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This page presents an eclectic assortment of quotations which in one way or another touch on the subject of Christianity.
T o r t u r e
Ellerbe. page 124
"The scientist yearns to find and eventually know the truth; The religious man wants the truth to fit his preconceived mold. So, as a result...The scientist alters his perception to conform to the facts; The religious man tries to change the facts to conform to his beliefs."Anonymous
"In 1163 Pope Alexander III forbade the study of natural philosophy, partly because of the Arabs, who were the only natural philosophers of the time, were atheists and infidels, and partly because there was nothing said about natural philosophy in the Bible. In the next century the Franciscans and the Dominicans, although fighting with each other over the deification of the Virgin Mary, jointly and in the most emphatic terms condemned all experiments in chemistry, physics and medicine. In 1380 Charles V of France and in 1404 Henry IV of England promulgated sharp-toothed laws against the possession of furnaces, crucibles, retorts, and other apparatus, and similar measures were taken in this or later periods to exterminate the 'experimental' method in Italy and Spain, the experimenters being dreaded as the cohorts of Satan. Even mathematics was looked upon with fear because of the magical power of numbers, and at the time of the persecution of Galileo (1564-1642) mathematicians were denounced as the greatest of all heretics." Homer W. Smith, Man And His Gods page 261.
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell." St. Augustine
"To be boosted by an illusion is not to live better than to live in harmony with the truth; it is not nearly so safe, not nearly so sweet, not nearly so fruitful. These refusals to part with a decayed illusion are really an infection of the mind. Believe, certainly; we cannot help believing; but believe rationally, holding what seems certain for certain, what seems probable for probable, what seems desirable for desirable, and what seems false for false." George Santayana-from Walter Kaufmann's, Critique of Religion and Philosophy, 1958, New York, Harper and Row, Harper Torchbooks, page 119.
"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits." Dan Barker-former evangelist, author, critic
"It is useless to try to explain science to someone who isn't interested in what the facts have to say. And it's useless to try to learn anything from such people. If they are clever, as Johnson is, they can find a way to claim that almost any fact supports their position. If evolutionists agree on something, it's a dogmatic orthodoxy; if they disagree, they're squabbling about every detail of evolutionary theory. If a piece of evidence seems to count against evolution, evolution has been disproven; if it seems to count for evolution, that merely shows that evolution is unfalsifiable. If scientists state that they are personally atheistic, they are clearly exposing the rotten metaphysical heart of evolution; if they state that they are religious, they are clearly trying to cover the rotten heart up. If we learn anything new, it's evidence that our current theory is completely false; if what we learn is exactly what we expected, it's only because we were precommitted to finding it in the first place. If we point out where creationists are wrong, we are persecuting the underdog; if we ignore them, we are refusing to face the fact that they're right. If a piece of evidence supports one part of evolutionary theory, it doesn't support that other part. If we find a strong piece of evidence for evolution, there ought to be more just like it. If an evolutionist speaks out in favor of Darwinism, it's because they were strong-armed into it; if they say anything which can be taken out of context to suggest any skepticism about evolution, it's resounding proof that nobody in science believes the theory."
Brian Spitzer
http://www.darwintalk.com/message-board-forum/about193-15.html"This tie between faith and virtue is responsible for the Christian equation of doubt and disbelief with immorality. One is not morally free to investigate the truth of the Christian doctrine by the use of reason; instead one must believe uncritically or be condemned as immoral. A man is thus forced to choose between morality and truth, virtue and reason. The paragon of virtue, according to this view, is the man who refuses to critically evaluate his ideas-and one can scarcely imagine a more vicious form of irrationalism." George Smith, Atheism The Case Against God, 1979, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York, page 166.
"Another significant element of biblical faith is its intimate association with virtue. Jesus does not demand that people believe in him in the name of truth; He demands that they believe in him in the name of morality. Acceptance by faith is a virtuous act. 'Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe,' and as Paul warns, 'whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.' "
"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason, especially if she enters into spiritual matters which concern the soul and God. For it is more possible to teach an ass to read than to blind such a reason and to lead it right; for reason must be deluded, blinded and destroyed."
"Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense and understanding, and whatever it sees it must put out of sight, and wish to know nothing but the word of God." Martin Luther quoted in Walter Kaufmann's Critique of Religion and Philosophy, pages 305-307.
"Nothing is to be accepted save on the authority of scripture, for greater is this authority than all the powers of the human mind." St. Augustine-quoted in Homer W. Smith's Man And His Gods, page 244.
"Do you see? Men have a weapon against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the props from under it. But be careful. Don't deny outright. Never deny anything outright, you give your hand away. Don't say that reason is evil--though some have gone that far and with astonishing success. Just say that reason is limited. That there's something above it. What? You don't have to be too clear about it either. The field's inexhaustible. 'Instinct' 'Feeling' 'Revelation' 'Divine Intuition' 'Dialectic Materialism.' If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn't make sense--you're ready for him. You tell him that there's something above sense. That here he must not try to think, he must *feel*. He must *believe*. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. . . Can you rule a thinking man? We don't want any thinking men."Ayn Rand
"The threat of punishment for disbelief is the crowning touch of Christian misology. Believe in Jesus-regardless of evidence of justification-or be subjected to agonizing torture. With this theme reverberating throughout New Testament, we have intellectual intimidation, transcendental blackmail, in its purest form. Threats replace argumentation, and irrationality gains the edge over reason through an appeal to brute force. Man's ability to think and question becomes his most dangerous liability, and the intellectually frightened, docile, unquestioning believer is presented as the exemplification of moral perfection." George Smith, Atheism The Case Against God, page 169.
"Christianity cannot erase man's need for pleasure, nor can it eradicate the various sources of pleasure. What it can do, however, and what it has been extremely effective in accomplishing, is to inculcate guilt in connection with pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure, when accompanied by guilt, becomes a means of perpetuating chronic guilt, and this serves to reinforce one's dependence on God."
"Christianity, with some exceptions, has never explicitly advocated human misery; it prefers instead to speak of sacrifices in this life so that benefits may be garnered in the life to come. One invests in this life, so to speak, and collects interest in the next. Fortunately for Christianity, the dead cannot return for a refund."
"Through inculcating the notion that sacrifice is a virtue, Christianity has succeeded in convincing many people that misery incurred through sacrifice is a mark of virtue. Pain becomes the inignia of morality - and conversely, pleasure becomes the insignia of immorality. Christianity, therefore, does not say, 'Go forth and be miserable.' Rather, it says, 'Go forth and practice the virtue of self-sacrifice.' In practical terms, these commands are identical."
"In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife; but in order to elicit obedience through this promise, Christianity must convince men that they need salvation, that there is something to be saved from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy man living in a natural, intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, man is sinful and helpless in the face of God, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation."George Smith, Atheism The Case Against God, pages 308-310.
"Now the great intellectual movement of the classical world under the Principate was towards supernaturalism; that is religion, mysticism and magic. There was nothing new about these. All went back to primitive times. Mystery cults had flourished in Greece from about 500 on and probably earlier if the record were complete." "But under Rome, those who exploited the human love of the marvelous and fear of the unknown made striking advances in methods.... They found it added to their following and advanced their own power, glory and wealth to flourish a body of sacred writings wherewith to confound the heathen; to promise lavish rewards and punishments after death, in order to right the injustices of earthly life; to set up a tightly knit, far flung conspirational organization; to expound a verbose and seemingly logical body of spiritual doctrine; to impose a fixed code of morals and taboos-some reasonable, some purely arbitrary-on their followers; and most of all, to incite a fanatical hatred of rival groups and a grim determination to win the world to one's faith." "With these techniques, the priests, prophets, and magicians could more effectively compete for public attention and support..." "The success of a cult depended upon its fidelity to these principles. This success, needless to say, had nothing to do with the objective truth of its doctrines, any more than the success of modern advertising campaign has to do with the virtues of the cigarette or detergent being sold." "Of the mass religions, Christianity made the most effective use of these principles. Possessed of the tightest organization, the most bewildering logic, the most impressive sacred literature, and the most fanatical spirit of any, it captured the Principate while Christians were still a small minority in the Empire. Then armed with the terrifying doctrines of exclusive salvation, eternal damnation, and the imminent end of the world, and backed by the Emperor's executioners, it soon swept its rivals from the board."
"I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes..." Jesus, Matthew 11:25
"To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but to those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand..." Jesus, Mark 4:11-12
"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.' ...Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe...God choose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise." Paul, 1 Corinthians 1:18-27
"Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of the world is folly with God." Paul, 1 Corinthians 3:18-19
"The gospel is the story of God told from His perspective, to His glory. Only God is bigger than the gospel. At first it sounds like a foolish paradoxical mystery. And so we try to make it sound more rational, believable and sane. It is not. The gospel is neither rational nor irrational but transrational."
"Truth holds hands with mercy since we must humbly confess that Truth was a gift of God revealed to us by grace and believed by faith. A relationship with the Truth births humble mercy. Truth without humility has not taken root in the soil of the heart. Humility without truth has not taken root in the soil of the head."
"To be free is to be a slave who at last is bought by a master whom loves him."Mark Driscoll, Pastor, Mars Hill Ministry
"I take Him shopping with me. I say, 'OK, Jesus, help me find a bargain'" Tammy Faye Bakker
"The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." Paul, 1 Corinthians 2:14
"Surely you are allowing your zeal for a meaningless life without God to drive you to such silly argumentation."William Kilgore (thinkman@flash.net) in response to a description of Christianity's support of slavery. See the Moral Argument for more information.
"To the Jews I became as a Jew, to win the Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law-though not being myself under the law-that I might win those under the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel..." Paul, 1 Corinthians 9:20-23
"The Roman Church has never erred, nor will it err to all eternity. No one may be considered a Catholic Christian who does not agree with the Catholic Church. No book is authoritative unless it has received the papal sanction..." From the Dictatus of Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085)
"We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides." St Ignatius of Loyola, Exercitia Spiritualia
"The first proposition, that the sun is the center and does not revolve about the earth, is foolish, absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because contrary to Holy Scripture...the second proposition, that the earth is not the center but revolves about the sun, is absurd, false in philosophy, and, from a theological point of view at least, opposed to the true faith." 1615 Inquisition pronouncement, quoted in Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology Volume 1, 1978, Peter Smith Publisher, Inc. Glouchester, Mass. page 137.
"The opinion of the earth's motion is of all heresies the most abominable, the most pernicious, the most scandalous; the immovability of the earth is thrice sacred; argument against the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and the incarnation, should be tolerated sooner than the argument to prove that the earth moves." Jesuit Father Melchior Inchofer (1631), quoted in A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology Volume 1, page 139.
"Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles; the earth has no limbs or muscles, therefore it does not move. It is angels who make Saturn, Jupiter, the Sun, etc., turn around. If the earth revolves, it must have an angel in the centre to set it in motion; but only devils live there; it would therefore be a devil who would impart motion to the earth...""The planets, the sun, the fixed stars, all belong to one species-namely that of stars. It seems, therefore, to be a grievous wrong to place the earth, which is a sink of impurity, among these heavenly bodies, which are pure and divine things."Scipio Chiariamonti, associate of Cardinal Barberini, quoted in A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, Volume 1, page 145.
"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin." Cardinal Bellarmine, during the trial of Galileo in 1615.
Lactantius, a Christian apologist of the 4th century, wrote: "Among those who seek power and gain from religion, there will never be wanting an inclination to forge and lie for it." Quoted by C. Middleton, Misc. Works of Conyers Middleton, D.D., vol. 3, p. 51 (1752)Hermas, an early church father, wrote: "O Lord, I never spoke a true word in my life, I have always affirmed a lie as truth to all men, and no man contradicted me; instead, they all gave credit to my works." Visions of Hermas, vol. 2, c.3.
Gregory of Nazanzius, a 4th century church father and bishop of Caesarea, wrote to St. Jerome: "A little jargon is all that is necessary to impose on the people. The less they comprehend, the more they admire." Quoted by C. Volney, The Ruins, p. 177 (1872).
Angustine of Hippo, the greatest figure in Christian antiquity, wrote: "It is lawful, then, to him that discusses, disputes and preaches of things eternal, or to him that narrates of things temporal pertaining to religion or piety, to conceal at fitting times whatever seems fit to be concealed." Augustine, On Lying, c. 19
http://home.talkcity.com/librarydr/eztoamuse/webdoc4.htm
Floyd E. Hamilton, The Basis of the Christian Faith, 1964, Harper and Row, New York, page 14.
"When the non-Christian scientist or philosopher begins to reason in the field of philosophy or theology, the very nature of the subject matter, dealing as it does with the ultimate causes of the universe, makes it impossible for him to reason correctly. The distortion brought about by the fall of man into sin completely blocks the intellectual channels of the non-Christian thinker and prevents him from reasoning correctly."
"And the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd. And he was buried and rose again; the fact is certain because it is impossible." Tertullian (150-225), De Carne Christi
"As people adopted the new belief that the world was the terrifying realm of the devil, they blamed witches for every misfortune. Since the devil created all the ills of the world, his agents-witches-could be blamed for them. Witches were thought by some to have as much if not more power than Christ: they could raise the dead, turn water into wine or milk, control the weather and know the past and future. Witches were held accountable for everything from a failed business venture to a poor emotional state. A Scottish woman, for instance, was accused of witchcraft and burned to death because she was seen stroking a cat at the same time as a nearby batch of beer turned sour. Witches now took the role of scapegoats that had been held by Jews. Any personal misfortune, bad harvest, famine, or plague was seen as their fault." Ellerbe, page 127
"To relieve labor pains, as Scottish clergymen put it, would be ' vitiating the primal curse of woman...' The introduction of chloroform to help a woman through the pain of labor brought forth the same opposition. According to a New England minister: 'Chloroform is a decoy of Satan, apparently offering itself to bless women; but in the end it will harden society and rob God of the deep earnest cries which arise in time of trouble, for help.' " "Martin Luther wrote, 'If [women] become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth--that is why they are there.' It is hardly surprising that women who not only possessed medicinal knowledge but who used that knowledge to comfort and care for other women would become prime suspects of witchcraft." Ellerbe, page136
"Church father Tertullian explained why women deserve their status as despised and inferior human beings: 'And do you nor know that you are an Eve? The Sentence of God on this set-of yours lives in this age, the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert--that is, death--even the Son of God had to die.' " "Others expressed the view more bluntly. The sixth century Christian philosopher, Boethius, wrote in The Consolation of Philosophy, 'Woman is a temple built upon a sewer.' Bishops at the sixth century Council of Macon voted as to whether women had souls. In the tenth century Odo of Cluny declared, 'To embrace a woman is to embrace a sack of manure...' The thirteenth century St. Thomas Aquinas suggested that God had made a mistake in creating woman: 'nothing [deficient] or defective should have been produced in the first establishment of things; so woman ought not to have been produced then.' And Lutherans at Wittenberg debated whether women were really human beings at all. Orthodox Christians held women responsible for all sin. As the Bible's Apocrypha states, 'Of woman came the beginning of sin/ And thanks to her, we all must die.' " Ellerbe, page115
"...so, based on the example of Sarah, we might define the wife's submissiveness as 'a willing and intelligent yielding to and affirmation of the leadership of the husband, not because he is better or smarter but because she seeks to glorify God by carrying out her role 'in his infinitely wise plan for marriage.'" "I tell couples up front in my pre-marital counseling that if the bride is not willing to say that portion of the vows about submission to her husband, if she thinks that concept is too old-fashioned or outmoded, then the couple needs to look for another pastor to perform their ceremony." "Several years ago a couple came to me asking me to perform their wedding, because the wife had gone to high school with me. I confirmed they were both believers, and it appeared they were very much in love and would be a good match for each other. But when I raised the question about the bride pledging in the ceremony to submit to her husband, the girl balked. We talked about the matter, and I presented the biblical case for submissiveness, explaining that it is not God's means to deprive us of fun by his means to give us the joy and fullness he intended for marriage. But she remained unconvinced, and she said she would have to think for the two weeks until our next session about whether she would vow to submit to her husband and, consequently, whether I would perform their ceremony." "Two weeks later the couple came into the office, and we went through our premarital counseling session. At the end I asked them if they had talked about the vows and if they still wanted by to do their wedding or not. At that moment something special happened. That future bride looked at her future husband and asked, 'Dear what do you think we should do?' And he said, 'I think we should keep the vow in the ceremony.' And the bride-to-be agreed." "I almost wanted to shout with thanks to God for what he had done. From that moment on, I had a great deal more confidence in the survivability of this marriage. What God had done was move the teaching on the wife's submissiveness from that girl's head to her heart. By turning to her future husband to allow him to make the decision, she was beautifully affirming his biblical headship God was pleased, for this bride was showing the quiet and gentle spirit of Sarah." "And so I performed that particular wedding with great joy." Stephen Farish, Pastor, A Word to Wives
"What, then, should be our approach in apologetics? It should be something like this: 'My friend, I know Christianity is true because God's Spirit lives in me and assures me that it is true. And you can know it is true, too, because God is knocking at the door of your heart, telling you the same thing. If you are sincerely seeking God, then God will give you assurance that the gospel is true. Now, to try to show you it's true, I'll share with you some arguments and evidence that I really find convincing. But should my arguments seem weak and unconvincing to you, that's my fault, not God's. It only shows that I'm a poor apologist, not that the gospel is untrue. Whatever you think of my arguments, God still loves you and holds you accountable. I'll do my best to present good arguments to you. But ultimately you have to deal, not with arguments, but with God himself.'" William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, (Revised edition), Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994, p. 48.
"Therefore, when a person refuses to come to Christ it is never just because of lack of evidence or because of intellectual difficulties: at root, he refuses to come because he willingly ignores and rejects the drawing of God's Spirit on his heart. No one in the final analysis really fails to become a Christian because of lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with God. William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, (Revised edition), Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994, pp. 35-36.
"Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter, not vice versa." William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, (Revised edition), Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994, p. 36.
"The Bible says all men are without excuse. Even those who are given no good reason to believe and many persuasive reasons to disbelieve have no excuse, because the ultimate reason they do not believe is that they have deliberately rejected God's Holy Spirit." William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, (Revised edition), Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994, p. 37.
"It is important to get across to the children that, compared to what God knows, what any human knows is almost nothing. Therefore, if we are going to find out the truth about the dinosaurs, or how the world came into existence, or how anything ever got here at all, we need to consult the one who knows everything. Stress to them that no scientist knows everything, but that the Bible tells us God knows everything, so we should go to the Bible to find the answers."Student Excercise: "Have the children use an ink pen to draw a very small dot on a blank page. Then get them to take another blank page, and start making dots all over the page. They can continue doing this for a couple of minutes. Explain to them that the one dot on the page represents how much man knows, but all the other dots they have drawn on the other page are just a start in representing what God knows. Tell them that they could continue making dots FOREVER – and God would still know MUCH more than that. Help them to begin to understand what it means that God has infinite knowledge."D is for Dinosaurs, Christiananswers.net
"Crusaders, caught up in their sense of righteousness, brutally attacked the Church's enemies. Pope Gregory VII had declared, 'Cursed be the man who holds back his sword from shedding blood.' The chronicler, Raymond of Aguilers, described the scene when a band of crusaders massacred both Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem in 1099: 'Wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of the Saracens were beheaded... Others were shot with arrows, or forced to jump from the towers; others were tortured for several days, then burned with fIames. In the streets were seen piles of heads and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere amid the corpses of men and horses. In the temple of Solomon, the horses waded in the blood up to their knees, nay, up to the bridle. It was a just and marvelous judgment of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers.' " "Nicetas Choniates, a Byzantine chronicler, wrote, 'Even the Saracens (the Muslims) are merciful and kind compared to these men who bear the cross of Christ on their shoulders.' " Ellerbe, page65
"By fostering an alienation from sex, birth, and the physical body, orthodox Christians came to focus most intently upon death, not only as a tool to evoke fear but also as an end in itself." "Christian theologians understood sex, at best, to be permissible if engaged in solely for purposes of procreation--at worst, to be a mortal sin. Yet, they also believed that the birthing of a child was an ungodly act. The Church, with its licensed physicians, spurned the field of midwifery. A woman who died in labor or in child-bed was sometimes refused a Christian burial. Purifying or 'churching' a woman for 40 to 80 days after she gave birth was deemed essential if a she was to be readmitted into the Church and proper Christian society. Even the Virgin Mary--in some people's eyes--needed to be purified after having brought Jesus into the world." "Orthodox Christianity encouraged an alienation from the physical body itself. God's presence, it was believed, was not to be found in the physical world. Paul wrote in Corinthians, 'therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.' The Bible affirms that meaningful, spiritual life is found only when one is detached from the physical body: 'For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.' 'For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.' Physical life is equated with sin and spiritual decay, while physical death and a repudiation of physical well-being is thought to bring spiritual life." "A disregard for the well-being of the physical body characterized orthodox Christian behavior from the fall of the Roman Empire when aqueduct systems, bathing houses and hygiene were held in contempt and neglected. Protestants and reformed Catholics attempted to outdo one another in their negligence of bodily hygiene. As the Augustinian priest and chaplain to the King of Poland declared: 'Follow in our Lord's example, and hate your body; if you love it, strive to lose it, says Holy Scripture, in order to save it; if you wish to make peace with it, always go armed, always wage war against it; treat it like a slave, or soon you yourself shall be its unhappy slave.' " Ellerbe, page 159
"Saint Augustine... heartily approves and argues in support of the chronic clerical characteristics of suppressio veri, of suppression or concealment of the truth for the sake of Christian 'edification,' a device for the encouragement of credulity among the Faithful which has run riot through the centuries and flourishes today among the priests and the ignorant pious: 'It is lawful, then, either to him that discourses, disputes, and preaches of things eternal, or to him that narrates or speaks of things temporal pertaining to edification of religion or piety, to conceal at fitting times whatever seems fit to be concealed; but to tell a lie is never lawful, therefore neither to conceal by telling a lie.' (Augustine, On Lying, ch. 19,...) The great Bishop did not, however, it seems, read his own code when it came to preaching unto edification, for in one of his own sermons he thus relates a very notable experience: 'I was already Bishop of Hippo, when I went into Ethiopia with some servants of Christ there to preach the Gospel. In this country we saw many men and women without heads, who had two great eyes in their breasts; and in countries still more southly, we saw people who had but one eye in their foreheads.' (Saint Augustine, Sermon 37; quoted in Taylor, Syntagma, p. 52; Diegesis, p. 271; Doane, Bible Myths, p. 437.)"Quoted from the introduction to Joseph Wheless's Forgery In Christianity, 1930, Psychiana, Moscow, Idaho.
"We may pause a moment to catch a vitutable view which will be of great aid to understanding the mental processes of the ancient writers in their portrayal of events, real or fanciful, which they set about to record as 'history.' These pioneers of historical literature lived in an age of simple-minded credulity, and everything which they saw recorded or heard related, however extravagant and seemingly incredible or impossible, passed all as perfectly good history in their receptive and uncritical minds. Speaking of the legendary, the traditional, the supernatural stories, myths, folk-lore and fables, -- 'in short, everything which seemed to testify to the past,' -- which formed the raw material of the early historians, the Encyclopedia Biblica gives a graphic picture of primitive history-writing, not only Hebraic but Gentilic: 'Their sources, like those of the Greek logographers with whom it is natural to compare them, were poems, genealogies, often representing clan-groupings, tribal and local traditions of diverse kinds, such as furnish the materials for most of the Book of Judges; the historical traditions of sanctuaries; the sacred legends of holy places, relating theophanies and other revelations, the erection of the altar or sacred stone, the origin of popular usages -- e.g. Bethel; laws; myths of foreign or native origin; folk-lore and fable, -- in short, everything which seemed to testify of the past.' 'To us the greater part of this material is not in any proper sense historical at all; but for the early Israelite as for the early Greek historian it was otherwise; our distinctions between authentic history, legendary history, pure legend, and myth, he made as little as he recognized our distinction of natural and supernatural. It was all history to him; and if one part of it had a better attestation than another, it was certainly the sacred history as it was told at the ancient sanctuaries of the land.' 'The early Hebrew historians did not affix their names to their works; they had, indeed, no idea of authorship. The traditions and legends which they collected were common property, and did not cease to be so when they were committed to writing; the written book was in every sense the property of the scribe or the possessor of the roll. Only a part of the great volume of tradition was included in the first books. Transcribers freely added new matter from the same sources on which the original authors had drawn, the traditions of their own locality or sanctuary, variants of historical traditions or legend. Every new copy was thus in some measure a fresh rescension. ... Scribes compared different copies, and combined their contents according to their own judgment or interests. ... Of records or monuments there are but a few traces, and these for the most part doubtful.' (EB. ii, 2075-76.)"Wheless, Forgery In Christianity, Chapter 2
"Away with the one who is always seeking, for he never finds anything; for he is seeking where nothing can be found. Away with the one who is always knocking, for he knocks where there is no one to open; away with the one who is always asking, for he asks of one who does not hear." Tertullian (compare to Matt. 7:7)
"The Bible Corps sends Captain Bible into the Dome of Darkness, a city imprisoned by forces of deception. Armed with his computer Bible, Captain Bible must find his way through seven levels of action adventure, discovering and applying Bible Scripture to defeat lies of deception cybers that block the city's innocent victims from the Truth. Prayer and faith help Captain Bible in his ultimate objective: Destroy the Dome of Darkness." Bridgestone Multimedia Software
More wonderful Christian quotesMartin Luther, the father of Protestantism, dispenses gems of knowledge
R a n d o m
ME: People are afraid, insecure and hopeless because their beliefs force them to be afraid of god, insecure about being born in original sin and hopeless because there's no salvation in this life; wait until the after life for your reward!YOU: Strawman.
False. Deconstruct the dogma and you see that the doctrines state that an individual human is born worthless and in sin; that they know nothing and never can know anything, for wisdom is foolish.
They are taught repeatedly that their suffering in this life will be rewarded in the next and that if they believe "as a child would" they will be saved once they are dead, thus conditioning them to (accept) their living fate with humility and inaction against their oppressors.
They are taught that they should love their neighbor as they love themselves, yet also told that they are full of sin and hubris and self-glorification in God's eyes, which in turn results in them actually loving their neighbors precisely as they love themselves, which is to say, horrifically for the vast majority, particularly those who do not share their beliefs.
They are told to never do as the hypocrites do and pray to their savior in private at the same time they are told to spread the message and do as the hypocrites do.
They are told that works and deeds and fervent belief will get them into heaven and that nothing they do will get them into heaven.
They are told that what they do unto the least of their brothers so they do unto God at the same time they are told that God is separate from them and only reveals himself to a select few; that he is all powerful and vengeful in his infinite love and goodness.
They are told that their savior is a god of peace and love and infinite mercy who comes with a sword and that their souls will go to heaven when they die, unless they are thrown into the lake of fire to burn for all eternity.
They are told he is "Justice" when it is abundantly clear that he is not.
In short, they are told so many contradictory and mutually exclusive lies that they have no real idea at any given moment just exactly what it is they believe in (which is why there are some 20,000 divergent sects throughout the world), except for the anchor/mantra, "Jesus Christ," yet they have no clue who or what this thing truly is; Father, Son, Holy Ghost; a Son of god that is also the Father who came to earth to be sacrificed to himself so that we could all be saved from himself.
Sec Web discussion ("Koyaanisqatsi")
copied 07/15/2002 16:48:06
"Atheism consequence #1 - you are mortal This is really the hardest consequence of atheism for newcomers to deal with. Since the first flicker of consciousness graced the mind of humankind, people have feared death. Pretty much every early civilization invented some way to deal with this fear. Some believed that when you die, you would be reincarnated as some other life form. Others believed you would haunt the Earth as an immaterial, disembodied spectre. Others believed in some form of judgement, where you would enter eternal bliss or eternal punishment depending on your actions during life. All these beliefs share one thing in common - immortality. It's a beautiful concept, there is no more need to fear death, since death really no longer exists. Even in those religions that have a concept of "hell", you still live forever. Granted, you are in pain and agony for all eternity, but you are still alive.""With atheism, this comfortable lie is ripped away, and you are faced with the harsh, inexorable truth - you will die one day. This death will not be a transition between your current life and your next life, it will be the end of everything that is you. It's a scary thought, but after reflecting on it for a while, you will realize something - atheists value and respect life more than religious types, such as Christians. Why? The Christian believes that his death is a beginning, not an end. The atheist recognizes death for what it is - oblivion. We only have a brief time on this planet, we must cherish it while we have it."
http://www.scorbett.ca/writings/religion/atheism.shtml
Why does God deserve praise at all? Did he work or study hard for billions of years to achieve his abilities, overcome great obstacles, fears or stumbling blocks? It doesn't seem that way, sounds like he came with all the magic powers by fiat, like a rich child who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple, big deal that's how he was made or is or whatever. Why praise such a being at all?
Amazing how much mileage Christians get out of a book of Jewish folklore.
Sec Web discussion
copied 05/23/2002 02:09:43
A final note. I am tired of hearing the free will apology. It literally makes no sense, it is irrational. Free will cannot coexist with an omniscient deity, only the illusion of such, simply because before an individual is created (G)od knows the outcome. How many chances given an individual is irrelevant, as (G)od knows that the majority of earth's population will reject his "grace" any number of times and end up in this eternal punishment before they are even created. So please, don't tell me he gives us all a chance, because obviously our choice was known before we were created, yet we were supposedly created nonetheless.Sec Web discussion
copied 05/23/2002 01:54:59
"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a Sunday afternoon."
"Religion is a major weapon in the war against reality."
"Help preserve your child's belief in Santa Claus. Tell him or her that Santa will send them to hell if they don't believe in him."
"Like all religions, the Holy Religion of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based upon both Logic and Faith. We have Faith that She is Pink; we Logically know that She is Invisible, because we can't see Her."
"If the Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust it to tell us where we're going?"
"The pig is taught by sermons and epistles to think that God has snout and bristles."
"I am treated as evil by those who feel persecuted because they are not allowed to force me to believe as they do."
A s s o r t e d P e r s o n a g e s
"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them." "The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma." Abraham Lincoln
"By the same book they proved that nearly everybody is to be lost, and that all are to be saved; that slavery is a divine institution, and that all men should be free; that polygamy is right, and that no man should have more than one wife; that the powers that be are ordained of God, and that the people have a right to overturn and destroy the powers that be; that all the actions of men were predestined -- preordained from eternity, and yet that man is free; that all the heathen will be lost; that all the heathen will be saved; that all men who live according to the light of nature will be damned for their pains; that you must be baptized by sprinkling; that you must he baptized by immersion; that there is no salvation without baptism that baptism is useless; that you must believe in the Trinity; that it is sufficient to believe in God. that you must believe that a Hebrew peasant was God that at the same time he was half man, that he was of the blood of David through his supposed father Joseph, who was not his father, and that it is not necessary to believe that Christ was God; that you must believe that the Holy Ghost proceeded; that it makes no difference whether you do or not; that you must keep the Sabbath holy; that Christ taught nothing of the kind; that Christ established a church; that he established no church; that the dead are to he raised; that there is to be no resurrection; that Christ is coming again; that he has made his last visit; that Christ went to hell and preached to the spirits in prison; that he did nothing of the kind; that all the Jews are going to perdition; that they are all going to heaven; that all the miracles described in the Bible were performed, that some of them were not, because they are foolish, childish and idiotic; that all the Bible is inspired; that some of the books are not inspired; that there is to be a general judgment, when the sheep and goats are to be divided; hat there never will be any general judgment; that the sacramental bread and wine are changed into the flesh and blood of God and the Trinity; that they are not changed; that God has no flesh or blood; that there is a place called "purgatory;" hat there is no such place; that unbaptized infants will be lost; that they will be saved; that we must believe the Apostles' Creed; that the apostles made no creed; that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ; that Joseph was his father; that the Holy Ghost had the form of a dove; that there is no Holy Ghost; that heretics should be killed; that you must not resist evil; that you should murder unbelievers that you must love your enemies; that you should take no thought for the morrow, but should be diligent in business; that you should lend to all who ask, and that one who does not provide for his own household is worse than an infidel."Robert Green Ingersoll, Superstition 1898
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear". from The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
"The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings." H. L. Mencken
"Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing--fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it."Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, 1957, Simon and Shuster, New York, page 22
"All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few." Stendahl
"The Bible is the greatest hoax in all history. The leading characters of the Old Testament would today be in the penitentiary and those of the New would be under observation in psychopathic wards." Charles Smith (1887-1964) U.S. attorney, author
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." Seneca the Younger (4? B.C. - 65 A.D.)
"As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect." Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) U.S. essayist, poet
"If we go back to the beginning we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned or disfigured them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them, and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve its own interests. " Paul Henry Thiry d'Holbach, The System of Nature
"To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is to enjoin an impossibility, for it is to command them to not see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand, and to find what they do not discover." Galileo Galilei, The Authority of Scripture in Philosophical Controversies
"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 quoted in Cardiff's What Great Men Think of Religion
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd Of the two worlds so wisely-they are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn Are Scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, 1947, Random House, New York, page 67
A few great quotes from freethinkers and scientists-from NoBeliefs.com. |
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