Wanna be a preacher?

[Chris James]

It seems anyone can be the pastor of a church these days. All you need is a few verses from the Bible and a hate filled message like this clown:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/03/arizona-pastor-steven-anderson-gay-men-_n_6263720.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

[Nigel Gordon]

I wonder if he wears easy wash shirts? They are clearly an abomination before the Lord and those wearing them shall be stoned.

[Cole Parker]

As needle sharers have a high incidence of AIDS, how does exterminating gays rid the world of this? Not only is he filled with hate, he also makes no sense.

C

[JamesSavik]

He is just the sort of ass hat that gets caught by the highway patrol doing something profoundly un-natural with six truckers and a Billy-goat at a rest area.

Experience has shown that the louder these guys are, the kinkier the stuff they are into. You probably don't want him around your children, pets or plants.

[Lugnutz]

If he wants to take the bible by word, he could be executed for what he likes. Could be fashion or many other things.

[colinian]

These asswipes pick and choose what they want from Leviticus and ignore the rest of the abominations. He should be stoned because he's clean shaven. Now, there's an abomination for you!

Colin

[DesDownunder]

The sheer hypocrisy of the Christianists is beyond comprehension.

Atheists are not even interested in their god. We just don't believe what they do, and no amount of them self-flagellating in public is going to convince us to adopt myth as reality. We wouldn't even bother to call their beliefs, myths, if they would desist from trying to oppress us with their concepts of sin. If they keep it up then they leave us with little alternative than to reveal the irrational nature of their religious bigotry, and that's not persecution, that's progress in the name of reality.

[Trab]

that's not persecution, that's progress in the name of reality.

It is, from their perspective. Sadly.

[Nigel Gordon]

The other big problem, of course, is that that other belief system that's firmly set in the dark ages is growing in strength and unless we take steps to curb it they will overwhelm us in our own countries.

Actually the growth of Islam is something of a myth. There is some evidence that the number of practicing Muslims is shrinking faster than the number of Christians. The perceived increase in Muslim population is coming about from two factors:

1. Anybody who is born of a Muslim parent is counted as being a Muslim, whether they have practiced as such or not. This is due to the fact that a Muslim parent is required by Muslim law to speak the words of commitment into the ear of the new born that they may be Muslim from the moment of birth. There have been a number of cases where apparently non-Muslims have been charged with apostasy on the basis that if they had a Muslim parent they were Muslim. Given that Islam is the dominant religion in many parts of the world that have a high birth rate this is leading to a growth in the number of people born Muslim.
2. Because of the lack of structure within Islam a large proportion of the Muslim population is in fact being counted twice. I have a friend who is a devout Muslim and he is counted as a Muslim at the mosque he attends in London and also at the mosque he attends here in Leicester, I suspect he is also counted at the mosque he visits when he is in Paris, as he is also still a Algerian national he is counted in the population figure for that country, where the presumption is that all citizens are Muslim. That being the case he is being counted at least thrice and maybe four times.

In fact there is evidence, at least amongst the Muslim diaspora a large proportion of the population is High Day and Holiday Islam only. They are about as Muslim as a lot of the so called Christians who attend church for weddings, funerals, Easter and Christmas.

Islam is clearly showing the type of structural instability that we saw in Christianity in the later half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. As with all religious groups that are in crisis its stalwart members have a tendency to move to the more radical side of the religion. We saw this with the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the period from 1850 to 1950 and we are now seeing the same process in Islam, albeit somewhat accelerated.

It is interesting to note that the two religious groups which are growing fastest in pure percentage terms are number one the Buddhists and number two the Pagans.

[Trab]

Thank you Nigel.

I actually feel a bit better with that explanation, despite realizing now the the rabid believers will actually become worse.

A number of years ago a very devout Baptist told me that he felt that I was a true Christian in my actions daily, but that because I don't believe in the Lord I would suffer eternal damnation anyway.

As for my own belief, there is no eternal, nor damnation, so I'm not worried about it.

I will just continue to apologize to any living thing I am knowingly hurting or about to hurt, and feel discomfited whenever I disturb natural things like rocks. If I think too much about our human disgraceful behaviour towards factory farms animals I can near traumatization, so I need to back away from that out of self preservation. That might be pagan or Buddhist or something else, but overwhelmingly, it's me.

[DesDownunder]

...That might be pagan or Buddhist or something else, but overwhelmingly, it's me.

To my way of thinking, to be able to proclaim that it's you, is the mark of a man who is being true unto himself.

.

[Nigel Gordon]

To my way of thinking, to be able to proclaim that it's you, is the mark of a man who is being true unto himself.

.

That is all that is important, it is what is at the centre of Buddhist and Pagan understanding. First know yourself then know how you fit in with everything else. Until you have done the first, you can't do the second.

[Trab]

I also think it is important to love yourself, forgive yourself for doing things you now recognize as 'improper', and move forward.

[DesDownunder]

I also think it is important to love yourself, forgive yourself for doing things you now recognize as 'improper', and move forward.

I spend half my life forgiving myself for things I did, and the other half of my life forgiving myself for things I wanted to do and didn't.

Know Thyself’ was written on the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

From Shakespeare's Hamlet Polonius says: "This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Psychology tells us that we first have to discover that we exist...'I am'...thereafter we can pose the 'who, what, where and why' I am, questions.

The comparison of East and West philosophies didn't really get any serious consideration until the late 19th century. Even then it took much effort on the part of the Theosophical Society to find the parallels, often seen as paradoxes, with the existentialist traditions of Buddhist thought. Refined, by such writers and investigators as Erich Fromm and Alan Watts, and others, the marriage between East and West began a long and arduous understanding that began to appear in 20th century literature. The quest to define the riddle of existence was exposed for anyone who wanted to examine it.

It isn't that there weren't other influences on both East and West, and also on each other, it was just that it all seemed to have gained a greater understanding which began during and after the Enlightenment with its many humanitarian reforms.

In authoritarian cultures, religions have imposed faith in their deities as being an answer, to the great riddle of life, that non-believers do not accept owing to a lack of scientifically verifiable evidence.

[JamesSavik]

It's all very simple; too simple a puzzle for anyone with an IQ over 100.

What they want are simple answers to complex questions so they can wrap those uncomfortable questions up in a sack and never think about them again.

They want the cookie and the ice cream without the bother of having to think about it.

They want to know that they are good and everyone else is evil.

They don't want their assumptions challenged.

[DesDownunder]

Yes James, they tend to think that anyone who readily admits that they don't know is stupid for not believing their answer.

At the present time the best we can say is that we know we do not know.

Sadly, many people see this as an excuse to stop experiencing every day as a new and wondrous part of being alive.