The Marketing Of Christianity

As I believe it's all a total fabrication, whatever point you're trying to make is mute isn't it?But as a story and a code for life, its core message of 'do as you would be done by' is as good as anything ever written. (Though it's common to pretty much all religions). All the rest is twaddle. But in practice they don't - hence the 30,000 different sects. You all believe something different almost down to a person. I never know what to make of this sort of stuff - it's like being told that I'm being prayed for. All I can do is shake my head in wonder at the silliness of it.I lead a decent life according to my society's principles. That's all that's required of anyone. If that makes me eligible to join the choir invisible fine, if not stuff it. I'm not going to gibber in front of a child molester and con man in a dress just in case.

This is tautology. There appears to be as many Christian beliefs as there are Christians. I always found my mother's beliefs amusing - believed the lot except the bit about the devil. But we're talking about the creed. I'd say it does. Certainly many variants of 'credal christians' say that. The whole intent of the creed is to claim the true god and the way to heaven through it. I'm not interested in the bible here - just the creed. You say you don't believe in the ressurrection, the creed says you must:

Then perhaps you'll tell us precisely what you do and don't believe about the resurrection and ascension? Of which you claim to be a member so what's the objection? Exactly, the assumption is that all will be judged. But the other assumption is that only believers in the one god will make it to the afterlife and that is what is taught by almost all versions of your club. Certainly the liberal attitude of anyone can if they're good enough would have been laughed at a few centuries ago."In one holy catholic and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."One baptism for the remission of sins.....

I'm just reading what is written. It also complies with what I was taught. It's pretty standard stuff. Of course you can. You can support any view you like with interpretation and context and this text and that text. My point. Before I asked you the question I read all your previous posts and I'm still puzzled about what exactly you believe. It's simple enough, did Jesus die, resurrect and ascend into heaven?

I think a lot of people are taught rather too much about Christianity. No doubt you think your knowledge is somehow better than others - and no doubt it often is - but I imagine they think the same. It strikes me as being a lot like driving, everybody says they're better than average. And in any case you can simply make it up if you're stuck.Nevertheless, I think we're on the same page. You think it may be all made up but believe it anyway, I know it's all made up and don't believe a syllable of it. We both probably lead decent lives, so we're both saved. Thank god.Pffnnrrr.......

I was going to reply to your last post to me but this sort of sums it up.It's all pure wishful thinking isn't it? You believe what you want to be true, then find the mechanisms in the religion you're born into to give it credence, add a dash of liberal idealism commensurate with the stage of development of our society and, shezam! everyone gets to go to Christian heaven.Lovely.Sadly it's all garbage as far as Christianity goes, you've polluted it with modernity. What you're talking about is humanism+ or religion-

I know this is supposed to be tongue in cheek, but you don't believe this at all do you? You believe in a fair and open society where we are governed by decent people along principles derived from the 'golden rule'. N'est pas? An objective view - rather than a religious view - would make the resurrecting of Jesus no more impressive than the resurrecting of Lazarus. The obsession with Jewish prophecy is pure superstition and dogma. What you believe is only possible in our Western, modern, democratic, liberal society. At almost any other time in Christian history you would have been burnt for heresey. You beliefs are a product of the society you now live in, nothing more.

I've had discussions were people have claimed that without god we'd all be rapists and mass murderers. It's obvious twaddle. You'd behave perfectly normally - you're influenced by the values of your immediate society and upbringing, not some invisible directing influence up in the clouds. Your beliefs are perfectly normal for a modern, Western democratic country. Outside the USA every Christian I know has the liberal views that you do - though much less obsessed. (The vast majority don't even think about their beliefs outside one hour on a Sunday.)My point is that the positions you take on your religion is a product of the society and time you live in - you could and would not have held them any other time since the crucifixion.

You're simply conflating the absolutely normal civilising processes of human development with a totally unnecessary and unevidenced assertion that these societal changes are god's progressive revelation.The New Testament climaxed with the death of Christ and the forecast of his IMMINENT return to fulfil prophecy. None of that happened. You're clinging on to a 2,000 year old proven mythology.Our development is the result of our own efforts, there's not even a hint of divine intervention - in fact the opposite, had this god of yours wished us to behave better towards each other he would not have set the system in place the way it is.

Of course you do; you want it everyway, when he's wrong he's human, when he's right he's godly. That's flat-out wrong.What is the purpose of creating 10% of the human race with inbuilt psychopathy incapable of empathy? Why make life compete for resource? Why make a food chain with the necessity for carnivores to kill to survive? This has absolutely nothing to do with puppetry or moral choice. The system is set-up to be what it is, a primitive and vicious survival system that our societies are only just learning how to overcome.

This is another example of meaningless religiosity, Phat. Just a jumble of relious sounding words which avoid the substantive point which was that Jesus did NOT return as he was expected to do and as he said he would. It's called debate. I'm taking the other sides argument - that god made us - and showing that if he did then he set it up so that we would be competitive, survival dependent preditors with a percentage of pychopaths and sociopaths to make it just a bit more unstable. That is not the act of a god you believe in is it? And yet that's the world you say he created. More religiosity. This stuff sounds great in church doesn't it? To me it's meaningless made up junk. Did god type this or did I?
(Serious question, when is god doing things through you and when isn't he? Why is this not just the puppetry GDR rejects?)

You think it right for god to create carnivores and the kill and be killed, survival of the fittest ecology that created us? You have a weird view of a loving god.Humans do NOT have a choice between conscience and instinct. The vast majority of our processes are unconscious. We need both sets of functions to get through our day and our reactions to different situations depend on a multitude of factors. If we talk of pychopaths, they are programmed to react in a totally different way than you. They follow their 'conscience' in a way the rest of us dislike intensely. Why did your god create psychopaths?

No. Evil is yet another silly religious concept that we've got used to hearing. I,m asking specific questions of about real things.Why create pychopaths?
Why create carnivores? (Think about that Phat).
Why create a biological ecosystem that ensures that humans will evolve with survival, kill or be killed, predatory instincts?
Why create agression making hormones like testosterone?None of these things would create moral (ie freewill) problems if they didn't exist and all could be substited with friendlier alternatives. Your god created a hostile environment for almost all living organisms to merely survive in. This is not the act of a loving god.

Yes, so much is obvious. He's only a god when it's convenient for him to be a god. This is just rubbish and you know it. This isn't the 'problem of suffering' it's simple, basic biology. The world is set up this way. It makes total sense to science and no sense at all to religious beliefs. You have no answers but the evidence of it totally contradicts the idea of a loving god. What???

He was a man and a god and he sometimes knew the future and sometimes not, depending on whether it's convenient or inconvenient for the story. When he performed miracles it wasn't him it was god etc etc etc. All of this is just a bunch of stories that can be used to rationalise any incident to suit the occasion. With this setup you can make anything up and make it work for you. It's nothing to do with what I believe. It's self-evident that life on earth is competetive. All life competes to survive. The food chain requires nature to be 'red in tooth and claw'. We understand all this in considerable detail and you don't deny it.The assertion is that if the process was set in place by your god, then your god is a twisted imoral creature. There was no need to do it this way, free will does not rely on the necessity to compete to survive. There is no need to have a life process set up in this cruel way. The question 'why did god made carnivores?' has never been answered.