Are there any militant secularists on this forum?

[KimberleyChris]

T

Personally I would rather trust my priest than some politician.

I was brought up a Roman Catholic.

I can't remember the last time I was literally speechless.....

Enjoy it everybody, see you later :-)

[northernladuk]

Too right. But you will find alot more good people in church. I have posted a few times about the shortcomings of churchgoers. But they are on average far better people.

Personally I would rather trust my priest than some politician.

PM's fiddle their expenses, priests fiddle with something else. I know who I would rather trust..

[EternalOptimist]

Evil people don't wake up and say 'today I will do some evil'. Evil people wake up and say 'today I will make the world a better place'

[BrilloPad]

PM's fiddle their expenses, priests fiddle with something else. I know who I would rather trust..

MPs are far far more likely kiddie fiddlers than priests. And with priests you are talking about a very very small number.

Its a bit you saying no-one on here should be listened to as pacharan talks nonsense.

It is these sorts of sweeping generalisations that stop people becoming scout leaders. Another opportunity to educate young people lost.

[NotAllThere]

...Myth...all myth....

What do you mean by myth?

That Jesus never existed?
That he did exist and the stories about him were made up or inflated?
That he's a construct, an idealisation for the focus of faith?

You won't find many historians who'll give credence to the idea that there was no such man.

btw - there was no small army of clerks writing down his words. The earliest possible date for the gospel writings is around 70AD - some 40 years afer Jesus' death. Some of what was written down will have come, most likely, from people remembering what he said, and telling it to one another. Eventually, someone thought - hey, this is good stuff, and decided to write it down. The gospel of Luke is written in such a way to give the impression it was written as a result of wanting to get down things on record - that Luke went and spoke to eye witnesses, asking them what they remembered, what they'd seen, and then he wrote it all down.

I don't know where you're getting your theories from, but they're far off mainstream historical and biblical scholarship.

[EternalOptimist]

And with priests you are talking about a very very small number.

Its a bit you saying no-one on here should be listened to as pacharan talks nonsense.

no. you are missing the point.
it's not so much the original crime, it's the cover up, denial and heaping the blame onto the victims to squirm out of any responsibility

a betrayal of trust.

with politicians, who trusts them in the first place ?

[BrilloPad]

with politicians, who trusts them in the first place ?

I dont think most people care if they trust politicians or not as long as they have football on a flat screen TV.

[EternalOptimist]

I can still remember all the words and tunes from the hymns we used to sing at scool assembly. Even though I never had any faith - it all sunk in and stuck

I suppose it would be like you knowing all the words to 'the red flag' or the Horst Wesel song.

[KimberleyChris]

What do you mean by myth?

That Jesus never existed?
That he did exist and the stories about him were made up or inflated?
That he's a construct, an idealisation for the focus of faith?

You won't find many historians who'll give credence to the idea that there was no such man.

btw - there was no small army of clerks writing down his words. The earliest possible date for the gospel writings is around 70AD - some 40 years afer Jesus' death. Some of what was written down will have come, most likely, from people remembering what he said, and telling it to one another. Eventually, someone thought - hey, this is good stuff, and decided to write it down. The gospel of Luke is written in such a way to give the impression it was written as a result of wanting to get down things on record - that Luke went and spoke to eye witnesses, asking them what they remembered, what they'd seen, and then he wrote it all down.

I don't know where you're getting your theories from, but they're far off mainstream historical and biblical scholarship.

Well, it's only my opinion .... that is all.

I would opt for a mixture of 2 and 3. A myth is not a lie. Whoever compiled the New Testament was not 'lying' about the life and times of Jesus.

I believe that a man existed. He taught an early version of reform Judaism, and really upset the established religious machine that ran the temple heirarchy etc.

He was physically unremarkable in a crowd, so much so that they had to pay Judas to identify him to the temple guards.

However, I believe that his identity was hijacked by later authors, and the movement headed by Paul of Tarsus, who projected their aspirations and ethics onto his memory.

The religion then spread within the Roman Empire, then at its zenith, and was embellished further after it reached Rome itself.

It would be impossible now to go back to meet the man himself, and from that point on it is a question of belief...not fact.

Was he a man?, was he God on Earth?, did he gradually reveal his divine origins, or did he become just more and more deluded? We will never know.

To me, the real message of his life is this: "Even if God exists; and no matter how close you feel to him, when they crucify you, he will always let you down and leave you hanging there".

[BrilloPad]

I can still remember all the words and tunes from the hymns we used to sing at scool assembly. Even though I never had any faith - it all sunk in and stuck

I suppose it would be like you knowing all the words to 'the red flag' or the Horst Wesel song.

I hope if we do follow the disestablishmentarianism path we can keep Jerusalem!