Religion

[Jonathan]

Jtolan's post wasn't where it should be, but I did have a few things to say to it, so I've made this thread and am repeating it here (sorry, underlines didn't carry over):

... "The secret of evolution is TIME".

Impossibilities never happen in a billion years, no, not even in an infinity of TIME. By the way, “projecting” back only a few million years, our sun would have engulfed the earth (its radiating matter away so it was bigger in the past, more gravity, etc), so life would of never been possible on earth, NO EARTH !

Many of the statistical arguments used against evolution usually begin by assuming that one starts with a "soup" of nucleotides and then go on to show that the mathematical probability of assembling a complete organism's genome from it, even a microscopic one, are virtually impossible.

I’ve looked at the experiment done by Miller-Urey in 1953, and they showed they can produce some simple amino acids, hence they said “LIFE”. Creating some basic building blocks is not LIFE; it’s comparable to creating a bolt, and shouting I CREATED A FACTORY!!!

I donÂ’t know if anyone has pondered what life really is, but it has two components to it:

1) First of all, life is a complex ordered STRUCUTRE OF MATERIALS, which can never be assembled by random jiggling molecules in a “soup” (its like saying I’m going to put some iron ore and some plastic chips and wires and silicon in a big box and jiggle it and add some heat and wait till I get a computer. It doesn't have to be turned ON, oh no, just assembled, just the STRUCTURE. WHAT IMPOSSIBILITY !!! Why? BECAUSE ORDER IS NEEDED TO ASSEMBLE SOMETHING ORDERED and STRUCTURED. And RAW nature is DISORDERED in its approach. On an assembly line you can’t have some guy swinging a hammer randomly, nothing gets done, which leads to the next point.

2) More then life being a structure, it is an organic ENGINE IN MOTION, a factory if you will. It moves, changes, adapts, repairs, multiplies, etc... You see, to get an engine going you need, gasoline, in the right place (in the fuel system, not in the oil pan) you need sparks, in the chambers AT THE RIGHT TIME! Timing is the key to life! I heard that scientists were able to take apart a cell and then put it back together, so that it looked exactly like before. However, there was one major difference between it and another one like it that was never tampered with. One moved the other did not, it was DEAD!!! LIFE IS AN ORGANIC DYANMIC ENGINE; if you break the timing you KILL it.
Probability and randomness will never, ever, ever produce even the structure required, let alone the complex timing, in a zillion times million upon billion of years, because its probability is ZERO!

Anybody who thinks it can be done is quite unscientific in his/her thinking, to put it nicely.

But, I do not think that is how the evolutionary process works at all. To produce the enormous diversity of life that now inhabits our planet, it must have proceeded by very small, but PROBABLE, steps over the course of BILLIONS of years.

So you want to take a onetime miracle (creation) and spread it out over time in little creative miracles. I suppose God could have done it that way if he chose to. Why not! But and interesting fact to point out is, to jump from one specie to the next takes a giant leap, in genetic codes etc. Raw nature forces causing mutations donÂ’t seem to be doing it (assuming you started with a single cell by some MIRACLE, and some how it had a DIRECTIVE TO MULTIPLY so mutations can express themselves)

When, perhaps, one out of a thousand TINY genetic mutations tended to enhance survival of an organism, then that mutation was passed on to the descendents offspring and so on down the immensely long corridors of time until we observe what we see on Earth now.

Mutations are detrimental not helpful, they don’t get passed on. Nature SELECTS THEM OUT. Natural selection, or adaptability is not EVOLUTION, it’s proof to the amazement of life!! “Odd” and mutated looking people usually have a hard time finding mates (Chernobyl accident victims for example, how tragic). Also, Life is a system of systems upon systems. They come in groups, Attack one and you can’t live. Take out your heart and you’re dead. Put out your eyes, and you might fall off a cliff (if you’re too curious) Be the first mammal to develop a penis and you can’t multiply, LOL , just kidding, had to throw that in for fun :)

I do not have a problem with evolution, but many fundamentalists do. They see it as totally incompatible with the Judeo/Christian Bible.

I have a big problem with the evolution sugestion and it’s very incompatible with the Judeo/Christian Bible, to say the least. Christians that claim to believe in “Evolution” and Creation don’t fully understand what is at stake. You can’t claim to be a Christian, which means follower of Christ, and not listen to his words, or believe them, It’s an oxymoron.

Listen to these Biblical passages:

(John 1-5)
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood[a] it.

Actually, from reading Genesis, I am always very impressed that the order in which the species are "brought forth" there almost exactly matches what evolutionary theory says happened!

God was even smarter then we think. The order of the creation account in Genesis actually reinforces a LITERAL week of creation!! Plants can live a night without sunlight light, mine did last night, no problem, but not a THOUSAND YEARS!, as some modern day “Christians” tend to believe (a day for a thousand year principle) What a beautiful built in proof for a LITERAL CREATION WEEK!!!

Also, have you heard of the physicist (Robert V. Gentry, Nature 252 (Dec. 13, 1974), pp. 564-566; Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23 (Dec. 1973)) that worked at Los Alamos at one time and discovered "polonium radiation halos" in granite, or special concentric markings left around a radioactive speck traped in granite, much like a specific ring patern in trees. By the way, granite is the basic rock of our earth. The radiation imprints, that can only form if the rock cooled fast, as in less the Â….. MINUTES !!! Nobody has been able to answer his claims properly. Very interesting!! Also, native granite has crystals and grain pattern in it that can not be duplicated by melting the granite and then allowing it to re-crystallize!. Is that another proof that intelligence put it there, or what!!!

So, I think that there is a compromise possible that can satisfy both creationists and evolutionists. Simply assume that God did create life in the universe, BUT, he used EVOLUTIONARY processes to do it.

If you believe God, you must believe EVERYTHING he says, no compromise is possible. I donÂ’t need to compromise with people who donÂ’t use their brains and accept absurdities. You canÂ’t have it both ways. Evolutionism is not even a science its speculation and fairy tales.

Studying rocks, fossils, animals and their behavior, cells, biology, astronomy, etc, now that’s science, you can make observations, but making up “theories” about how we got here, that’s speculation!!! A theory is a hypothesis that’s proved in an experiment, nobody has proved the EVOLUTIONARY HYPOTHISIS, nor can they, they don’t have the time to wait around to see if it happens again, or access to a planet to experiment on that’s much like earth use to be (maybe in the future), but then again we don’t know what earth was like in the past, so that’s an assumption. They’re stuck! Its assumptions upon assumptions upon a big absurdity and more absurdities, much like the hierarchy of life, except it’s the hierarchy of loonies!!

Some might say that this puts a limit on God and that He does not need evolution...He could do it in a flash whenever He wanted. IF God is real and omnipotent, then that would certainly be true. However, He could also CHOOSE to create life in any way He saw fit...even with evolution!

Very true, But he didn’t, that's a fact. Why speculate when we have an answer? Is it lack of faith in GOD word? It’s exactly what it is. Traditional evolutionist are not satisfied with the bible account, they exclude God from their thinking, so obviously they need an alternate theory to explain what the heck they’re doing here. How lame of a theory! Only fools turn to ideas of coming out of monkeys, with no purpose under the sun, and eternal death with any purpose under heaven. How depressing!! If they only knew the hope and courage that true knowledge of God brings. Blissful eternal life, and a GOD full of LOVE who sacrificed himself so that we “might have life and that more abundantly”!

Â…IF there is a God Â…,

Everybody believes in a “God” whether they admit it or not, it’s a question of how powerful your God is. In its simples form, God could be YOU!! You take no orders from anybody and do what you want. It could be your Dad or Mom who created you and whose rules you have to obey. It could be the enforcers of justice in your country, your president perhaps. But the simple minded stop short of that, they don’t open their eyes and gaze into the stars and let those mental wheels turn. Could there be life on other planets if there is life here? Could it be possible that extraterestrial life created me? They don’t open their eyes and really ponder what life is; they don’t read and ponder a “historical” manual with prophecies which PREDICTS the future and has the markings of the ALMIGHTY all over it. A book that spanned thousands of years writen by a number of people under the same "supernatural" influence as can plainly be examined if one chooses. They don’t wonder about “miracles” and glimpses of “supernatural” around us. But when their life is in danger, they cry out “GOD SAVE ME” This cry is built in folks, he built it in. In times of need common sense floods back into our brains, as if for the last time.

IF there is a God, it won't really matter much what one chooses to believe or not believe about the nature of life in our universe because it will not change what happened one bit.

I won’t change what happened, but it will change what happens! God is not a passive being at sleep. Oh no! He has expectations. There is a war going on, much like in Star Wars. The greatest Controversy in the Universe AND THE ONLY ONE. God is dealing with the rebelion as we speak, and once he is done with it, “sin shall never rise up again a second time…” says the Bible.

Is it important to belive then? Oh yes, eternal life and death is on the line.

Matthew 7:13
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”

Is belief in a literal creation important for a Christian?

EXODUS 20:8,
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. “

If you donÂ’t believe creation you wonÂ’t believe the commandment.

By the way, have you ever thought of this:
A year is demarked by the earth going once around the sun
A month by the moon cycle.
A day by the rotation of the earth around its axis.
But why do we have a SEVEN DAY WEEK? Nothing in nature or in the stars to point too. IT IS A LEGACY OF CREATION! The French during their French revolution upholding THE GOD OF REASON, tried to change the week to a TEN day week. What happened? People broke down, couldnÂ’t do it. So back they went to a seven day week. I belive in the metric system, very logical, but sorry seven day cycle!!

This matter of evolution is much in the news here in the USA of late.

Yes it is, my view is, if we teach one explanation, it is bias not to teach another explanation, especially when this nation was based on Christian principles and a lot of people believe in Creation by God. On the other hand I donÂ’t want religion IMPOSED ON PEOPLE. Our nation was founded on FREEDOM OF RELIGION. We welcome Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Roman Catholics, Buddhists, etc. The land of religious freedom!!! May God bless America!!!

(Also, I donÂ’t need to pray in public if it offends others, I can pray in my head just fine, so no I donÂ’t support prayer in public schools, also, I donÂ’t support abortion legislation either, itÂ’s not for our Government to tell us what to do with our own bodies, I happen to think it might be wrong to abort an unborn baby under most circumstances, but thatÂ’s for me and my wife and our conscience to work out, I donÂ’t need man made laws. ItÂ’s nobody elseÂ’s business! If you care for someone, then go tell them yourself, but donÂ’t run to the government to lobby you views on life)

I think you are quite right...movies can have a tremendous impact on the values people adopt and their view of the world and their fellow human beings. If a film just accurately mirrors present reality and stimulates people to think about it, then that is probably a good thing. If, however, a film creates a false reality that is intended to manipulate peoples' emotions, thoughts, and opinions about some subject, then that film should be viewed with some caution. We have to be careful about what kind of "information" we invite into our brains. I have, in my life, seen many people that accepted false information as truth and were led astray by it...

Amen to that !!!

I've heard that reference to the sun being too big in the past, but it is only true if you assume that the sun's observed decrease in mass (or diameter, whatever) has been going on at the same rate for all time.
When scientists take apart a cell and put it back together, it is usually dead, as a result of the manhandling, but not always. Dolly the sheep was made, roughly, by sucking the contents out of an adult sheep cell and putting them in an empty sheep egg cell (repeat many times), and then putting the batch in another sheep's womb to develop.
Some people are probably mutated in a way that makes them more attractive. But that is probably rare, and if it does occur, no one notices because they don't go around checking the DNA of people who seem fine.
John 1:1-5 doesn't rule out evolution as God's mechanism of creation. It says all things were made by God, but not how.
I think you have misunderstood the day=thousand years arguement. They don't mean that 500 of those years it was dark, then the next 500 years were light. They mean that each day of creation should be seen as an era, itself made up of many actual 24h days. Notice that God creates light before stars, and that the latter were for measuring time like days (Gen 1:3 vs Gen 1:14-19). Why would there be references to days before the marker of days is created? This seems to lean toward the nonliteral view. Also, if you take the Bible way too literally, then it'd seem that Jesus advocated the use of mustard seeds as excavation equipment (Mat 17:20, Luk 17:6).
I've heard nothing of these polonium halos in granite, do you know where I can get free access to 30yo issues of Nature (on the net preferably)?
I have to agree that evolution offers no practical hope of prediction or testing (beyond checking correlation to new fossils, at which point it is sometimes altered), and should still be in the hypothesis category.
You can believe the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy without believing in literal days. God knows man's nature and needs, so he sets aside one day of seven for rest, and then hits another bird with the same stone, by saying to remember the story of creation on that day, so that people are pretty much guaranteed to get a weekly reminder to stay on the straight and narrow. With the nonliteral interpretation, it's debatable why he picked one day of seven instead of, say, one week out of seven, but then it doesn't really matter why.

[Techstuf]

Let's not forget that not only do the self organizationists believe the laughable perversion that a single cell accidentally engineered it's way out of the primordial ooze, starting some presumably infinite odd's bucking trend.....they also proffer the palliative (to be generous) statement:


"Fossils are exceedingly rare to be found at all".


In response to elementary questions such as why are all the links missing when statistically there should be umpteen more of them being found than the finished species.

Truth is, Biblically each was created according to kind.....not evolved into each kind from another kind....which explains why all the pig jaws in the barnyard would hit the mud upon public presentation of a pair of Blue whale feet.

The fact that the Bible covers such topics in surprising detail, up to and including genetic manipulation of mankind by fallen angels.....goes a LONG way in demonstrating the perverse coercion being foisted upon gullible school children the world over.

The fact that hypocritical scientists cannot concede the perfectly reasonable supposition that life just MAY have had an Author to it's complex and highly ordered code.....says much about the level of willful ignorance to which men are capable of falling.


Peace,

TS

[jtolan]

I guess I never visited this OFF-Topic forum section before. Thanks for bringing my post over, Jonathan. I guess we all have ranting moments from time to time when perhaps we're stalling or want to give our minds a break from the structured effort in rediscovering the Bessler wheel. It could take quite a tall on ones sanity if its engaged to seriously. A good walk in nature might help too :)

[jtolan]

Techstuf wrote:

...says much about the level of willful ignorance to which men are capable of falling.

How true!!

Jonathan wrote:

but it is only true if you assume that the sun's observed decrease in mass (or diameter, whatever) has been going on at the same rate for all time.

It's interesting to point out that, science in general makes assumptions of this nature in a number of places, for example, carbon dating, etc. I certainly don't belive the earth was engulfed by the sun, just pointing out inaccuracies in their thinking. And yes its very logical to say rates change over time. That's why a scientist can't say with any significant level of confidence what has transpired million years ago. But some how, some scientists have such confidence they're so annoying. I get irritate when I view a beautiful nature program on Animal Planet or Discovery channel, and then hear such confident statements about what happened MILLIONS of years ago, comments that come from a mere mortal that is certainly no older the 100 year. One has to wonder about the sanity of these people, or the level of delusion they have sunk too. It just ruins the program. (Maybe I should go into video production of this kind and do my own clean versions. I wouldn't even mention Creation, just point out observed facts)

When scientists take apart a cell and put it back together, it is usually dead, as a result of the manhandling, but not always. Dolly the sheep was made, roughly, by sucking the contents out of an adult sheep cell and putting them in an empty sheep egg cell (repeat many times), and then putting the batch in another sheep's womb to develop.

Apparently sucking DNA from the NUCLEUS, does not kill the cell. Very True. Thanks for pointing that out. I do belive in the future we will be able to even CREATE LIFE from scratch. As technology advances we might be able to get an organic engine going, zoooooomm, zooom

John 1:1-5 doesn't rule out evolution as God's mechanism of creation. It says all things were made by God, but not how.

It says the Word (Jesus) was with God in the BEGINNING. What beginning? Creation of course! But, true the passage by itself doesn't say HOW. That's found in Genesis (and in other scattered verses in the Bible, here and there, even direct quotes of what God says in Isaiah, I believe, or the book of Job)

Notice that God creates light before stars, and that the latter were for measuring time like days (Gen 1:3 vs Gen 1:14-19). Why would there be references to days before the marker of days is created?

Yes, that is an interesting point. It almost implies that the earth was some lonely space rock by itself (dark, void and without form), and that God creates some LIGHT first, to see what he's doing perhaps (Light as a phenomenon maybe, light from himself, from blackness, a flashlight, or whatever, but not Light as in Solar light) and then brings the Sun and some other planets and creates the solar system. (I've heard people argue that he created ALL THE STARS on that day, not just the PLANETS and SUN, I tend to doubt that, it would certainly be possible to God, no doubt about his creating abilities)

Also, if you take the Bible way too literally, then it'd seem that Jesus advocated the use of mustard seeds as excavation equipment (Mat 17:20, Luk 17:6).

LOL, yeah, I read you. I guess the wisdom of Bible studying is to recognize when a parable is told and when its not, or when some symbolism is used and when it's not. Jesus sure said a lot of parables, and there's sure a lot of prophecies with lots of symbolism, much like Besslers hidden riddles.

I've heard nothing of these polonium halos in granite, do you know where I can get free access to 30yo issues of Nature (on the net preferably)?

I don't. If I find out I'll let you know. I've heard of this guy from somebody else and then I did a search on the net for his name and that reference came up in some other article on a creation web site.

[Jonathan]

>It's interesting to point out that, science in general makes assumptions of this nature in a number of places, for example, carbon dating, etc.<
You are right, but technically that is less fallicious because we have no reason to believe that carbon changes its rate of decay. A more serious problem, that I don't know if they correct for or include in the error range, is that the production of C-14 in the atmosphere by cosmic rays isn't constant, so the rate that it is absorbed by plants isn't either.

>I've heard people argue that he created ALL THE STARS on that day, not just the PLANETS and SUN, I tend to doubt that<
Why? It seems self-evidently that way to me, Gen 1:16 is between Gen 1:13 and 1:19 (the latter two mark the chaning of days).

[Techstuf]

One could sail Noah's Ark through the massive holes in evolution as currently foisted upon children. It takes boat loads more faith to believe such lackluster and piecemeal dogma, in my estimation, than to see our Father's hand everywhere around us.

A creationist went walking in the forest with his friend, an evolutionist....they came upon an abandoned shack....dilapidated and covered in moss and overgrowth.

Try as he might, the creationist could not get his friend to admit that the shack was built by man......his friend held out the chance, no matter how remote, that it could have evolved, given enough time. It is no wonder their friendship is strained to this day.

The above contrivance is laughable.....for I cannot imagine a died in the wool evolutionist fomenting such a preposterous and remote possibility.

Yet they do that AND MORE when it comes to the possibility that a single celled organism could appear, all it's parts complete in order to even exist....no chance of one critical part out of many missing or POOF!

No evolution.

And a single celled organism is like 'Deep Space 9" in complexity compared to that dilapidated shack. Not to mention the commensurate logistical and nightmarish coordinated effort required for such cells to produce any kind of life that would even register as remotely visible to the naked eye.....much less, what we have today.

I am reminded of the old joke about the geneticists challenging God to a man making contest.

They had become what they thought was 'adept' at reading the code He had written and the challenge was accepted.

So, on the day of the contest, they all showed up at the place agreed upon....and God's represenatative was there.

He then announced that for the playing field to be level, it would commence as He had done with Adam and Eve.

The lead scientist, an arrogant and widening smirk on his face......advanced forward and, letting out a loud and derisive "Humph", lowered himself by reaching down for a handful of clay soil.

To which our Father's chosen one replied, "Oh no." You go and get your own dirt.


This 'semifinal' test of mankind is nearing completion....and Bessler's wheel is rather like that dilapidated shack...really....in comparison.


When you think about it.


I mean, it IS harder to walk the straight and narrow road......when walking a 'twisted mile' on a broad and winding road is fraught with opportunities for instant, though primitive, gratification.

[ovyyus]

Money, fear, control, ignorance, power... religion is just politics in fancy dress.

Author anon:

"By the end of the 5th century A.D. when the Christian
rulers had taken command, they abolished the study of
the main disciplines, including Philosophy,
Mathematics, Medicine, and Geography. Lactantius
forbad Christians to study astronomy.

It was Pope Gregory the Great who denounced all
secular education and forbad the reading of the Bible
under threat of punishment of death. He too joined in
the book burning and destroyed at the Palatine Apollo.

Any new opinion or any knowledge with which the church
did not agree was called heretical and devilish and
those who had this knowledge or opinion were hounded
and slaughtered. The years were marked by gross
vandalism and destruction.

Theodosius burnt the greatest collection of knowledge
that the Ancient World could probably produce - The
Library at Alexandria.

As if the church had achieved some marvelous
cleansing, St. John Chrysostom gloated as the church
destroyed everything it could get its hands on and
said:

"Every trace of the old philosophy and literature of
the ancient world has vanished from the face of the
earth".

Eupanius, a historian and guardian of the Eleusinian
Mysteries, is quoted as saying the Roman Empire was
being overwhelmed by a "fabulous and formless darkness
(the evil pseudo-Christian philosophy) mastering the
loveliness of the world."

The darkness was all the work of the so-called new
anti-Gnostic Christian church. It is worth repeating
that the Roman Empire, contrary to what the church
historians have written, did no persecute religious
minorities. In fact, all deities were incorporated and
all religious people were willing to co-exist with the
Empire except for the so-called Christians.

By 382 AD the church had officially declared that any
opposition to its own Creed in favor of others, must
be punished by the Death Penalty. But of course the
history of those early years has been distorted by
church historians. Many of those so-called Christians
were criminals, vagabonds and trouble-makers and they
were prosecuted by the Roman Authorities, not for
their religion, but for civil crimes. There were
guilty of vandalism and arson when they tried to burn
Rome.

In spite of the overwhelming evidence that the church
brought all knowledge and the process of learning to a
halt, one still often hears the excuse erroneously
given by apologist for the church that if it was not
for the church, all knowledge would be lost
completely. This is completely opposite to the facts.

The Church saves what suited its purpose and destroyed
the everything else it could get its hands on.

Sure it disseminated Christian Art, architecture,
music and letters (of perverted history) but all else
was destroyed. And most of this dissemination was for
self-aggrandizement. What possible spiritual benefit
can there be in the treasures of the Vatican? Other
than that which they may have kept and are denying the
world of, about the ancient ways, absolutely nothing!

Even many of the so-called Pagan Temples were
converted to Christian ones by simply adding St. in
front of the deities' name, as occurred at the shrine
of Sophia (the Wisdom of the Divine Mother Goddess)
which became St. Sophia.

The church closed the minds of the people and stifled
education. And it was for this reason that any part of
Europe in which it had some controlling influence,
fell into ruin.

The intelligentsia were persecuted by the illiterate.

The only other record of history at that time was the
inaccurate recordings of balladeers, and they too
would be cautious of their words for the ears of the
church were everywhere. There is no scientific testing
of theories for theological societies prevented this.

Those like Roger Bacon who tried to introduce
scientific methods suffered greatly. They paid a heavy
price.

Unfortunately, the oppression was such that many of
the so-called Christianized countries never recovered
from the church's tyranny. For example, even today,
Spain and Italy are severely repressed by the church
Authority.

And many people in the poorer parts of these countries
are still frightened to speak openly against the
church who they fear more than they fear the Mafia.

The Dark Age mentality has continued in the church
from the earlier times when the church took control.

And so it is that in 1562 when the missionaries
reached the Mayas at Yucatan, the first thing they did
was burned the books they found. It was about this
time that the countries involved in the Reformation
became more educated directly as a result of the steps
they took to decease the church's power.

Initially, the church had set out not to educate
laymen so that it could control the people better. But
as time went on, of course, because of no advances in
knowledge were made, even the clergy became extremely
ignorant.

Temples of other Creed were taken over by force and
books and doctrines of those other beliefs systems
were destroyed and supplanted by the so-called
Christian ones. The church became obsessed with
aesthetic Monotheism and tried to eradicate all
rudiments of other belief systems.

Ignorance thrived, so much so that Lactantius was able
to prove to the ignorant masses by quoting the Bible,
that the world was flat and, or course, there was
great opposition to anyone who contradicted this.

The people of the ancient world knew the world was
round. In fact, the Hindus drew it as an egg. The
Babylonians, Chaldeans, and Greeks had worked out its
circumference and distance from other heavenly bodies
and many other things, but all this knowledge was
destroyed.

The principles of science and the shape of the earth
and astronomy needed to be rediscovered many centuries
later In spite of the Christian Church.

Men of Science not only had to fight the veils of
ignorance but also the church, the so-called Holy
Mother which defended the ignorance desperately.

As the list of those scientific and intellectual
pioneers who were burned at the stake shows, for a
long, long time they and knowledge, including science,
came off second best.

Enlightenment in any field usually meant being burned
at the stake if one dared to speak up.

It was mainly by political curtailment of the church's
power by governments and dictators such as Napoleon,
and by literally kicking out groups like the Jesuits
and other bigoted, ignorant fanatics, that countries
began to awaken. Others sought their spiritual freedom
in the schismatic countries and the New World.

Here are examples of those burned at the stake and of
government interventions to curtail the rapaciousness
and evil of the church and its efforts to maintain
ignorance.

1498 Savonarola burned at the stake in Florence
(b.1452) 1535 Study of Canon Law forbidden in
Cambridge 1570 Calvinist, Lutherans, and Moravian
Brothers of Poland ally against Jesuits 1583 Giordano
Bruno publishes his 'On the Infinite Universe and
Worlds'. 1594 Giordano Bruno seized by the Vatican for
supporting Copernicus theory of the universe. 1600
Giordano Bruno burned as a heretic in Rome 1609 The
Emperor Rudolf II permits freedom of religion in
Bohemia. 1633 Galileo forced by the Inquisition to
renounce the theories of Copernicus 1716 Christian
religious teaching prohibited in China. 1719 Jesuits
expelled from Russia 1751 Powers of the Portuguese
Inquisition curtailed by government. 1759 Expulsion of
Jesuits from Portugal. 1767 Jesuits expelled from
Spain, Parma, and the Two Sicilies. 1772 Inquisition
abolished in France 1808 Napoleon abolishes the
Inquisition in Spain and Italy 1814 Pope Pius VII
returns to Rome and restores the Inquisition. 1872
Jesuits expelled from Germany 1875 Religious orders
abolished in Prussia 1879 Anti-Jesuit laws introduced
in France. 1904 Church and State separated in France
1919 Church and State separated in Germany 1950
Evangelical HUMANAI GENERIS of Pius XII condemned
various intellectual tendencies in the Catholic
Church.

As we know, Galileo and Christopher Columbus and many
others were publicly harassed and persecuted for
contradicting the Falsehoods of the Bible. And to make
sure about its monopoly on knowledge, the church
banned not only Galileo's work, but Kepler's and
Copernicus' as well.

The ignorance that resulted gave the church more and
more power, so much so that it was able to accumulate
great wealth. However, there were many pockets of
resistance to it and many people realized the Truth of
things as they discovered Gnosticism. Many others
objected to the church's despotism and when truthful
and enlightening knowledge from the outside the
so-called Christian Church filtered in. And this
enlightening knowledge, together with self-realization
is what sparked off the Renaissance.

In 1460 Leonardo of Pistoia brought the Greek
manuscript of the Gnostic Corpus Hermeticum to
Florence from Macedonia. And in 1471 the first printed
edition of Ficino's Latin translation of the Divine
Pymander appeared.

But the renaissance however, there was the horrendous
Inquisition. This consisted of a reign of terror
through many centuries and it was to force the
populace to accept a church which it did not want.

And as it is often now amusingly mocked, this church
had only one commandment -

"Bring hither the money!"

Many spoke out against the church. Frere Ryamond Jean
said:

"The church which governs us is symbolized by the
Great Whore of the Apocalypse who persecutes the poor
and the ministers of Christ."

You can guess how ended up - Burned Alive!

Even among its own ranks the church had dissenters and
the members of the Franciscan splinter group called
the Fraticelli, were outspoken in calling the Pope the
Antichrist. They could see through the church's
nefarious activities. Unfortunately for them, they
paid the price the church asked for their clear
vision, and they were all slaughtered by Pope Martin
the Fifth.

There was public disgust at the Church's avarice
during the time of the Inquisition and there was also
a growing suspicion of its evil practices. This
suspicion was sparked by Gnostic philosophies which
came from the east and these Gnostic Philosophies
revealed the spurious claims of the myths that the
church put forward.

Again they queried the need for Salvation, the story
of the Garden of Eden, the Fall of Man, the Taint of
Original Sin, Heaven and Hell, the Virgin birth, and
so on. The Gnostics said boldly in public that these
were myths. In its attempt to distort the Truth and
conceal its exposure, the church hierarchy
mendaciously likened the spread of truth to a social
cancer which had to be stopped at all costs.

Apart from destroying these dissenters, the
Inquisition can be described, as others have in the
past, as the most elaborate extortion racket ever
devised, primarily developed to give the church profit
while it eradicated people against whom it could not
win arguments about religious philosophy. In the words
of Jules Henry:

"Organized Religion which likes to fancy itself the
Mother of Compassion long ago lost its right to claim
that by its organized support of organized cruelty."

The promise of a place in Heaven through its
intercession for the people was what enabled the
church to brainwash them into accepting all the
suffering and misery which in effect it helped inflict
on them.

What a miserably evil scheme it was. What a perfect
way to make sure that, not only would they give up
their money to the church, but also that they would
accept all the exploitations they would experience,
and not fight back nor try to awaken to the Truth of
things.

The church told them that they could go to Heaven by
using its unique sacraments (most of which it had
really copied from the Mithraic rites and other
religious practices) and that they could shorten
relatives' and their own eventual stay in Purgatory by
paying Indulgences to the Church.

It convinced people to toe the line. Otherwise it
would send them to Hell by refusing to absolve them of
their sins, by withholding so-called indispensable
sacraments and by excommunicating them. Hence, it
manipulated people's live to such a degree that they
were kept repressed and totally in the darkness.

This fantasy of a Heavenly reward if people did what
they were told by the church was not pushed as much,
or course, as the fear of eternal damnation in Hell.
And this fear engendered much guilt and destroyed many
lives, for many could not cope with the fear
adequately.

Can you think of anything more cruel than this? In
fact, even today the percentage of mentally ill
Catholics, whose church has thrived on this fear
approach, is greater than in the community at large.

But, In spite the fact that this so-called Christian
doctrine preached love, tolerance and non-violence for
the sake of attaining a Heavenly abode on the one
hand, and on the other hand people were exhorted to
kill and maim when the church said so, otherwise they
too would be excommunicated, burned at the stake and
supposedly punished in Hell forever.

1521 Pope Leo X, via a papal bull, ordered the
Venetian Doge and the Venetian Senate to execute
heretics even though the Doge and Senate opposed the
executions. This shows the power the papacy had!

And apart from destroying all other modes of learning
except its own spurious doctrines, which it made up as
it went along in every era, the church's presence
since shortly after the death of Jesus has meant fear,
hatred, intolerance, oppression, and the most inhuman
acts of barbarism and violence.

If the atrocities of the church were the result of one
or two or even a few who ruled the church, one would
expect its bellicosity to be a passing phase. But the
fact that it not only persisted but also became its
most salient characteristic suggests that the very
essence driving the church is evil and exploitative,
and indeed it is. Metaphysics aside, the real
historical facts leave us with no other conclusion.

If the church was sincere, would it not give back the
lands and wealth that it stole from the people? Would
it not acknowledge its own mistakes and not only
publicly confess this but perform restitutions as
well? Like all those of an evil essence, the church
never recants.

If the church was really the Holy Mother, would it not
care for its people first and foremost with total
disregard for its own pomposity, arrogance and
self-aggrandizement?

One of the excuses given by some of the clergy for the
wealth and extravagance displayed by the churches is
that nothing is too good for God. But one must ask
What does God care for temporal things? What does HE
care or a gold chalice when HIS people go hungry?

* Where is the love?

* Where is the tolerance?

* Where is the care to be found in the church?

Certainly NOT in its past history

Many times people with Gnostic knowledge confronted
the church and its clergy. For example, the horrors of
the plagues that Europe suffered revived the Gnostic
opinions of an evil demigod controlling the plane and
causing the scourges on purpose. But the church,
instead of confronting this information, looked for
scapegoats and found the Hebrews.

It encouraged the persecution of the Jews to divert
attention from that developing idea that the terrible
plagues which killed half of Europe's population, were
caused by a malicious god. Killing the Jews vented the
people's anger which they had against the clergy, many
of whose members cowardly deserted plague stricken
areas. And it is documented that the Great Plagues of
the 14th Century were blamed on the Jews who were said
to have caused this pestilence by poisoning the wells
and streams.

Each plague led to a pogrom. They were persecuted
everywhere.

In France, Spain, Bavaria, Palestine and in Cologne
there are explicit details of the most wanton
atrocities against them. The Inquisitors in Spain used
the excuse of the plagues to expel the Jews and take
their property which was their real aim.

In 1492 the year of Columbus' discovery of the New
World, by order of the Inquisitor-general Torquemada,
Spanish Jews were given three months to accept
Christianity or leave the country.

The church claimed it was legitimate to persecute and
seize the property of the Jews and anyone how it
thought heretical and the official church policy is
quoted as stating that -

"No illegitimate violence is being done to Jews,
infidels and heretics because these people have no
rights"

So much for the Brotherhood of Man and Brotherly Love.
And of course the Inquisitors were able to point to
anyone and say they were heretics, without fear of
contradiction, for no one accused by them ever escaped
punishment or was acquitted.

This hatred of the Jews extended even further so that
St. Bernard is quoted as saying "It would be an insult
to Christ is the offspring of a Jew occupied the
throne of Peter." How easily he and the church forgot
the race of which Jesus was born.

Apart from the diverse beliefs in doctrine which
allowed the church to persecute the Gnostics, the
Gnostics separated from the Christian church because
they saw it hopelessly materialistic.

>From the earliest days the Gnostics had declared that
the God of the new (non-Jesus following) Christian
church was evil, and that Resurrection of the flesh
was a lie. And yet Tertullian, one of the founding
church fathers had said that the Resurrection simply
had to be believed because it was so absurd!

As early as 190 A.D., it was declared that anyone who
denied the resurrection was a heretic.

The Gnostics also claimed that Baptism, as the church
presented it, was useless and this the church would
not tolerate.

Throughout the ages the church changed its doctrine to
suit the times. It had no hard and fast rules about
God and Divinity. I will cite two examples of past
cases:

* The church tolerated Abortion until 1869 when it
decided that the soul entered the body of the fetus at
concept. Before then, the church did not disapprove of
abortion saying that the fetus was soulless until the
obstetrical phenomenon of "Quickening". In other
words, it taught there was no soul until the fifth
month. What hypocrisy there is in its change of policy
of respect for the unborn child and in its excuse of
the earlier folly by saying God had erred in not
informing the church about the correct time of the
soul's entry into the fetus.

* The second example is the one of Mesmer. When Mesmer
in 1840 demonstrated that alteration of the state of
consciousness was able to cure his subject of many
psychosomatic diseased, the Vatican approved. But by
1847 it was reported that many subjects under such
changed states of consciousness were having religious
(i.e. spiritual) experiences, rediscovering their
clairvoyance and other psychic powers which resulted
in prophetic uttering. Immediately, the church
declared mesmerism heretical and in 1856 an encyclical
letter warned that Mesmerism was a dangerous error.

Apart from the turn of face, which demonstrates that
the church hierarchy is NOT in contact with the
Higher, Purer realms which provide the truth at all,
it is another example of the church refusing to admit
that spiritual illumination can come from within the
person.

In past times it wanted full control and wanted to
prevent connection of people to their Higher
Consciousness. And so it was that Luther questioned
whether the church had such power in Heaven.

The church was able to bribe many to do it dirty work.
For example, warriors in the Crusades were promised
indulgences regardless of crimes they committed in
those Crusades or would commit in future. Was such an
dispensation not the obvious assumption of a power
only God could have?

Where did the church draw the line and mark where its
power ended?

Nowhere...it declared itself omnipotent.

The Crusades

The Crusades to the Holy Land were not about
liberating Holy Places at all. There were commercial
enterprises to break into the Middle East and capture
Arab trade which had been bypassing the very greedy
'holy?' Roman Empire for some time.

The First Crusade of 1095 was a bloodbath! The
Crusaders killed Jews, Greeks, Turks, etc..., as they
went Eastward. Eventually local armies were forced to
be called to repel them and kill the Crusaders.

Another act of barbarism occurred in 1098 when the
Crusaders massacred the entire population of
Jerusalem. Many Jews were burnt alive in the
synagogues.

In 1204 they sacked Constantinople. These were acts of
gross vandalism rather than the liberation for a
Christian cause.

Even Richard the Lionhearted, acting for the church,
violated his Truce and slaughtered all his hostages.
And yet even today he is looked upon as a 'Goody'.

Europe was Christianized by force. All pagan
communities who did not pay the Papacy were attacked.
Other Gods were defamed and the church became more and
more fanatical in its dictatorial policies.

It was groups such as the Bogomils, the Cathars, the
Albigensians who called the church the synagogue of
Satan. They correctly condemned the worship of images,
denied the power of the sacraments which the church
could make up, read the bible for themselves and
called Jehovah a demon.

And so it was the church instigated the Crusades
against the Albigensians in 1209 in which half the
population of those districts was exterminated with
the famous quote "Kill them all, the Lord knows his
own." These Crusades, it is now realized by
historians, probably destroyed the most advanced
population of Europe and they led further into the
Inquisitions.

Apologists defend the Church by saying she had to defend
herself. But what danger was there in the thoughts of
others that induced it to go to such extremes? The
answer is this: The church was fearful of the DANGER
OF EXPOSURE which came from the Truth the Gnostics
uttered."

[jtolan]

...."Oh no." You go and get your own dirt.

LOL, I like it!!

It takes boat loads more faith to believe such lackluster and piecemeal dogma, in my estimation, than to see our Father's hand everywhere around us.

That's so true Techstuf, people don't realize that. I don't belive in evolution cause it takes way more faith.

[edited later]

welcome to the madness 'ovyyus' LOL
wow, that's a freekin long post. I think you hold the record now LOL How do you feel? :) I usually feel good after a good does of ranting. LOL

by the way, I like the post, I read a bit of it and its so true. Such ugly things were done in the name of Religion. The Roman Catholic Church was pure in the beginning, but apostasy took hold. The 'St.' prefix is also so true, I visited the Vatican in '84 and I saw it first had, all the "saints" up around the Vatican square are ancient god statues.

[Techstuf]

Ovyyus has shown that he is smarter than to judge entire populations of people on the basis of their largely self appointed leadership.

It is like Ovyyus telling the kids in his neighborhood to not throw rocks at windows.....a cult forms around him of rock throwing kids....calling themselves "Ovyys". Including a relative few who admire him for his sage wisdom, taking his advice.....and becoming peacable little tykes.

Soon the entire town is blaming Ovyyus and the few who took his advice for the mischief and everything done in his name.....by the "Ovvys".

But what do I know......I'm not the boss of "Ovyytown" and it's band of cantankerous "Ovyys".....

;^)



Peace,

TS

[ovyyus]

I know it's a long tradition with you guy's but hey, don't shoot the messenger. lol

[Techstuf]

It's been said that 'love hurts'......but shucks.....is the pain really that sharp? That you feel your character, at least that which is showing, is being assassinated?

You seem to love putting the "I" in LABEL. And it is with a broad brush that you paint your acrimonies.

It says much about a person, that the standard by which he judges is centered upon the Lowest Common Denominator.

So far, everything you've stated in derision of all who associate themselves with Christ is in harmony with the prophecies written in the Bible millenia ago.

It's been my observation that those for whom the words: Jesus Christ and GOD are swear words......do so out of subconscious fear and contempt for the two of them.....a deep, visceral fear.

Elsewise, why pay them any verbal attention at all?

At any rate, His blessings upon you and yours, and may He bring back the peace to your household, that you might receive a better understanding of His ways.


Peace,

TS

[ovyyus]

Twisted by the Dark Side, young Robinson has become.

[Techstuf]

Coming from so far down under......that statement almost reaches 'complimentary' status.

Truth of the matter is, it is easy to see how some would see the light of Christ and His teachings as 'darkness'......

The doppler shift hits the ultraviolet when one is running from the light of truth at near superluminal velocities.

Peace,

TS

[Jonathan]

Now, now, I can settle this: you're both nuts.

[ovyyus]

lol