heresy

Arius asked the question, "If God the Son was begotten of the Father, does that not imply that the Father existed before Him?" He argued, "He is Son: therefore posterior to the Father; therefore not eternal. Since the Father is Eternal and the Son not, He is unlike the Father." Arius maintained that Christ was a super-angelic being, the first and highest creature of God. (This is what Jehovah's Witnesses believe; for them Christ was the incarnation of Michael the Archangel.) Part of the orthodox response to Arius is that God exists outside of time, hence the begetting of the Son of God by the Father was not a temporal event, and it's therefore meaningless to talk about the Father preceding the Son. Because the Son was begotten and not created, he must be of one substance with the Father. Only if he were a created being would he be something different.


4) The Eusebian Heresy

Eusebius, trying to find a way of reconciling with the Arians, wanted to use the word Homoiousion - "of like substance" - to describe the Son's relationship to the Father. The Church insisted on the word Homoousion - "of the same substance" being applied to God the Father and God the Son.

5) The Apollinarian Heresy

Apollinaris argued that Christ was a divine being in a human body (something that Arius also held to be true). Some of his followers said that even Christ's human flesh was actually divine.

6) The Nestorian Heresy

Nestorius denied that Mary was the Theotokos - the God-bearer, the Mother of God. Nestorius said she was in fact the Christotokos - the Christ-bearer, the Mother of Christ. He argued that Christ had two distinct natures and that Mary was the mother of the human nature, but not of the divine nature. He said that Jesus the man was the temple of "the Word", but that God did not die on the Cross, only the man did. He claimed that if Mary was the Mother of God then she would have to be a Goddess. And he pointed out, "A mother cannot bear a son older than herself." (This resembles the Arian dispute.) Nestorius's position was that in Jesus Christ there were not just two natures but two distinct beings.

The Church's orthodox stance was that Christ was not united to an already existing being; Christ's human nature was not given a moment of a purely human existence.

Protestantism is a version of the Nestorian heresy since Protestants do not acknowledge Mary as the Mother of God.

7) The Eutychian and Monophysite ("single nature") Heresies

Eutyches opposed Nestorius by arguing that Christ had a single, divine nature - there were not two distinct beings and natures. Accused of heresy, Eutyches was challenged to accept that Christ had two natures (human and divine) in one human person. Eutyches responded, "Of two natures - but not in two natures." He was excommunicated for maintaining this position. The official doctrine was that there were two distinct natures existing in one person.

The supporters of Eutyches became known as the Monophysites and they insisted, "One nature only after the union." Eventually some were prepared to accept that Christ existed in two natures but they argued that the union of the two natures meant that the human nature was incapable of its own distinct, natural acts. The Coptic Church and several other Churches in the Middle East hold the monophysite position to this day.

If this position is true then Christ's flesh was different from everyone else's - being imbued with divinity. That, of course, would mean that Christ did not suffer as an ordinary human being. Perhaps he didn't suffer at all. The Passion might have been an illusion.

8) The Monothelitism ("one will") Heresy

In an attempt to heal the rift caused by the Monophysite heresy, Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria, came up with a new formula. They affirmed that Christ had two natures, divine and human, but worked via a single "theandric operation" i.e. he had two natures but one divine will. This teaching was declared heretical at the Sixth General Council of Constantinople.

According to the orthodox view of the early Christian Church, Christ was God and man (two natures) united in one person. Of course, there is an immediate problem with this: God cannot sin, hence Christ the God/Man cannot sin either. Since all men sin and Christ didn't sin then he can't be said to be a representative of ordinary humanity. But the whole point of the Incarnation was that Christ was to suffer as an ordinary man - yet he was nothing like an ordinary man.

Hypostasis means, "that which lies beneath as basis or foundation". It is a term used to distinguish reality from appearances. Christ, according to the Christian Church, appeared as one person, but the reality was that he was a hypostatic union of two natures: the divine and the human. The Council of Chalcedon (451) declared that in Christ the two natures retained their own properties, but were united in one subsistence and one person. They were not joined in a moral or accidental union as Nestorius argued, and nor were they commingled as Eutyches maintained. Nevertheless, they were "substantially united."

One other person was sinless - Christ's mother Mary. The expression "immaculate conception" applies to Mary and not to Christ as is often erroneously believed. It was essential for Mary to be sinless so that she couldn't pass on "original sin" to her child.

9) The Pelagian heresy denies the reality of original sin.

10) Origen's Heresies

Origen was accused of heresy on four grounds:

1) He believed in the pre-existence of souls rather than souls being created at the moment of conception.
2) He therefore believed that Christ's human nature as well as his divine nature existed before the Incarnation.
3) At the Resurrection, human souls will be given ethereal bodies rather than physical bodies.
4) All men and even all devils will be saved at the last.

This post was edited by 13lack_Cat on Sep 17 2010 12:25pm

The Jews are the most persecuted people in history. They often blame Christianity for their troubles, but they were persecuted long before Christianity came to prominence. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Romans all persecuted the Jews, and none were Christian. The Jews fought with the Canaanites and the Philistines, and these were not Christian peoples.

In medieval times, Christian England and Spain expelled their entire Jewish populations. Many European countries made the Jews wear yellow badges. There were regular pogroms against the Jews in Russia. Most European nations experienced outbreaks of extreme violence against Jewish communities. Then came the Holocaust - the most terrible persecution in history. Many people were ashamed of what was done to the Jews. The Jews attracted widespread sympathy. They were allowed to create a homeland in Palestine, a land already inhabited. War erupted. Arab countries tried to wipe out the new nation, but it was supported by America, the greatest power in the world, and survived. Now, many countries are again reporting rises in anti-Semitism. Israel is probably the most disliked nation on earth.

The Zionists continually refer to sinister anti-Semitic forces gathering against them. Never once have the Zionists asked themselves why their religion has attracted so much trouble. Always, others are to blame. No blame ever attaches to Zion.

There are only 13.2 million Jews in the world, 0.2% of the world's population. There are 5.6 million Jews in Israel, and 5.3 million in the USA. This is one of the least successful religions ever, yet Jews seem to have a disproportionate influence on world affairs. Why?

Ironically, in the Book of Genesis (Gen 22:17 & 18), Jehovah says, "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

So much for that. The Jews are hardly numerous, and the Israelis seem to spend a lot of time killing children in Gaza in Palestine. Are Jews blessed? World history might suggest that "cursed" is more accurate. Being a faithful servant of Jehovah seems to lead to little but misfortune.


The Jewish claim to Israel is based on the idea that it was promised to them by God. But 99.8% of the world's population do not believe in the God of the Jews. And we know from the Old Testament that the Jews had to fight a savage war for the "Promised Land", in which "God" actively participated on the side of the Hebrews. Why did this all-powerful, benevolent "God" not send his Chosen People to a land of milk and honey that did not contain other people, and did not necessitate a violent struggle to win the land? Why did he fight on behalf of the Jews? What sort of God takes part in battles and wars? Doesn't this sound more like Satan than God?

Would not the history of the Jews be more comprehensible if instead of being the Chosen People of a benevolent God, they were something quite different? Why do Jews continue to believe in their God when trouble has dogged them wherever they have gone? Why did God help them in Biblical times, but raised not a finger on their behalf during the Holocaust? This is one very odd God. No wonder Jews stand at the Wailing Wall to worship him. Wailing is all you can do when you worship such a capricious creature. There is no evidence that God loves them.

Who would want to enter into a sacred Covenant with such a God? What would be the point? He delivers no joy, just trouble, persecution and ever-declining numbers.

But perhaps there was no Covenant between the Hebrew God and his people. Perhaps the real Covenant was between the Hebrew God and certain Jewish families, not all Jews. There are a small number of well-known Jewish families - notorious might be a more apt description - who have avoided all of the troubles that have afflicted their race. Instead, they prosper to a bewildering degree, and they have done so for millennia. They posses huge wealth, power and influence. Governments bow to them.

They, not the Jews as a whole, look like they have been "blessed" by a higher power. Is this then the true Covenant? Is it a Faustian pact? Did these leading Jewish families sell their souls to Satan?

The Jews, as a people, are not conspiring against the world. Such a thought is crazy. And if they go out of their way to help each other, so what? Wouldn't you if you had suffered the persecution they have endured over the centuries?

But when a small cabal of elite Jewish families exerts undue control over world affairs - that is a quite different matter. Then all sympathy must be shed. Anti-Semitism is disgraceful and must be condemned, but that does not mean that the eye of suspicion should not fall on a small number of Jewish families whose machinations affect us all. We have every right to examine the affairs of these families, and let no one brand such an exercise anti-Semitic.