Malachi 2:2-3
If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name,” says the LORD Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.“Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it.
Discuss.
Ding, dang, dung.
Why is it always the dung?
The Lord had quite the kinkish fetish.
I wonder where he got his cakes baked?
So, God here is saying that “the beatings will continue until you learn to love me to my own satisfaction”?
Why would anyone choose to worship a demon like this? This seems only about demanding that people just submit themselves to Stockholm Syndrome.
Fuck this bullshit “god”.
@3 sounds like today’s modern day Republican Party. Scary.
Absolute dribble! It’s all just a bunch of made-up crap.
5
Should be “drivel,” not “dribble.” Too much basketball lately.
Daily Kos did its own fine version of the HA Bible Study recently:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....chlesinger
There was a moment between WWII and the end of the Cold War, somewhere on our way to the moon maybe, where most people recognized that modernity and the Bible were incompatible.
Since then we’ve regressed into Biblical nostalgia. In 1988, Pat Robertson was a fringe/joke candidate who had to deny that he would try to let God run the country, now enter Ted Cruz. But the cartoon character quality of folks like Cruz makes me think this has all been a forced, “secondary,” willful nostalgia.
I just wonder how much further wacko bird Christianity has to go before the tide starts to turn back to modernity in a massive way.
@7 I think the tide has turned, last week, give it a little more time.
Curses and dung? And a majority of Americans still buy this nonsense.
I wonder if this is where Kim Il Sung got the idea of “three generations of punishment”?
(If you don’t know what that means, in North Korea, if someone commits a political offense, not only does s/he go to the gulag, but all of his/her relatives plus their children and grandchildren also are punished, because Kim decreed it takes three generations of purging to get rid of the “bad seed.” This is explained in Blaine Hardin’s book, “Escape from Camp 14.”)
@7 Apart from issues of literalism, plausibility, and modernity, many modern Christians — especially fundies and those on the political right — fail to grasp these basic concepts about Christianity:
(1) The Christian Bible consists of two separate and distinct books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, which can be accurately described as pre-Christ and Christ-based.
(2) The Old Testament is full of language approving of cruelty and savagery: Tribal warfare, conquering and enslaving peoples, subjugating women and children, stoning adulterers, killing gays, etc.; while the New Testament preaches a doctrine of love, forgiveness, and redemption, under which the Savior embraces society’s lepers, outcasts, prostitutes, and criminals. From this, it should be clear that the Old and New Testaments are fundamentally incompatible with each other.
(3) According to Christian belief, the Christian God sent Christ The Redeemer to this world to send all the bad stuff of the Old Testament packing.
(4) Consequently, if you quote the Old Testament to justify war, slavery, punishing adulterers and aborters, killing gays, etc., then you are rejecting Christ and his teachings. This, of course, flies over the heads of the fire-and-brimstone Bible thumpers, because they don’t comprehend their own religion.
@7 Toward the end of the enlightenment it was believed by many that god had died. Then there was 1776 and all that and then there was the this great awakening. Ever since then the converts have been trying to convince everyone else we are a Christian nation as the founders intended.
Actually if Goldy had included verse 1 we would all have been told that this verse specifically applies to the priests. Folks like Jerry Falwell. And or false prophets. In fact the proper context is very political and is all about Israel and the threats against it. Still the current Prime Minister doesn’t quote from the book.
@11: They’ve painted themselves into a corner. You have to be able to lie/rationalize to yourself all the stuff in the Book that might have worked alright in some community of thousands out in the desert, 3000 years ago, that doesn’t work so well in a modern civilization of billions all over the world, not to mention “all the stuff that contradicts the other stuff” in the Book itself.
Joseph Campbell took this on. His argument was that modern society now encompasses most of the world, transmits advanced science, the expectation of relative individual rights/freedom, rapid global travel/communications, etc. but it can offer only broken, old-school systems of mythological symbols to hold everything together.
Campbell proposed the idea of “creative mythology,” each person having their experience and finding the best symbols (from the wealth of what’s available today to everyone) to understand and transmit it. This wasn’t a religion, in which you try to adopt mythological systems wholesale and adjust reality to fit what you believe. And, interestingly, this also wasn’t the sourpuss-style of atheism of the likes of Richard Dawkins–these seem to be two ways of thinking we’re stuck with today, all sort of devoid of imagination.
Campbell’s was a humanistic vision of the arts as the source of modern “myths to live by.” That lots of folks were/are afraid of this idea, and would rather cling to their guns and Old Tyme Religion, is what keeps pushing us into the Bizzaro World, whose center really will not hold long term. In the game of belief, reality always wins.
Happy Easter.
the bible quoting is getting rather old here.
why not quote the Koran?
why always leave that book out?
seems kind of one sided to hit on the bible only.
@11 These are valid points though Christians have never put the old testament to bed. There are three other points that should be made:
1. Often bible quotes are taken out of context (todays quote is taken out of context) and one should read the surrounding verses.
2. Some versus are not as they originally were written. Some are indeed forgeries. Some a lazy scribe made a mistake making it mean something else or meaningless. Some things are slanted for a particular audience perhaps Roman or Jewish. And translation is not a harsh mistress depending on the translator.
3. A great deal of the bible doesn’t pass todays rigorous scholarly even journalistic requirements. While other competing religious texts are subjected to more scrutiny the Bible is not, unless your in Saudi Arabia and the Koran is revered and the bible is ridiculed and you aren’t allowed to even have a bible.
“expectation of relative individual rights/freedom, ” -um, that’s not really true. large portions of the world deny individual rights or freedom, and I mean, the masses there not just the governments.
and this personal hodge podge of personal mythmaking? sounds like the fremont solstice smorgasbord. very patchouli. sure, let’shave some odin, some mardi gras, oh wait throw in a bhudda, but not really meaning it. Center for Spiritual Hashstew.
Why is that any better than old style religion? To go around saying “these are my personal myths, but I don’t really believe them like THAT” means you are not getting what religion is …..it’s not about just us, is what it is, it’s the explanation of the whole universe so to say “sure, if you think a MaryOdinKrishna is the goddess you like, who am I to say that’s silly” is just plain silly.
at the bottom of all of this is the question, why are some things right, and some wrong. I debate endlessly with those who claim to not believe in any form of spirituality yet claim to be able to justify right and wrong based only on rationality, or science or something. yet in the end, there is no “reason” why blowing up the world can be viewed as morally wrong, based on science or rationality. ergo, there’s something more out there or something more to this universe — while I can’t tell you what it is I feel it. I cannot believe I am a collection of atomic dust. if you really believe that’s what you are, you have no moral basis upon which to say someone shouldn’t murder you. iow your belief in justice or morality whatever is as faith based as a die hard religious nut’s belief in their religion.
if we are all just atomic dust, hitler is someone you can’t condemn — it’s just your personal view. behind the ever broadening acceptance of the western view of individual rights/freedom there is a notion of justice or morality. how do you arrive at it based on rationalit alone? rationality does not care if the entire world blows up in a nuclear holocaust, or if the dinosaurs come back because we exterminate ourselves thru climate change.
now then, stop the ez peazez old testament chuckling mocking and discuss THAT.
@15 Of course what is left out is the bible was written over a 1500 year period, with some parts older and parts newer, in a dynamic part of the world. With varying degrees of influence from the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans and others.
It is not the product of a community in a desert, but from a community that has transitioned to farming and transitioned to cities. It’s as much stories of city states as just religion.
Modern society hasn’t escaped slavery, hunger, fear, death and all the things men have faced for 200,000 years or more on the plains of Africa and elsewhere. It’s rather amazing we made it to building cities which are entities in some ways unto themselves.
I’ve been to Pompeii and Rome and frankly we have much more to connect to there. In Pompeii the remains of the apartments and stores are amazingly urban and would fit in well in todays American cities. While we do go around speaking of Cicero and other Roman writers that entity laid out more of todays modern world than Israel. Just by some accident that Christianity became the Empire’s religion. Still it almost didn’t become the dominant religion of the Gaul’s, the Britton’s, or in particular the Vikings.
@17 Yes, better to have a “moral certainty” as a reason to blow up the world and destroy people’s lives. Have you seriously ever considered what has been done in the name of religion? And before you give us any of that “that’s the work of the misguided” clap-trap, no it’s not. When you start brainwashing children to believe illogical nonsense as fact or “morality” they can justify anything. And do.
@17
When the plague virus first infects its victim it does not do so on any moral basis. It’s basically immoral or has no morals. It doesn’t even act in a manner that is logically in it’s self interest. Still the virus in infecting the victim insures that it can be passed on to other victims while the first victim lives and for some time after the victim dies. Ultimately it’s composed of star dust as we are.
If it’s not bendable to our morality then perhaps our concept of morality is wrong.
There have been several times we have come close to atomic war. Once was because of a 10 cent transistor. No god or aliens stopped world wide annihilation just some old fashion common sense and patience. Believe me some folks were freaking out in all kinds of human ways. Yet atomic war almost happened over a 10 cent transistor made of silicon and ultimately star dust. As was all the components and even all the fissile or fusion material in the bombs are from stardust. Though obviously our vanity for building these things may have come to bite us in the ass.
So do you condemn Hitler. Not very Christian of you if you do. Though some would argue if he committed suicide (and the point has been argued he didn’t) that means he can’t go to heaven or maybe go to purgatory. Yet there is plenty of evidence the man believed in God and was a Christian. So if he believed in Jesus as God’s only begotten son can you explain why he is not in heaven and condemned to hell?
Happy Easter and Passover :)
Signed, a believer in God
not xian but it was not by “some accident” that christianity swept over so much of the world. it’s key message that each person has worth in the eye of god is kind of ….more attractive than say. we have to kill someone to appease odin so our war party conquers well over in the faroe islands or something.
are you really claiming it’s a coincidence it swept over pagan religions? it’s just a coincidence romans went for it, they could have just as easily decided to adopt Judaism?
as for “things men have faced for 200,000 years or more” — I think you mean millions of years.
and tell me this, why are you concerned with death, enslavement, fear etc. if we are all just collections of dust atoms that thru luck, more or less, have consciousness? wouldn’t that mean me stepping on an ant, is like that kid in king county who killed that whole family?
what’s the difference morally unless you posit some special value for human beings? a value not posited on science or rationality or “this is how it all evolved and developed?”
Ima:
I agree blowing up the world is immoral. the question was, WHY?
I agree much of what was done is done in name of religion is immoral. the question is WHY? why is it “wrong” to kill people — you cannot arrive at the conclusion it is wrong based on rationality or science alone.
I agree most of what is religion is silly brainwashing of children to believe illogical nonsense as fact..
But you and I do not call it “morality” to justify the positoin, it would be wrong, to blow up the earth. we call it morality. We are certain it is wrong.
how do you get to that position without believing there is something extra special about human life, that’s we’re not just a collection of atomic dust? you can’t get there without that one key step…..so this means you like me have some form of whatever you want to call it, spirituality or …..hold on….religion.
a faith based thing you believe despite the fact you can’t get there on rationality alone.
discuss THAT.
YellowPup farted… “all the stuff that contradicts the other stuff” in the Book itself.
From the Bible alone, please describe these contradictions YellowPup… Or as Puddy surmises you get your Biblical facts and conversations from left wrong web site BULLSHITTIUM… stuff that comes out of the arschlochs of libtards!
Ima:
I agree blowing up the world is immoral. the question was, WHY?
I agree much of what was done is done in name of religion is immoral. the question is WHY? why is it “wrong” to kill people — you cannot arrive at the conclusion it is wrong based on rationality or science alone.
I agree most of what is religion is silly brainwashing of children to believe illogical nonsense as fact..
But you and I do not call it “morality” to justify the positoin, it would be wrong, to blow up the earth. we call it morality. We are certain it is wrong.
how do you get to that position without believing there is something extra special about human life, that’s we’re not just a collection of atomic dust? you can’t get there without that one key step…..so this means you like me have some form of whatever you want to call it, spirituality or …..hold on….religion.
a faith based thing you believe despite the fact you can’t get there on rationality alone.
discuss THAT.
same comments to mark. I am not christian and obviously hitler thinking he was etc. is not addressing my point. it’s this. try again.
you and I think hitler was bad. because, took life wantonly and evilly. now, how do you get to the conclusion he was bad without positing “humans lives have value and should not be spent in crazy genocidal maniac’s warmongering.” you cannot get to the PREMISE — life has value — with science or rationality alone as under the views of science it has no value. science does not care if all people are wiped out in a nuclear catastrophe; the same amount of matter and energy whatever is here after as before.
iow your belief in right and wrong is faith based in some deep sense.
iow you share a belief of most humans thruout all history there’s something more out there. it’s not all just rocks, dust, a molecule, a bigger one. a human is a set of molecules with no extra intrinsic value is that what you think?
then you have no logical basis upon which to conclude hitler was “bad.”
discuss THAT.
(1) The Christian Bible consists of two separate and distinct books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, which can be accurately described as pre-Christ and Christ-based.
John 1:1-4 destroys the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit fart #1!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
So senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit what does “In the beginning” mean?
(2) The Old Testament is full of language approving of cruelty and savagery: Tribal warfare, conquering and enslaving peoples, subjugating women and children, stoning adulterers, killing gays, etc.; while the New Testament preaches a doctrine of love, forgiveness, and redemption, under which the Savior embraces society’s lepers, outcasts, prostitutes, and criminals. From this, it should be clear that the Old and New Testaments are fundamentally incompatible with each other.
This destroys the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit fart #2! Since Christ was in the Beginning – Man was made by Jesus Christ… Sin came into the world through the one you choose to follow. Noah gets the design of the boat from Jesus Christ… Abram and Sarai meeting Jesus Christ the year before having Issac… Abraham finds the ram in the thicket through Jesus Christ… The sanctuary was handed to Moses by Jesus Christ… The 10 Commandments were handed down by Jesus Christ… Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by Jesus Christ… And there is way more… Like Isaiah speaking to Jesus Christ… Like Nebuchadnezzar hearing to voice of Jesus Christ and his animal-like life for seven years! Daniel praying to Jesus Christ and the angel saying He had heard is prayer… etc. etc. etc.
The one brain cell you possess is fundamentally incompatible with FACTS!
(3) According to Christian belief, the Christian God sent Jesus Christ The Redeemer to this world to send all the bad stuff of the Old Testament packing.
Wrong again senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit!… This destroys the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit fart #3! Jesus Christ came to fulfill all Old Testament prophecy. That’s why the Sabbath was observed by Jesus Christ. The rich young ruler told Jesus he followed all the 10 Commandments.
(4) Consequently, if you quote the Old Testament to justify war, slavery, punishing adulterers and aborters, killing gays, etc., then you are rejecting Christ and his teachings. This, of course, flies over the heads of the fire-and-brimstone Bible thumpers, because they don’t comprehend their own religion.
Wrong again senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit!… This destroys the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit fart #4! Since Jesus Christ was there from the beginning and Christ met Saul on the Damascus road and corrected S/Paul in the things right and Paul then wrote to all the cities in the “known world” about sin and it’s consequences… Like gays in Romans, etc… there is no conflict except in early onset senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbits!
Incredible Biblical lies and BULLSHITTIUM from the senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit!
Puddy realizes this is way over the heads of atheists because the things of God are not understood by hateful beings such as y’all
Israel went whoring after other gods…
Judges 2:17: And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the LORD; but they did not so.
God figuratively marries Israel as his bride!
Isaiah 54:5: “For your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is His name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth.”
Hosea 2:16: “In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.”
Hosea 2:19-20: “I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.”
Go back and look at Deut 28!
@25 There are a great many people who have been taught nothing more than all humans have worth and deserve compassion and respect. Why? For no other reason than their own well being and the well being of their offspring. No supreme being involved. And they are productive and happy citizens. Now, as we have clearly seen in recent years, there is a great deal we understand about the universe and a great deal we don’t. And I don’t discount the idea there are many deep mysteries. But to put the mysteries of existence in the context of such primitive understanding is to sell humans short and freeze us in time. Just one example, DNA is the road map of evolution. Yet, evolution is rejected by many because it doesn’t support the bible. Can you imagine if research were stopped fifty years ago for this reason?
Ahhh yes that old adage… evolution!
Puddy doesn’t buy the argument man evolved from Apes… Butt, the teabaggin buttbusting BULLSHITTIUM buttbigot gorilla thinks so. Therefore Puddy will allow him to continue to think that. Puddy believes Jesus Christ created the heavens and the earth!
@29…
Maybe the shrieking harpie HR nightmare puddyfuckwad believes in the holy trinity like the papists do, but if he doesn’t he’s a heretic.
Jesus H. Christ didn’t create shit.
“Maybe the shrieking harpie HR nightmare puddyfuckwad believes in the holy trinity like the papists do, but if he doesn’t he’s a heretic.”
As I recall, Puddy believes the Vatican to be the Angel of Death, a bad-assed, feathered winged serpent with seven heads, or something like that.
It seems to me it’s far more likely somebody slipped Ellen White some Psilocybe Mexicana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatl
@31…
Good one Steve!
@22
I do hold that it’s by a series of fortuitous accidents that Christianity became so large. This is true of Islam, Judaism, and of any of the major religions. Amazingly Christianity has some significant anti-political threads.
Why didn’t the Chinese or the Indians spread one of their religions across the world? It wasn’t by design that they didn’t. The messages in them still boil down to individual belief in part that man is special. That man is more than an animal. People have difficulties when reading Greek thoughts like man being a political animal.
The ten commandments are pretty Babylonian yet one considers Greek or Roman law most or all are there. Developed independently.
Why didn’t Montezuma defeat the Spanish and conquer all of Europe? Got nothing to do with God.
My point is whether Hitler was bad or evil or not according to the bible the man is clearly in heaven. This supposed monster of the 20th century is there. Do the angels avoid him? Can you avoid him for an eternity? Then again maybe there isn’t a heaven or you are just dead.
Yep life has a value. All the chemical components of a human are worth something. It was a about 6 bucks about 10 years ago. I suppose the dinosaurs had value as they were living beings, perhaps some had achieved intelligence and could think their individual lives had value. Not that a comet or space rock cared, or whatever natural reason led to their extinction, wonder if some kind of global climate change was involved. Mother earth don’t care. Other human beings care because we are social animals and we are social animals who are political. We car about who gets what when and where. Then we try to figure out why when maybe there is no other why than we are here. Some religions do use that as a basis rather than a god.
We are however the first species to have the ability to kill most of us right off the face of the planet along with most other life. We can do it fast or slow in fact and there is that old friend called unexpected consequences. Science does provide insight and answers. Religion may provide good feelings but so does a good hand job. Since we are social animals we must have morals as do any member of a wolf pack or lions pride. We have a great responsibility. Perhaps we have wisdom, perhaps not, but we cannot depend on wishful thinking to keep us from being human. God does not keep us from indulging in losing control and going to war. The most likely place there could be an atomic war today is Pakistan and India for religious and non religious and mainly because they hate each other yet in many aspects they are the same people. Not much we are going to be able to do if they go for each other throats and one goes for the button. Guess we will see which theories of atomic warfare are correct. The soviet belief shared by some westerners that nuclear warfare can be contained or mutual annihilation. Maybe something in between. Or is god or this life thing going to intervene? We have a very serious problem and we can’t just take the bad toys away from those nations.
Obviously our religions have not kept up with todays reality. Nor are they helpful when they justify the killing of 170 Kenyans at a university, even though the participants belong to one the Abrahamic branches with that Thou shalt not kill law from god.
Just in time for Easter.
“A Georgia teacher — whose husband sits on the school board — is under fire for telling her students that President Barack Obama isn’t a Christian, and if their parents voted for him they are not Christians either, reports WMGT…
She also reportedly challenged her students to “prove their Christianity”.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201.....for-obama/
Hey Stupid Solution Steve… Read and Weep! http://www.remnantofgod.org/666-char.htm
AND…
PuddyCommentary: Direct from the Catholic Church! Was that from Ellen White? NOPE cuz Stupid Solution Steve and his slovenly traveler rujaxoffallthetimestillprovingnuthinappears, the DOPE of HA has no knowledge of anything worthwhile!
@22 So explain plague?
Explain that 10 cent transistor?
Why is it these small things had or could have such large consequences. They are random. They are random events.
The beginning of WWI was triggered by a random event. It didn’t have to happen and with a bit more adroit diplomacy could have been avoided, only the we will be home by Christmas crowd won out. Even the Christmas truce couldn’t bring about sanity. Perhaps without that event the delicate European peace could have continued on with Great Britain as the worlds greatest power for decades. No communist Russia. The United States a backwater or perhaps colossus in the New World with new states in Cuba, Mexico and Puerto Rico with 1500 representatives in the House. Yet today we are still dealing with the outcome of that misbegotten war particularly in the middle east. At least the Ottomans knew how to keep peace internally.
Surely we’ll hear something presidential out of the wingnut presidential candidates about what’s been going on.
“Rick Santorum quotes ‘God Hates Fags’ slogan on national TV to defend ‘religious freedom’ laws”.
“Bobby Jindal’s Bizarro World: My religion ‘teaches’ tolerance, but Christians ‘face discrimination’”
“Huckabee blames ‘militant gay community’ for backlash against Indiana’s ‘religious freedom’ law”
http://www.rawstory.com/
Damn.
@23 The universe will not care a whit if we blow up this world. Though in all probability it would just be another great extinction. Though a small green lizard many tens of lights years from here listening to his new transistor radio picking up NPR or his or hers favorite rock and roll channel from Earth hears spate of emergency messages and then nothing will be undoubtedly disappointed, but will still be able to copy that last transmission and use it to deeply disturb their parents.
@17: “and this personal hodge podge of personal mythmaking? sounds like the fremont solstice smorgasbord. very patchouli. sure,”
Campbell was actually talking about something different: finding and living the truth using the images of mythology, with conscious understanding of what they are (images, metaphors) and what they mean. The neo-pagans got it all wrong. It’s actually more academic than it sounds.
On morality, do you really need someone or some book to tell you that blowing up the world, or killing/hurting others is wrong? If so, what’s the matter with you? Only a real sociopath has no human compassion.
Ima: I did not say there was One Supreme Being, or that it thought, or cared, or anything like that.
I said simply that believe life has value means we’re not just a collection of dust and there is “something more” or “something out there” — I don’t think we know what it is. Call it spirituality, call it the universal life energy force, whatever. I didn’t call it a Supreme Being or give it attributes of ourselves (ie, a quasi big person, who cares, thinks, whatever.). Please reread what I said and focus on the issue presented:
if you can’t get to a believe that life has value
that killing is oft immoral
through science or rationality
then there’s SOMETHING you are believing that is not RATIONAL ergo you are taking some kind of faith based step. and logically you can’t get to the conclusion life has value — not just that tons of teachers taught this, but that it’s fundamentally TRUE at some deep level — without really crossing that line into what might be called “religion” though to be sure, you’re not going into the big bearded guy in the sky, mohammed, trinity, the catholic church nor the crusades, inquisition, jihad, etc. but you’re going into the field of what we call religion. belief based on faith — some belief about the whole kebang — not based on science.
now mark, you’re also just not responding, you’re dodging and weaving and brining up things that do not affect my logical train of thought. you say “So explain plague?” Um, it’s a disease, there, it’s explained. You mean why would god allow plague? I never said there was a god, or a something with a heart or caring so there’s no quandary. “Explain that 10 cent transistor?” Um, you’re talking gibberish, a small thing can have big impacts, okay? “Why is it these small things had or could have such large consequences. They are random. ” Because of random events and laws of physics, obviously. “The beginning of WWI was triggered by a random event.” so what? ” It didn’t have to happen and with a bit more adroit diplomacy could have been avoided, only the we will be home by Christmas crowd won out. ” Yes, humans caused that war. so what? “Even the Christmas truce couldn’t bring about sanity. Perhaps without that event the delicate European peace could have continued on with Great Britain as the worlds greatest power for decades. No communist Russia. The United States a backwater or perhaps colossus in the New World with new states in Cuba, Mexico and Puerto Rico with 1500 representatives in the House. Yet today we are still dealing with the outcome of that misbegotten war particularly in the middle east. At least the Ottomans knew how to keep peace internally.”
this is somewhat typical of how some people react when confronted with a new argument, they don’t know how to respond to — they just go way out the window off kilter so to speak. And I didn’t say the “universe” would care. What I am saying is this, pay close attention:
You think it would be “bad” if the earth was blown up in a nuclear holocaust. yet, rocks and atomic dust would remain, so why would it be bad? Let Dr. No have his evil way, the rocks don’t care. But WE DO. we “know” in our bones, so to speak, that that is wrong, and evil.
Now, as a rational person who is against all religion as being just superstitution, essentially, how do you justify your moral stance that that kind of wanton destruction is wrong?
you. can’t.
you have to posit we have some “value” above our status as atomic dust swirls.
ergo, you have some faith based belief yourself. I myself believe that this “value” is a reflection of something you can call “divine” in each of us. I think what hitler wanted to do in wiping out Jewry is massive evil; it’s not like the anaconda copper company wanting to wipe out all the copper rocks in their big mine in chile. You me the other guy, can’t explain why a holocaust of people is evil without some external not deus ex machina but some “value” we find in people or life whic to me means we are saying there is some spiritual or divine type value in life. so in sum, we’re not the leftist rationalists we think we are.
that’s all. didn’t say this value or force whatever is a person type thing or thinks or cares or demands we say this prayer or that one.
by the way if you guys would read up on this stuff you’d know my theory isn’t original to me. it’s been thought of before. anyway I thought the stupid bible quoting was getting a bit banal and easy pickings, look ma, right wingers are dumb, blah blah so lazy, so this easter day (referring to a calendar here, not my belief) wanted to spice it up. Ima, Mark et al:
you’re not just atomic dust swirls.
now go forth and act like you have some goodness in you. I think you know you do!
@37 I wrote that up here: http://handbill.us/?p=48746
The old testament is creul and vengeful and brutishly nasty. I am so glad it evolved to the teaching of love and compassion and tolerance of Jesus.
God was cruel and heartless to inflict the punishment of the parents on the children and grandchildren in that story. So much for free will. It would not matter how good and holy the grandson was, he was still cursed. I have a problem with that.
How many of you Celebrated Easter this year?
I did. I went over to a friend’s house and watched their kids hunt for Easter Eggs and load up on chocolate. We BBQ’ed a bunch of steaks, drank whiskey and discussed the nature of the modern psychotic asshole that the Republican party has come to represent. My buddy’s wife is a practicing catholic as she is of Mexican descent.
She and I discussed the subject in the article I just posted above, and we agree that, probably the best thing anyone could do to celebrate the coming of Spring was to plant trees. So it is possible that this is what we’re going to do next year. Hell, the Forest Service hands out the sprigs for free.
While the Christians, Moslems and Jews have taken great steps to rape and pillage the land for their own personal gain, the human race needs to really start thinking in terms of it’s own viability as a species that inhabits a small fragile sphere of rock. Are we a parasitical species or one that has the capability of living within the parameters of the world that we evolved in?
If we are to survive as an intelligent species, we have a responsibility to preserve that habitation just as we do in our homes. It is time for people to realize that the Abrahamic Religions especially have taken extraordinary steps to preserve the idea that the land must be destroyed in order to permit a few individuals to control how people think and also what is considered valuable.
One cannot whine about the condition of one’s front lawn, while simultaneously demanding unfettered access to cheap plastic goods and motor fuels. These ideas are not compatible when water becomes scarce, and one is obligated to preserve one’s habitation first. That would naturally mean that one must forsake cheap plastic crap to preserve our lives.
Of course, Abrahamists hate the idea that we must live with the land. The Abrahamic religions have caused nothing but destruction to it, and expanded their influence on the world by taking active steps to destroy it in the name of personal wealth.
This reminds me of how the United States and Great Britain and the other world powers have always done business with foreign States. They find someone willing to sell out their own people and their own land in exchange for a little political power and economic control. Once that person has been identified, that person is supported militarily and financially until he or she has been placed in a position where they have control of who is allowed to benefit from their association while permitting those foreign powers to continue extracting their own nations natural resources to the point where they are completely gone.
The Romans did this with the Greeks and the Eastern Mediterranean nations and the entire region was stripped of its wealth. It was made “productive” for a short period, and the ultimate result was that it was made into practically uninhabitable desert. 2000 years later the effects of that are still highly visible. They stripped out the forests, the minerals and the topsoils were destroyed by cattle and overfarming. Once that wealth was destroyed, the land itself died, and the Empire followed only a few generations later. The wealth generated was consolidated and concentrated into the hands of the few people that were able to position themselves into positions of political power during that period when it was being exploited.
That is where we got the Medicis and the Hapsburgs. That is where the Roman Catholic Church comes from. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the preservation of cultural traditions or worship of a deity such is they tell the rubes and the laborers. It is all about preserving that paradigm of permission to systematically rape the land until it is a whimpering mess in the corner who can no longer fight back or even say no. But that rape victim eventually does something like die, or reaches a moment of being able to fight back and it responds in the only way it can succeed. That is, by totally destroying their victimizers or the parasites.
The human race is that victimizer. The Earth is beginning to respond to that. It will either die, or destroy the parasite. California is the modern example of the moment.
Or conversely, the parasite can learn to live with the host and stop destroying it.
It seems to me, that the best and most natural means of Celebrating the coming of Spring, is to plant trees or other green things, and take steps to mitigate the damage we cause to our host. Because that host is being bled dry, and it is much bigger than we are.
@15
Goldy does not criticize Islam because he fears some fundamentalist Muslim slitting his throat. If he could get away without being killed, Goldy would have posts about the Koran here as well as this Old Testament stuff.
43. Good post
“Goldy does not criticize Islam because he fears some fundamentalist Muslim slitting his throat. If he could get away without being killed, Goldy would have posts about the Koran here as well as this Old Testament stuff.”
Goldy doesn’t criticize Islam because of fears that he will get his throat slit? You are either ignorant of the fact that Goldy has posted cartoons on this blog he’s drawn of Muhammed, or you’re a damned liar.
@ 46
Oh, he’s a damned liar. He’s ignorant too. But as the other “libertarians” who come in here always demonstrate, using factual information tends to destroy their own arguments. They have to lie, otherwise, they’re just blowing Bubbles in the mud. Bubbles is an alright guy, but he isn’t too careful about whose lips he’s got wrapped around his dick.
@46 & 47 – “Ignorant liar” is a good start.
@46 & 47
I don’t read this blog every day, so it’s lilkely I missed Goldy posting some funny cartoons about Islam. Still, Islam offers some pretty good opportunities for those who wish to criticize. Unfortunately, radical Muslims tend to attack those who criticize their religion. Consider the lady who is still in hiding regarding her “draw a pciture of the Prophet Muhammed” day.
Goldy isn’t stupid: he realizes some Isamic crazy might actually come after him should he criticize Islam too much.
Willy and steve, no lies were involved in my post.
“Willy and steve, no lies were involved in my post.”
Just the willingness to make a baseless accusation without having all the facts.
@49: “In which Goldy draws Muhammad”
Also, I don’t post verse from the Koran because it’s not in the Bible, and this is “HA Bible Study” not “HA Koran Study.” I happen to know the Bible, old and new, but I don’t know the Koran. Would have to read it to make fun of it. For a couple months after Romney was nominated I switched to “HA Book of Mormon Study,” which provided plenty of fodder, but my god was it torture reading the Mormon liturgy.
@49 “Still, Islam offers some pretty good opportunities for those who wish to criticize.”
You could say that of humanity in general. If you want to get more specific, you could also allude to Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Americans, Russians, Chinese, Canadians, Germans, French, Brits, yourself, your spouse, your children, your parents and siblings, politicians, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, accountants, cops, teachers, bus drivers, etc. My point being that the political right’s Muslim-bashing is hypocritical, to say the least, not to mention unthinking racist stereotyping … so why do you buy into that shit? And if you don’t then, show us that you don’t …
“Goldy isn’t stupid: he realizes some Isamic crazy might actually come after him should he criticize Islam too much.”
In all probability, he’s at greater risk from “Christian” crazies. (I used quotes because most people who call themselves “Christians” are unrecognizable as such. No small number of them, if Jesus were here today, would grab the stone out of His hand even before He could turn it into bread, in which case they would have themselves an inedible stone.)
@51 “my god was it torture reading the Mormon liturgy”
Aren’t all liturgies? Not that science textbooks are lighter reading …
This weekend my wife (who still suffers from a Catholic upbringing) accused me of being an atheist. I’m not. I was brought up in a Protestant church and have never let go of the Christian doctrine that was inculcated in me as a young bunny. (That’s a major reason why I’m a Democratic Party hack and not a Republican Party hack, because GOP ideology is fundamentally contrary to Christian values in most respects.) But I also want to know how things work; as my law school dean said, “praying is no substitute for studying.” The Bible, for example, utterly failed to predict what would happen if you clap two spheres of enriched uranium together sharply, which strikes me as a rather material omission (now why wouldn’t an all-knowing God know about that?) for Someone purporting to be on a mission to save humanity from itself. So, I’m not a non-Christian; I only have some unanswered questions, that’s all.
http://www.imgbase.info/images.....losion.jpg
@50 & 51,
My intial reponse was to the post at 15. Scroll up and give it a read.
Steve, get some mental health help.
@51 Of course it’s also about politics. The United States is a secular nation and our constitution has nothing for or against any religion. It creates a divide or separation. That divide or separation has been under attack from the Republic’s reception and that attack has consistently been from those religious forces that have political power. Which are nearly always Christians of one or another persuasion. Thankfully due to historical happenstance and a 300 year war and some others in Europe there is no Christendom. The Mormon religion does have real political power in Utah and limited power here in Washington State so is deserving of study from time to time, as would the Church of Scientology should Tom Cruise run for President. A Moslem should be able to run and win the Presidency on his or her own merits and not that of their religion, not likely to happen anytime soon. We haven’t had a Jewish President yet, and John Kennedy won the Presidency despite being Catholic a great day for our United States Constitution and liberal ideas.
When Islam or Judaism become real political players then make it HA Islam but not until then. (Come on Tom Cruise because Ha Dianetics would be fun…only how do we mention the secret parts?)
@40
It does seem that your position is blowing in the wind.
Look life has value, but if you pull out your wallet you probably have something that is paper in it called money. Whether a dollar bill or a pound note it presumable has value. Or does it? Money is a helpful and even necessary fiction. No communist state has abolished money. Sometimes money if frankly only worth the paper that it is. Of course it’s made from dead plant material that is composed mostly of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. While we would cease to exist without plants even some of the smallest make life here possible few would argue that their lives are precious or indeed as valuable as we human beings are. In fact the dominate life form on Earth are bacteria on of which is the plague bacteria they are alive, but do they have even the same right to life as a plant? We of course are also dependent on bacteria because without them in our gut for instance we would starve to death. So hurrah for bacteria. Even hurrah for the plague because it’s might impressive, but I don’t believe it has a particular right to life and I don’t oppose exterminating it. The fact it may survive a nuclear holocaust or comet impact somewhere on Earth is why life on Earth would go on with or without mankind. So how do all the one celled bacteria fit in. t’s likely we will find bacteria eventually somewhere else other than Earth. So are bacteria more than a collection of atoms to you? Are could they be just the result of random events between interactions of stardust? What is their value then?
Then again I could just point out that nihilists certainly disagree with your central point that destroying the Earth with nuclear weapons is morally wrong. Their argument is there is no morality therefore it’s ok to do so or not to do so. It makes no difference.
Back to the original Goldy posting: Malachi was pissed because he was a minor prophet and the priests didn’t listen to him.
“Steve, get some mental health help.”
Hmm, must be Libertarian for, “Steve shit all over my face and now I have to eat it!”
Hmm, let’s review,
Libertarian@44, “Goldy does not criticize Islam because he fears some fundamentalist Muslim slitting his throat.”
Steve@46 “You are either ignorant of the fact that Goldy has posted cartoons on this blog he’s drawn of Muhammed, or you’re a damned liar.”
Libertarian@49, “Willy and steve, no lies were involved in my post.”
Steve@50 “Just the willingness to make a baseless accusation without having all the facts.”
Libertarian@55 “Steve, get some mental health help.”
Yup, I most definitely shit on his face. Excuse me as I LMFAO at this shit-eating, Libertarian loser!
@ 58
So, basically he was the contemporary version of Bryan Fischer?
@58 Don’t know if he thought of himself as a minor prophet, but one might correctly think he didn’t get invited to many of the priests wine parties. Now if he’s been a Greek prophet of doom he’d be blind. No one would listen to the blind prophets prediction and then tragedy would strike and it probably would be a good idea if the blind prophet had moved on to another beach or city.
Sounds like the priests didn’t listen to a lot of things rather like todays politicians and advisors who don’t listen o ignore good intell or are kept in a bubble from the good intell.
@54
Did you see the story on Huffington post about the 4 foot rabbits? So very Easter and totally awesome. I always wanted a Puka, but these guys are pretty darned cool.
Yes. God is being a dick again. Why would anybody give this asshole the time of day?