Christianity: Too controlling? - Page 4

Ben Lahnger · 03-18-2006, 08:15 AM

I think George 'the most high' Carlin said it best in "Religion is BS!":

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Religion - easily - has the Greatest BS Story Ever Told! Think about it: religion has actually convinced people - many of them adults - that there's an invisible man who lives in the sky and watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And who has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do.

And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to remain and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry, forever and ever, till the end of time. But he loves you!

He loves you, and he needs money! He always needs money. He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, but somehow...he just can't handle money. Religion takes in billions of dollars, pays no taxes, and somehow always needs a little more. Now you talk about a good BS story. Holy shit!
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Also, while I'm at it, let me add his take on the "The Ten Commandments":

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Here is my problem with the ten commandments- why exactly are there 10?

You simply do not need ten. The list of ten commandments was artificially and deliberately inflated to get it up to ten. Here's what happened:

About 5,000 years ago a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to try to figure out how to control people and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so they announced that God had given them some commandments, up on a mountain, when no one was around.

Well let me ask you this- when they were making this shit up, why did they pick 10? Why not 9 or 11? I'll tell you why- because 10 sound official. Ten sounds important! Ten is the basis for the decimal system, it's a decade, it's a psychologically satisfying number (the top ten, the ten most wanted, the ten best dressed). So having ten commandments was really a marketing decision! It is clearly a bullshit list. It's a political document artificially inflated to sell better. I will now show you how you can reduce the number of commandments and come up with a list that's a little more workable and logical. I am going to use the Roman Catholic version because those were the ones I was taught as a little boy.

Let's start with the first three:

I AM THE LORD THY GOD THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME

THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN

THOU SHALT KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH

Right off the bat the first three are pure bullshit. Sabbath day? Lord's name? strange gods? Spooky language! Designed to scare and control primitive people. In no way does superstitious nonsense like this apply to the lives of intelligent civilized humans in the 21st century. So now we're down to 7. Next:

HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER

Obedience, respect for authority. Just another name for controlling people. The truth is that obedience and respect shouldn't be automatic. They should be earned and based on the parent's performance. Some parents deserve respect, but most of them don't, period. You're down to six.

Now in the interest of logic, something religion is very uncomfortable with, we're going to jump around the list a little bit.

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

Stealing and lying. Well actually, these two both prohibit the same kind of behavior- dishonesty. So you don't really need two; you combine them and call the commandment "thou shalt not be dishonest". And suddenly you're down to 5.

And as long as we're combining I have two others that belong together:

THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTRY

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE

Once again, these two prohibit the same type of behavior. In this case it is marital infidelity. The difference is - coveting takes place in the mind. But I don't think you should outlaw fantasizing about someone else's wife because what is a guy gonna think about when he's waxing his carrot? But, marital infidelity is a good idea so we're gonna keep this one and call it "thou shalt not be unfaithful". And suddenly we're down to four.

But when you think about it, honesty and infidelity are really part of the same overall value so, in truth, you could combine the two honesty commandments with the two fidelity commandments and give them simpler language, positive language instead of negative language and call the whole thing "thou shalt always be honest and faithful" and we're down to 3.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR"S GOODS

This one is just plain fuckin' stupid. Coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going! Your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays "o come o ye faithful", and you want one too! Coveting creates jobs, so leave it alone. You throw out coveting and you're down to 2 now - the big honesty and fidelity commandment and the one we haven't talked about yet:

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Murder. But when you think about it, religion has never really had a big problem with murder. More people have been killed in the name of god than for any other reason. All you have to do is look at Northern Ireland, Cashmire, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the World Trade Center to see how seriously the religious folks take thou shalt not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable. It depends on who's doin the killin' and who's gettin' killed. So, with all of this in mind, I give you my revised list of the two commandments:

1) Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie.

&

2) Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you.

Two is all you need; Moses could have carried them down the hill in his fuckin' pocket. I wouldn't mind those folks in Alabama posting them on the courthouse wall, as long as they provided one additional commandment:

Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.

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Catch · 03-18-2006, 10:38 AM

Mmmm, well it is that thou shalt not worship any creature above, below or on earth. So no worshipping anything. You can't even worship God. No Graven Images or idols.

Then the reason for being nice to your parents is because they worked hard their whole life to have something to support themself and their children, so even if you don't have much, you should still respect them, otherwise, they will kick you out on your sorry ass. It's all explained.

Then in Dueteronomy, no one reads it, it clarifies that a wicked parent feeds on the life of their children and in return the child grows stronger and crushes their parents on their heels.

So you see it doesn't pay to be a leech, parasite or other kind of criminally minded person because everyone turns away from them and in the end they have nothing and there is nothing for their children. Then the child gets tired of working for their partents and one day, if still loving God, the child gets to turn around and become self-reliant. Since they hate their parents, the parents are no longer able to use/abuse their children and everybody else is sick of them too.

(I would also like to add that mastrebation is good too. It's still a sin, but way low on the charts. Wanking off is better than ****** someone. After you've identified "sex" it's all made anyway. That's what I like to do when going out with someone. Just go around, get turned on, play a little too much, then wait for "sex" to be around and a private moment. Usually have sexual relationships. Mastrebation has saved me though. It has saved me from dating another creepy guy that I really wonder why I'm dating them, most of the time.)

tenet_2012 · 03-18-2006, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeishaGirl

Tenet...can I get a halleluah?

Halleluah sista!

Catch · 03-19-2006, 07:43 PM

Halleluah!

OnixxFilth · 03-20-2006, 08:16 AM

Thank you for the welcome, succubus,queenofvampires. I've been quite busy with school, as it's my senior year of college, and haven't had the chance to get on for awhile. It's good to know that people actually care!

mydnyght · 03-21-2006, 07:18 AM

i'd have to agree with the majority on this one. christianity was originally designed for control of the masses. it is my understanding, that if jesus were alive today, he'd be pissed at what's going on; because 'organized religion'(among other things) was so NOT what he talked about.

Cruel Intentions · 03-21-2006, 07:40 AM

I'd have to agree. It was the Christian church that originally told us the world was flat. What a fuck-up that was! It makes you wonder what else they have been 'mistaken' about.

Shi'ark · 03-21-2006, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cruel Intentions

I'd have to agree. It was the Christian church that originally told us the world was flat. What a fuck-up that was! It makes you wonder what else they have been 'mistaken' about.

That's a myth started by the guy who wrote Sleepy hollow in his Columbus bio. Christians have always seen the earth as round.

Sobeh · 03-21-2006, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shi'ark

That's a myth started by the guy who wrote Sleepy hollow in his Columbus bio. Christians have always seen the earth as round.

MOST cultures in the past have seen the Earth as round - anyone with astronomy has. Think about it - one of the marks of astronomical and cultural achievment is predicting eclipses.... the first time you predict a lunar exclipse (Earth moving between sun and moon), you can see the Earth's shadow on the surface of the moon if it's full and.... wait a minute.... that shadow is..... spherical.....

Not even 'most' Europeans thought of it as flat; Aristotle said it was because he logically figured that all things here were flat and straight and all things in the cosmos were spherical and curved and such. This is the guy that also said that motion is in straight lines on the earth: the tradition was that if it could be shown logically, it didn't matter that real world evidence said you were wrong, because by God you'd used logic. That was a niche school in ancient Greece, just so happens that this Aristotle genius was a part of it.

Europeans saw eclipses as well as anyone else....

Shi'ark · 03-21-2006, 09:44 AM

didn't the Romans believe the earth was flat? i heard that some where

OnixxFilth · 03-21-2006, 11:07 AM

Hey, there are still people today in civilized societies who think the earth is flat!

succubus,queenofvampires · 03-21-2006, 11:48 AM

Really?! How can THIS be possible?I thought that everybody has learned that the Earth is round in 1st grade or even before!

tenet_2012 · 03-21-2006, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by succubus,queenofvampires

Really?! How can THIS be possible?I thought that everybody has learned that the Earth is round in 1st grade or even before!

What about third world Africa? They don't even have schools. The Earth probably looks flat to them.

succubus,queenofvampires · 03-21-2006, 12:19 PM

Oh yeah, I haven't thought about that! My bad!

Jane13 · 03-21-2006, 04:16 PM

They didn't beleive the world was flat; they believed in a geocentric model of the universe. That is, with the Earth in the middle and everything else flying around it... which is the way most religions (and most people) saw the universe. It was a mistake, but it wasn't just the Christians who beleived that... anyway, it's not like it's church dogma that science is bad. The Second Vatican council reinforced Thomas Aquinas's idea of faith and reason. That means that faith never has to come into conflict with reason... this is because the Catholic Church doesn't read the Bible like a history book.

maggot · 03-21-2006, 05:22 PM

Wasn't the earth viewed as a plane, and the stars and all that stuff was in "the dome of the heavens"?

655322 · 03-21-2006, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shi'ark

That's a myth started by the guy who wrote Sleepy hollow in his Columbus bio. Christians have always seen the earth as round.

Christians may have always seen the earth as round, but that didn't stop them persecuting Galileo for his outspoken views on the subject of the geocentric nature of the universe.
Galileo was prosecuted by Christians who cited evidence in the Bible. This was the
Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo on
June 22, 1633.

"The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture."

Source:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...demnation.html

That's control based on nothing but myth!

Ben Lahnger · 03-21-2006, 09:26 PM

Yeah, Jane 13 is back!

OnixxFilth · 03-22-2006, 10:14 AM

Well, I do think sailors used to believe in Columbus' time that the world was flat and that you could sail off the end of it, but it wasn't necessarily the Christian worldview.

Shi'ark · 03-22-2006, 10:18 AM

I think the Vikings thought the earth was flat

OnixxFilth · 03-22-2006, 10:19 AM

Hmm. Well, maybe more than one culture thought the world was flat.

Sobeh · 03-22-2006, 07:13 PM

A number thought the world was flat, yes - for instance, as mentioned, the Norsemen ('vikings'). Cosmological maps of Midgard, the land humans dwell in, depict a serpent encircling it and causing oceanic disturbances.

It's hard to tell who thought the world was flat and who didn't back in the day - even if the scholastic folk thought it was round, the village folk may have had entirely different views, and vice versa. Village folk are terrible about writing their thoughts down, alas!

The Columbus sailor thing, off the edge of the earth and whatnot, is pretty much false. If you've ever sailed on a ship with sails, and seen another one, things happen kind of slowly, but for sure what you notice as you come up on another ship is that you can see their sails long before their hull, which pretty much solidifies a round earth belief.

athilla nemrie · 03-22-2006, 08:19 PM

Our guidance counselor once told me that intelligence and faith will always contradict each other. Maybe that's why the Church had a hard time accepting the theories of Galileo and Copernicus.

athilla nemrie · 03-22-2006, 08:38 PM

Of course. I know a lot of people who have strong faith and very intelligent at the same time.

athilla nemrie · 03-22-2006, 08:50 PM

I tried to be religious a few months ago but I realized that it just won't work. I ask too many questions and wonder about a lot of things. Maybe it's what they always say you know, that "faith doesn't need no explanation".