And yes, Jo, there is something "divine" about humility (to the degree that is possible) and most certainly humanistic acts. And I DO say that in a completely non-relgious framework. Divine in a ... cosmic way! (Oh language is so frustrating... that sounds so "new agey"...)

Nothing humble about a bloke who lives in a gigantic palace, so big it is its own damn country.

The papacy is as far from bible precepts as you can get, just as the lamas are as far from "Nirvana", letting go of the world and its fineries as you can get.

Don't be a sucker!

Pope John Paul died penniless, without any possessions, and was buried in a simple, undecorated pine box. Do you think Castro will go out the same way?

There were thirteen security men walking in front and behind the cart, there were two who joined them from the italian police, and there was one photographer taking dozens of pictures of the pope the whole of his journey.

In the bible, idiots, nutters, whores, beggars and the poor used to come up to Jesus Christ to touch the hem of his garment to get cured.
The pope won't let even the people his own countrymen near his shiny gold-laced frock. He employs thugs to beat them off.
The pope by his actions is saying

"I AM BETTER THAN JESUS CHRIST" He says "I'M ROYALTY" and he also says "I DON'T TRUST THAT GOD WILL PROTECT ME FROM HARM"
He may as well say

"I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD OR IN MIRACLES"

HUMBLE he is not. I think only J-lo has a bigger unnecessary entourage than him.

The queen of england will die, be buried in a wooden box, and die penniless. That's because all her possessions are officially the property of the crown as an organisation.
But if you want to tell me that either pope or queen is poor...

You need your head read. Is there NOTHING you won't defend about this international paedophile ring known as the Catholic church?

Hey everybody - what would you rather be - as rich as the pope and the queen, or as rich as you are now?
Once you put abstract ideas as practical questions, then we all get back to reality.

Last Edited on 7-Jun-2007 4:50 AM

"judge the tree by the fruit" and not by its seed. In other words, judge a man by what he achieves and not what he says he will achieve.

"sooner a camel shall pass through the eye of a needle, than a rich man will enter the kingdom of heaven"
Self-explanatory, and completely exclusive of interpretation.

"Thou shalt not kill" - nor practice usury, as it happens.

"If you had but a grain of faith you could move mountains"

Here's what I suggest:

Castro is not a man alone in power. The cuban people run cuba. And those people send out doctors, and teachers all over south america. They spread literacy and healing to the desperate. They encourage self-sufficient farming, which need not abuse the natural world. They seek cures for aids and tropical diseases. They send soldiers to help africans against apartheid mercenaries. They stand up to bullying from the USA, they've got rid of the segregation imposed by the alabama states under batista. They've abolished execution, and according to the last UN (New york, remeber) human rights report, they don't practice torture. Who else can say all that, and yet be a third world country? It implies, and the united states is well aware, that this could be paradise on earth, if only the first world were to do these "christian" things they are supposed to do instead of leaving it to the marxists.

REMEMBER THIS IS WHAT YOUR BIBLE SAYS, NOT ME:

"Judge a tree by its fruit"
"Sooner a camel..."
"thou shalt not kill (includes execution, buddy!)"
usury (lending money at interest, i.e. capitalism) is offensive in the sight of the lord.

Change your ways

Can I just ask - today will you be following what jesus said, or what the pope says?

Cubans run cuba. The soviet union doesn't. America doesn't. Nearby jamaica doesn't. The chinese don't.

Cubans run cuba.
That's more than can be said for the united kingdom, or the catholics of the world, who are run from Rome.

Cuban people run cuba. The people running cuba, come from cuba and are cuban.

No matter how many different ways I put it, it still just comes up as a blur to you doesn't it?

Next topic:

What are the effects of brainwashing? I've been reading a book by a former moonie, steve hassan.
You show all the classic symptoms.
If you can't believe that the people who run cuba are cuban, and yet, at the same time you can't say which non-cubans do; then normally, you'd say "OH gosh, I must be logically mistaken somewhere".

But someone who is brainwashed can, and usually has to, believe contradictory things with equal strength.

I'd love to go to Cuba myself. I hear such extremes from Cubans or people who have been there. Clearly, I don't believe the one dimentional hype, but would love to see the county, and it's inevtiable contradictions (we all have them) for myself.

What Jopaku is saying, and the reason all american foreign policy always fails when it tries to "regime change", is this:

That it is possible for a man to rule alone.
That it is possible for a man to oversee and direct in detail everything that happens.

This is not possible even in an underground american gulag in Iraq, not even in a small american cornershop filled with illegal immigrant workers.

No man rules alone. He always has the support of a huge proportion of the population. If a man rules for 50 years as president, the support he has MUST be very strong, and very widespread. This is not miracles we're talking about.

Cubans run cuba. America is run by americans. In america 97% of the population have no say whatsoever in how america operates because they are neither millionaires, big farmers, industrialists, generals or media tycoons.
Deciding when your trash is collected, and how much money the high school devotes to sport is not democracy.
In cuba, some people have no say whatsoever in how cuba operates. Given that these people who are excluded from government are the gambling representatives, the fruit company executives, the pro-american miami league and foreign media corporations, this dictatorship of the workers over the capitalists would suit most countries better than the american two-corporate-party-no-differences dictatorship.

And yet you want to say that one man can run a country? It's time you were de-programmed I think, before you start thinking stupid things like, for example, that deposing a dictator in Iraq will bring unity and peace (because he alone ruled and directed everything!)

- They believe three times one is one.
- They believe life begins at conception. And yet christ was physically unconveiced. Therefore he was an undead. Christ was a zombie?!
- They believe God has a mother. A mother that was born after God existed.
- They tell men (priests) not to have sex, and then entrust children and unmarried mothers to them!

To be continued!

To be continued

Are you another amurrican brainwashee? I've got this catholic and this buddhist here already, both completely incapable of justifying the simplest contradictions (i.e. lies) in their belief system. So what are your items of Dogma?

Peace is worth having but not at the price of tolerating ill-treatment. What does your sect/cult/society of friends say about that? Do you worship a man or a ghost? Or an invisible cycle of repeating pointlessness?

Last Edited on 11-Jun-2007 5:52 AM

(you could apply it to east european orthodox too)

- THOU SHALT MAKE NO GRAVEN IMAGES etc - but what do they do? engrave tablets with pictures of mary, of jesus. They paint walls with depictions of god as an old MAN. The carve statues and crosses. Mary worhip? Abominable.

-"Do thy charity in secret..." And yet they advertise their charity to anyone who will listen, and even put adverts on television!

That's all off the top of my head.

Have any of you 'christians' actually read the bible?
Christians certainly don't follow christ, same as these muslims seem to be ignoring huge swathes of their book.

Catholicism is not a bible driven religion. The church is the center of the religion, not the bible. It's more into the New Testament, rather than the old. I don't remember ever hearing the old testament being read in mass.

We don't "worship" Mary, we honor her.

The Catholic church doesn't raise money like the 700 Club, or other televangists who steal money from old ladies.
The basket is passed around at church, and no one knows who gives what.

The most direct line back to Jesus, is through the catholic church. The only reason why England and America are Protestant nations is because the Pope would not give Henry VIII an annulment. So he started his own church, based on the teachings of a defrocked german priest.(Martin Luther) 1500 years of church history was erased at that point.
You make constant reference to Hitler being a catholic, but it is the anti-jewish writings of Luther that he used as his defense.(Germany is mostly Lutheran)

Still, the main difference comes down to salvation. What it takes to get into heaven. Protestants believe Faith alone is all it takes. Catholics believe Faith and Works. You not only have to say you believe, but you have to practice what you preach.

But ME,this is all irrelevant, because you lack the capacity to believe in anything. You have to stop taking life so literally.

What kinds of works do you do, Jo? Sincere question!

As for ME, he believes in plenty. He is overflowing with belief, much of it humanitarian and concerned with social justice. He just has that fundamentalist streak we always clash on. And a tendancy to go off half-cocked. When will I ever see ME in person? I suspect a trip to England in the next couple years. Should be interesting.

And you say you follow the new rather than the old testament. I gave examples from both.
But besides that, you must be the only catholic on earth (and hence not a catholic) who doesn't regard the old testament as God's word. Most of the catholic doctrines actually prefer the old testament for guidance.
For example, their views on sex; Their idea of what god is like; their assertion of the pre-ordained divinity of christ, the purity of mary.

I can see why you must be confused, however. Some of the dogma is idiotic and not based on anything rational.
For example, the belief that the little wafers and the wine ARE the flesh and blood of christ. Not "represents". No, actually IS. How stupid.

Anyway you still haven't explained why the Zombie Undead nature of christ which follows from their life at conception argument, goes unnoticed by the Pro-lifers.

Get a real religion, eh? Why are you settling for a religeon designed for peasant idiots, when you are (supposedly) a class-concious industrial, literate worker?

Good works doesn't mean missionary work. It has more to do with accountability for your actions. That's why there are so many jailhouse born again christians. Protestants believe that being "saved" by Jesus, erases all your past sins immediately. Catholics believe you have to repent. That's why we have purgatory.

I don't believe in anything that I can't understand or can't see. I.e. anything that is either not real or irrelevant to me.
That means not just Ghosts like jahweh, but also the other things that redneck nutters go on about, like aliens, or world Black-jew-arab conspiracies.

Have you noticed this though, that you don't dispute anything I say? It's because it's all true isn't it. Catholicism is an abomination to the teachings of Christ, the man. It is anti-christianity, the false prophet.

I'm not a christian, but It's still obvious that the Pope is the opposite of christ.

Last Edited on 12-Jun-2007 5:50 AM

Do you think those people might be going to Hell?

Do you think god would be annoyed that he had been misrepresented, that Icons had been made of him when he SPECIFICALLY said there shouldn't be, that they associate with him (the Jealous God, see COMMANDMENTS) mortals called saints, and that they claim he is the mere progeny of a jewish woman, that they shun the poor and the sick, the mentally ill, the prostitutes and the slaves, when christ went out of his way to reach them?
How would the good of the poor early christians feel about the vast wealth of the catholic church? that they are landowners and slaveholders in much of the world.
That they take the word of a mortal man, elected by other mortal men as equivalent or better to Gods'? (infallibility)
Would this god be angry that pagan cannibalism, pagan festivals such as Yuletide (Norse) and Easter (from Ostara, goddess of spring) had been introduced into his worship?

I tell you what, if you believe in the LORD, you better put some clear blue water between you and the anti-christians.

Last Edited on 12-Jun-2007 6:00 AM

Last Edited on 12-Jun-2007 6:41 AM

I shudder at ME's response to that one.

There HAD to be a beginning, and a creator.
Even evolution doesn't explain the VERY beginning.

How can you people sleep at night without thinking of these things?

Last Edited on 12-Jun-2007 1:54 PM

There is clearly some cosmic mystery at force. Science scratches the surface. I think the mystery is much better than anyone's God. I don't think there is a single consciousness or entity. Maybe the concept of a beginning is a fallacy? Maybe it is all a spiral? Something we can't comprehend. Or... maybe... it's... aliens!

For the purpose of clarity, what exactly do you mean when you say alien? Are we talking anal probes or just superior life forms? And how did they come into being?

Chicken/egg. The everlasting paradox.

Paradox is God.

We agree that science has only scratched the surface.
Your default position is atheism, mine has a creator.
I think your purple frog (have you seen the pics by the way?) is evidence that I am right.

What I mean by alien, is basically anything out of this world. It doesn't have to be the star trek kind, but it may be.
I'm sure aliens do not have to do anal probes. They can do body scans. Probably.

I'd like to say your subsequent arguments are weak, but you don't have any. Aliens, for example, has nothing to do with anything. Then also, I'm not surprised that evolution doesn't explain the orgin of the universe. It is after all, a biological theory, not a theory of physics...
But what is your explanation of the beginning of the universe- does it go like this:

Once upon a time in a land far far away there lived a big friendly Ghost. One day the Ghost started feeling lonely, so he thought I know: I'll go to this place I know called The Void and I shall hover over the surface and speak words (which haven't been invented yet) and then, by magic, there will appear Stuff. And from the stuff, I will make little miniature versions of my self. Why? Who knows, I'll just do this pointless thing because I can.
And then he spent six days (though, what length is a day in a universe without time?) making everything, and then he made a fellow called Adam out of mud and water. For some reason, he was unable to make the prettier one Eve out of mud, and so cut a rib out of Adam to make her. (what was there a divine power-cut?)
God gave them free will, and although he knows everything, and therefore should be able to predict everything, he wasn't expecting that adam and eve would turn on him.
So when they did, instead of blaming himself for his SHODDY WORKMANSHIP and INCOMPETENCE, he sent them all to Hell, right up until Jesus (who is really God, but not really) turned up and forgave everyone. (what for? Up yours!)

Isn't that a nice story.
Tell me now - Is this ghost story better than a lack of an explanation, I mean how can you believe this even being a brainwashee?

(Nice one, eh?)

Last Edited on 13-Jun-2007 2:04 AM

If a person is confused, as is Jopaku constantly, what does this mean?

Does it mean that reality is confused, chaotic and messed up?
Or does it mean that the person thinking about reality is confused and messed up?

Reality slots together in a rational way, once the different parts that interact are discovered. But the act of discovering, of perceiving does not give these things existence. They existed before the interpretation. It's just that we're too stupid or brainwashed or Lazy to try to understand it yet.

Reality can't be wrong. There is no alternative to reality. Even when a person goes insane or is high, his behaviour has physical causes which can be predicted to some extent.

Things aren't confusing, people confuse themselves.

1) Atheism isn't my default position. I don't have a default position. I think the complexity of time, life, and the universe, of evolution, of all of space and nature, plants, animals and human animals, are beyond awe. Their complexities and interconnections, their very existences more than suffice for me. I am enthralled with the dynamic nature of WHAT IS, and the endless theories of what it might be. There is plenty of mystery, and to me the notion of it all stemming from a single creator answers none of the questions; it is just a way to stop questioning, since it's an easy (though illogical) explanation. Personally, I am happy to die and be part of the life cycle. That's why I care about real threats, like global warming and nuclear disarmament, so life here can continue. That’s immortality.

2) ME, you got me on the chicken/egg binary thing… Sort of. My point is that it is possible for two seemingly paradoxical realities to exist side by side (or many.) This is a way you and I may differ. You seem to be a very linear thinker, where as I am not. There is paradox everywhere. I believe in accepting that and even embracing it, therefore not making it binary.

3) Science. It seems to me that much science, like quantum physics, or physics in general, does not support linear thinking at all. Science that makes sense to me: Systems theory. Chaos theory. Much can be predicted, but not all. The universe as its own interdependent entity/entities has ways of surprising us. Maybe some day we will understand it all, but probably not.

4) Unintentionally, the above brings us back to the theme of humility. I am humbled by the epic and awesome nature of the Universe. Jo, you can call that God if you want, but it not some removed human-like cosmic spirit-dude who thought it all up. (And where did “he” come from anyway?)

5) Action. To the degree we understand science and things can be predicted, we need to act. Humans ARE destroying life on earth. Humans, not God, are the only hope of stopping it.

I am not confused, I mearly have an open mind.

Reality is a concept.
Either there is no such thing as reality, or no one really understands it.
If reality is truth, then why do things we think are true always turn out to be untrue?

I think nature has cycles,and we have very little effect on them. How do you explain the whole history of weather, before the industrial revolution? What about the Ice age?

When you hear that it's the warmest day in january since 1912, do you ever wonder why it was so warm back in 1912?

This has become a religion for some, with Al Gore being it's messiah.
I'll stick to Jesus and/or the aliens for now.

Once again then - where's your damning counterarguments?

Hi how's it going?

Accepting the paradoxes as "they just are" is right in the absence of knowledge. But the particular paradox, of say, the chicken and egg had been solved a long time ago. Here's the solution.

Firstly it's not a paradox in the sense that It's not a pair of Opposites, in the sense of exclusive, but a pair of Opposites as in co-dependant. Like man and woman, light and dark. You can't distinguish one without the other (contradiction) but you also can't *have* one without the other (unity). This is called the unity and contradiction of opposites and is part of a wider theory called dialectical materialism of which evolution provides plenty of examples.

So, which came first the chicken or the egg?
Here is the answer. The answer is, that this question is wrong. The question presumes ONE point in time where one came to exist, ready made, and then a second SINGLE point in time where the other came to exist.
But how can that be? You can't have one without the other, eggs become chickens, chickens become eggs.
The solution is that instead of looking at the world in a static, "mechanical" way, we look at the world in a state of CONSTANT FLUX and movement and development. This is known as "dialectical" (meaning like a dialogue) view of development, and is opposed to mechanical (no change of quality, only quantity) view of development.

Over the course of millions of years, and mostly in fact in the past few thousand, this thing called a Hen's Egg, and this thing called a chicken, developped Together, gradually from prior, different things. Neither came before the other, both developed their present qualities, both slowly and at times suddenly (eg domestication was revolutionary, but preceeded by a long evolution to the stage where the birg could be useful to man).

The question is wrong because it presumes creation. One off sudden creation.

The chicken and its particular egg size shape embryo qualities developed together, now egg now chicken now egg from a prior living creature, which came from a prior, from a prior; from less complicated and specialised, to more complicated and specialised.

And in case anyone thinks this is a sign of God's directing the universe, for every Chicken that has 'made it' to the modern world, billions of variations and whole species have died of unknown or of fossilised-only species.

There is no plan, there is no creation, there needn't be one to explain anything. The confusion arises from asking a confused question in the first place.
In fact, if one IS confused then one MUST BE wrong, for Reality cannot be wrong.

Dear Jo
How come you still talk about jesus when it's not him that you follow? This is false advertising. You follow the senile old Nazi that lives in Rome, not jesus.