Godzira

sorry double post

Well first of all Your right Romans were not athiest they belive in false gods for things much like the Greeks. Second the Romans didi not compile the Bible. It was moslty compiled by The followers of Jesus (Matthew,Mark,Luke,John) not by Romans. The only Roman i can think of is Paul. I was reffering to those that decided what the bible would contain, not those to whom the writings are attributed The following was taken from a website on bible history. Now in the interest of full disclosure, which is only fair to all involved, I will say that this comes from a secular website. However, I have just spent a good deal of time in my own copies of religious history books, most Christian and some secular, verifying the large majority of the facts presented. IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢m just honestly too lazy tonight to type something so lengthy. ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬ÅThe stories of the Bible evolved slowly over centuries before the existence of orthodox religions. Many belief cults spread stories and myths probably handed down by oral tradition from generation to generation before people wrote them down. Many of the stories originally came from Egyptian and Sumerian cults. All of these early religions practiced polytheism, including the early Hebrews. Some of the oldest records of the stories that later entered the Old Testament came from thousands of small cylinder seals depicting creation stories, excavated from the Mesopotamia period. These early artifacts and artworks (dated as early as 2500 B.C.E.) established the basis for the Garden of Eden stories a least a thousand years before it impacted Hebrew mythology. Virtually every human civilization in the Middle East, before and through Biblical times, practiced some form of female goddess worship. Archeologists have confirmed that the earliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language had initially developed in societies that worshiped the Goddess. Later the goddesses became more war-like with the influence of the northern invaders who slowly replaced the goddesses with their mountain male war gods. So why doesn't the Bible mention anything about the Goddess? In fact it does, but in disguise from converting the name of the goddesses to masculine terms. Many times "Gods" in the Bible refers to goddesses. Ashtoreth, or Asherah, named of masculine gender, for example, actually refers to Astarte- the Great Goddess. The Old Testament doesn't even have a word for Goddess. The goddesses, sometimes, refers to the Hebrew word "Elohim" (masculine plural form) which later religionists mistranslated into the singular "God." The Bible authors converted the ancient goddess symbols into icons of evil. As such, the snake, serpents, tree of knowledge, horns (of the bull), became associated with Satan. The end result gave women the status of inferiority, a result which we still see to this day. The Old Testament consists of a body of literature spread over a period from approximately 1450 B.C.E. to 200 B.C.E. There exists no original writings of the Old Testament. There does exist, however, hundreds of fragments from copies that became the old testament. These fragments consist of Cuneiform tablets, papyrus paper, leather etchings and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. The scribes of the old testament wrote in classical Hebrew except for some portions written in Aramaic. The traditional Hebrew scribes wrote the texts with consonants but the Rabbis later added vowels for verbal pronouncing. Of course the Rabbis did their best in choosing the vowels that they thought gave the words their proper meaning and pronouncement. In the second century C.E., or even earlier, the Rabbis compiled a text from manuscripts as had survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and on this basis they established the traditional or Masoretic text, so called from the Hebrew word Massorah. This text incorporated the mistakes of generations of copyists, and in spite of the care bestowed on it, many errors of later copyists also found their way into it. The earliest surviving manuscripts of this text date from the ninth to eleventh centuries C.E. It comes mostly from these texts which religionists have used for the present Old Testament translations. The New Testament has even fewer surviving texts. Scholars think that not until years after Jesus' alleged death that its authors wrote the Gospels. There exists no evidence that the New Testament came from the purported original apostles or anyone else that had seen the alleged Jesus. Although the oldest surviving Christian texts came from Paul, he had never seen the earthly Jesus. There occurs nothing in Paul's letters that either hints at the existence of the Gospels or even of a need for such memoirs of Jesus Christ. The oldest copy of the New Testament yet found consists of a tiny fragment from the Gospel of John. Scholars dated the little flake of papyrus from the period style of its handwriting to around the first half of the 2nd century C.E. The language of most of the new testament consists of old Greek. Interestingly, there existed many competing Christian cults in the early years after Jesus' alleged death. Some sects saw the universe in dualisms of goodness and sin, of light and darkness, God and the Devil. Other Christian sects performed odd rituals, some of which involved the swallowing of *****, thought of as a sacred substance. Many other Christians also wrote mystical stories and by the second century there existed more than a dozen Gospels, along with a whole library of other texts. These include letters of Jesus to foreign kings, letters of Paul to Aristotle, and histories of the disciples. In one of these secret Gospels, it describes Jesus taking naked young men off to secret initiation rites in the Garden of Gethsemene. There lived Christian Gnostics (knowers) who believed that the church itself derived from the Devil to keep man from God and from realizing his true nature. In those first centuries of Christianity orthodoxy did not exist and when an organized orthodox church finally came, it got defined, almost inadvertently, in argument against many of the Gnostic sects. So the idea of the Bible as a single, sacred unalterable corpus of texts began in heresy and later extended and used by churchmen in their efforts to define orthodoxy. One of the Bible's most influential editors, Irenaeus of Lyon, decided that there should only exist four Gospels like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures - the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, and the eagle of John. In a single stroke, Irenaeus had delineated the sacred book of the Christian church and left out the other Gospels. Irenaeus also wrote what Christianity did not include, and in this way Christianity became an orthodox faith. A work of Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, became the starting point for later inquisitions. There has existed over a hundred different versions of the Bible, written in most of the languages of the time including Greek, Hebrew and Latin. Some versions left out certain biblical stories and others contained added stories. The completed versions of the old and new testament probably got finished at around 200-300 C.E. although many disputed the authenticity of some books which later ended up as Apocrypha (uncanonical or of questionable authorship). For example, the book of Ecclesiasticus appears in the Catholic Bible but not in Protestant versions. At around 405 C.E. Jerome (Eusebius Hieronymous) finished translating all the Old and New testament books into Latin (Vulgate Bible) which provided the Roman Catholic church added power. The Vulgate Bible went through several revisions up until the early 1900s! The salvation doctrines of Christianity survived and flourished because they afforded the priesthood considerable power. The priests alone held the keys to salvation and could threaten the unbelievers with eternal punishment. Hence, in the evolution of Christianity in the last two thousand years with priests preying on human fears, the religion has demonstrated extraordinary powers of survival. Even without the priests, the various versions of the Bible have had more influence on the history of the world, in the minds of men than any other literature. Unfortunately, the beliefs in Scripture produced the most violent actions against man in the history of humanity up to that time. The burning of competing Christian cults (called heretics) by early Christian churches acted as the seeds of violent atrocities against man. There later followed the destruction of Rome by the Christian Goths, and the secret pagan sacrifices consented by the Pope, the Vandals that had the Bible with them as they destroyed imperial North Africa, the crusades in the eleventh century fighting in the lands around the eastern Mediterranean, Palestine and Syria, capturing Jerusalem and setting kingdoms from Anatolia to the Egyptian border. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade plundered Constantinople the most holy city at that time, with Christians fighting Christians. And the slaughters continued (and continues to this day). According to Romer, "More heretics and scholars were burned in the Middle Ages than were ever killed in Carolingian times. For at this time the Inquisition came into its own, and torture, largely unused as an instrument of government since Roman days, was reintroduced." In the 1380s, John Wycliffe translated the first English Bible which inspired an English religious revolution which caused persecutions against him by the Catholic Church. In the early 1500's the German heretic, Martin Luther, almost single handedly caused the final split from the Roman Catholic church and created the beginnings of the Protestant revolution. This split still influences violence to this day. He translated the Bible into German which further spread Protestantism. Luther also helped spread anti-Semitism with his preaching and books such as his "The Jews and their lies," all supported through his interpretation of the Bible. One should not forget that Hitler (a Christian and great admirer of Luther) and his holocaust could not have occurred without his influence and the support of Bible believing German Christians. In the 1530s William Tyndale completed his version of the English Protestant Bible (probably with the aid of Luther) and the first to print the English Bible. He too felt the persecution of the Church and he spent his last days in imprisonment and exile. His enemies finally caught him and burned him at the stake, but because of his celebrity, they strangled him first (what nice guys!). After Luther's German Bible, others followed suit by translating the Bible into their native languages including Dutch and French. Not until 1611 C.E. did a committee of translators and interpreters complete the most popular Bible of all time, the King James Version. Today we still have dozens of Bible translation versions, with Bible scholars still arguing over the meaning and proper translations of words and phrases. No doubt that future versions of Bibles will surface in the future: revisions of previously revised Bibles and newer revisions of new versions. The history of the many versions of the Bible stories, from the ancient Mesopotamian myths to the varied interpretations, interpolations, and versions of the Bible speaks volumes about the reliability of their interpretations and the alleged "truth" they claim the Bible holds, because it shows that the Bible comes not from supernatural agents but rather from human imagination. We have not one shred of evidence for the supernatural influence on human written works (and mostly from unknown authors), but we do have an abundance of evidence for human recorded beliefs and myths. This shows a marked difference between those of scientific works and those deriving from religious minds. For example, Euclid's Elements written around 300 B.C.E. has changed little since its inception. Scientists don't argue and debate about its meaning because they know it doesn't represent an absolute or fixed work. It only provides a step in the understanding of geometry. Most Christian apologists, on the other hand, view the Bible as fixed and absolute, if only they could only just get the interpretation correct. But regardless of how much the want the Bible to reflect their particular beliefs, they can never dislodge the violence and atrocities described and condoned by their God in the stories in the Old Testament. Nor can they dismiss the even more horrific result of the horrors of Hell as amplified by the words of the Jesus in the New Testament where almost everyone on earth ends in eternal fire.ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

People who think that they are smart because they read books, yet have never formed their own thoughts. I read too buddy, but I think for myself. The church group at Whole Foods that sees my Mala and then spends the entire time IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢m there trying to ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬Åshare the word of godÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

Romans were not atheist. They killed Christians because Christians threatened their religion. My argument is against religion not just Christianity. It just so happen that the people I am debating are Christian so I am using Christian examples and critiques. Ironic though that after the Romans became Christian they started throwing the Jews and other non-Christians to the lions. DonÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t forget that those Romans that you criticize are the ones that compiled the bible you cherish.

Warrior helm Glory Full Rune Climbing boots Ring of dualing DDs Dragon Long Team Cape (49 baby!) Rune Kite I usually run to the south gate, kill the scorchers and defilers, then head to one of the portals to the south to kill spinners then attack the portal while keeping an eye on the south gate and helping out if it starts to get overwhelmed.

No. So you made completely unsubstantiated claims that have been repeatedly smacked down to paradoxically prove your point? Or is it because you've been beaten up badly in your previous post and now need a statement to save face? Wow, man, I don't know what your problem is, but you need to calm down and take a breather. Just because we disagree doesn't give you the option to come in and start flaming every Christian comment. Grow up. Godzira: Why wouldn't we need missionaries? I'm confused. Also, since when do Christians burn books? I've only heard of a practice similar to that in communist China which is staunchly atheistic. But I'd love to look at your source. ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬ÅOn Sunday evening, members of the Harvest Assembly of God Church in Penn Township sing songs as they burn books, videos and CDs that they have judged offensive to their God.ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

I completely agree with this. My point was merely that I'm sure other people "of the day" have other opinions as well - you just selected the opinions you agreed with. Even though they were representatives of the church and policy makers, I disagree with them. The church has a pretty sick history, but that is in spite of the Bible and Christian principles, not because of them. Don't believe me? Pick up a New Testament sometime, I'm sure you'll find that the church rarely follows Christian principles, which is pretty sad. I wasnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t just fishing for quotes, I was selecting quotes only from those that I felt to be highly credible sources. If you feel that your sources are equally credible then by all means feel free to post the quotes here then. I am fully willing to examine the statements you present as well. I think that you have highlighted wonderfully the problem with religion, individual religion results in individual opinion. Unfortunately, when these religious people join into groups of religious people, the religion takes a back seat to power. If religion was truly based on principal and not acquisition of power there would be no need for missionaries.

Anyone can find any quote to back up their claim. Just saying "this famous person said this", doesn't make it true. Your post of quotes is just as empty as his refutation. Unless the person in the quote itself proves their opinion, it's completely worthless. As for quotes from "the other side"; not only are they irrelevant (a bad Christian can say things completely opposite to the heart of Christianity), but I could find quotes just like that from atheists. Quite frankly IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢m not going to spend the time to give you a full bibliography but here are a few just to lend legitimacy. The fundamentalists deny that evolution has taken place; they deny that the earth and the universe as a whole are more than a few thousand years old, and so on. There is ample scientific evidence that the fundamentalists are wrong in these matters, and that their notions of cosmogony have about as much basis in fact as the Tooth Fairy has. [isaac Asimov, quoted in 2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt, by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot. - Thomas Jefferson The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, in 20 volumes I am not sighting these quotes as proof, merely as the opinion of others of the day and of those with first hand knowledge of the times that you or I cannot have. As far as the quotes from the other side, those are not random christians those were representatives of the church and the policy makers of the day.

Piano, your post is empty. You say nothing solid to refute the quotes of these great minds and even resort to classification and name calling against Elizabeth Cady Stanton. You just proved my point. Thank you. Especially with this comment, "I could also point out to our SCIENTIFIC textbooks and history books that indoctrinate our young kids into the politically correct generation where we abandon the truth to make others "feel good" about themselves. Politically correct, forced tolerance, and relativism are all carrying the civilized nations down to a path of literal government control and quickly approaches the fastest route to the complete loss of freedoms." Loss of whose freedoms? Tolerance and political correctness ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬Åread respect for othersÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

growing blunder

Banned for using the word "puppies" on a family friendly forum.

I would hop in my race car ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬Ånot even remotely street legal 550+ bhpÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

Monitor Copier UPS Thermal Printer Rolodex Graphic calculator Pens Screw Driver Cave Bear Tooth on Stand Metal File Phone Shredder PDA Mail Godzilla Signal Auto Banner Buddha Stapler Turbo Magazine Post its UPS Shipping Map Clay bowl Carbon Fiber Spark Plug Cover for SR20DET Bamboo Mat ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬ÅSunoco Race FuelsÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

Johnny Walker Blue FTW!!! What is this "non-alcoholic" thing you guys are talking about?

Oh, I missed the whole part about my religion being 'designed'. Alas... We are never going to agree, and I just wanted to ask a question. Thanks for the answer, homie. I fully admitt that it is my opinion and not provable fact. I did notice that you didn't question the first part of my response so I'm hoping that you at least see that point to be understandable.

I fully believe ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬Åwith the history to back me upÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

Insane's point stillstands. Whether or not our universe was/is the first big-bang is irrelevant mainly because it still requires a "big bang" to occur resulting in the need for a universe of "inanimate protons, neutrons, and electrons" or an uncaused being called "God." Even if you delve into the whole numerous universes and super-string theory, you have to have a cause. Besides, the entire super-string theory is based on the notion that the entire world we see is a result of matter and anti-matter being unbalanced...of which case there has never before been seen. They're ALWAYS balanced which just seems to me to be a little strange. :-k Insane's point doesn't stand. The universe is infinite, no beginning and no end. The big bang is described to explain how the universe that we know came to be. That doesnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t mean that nothing existed before that, perhaps on another dimensional plains ect. Even assuming that we have that wrong, the truth is that saying an infinite universe is unrealistic and then evoking an infinite god is somewhat counter productive.

Godzira's answer was correct when accounting for the newest findings on dark matter and universal expansion. edit to clarify: An open universe has no barriers to expansion where a closed universe would eventually collapse upon itself. Dark matter is the current ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬Åculprit of massÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

And they will for thousands more, why our kids miss all the fun!

Curry sauce FTW!

The flaw in this theory is that it assumes that this is the first and only big bang, which it likely isnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t. We can make a reasonable estimate from universal red shifts that the age of this particular incarnation of the universe is indeed measurable although the amount of time involved is staggering to most people.

I do not know this. Please show me how it doesn't hold water. I just said *if* it doesn't, then it won't affect my belief much. However, it hasn't been shown to be a bad argument... yet. I did, and I provided logical reasoning behind it. At least, reasoning that you did not logically refute. And you also did not show my argument to be "bunk". Oh, I just provided logical reasoning. At least, too logical for you to refute at least. Just calling my arguments garbage doesn't make them so. That, is what is illogical here. So basically, you don't believe in God because you grew up hearing nothing about him and it makes you afraid that if He exists you might have to change your lifestyle. I don't believe this, I just thought I'd stoop to your level of reasoning to show you how it feels to read ridiculous made up comments about your life The only game being played here is you throwing sticks at strawmen. It's not what religion has done, it's religious people. I don't see how religious people can make religion look bad. I've used this example a trillion times, but people don't seem to catch on: You don't blame aerodynamics (the principle) if an airplane (the application), crashes. Therefore, do not blame religion (the principle), if a religious person does something stupid (the application). The creationist argument using the 2nd law of thermodynamics is based on a lack of scientific understanding and as been refuted countless times by myself and others on other debate forums, so I donÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t feel like going into it in depth again on this forum. If it bothers you too much IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢ll hunt down a link to one of my other threads. Basically, the universe is not a closed system, if it were a closed system it would make my job of explanation easier as it would collapse upon itself thus recycling the energy it contains. This would be an easy explanation to your question, but it would be an incorrect one. Since I am concerned with truthful answers and not easy ones I will not try to say that it is a closed system. As an open system, our universe received energy from extra dimensional reactions. We do not have the ability to measure these dimensions with current technology but we can deduce their existence by the reaction that they leave behind. This brings us to the next problem that you sighted, if there are other universes, where did they come from? The answer, they just are. Why is this so hard for creationist to accept? You can believe that god has always existed but not that universes have? They exist because they do, if they didnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t nothing would exist. You said ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬ÅI don't believe this, I just thought I'd stoop to your level of reasoning to show you how it feels to read ridiculous made up comments about your lifeÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ