Pope has an easy job – Bill Maher
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- Created on Monday, 01 April 2013 07:11
- Published on Monday, 01 April 2013 07:11
- Written by John Draper
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Bill Maher doesn’t understand why so much fuss in the press about the Pope – he was simply someone who got a promotion to CEO. It happens all the time. And it’s not like he has a difficult job – he’s selling an invisible product! “All he does is talk and everything he says is right by definition”. "And what other business could run a child sex ring and still keep its customers?" Of course the Church has the advantage of being around for 2000 years and people think the rules come right from Jesus but they don’t. They come from a bunch of guys sitting around making up new rules. Bill goes on to give some examples. But watch the video for yourself. Bill Maher in one of his better rants. Short and sweet.
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The Resurrection story
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- Created on Saturday, 30 March 2013 07:05
- Published on Saturday, 30 March 2013 07:05
- Written by John Draper
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Without a Resurrection, the claim that Jesus was God is weak to non-existent - so it is an important part of Christian religions. The only evidence available that the resurrection took place is the Bible. All the Gospels give a narrative describing the resurrection but some have details that others don't. Apart from some early rejected books that did not make it into the bible, we can look at the five accounts that are accepted as factual by all Christians (Mark 16, Matthew 28, John 20-21, Luke 24, Acts 1:1-14). The problem is that if you actually study them, they prove nothing more than that some biased supporters wrote these myths. Why? Because they are not consistent; they contradict each other; they are obviously embellished from the basic belief that Jesus rose from the dead. They start with that premise then weave a story around it. If you start with an open mind, they do not prove a resurrection.
The Case against Christianity
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- Created on Thursday, 28 March 2013 07:10
- Published on Thursday, 28 March 2013 07:10
- Written by John Draper
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Richard Carrier has written a number of books about Christianity and why it does not make sense but in an interview about his book "Why I am not a Christian", he manages to neatly summarize the case against Christianity. Like anyone who has thought deeply about God, he does not say "there is no god" since that is impossible to prove. Instead he says that a god is "highly improbable". He gives four reasons why a God is improbable - and although these have been given by others, he puts them in a way that is new - at least to me.
So what are his reasons?
Jesus: God or Man or both?
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- Created on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 06:23
- Published on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 06:23
- Written by John Draper
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One of the teachings of Christian Churches is that Jesus was both fully God and fully Man. But you simply cannot be 100% two different things. It's like saying 100% apple and 100% orange - not possible. But Christians accept this "on faith" and call it "one of God's mysteries". Seems to me as a minimum it redefines the word "fully" to mean less than fully. But supposing we accept that for now and look at some of the consequences of being Man and God at the same time. If a man was a god and was crucified, and assuming he knows that he's a god (like we are told he was), then wouldn't it make sense that he would simply "turn off" the pain? And if he didn't want to do that so he could know what the pain felt like, how would we know? He could just be a good actor. There are a number of other things a god could do that would be cool - he'd never have to eat or have a pee, he'd never have to sleep, he could know what everyone around him was thinking, he could have new clean clothes every day and way more. But to be a man, he'd have to "turn-off" these powers. So he's not really a god all the time - only when it's time for a miracle!
Religions losing ground in the U.S.
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- Created on Sunday, 24 March 2013 06:49
- Published on Sunday, 24 March 2013 06:49
- Written by John Draper
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A recent survey confirms that religions are steadily losing ground but that does not mean belief in a god is dropping. People are now believing more in a "higher power" - or believing that there probably is a god but that it can't be proved. The estimated number of true atheists in the U.S. is estimated at only 3%. Some of the demographics are interesting too; political liberals are much more likely to have no religion - 40% versus 9% for political conservatives. In 1990 it was 15% versus 5% so this is relatively recent trend. And it's well known that women are more religious - currently 24% of men have no religion but only 16% of women think the same.
But you probably know by now, I like to see the numbers or graphs - a picture is worth a thousand words and so are tables and graphs.
Atheist Churches
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- Created on Wednesday, 20 March 2013 06:13
- Published on Wednesday, 20 March 2013 06:15
- Written by John Draper
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Quakers call their churches meeting houses, most churches and mosques are also used for social events of various kinds and pastors talk about "Fellowship". It's common knowledge that religious groups provide a lot a social activities for their members. Even the services are communal - they sing, "break bread", listen to a speaker. In many ways going to a Church is not a whole lot different to going to a social club meeting. So when people stop going to a Church - whether it's because they don't get around to it or because they no longer believe, it is often missed. Humans are social animals - like most other animals. We like the company of other people. So religion could be said to meet a need. Or is it that religions take advantage of this need to structure around gatherings and meetings?
What do Catholics believe?
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- Created on Friday, 22 March 2013 07:12
- Published on Friday, 22 March 2013 07:12
- Written by John Draper
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More to the point, what are they supposed to believe? Catholics are different – they have a set of dogmas much broader and more comprehensive than evangelicals who mostly just feel the love of Jesus. It’s more complicated, they have many theologians studying not just the bible but other writings. In fact, Catholics say that their beliefs come from not just the Bible but also “tradition” or the knowledge passed down through the Pope and Bishops from Peter and the Apostles. Luther’s heresy was not so much that he encouraged everyone to read the bible for themselves but that he implied that by doing that you could know all there was to know about Jesus. Further, the Catholic Church teaches that they are the only people who can correctly interpret what the words in the bible mean. They don’t take the bible literally word for word since they know its history – but they also know that by allowing interpretation, you open up a can of worms.
Proof of a creator god does not prove Christianity
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- Created on Monday, 18 March 2013 06:42
- Published on Monday, 18 March 2013 06:42
- Written by John Draper
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The most common argument for the existence of god is that there must be a god to cause the world around us to exist - especially since it is too complex to have happened by accident. Apart from the fact that this argument shows a total lack of understanding of advanced physics (not surprising!), it would only prove that there is a creator god. It would not, by itself, prove any of the things taught and believed in Christianity.
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