Just sharing.

[drifter]

Preying to those who pray ?

 

[beensetfree]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

A merry Christmas to all.

 

[fishbuff]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

Bro , the local there are skeptical and cautious about their own faith ? That is very good .

religion here are dying off and worship places like churches are fighting to survive due to falling numbers in believers. some of the churches had been sold off to be casino, art gallery or just residential place.

 

[fishbuff]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

i did asked around trying to get some debate on religions and all can't get over the 1st hurdle;

CAN YOU PROOF THAT GOD EXIST?

99% of them are stumped and start to pull magic stories from their asses.

 

[drifter]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

religion here are dying off and worship places like churches are fighting to survive due to falling numbers in believers. some of the churches had been sold off to be casino, art gallery or just residential place.

Looks like your area is a paradise you are very lucky to live there .

 

[drifter]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

i did asked around trying to get some debate on religions and all can't get over the 1st hurdle;

CAN YOU PROOF THAT GOD EXIST?

99% of them are stumped and start to pull magic stories from their asses.

You also like me ..in real life like to question them about their blind faith

 

[fishbuff]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

Looks like your area is a paradise you are very lucky to live there .

not too shabby. too bad they let in too many useless bums into australia. Just today, met a chinese at the shopping who claimed to be waiting for visa sponsorship and want to beg money from me. yes, i have seen other chinese here leeching on the centrelink and refuse to work. Really put us to shame.

 

[drifter]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

not too shabby. too bad they let in too many useless bums into australia. Just today, met a chinese at the shopping who claimed to be waiting for visa sponsorship and want to beg money from me. yes, i have seen other chinese here leeching on the centrelink and refuse to work. Really put us to shame.

Wow ... Really beg u for money ? Knn giving Chinese a bad name . This kind of trash shouldn't be there in the first place ...over here we don't have this kind of problem because the local will never give money to beggars or charity group . The local here prefer to give u food then money

 

[neddy]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

not too shabby. too bad they let in too many useless bums into australia. Just today, met a chinese at the shopping who claimed to be waiting for visa sponsorship and want to beg money from me. yes, i have seen other chinese here leeching on the centrelink and refuse to work. Really put us to shame.

Why let the freeloaders affect you?
You are indeed lucky to be in Australia where the country can afford to feed freeloaders.

Also, we should not be blinded by Centrelink freeloaders. There are also a lot of rich bums around whose jobs are to exploit the working people and waste limited resources. The ones who turn the middle-class into battlers.

 

[septuagint]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

 

[beensetfree]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

Tough Things
=============

"The tougher and more unpleasant the situation, the more you
will focus on Me and the less you will seek comfort and pleasure
from the situation. And the more you focus on Me, the greater
will be your happiness and bliss. Now digest this!"

That was a statement that God spoke to me years ago.
It is a difficult statement to understand and even more
difficult to digest.

As I rear children, I can clearly see why we are not allowed to
have all that we desire and why we must endure difficulty.
I have four boys, ages 10, 7, 4 and 16 months. They are all 3
years apart give or take a few months and all act the same.

No matter how much they are given, in both attention and
material things, it's not long before they are clamoring for
more, wanting what the other has, and fussing about something.
I see the same behavior pattern in adults.

Rarely do we pray and give thanks AFTER a meal when we are full.

I know why God referred to adults as "the 'children' of Israel."
No matter how much we are given, it's not long before we are
clamoring for more, wanting what someone else has, and fussing
about something.

Our most heartfelt prayers, our desire to seek, know and
understand Divine things are usually increased when we are
"going through" something. Church attendance skyrockets when
the nation is in trouble.

When things are not what we want or expected them to be, then we
seek God. Then we cry out. Then we don’t rely on our own
intellect since obviously we can't solve the issue.
Then we become children at the feet of the parent.

When tough situations happen:
We will become seekers or sour.
We will become better or bitter.
We will grow up or get burned up.
We will look up or feel cast down.
We will become righteous or rebellious.
We will get closer to God or closer to despair.
We will become thankful for the good or curse the bad.

Our spirits are very much like our muscles. It takes struggle
and weight to truly make them grow. Some are born to naturally
have big and well-developed muscles but that's the minority.
Most of us have to have external weight and resistance to grow.

I have a present and a past that I would literally trade with no
one on earth. I have been protected and blessed beyond measure.
Yet, I still struggle.
I still have tough situations.

I am still digesting that my greatest true and lasting joy will
not come from things, position or people.

Mine won't.
Yours won't.

Now digest this!

 

[fishbuff]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress...ing-off-nones-are-worlds-third-largest-faith/

Religion dying off: “Nones” are world’s third largest “faith”

The results of a new study on the prevalence of world religion were summarized in the New York Times last week, and I’ve now read the full report. The survey, ”The global religious landscape” (download full report here) was conducted by the Pew Research Center (now in collaboration with the Templeton Foundation!). It’s a long report (80) pages, but unless you’re interested in the variation among nations, there are only a few salient results for us.

The first is that although 84% of the world’s population (5.8 billion people0 identifies with a religious group, 16%—one in six—is “religiously” unaffiliated. This figure from the survey tells the tale:

Picture 1

These data are for 2010. (Oy vey: only 0.2% Jews!)

The 1.1 billion people who aren’t affiliated with a religion aren’t, of course, all atheists. As the report notes,

Surveys indicate that many of the unaffiliated hold some religious beliefs (such as belief in God or a universal spirit) even though they do not identify with a particular faith. . .

For example, belief in God or a higher power is shared by 7% of Chinese unaffiliated adults, 30% of French unaffiliated adults and 68% of unaffiliated U.S. adults. Some of the unaffiliated also engage in certain kinds of religious practices. For example, 7% of unaffiliated adults in France and 2 7% of those in the United States say they attend religious services at least once a year. And in China, 44% of
unaffiliated adults say they have worshiped at a graveside or tomb in the past year.

Most of the unaffiliated are in the Asia-Pacific region, with China and its 365,000,000 unaffiliated (52.2% of the population) making up 62.2% of the world’s unaffiliated. Most of that is undoubtedly the result of the hegemony of godless Communism. Japan has 6.4% of the world’s unaffiliated, and the U.S., with 16.4% inhabitants unaffiliated, makes up 4.5% of the world’s quasi-heathens. The six countries in which the unaffiliated are more than 50% of the population are China, the Czech Republic (the winner with 76% unaffiliated), North Korea, Estonia, Japan, and Hong Kong. The median age of unaffiliated people is 34, substantially higher than believers (28).

Here’s the world’s distribution of faiths from the report:

Picture 2

Mongolia is an off-color, representing a Buddhist majority (55%) but a substantial Hindu minority (39%). The rest of the countries are as you might expect, though Greenland, more Christian than the U.S. surprises me.

Besides the New York Times piece, there’s a substantial summary and ancillary information in a CBS Sunday morning report called “Losing our religion” piece (transcript is below the video):

According to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the nation’s spiritual landscape may be becoming a little LESS religious.

Some 45 million people, or one-fifth of the U.S. adult population, now say they belong to no church in particular.

Six percent of them are either atheist or agnostic.

“There’s a yearning to find like-minded people, to be able to have a conversation that’s not taboo,” said Red McCall, president of an atheist group in the buckle of the Bible Belt – Oklahoma City – whom we met last month.

In just the past three years, membership in the Oklahoma Atheists has jumped from just 300 members to well over a thousand. [Abbie Smith will like that!]

Shelly Rees, a college professor, in one of them. She feels the public mood on atheists – even here – has softened.

“There were still people when we were marching in the parade at Halloween yelling, ‘You’re going to hell,’ and stuff like that,” said Rees. “But there were more people who weren’t, and I think that’s going to keep going. I think that’s the trend.”

Researchers call them “The Nones” – those who check the “none” box when asked to describe their religious affiliation.

And they’ve more than doubled since 1990.

And I can’t help reproducing The Good News in extenso. Why, asked CBS, is religion waning in the U.S.

The study suggests it’s organized religion—with respondents overwhelmingly saying many organizations are too focused on money, power and politics.

Protestants have suffered the greatest decline. They now account for just 48 percent of religious adults, making it the first time in history that the United States doesn’t have a Protestant majority.

Evangelical churches aren’t immune, either. The megachurches once bursting at the seams are a little less mega than they used to be. [n.b. Tanya Luhrmann made the opposite assertion in her book When God Talks Back].

“We’re seeing church attendance being much more inconsistent than I’ve ever seen it in my entire life,” said Ed Young, Senior Pastor of the Fellowship Church based in Dallas. He’s hardly conventional – even preaching a sermon with his wife while sitting on a double bed.

It’s his attempt not at a gimmick, he says, but to reach those who these days find organized religion, at its best, irrelevant – at its worst, intolerant.

“I don’t think we have been vulnerable enough,” said Pastor Young. “I don’t think we have been real enough about issues and about life. You have to realize that the church is pretty much one generation away from extinction.”

Indeed, it’s the young – one out of every three person surveyed under the age of 30 – who say they don’t link themselves with a church, a mosque, a synagogue, or anything else.

Compare that, with the “Greatest Generation,” where only one in 20 claimed no religious home.

“We’re in kind of a post-denominational phase, I think, in many ways in the United States,” said Charles Kimball, Director of Religious Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “That’s still dramatically different that what you see in Europe, but you see that pattern, I think, is present here as well.”

While Kimball says most of his students still respect religious organizations as a power to do good in the world, it’s often their stands on social issues – abortion and gay rights in particular – that he feels are driving the young away.

“The vast majority of students, even people coming out of pretty traditional religious backgrounds, don’t see these as a big deal. They don’t get, what’s the issue here, don’t understand it,” Kimball said. “You can see a real clear shift away from dogmatism there.”

The church “one generation away from extinction”? Well, maybe Ed Young’s church, but I think it will take about a century. And it’s heartening that the unaffiliated comprise largely the young, who are starting to realize that religious dogma about stuff like gays, abortion, and hell just don’t comport with modern sensibilities. Those churches, like Catholicism, who don’t go along with modernity are the ones doomed to the fastest extinction.

Just remember this the next time you hear the mantra, “Religion is here to stay” (we’ll hear that later today from England’s chief rabbi Sacks). It wasn’t there to stay in Europe, and it isn’t in the U.S., either.

h/t: Hempenstein, John B.

 

[fishbuff]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

[video=youtube;MwSsARS-osc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwSsARS-osc[/video]

 

[fishbuff]

[video=youtube;EcKOZTLLoWc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKOZTLLoWc[/video]

 

[neddy]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress...ing-off-nones-are-worlds-third-largest-faith/

Just remember this the next time you hear the mantra, “Religion is here to stay” (we’ll hear that later today from England’s chief rabbi Sacks). It wasn’t there to stay in Europe, and it isn’t in the U.S., either.

h/t: Hempenstein, John B.

Atheists are also believers, they either believe in money, drugs, zoophilia, Green-Left &/or gay movements.

Bosch, Hieronymus. The Seven Deadly Sins (c.1485; Prado, Madrid)

The Seven Deadly Sins is a painted rectangle with a central image of the eye of God, with Christ watching the world. The Seven Deadly Sins, depicted through scenes of worldly transgression, are arranged around the circular shape. The circular layout with god in the centre represents gods all seeing eye. No sin goes unnoticed.

 

[drifter]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

Atheists are also believers, they either believe in money, drugs, zoophilia, Green-Left &/or gay movements.

Bosch, Hieronymus. The Seven Deadly Sins (c.1485; Prado, Madrid)

The Seven Deadly Sins is a painted rectangle with a central image of the eye of God, with Christ watching the world. The Seven Deadly Sins, depicted through scenes of worldly transgression, are arranged around the circular shape. The circular layout with god in the centre represents gods all seeing eye. No sin goes unnoticed.

" Atheists are also believers, they either believe in money, drugs, zoophilia, Green-Left &/or gay movements


Please go and. Check in the dictionary what is the meaning of religion

 

[septuagint]

Re: Atheists Are In Denial

 

[septuagint]

[video=youtube_share;FMrAafe7Mns]http://youtu.be/FMrAafe7Mns[/video]

 

[beensetfree]

I've never given much thought to my hands and what they've done
all these years.
An old man, probably some ninety plus years, sat feebly on the
park bench. He didn't move, just sat with his head down staring
at his hands.
When I sat down beside him he didn't acknowledge my presence and
the longer I sat I wondered if he was ok.
Finally, not really wanting to disturb him but wanting to check
on him at the same time, I asked him if he was ok.
He raised his head and looked at me and smiled. "Yes, I'm fine,
thank you for asking," he said in a clear strong voice.
"I didn't mean to disturb you, sir, but you were just sitting
here staring at your hands and I wanted to make sure you were
ok?" I explained to him.
"Have you ever looked at your hands?" he asked. "I mean really
looked at your hands."
I slowly opened my hands and stared down at them. I turned them
over, palms up and then palms down. No, I guess I had never
really looked at my hands as I tried to figure out the point he
was making.
Then he smiled and related this story: "Stop and think for a
moment about the hands you have, how they have served you well
throughout your years.
These hands, though wrinkled, shriveled and weak have been the
tools I have used all my life to reach out and grab and embrace
life.
They braced and caught my fall when as a toddler I crashed upon
the floor. They put food in my mouth and clothes on my back.
As a child my mother taught me to fold them in prayer. They
tied my shoes and pulled on my boots.
They dried the tears of my children and caressed the love of my
life. They held my rifle and wiped my tears when I went off to
war. They have been dirty, scraped and raw, swollen and bent.
They were uneasy and clumsy when I tried to hold my newborn son.
Decorated with my wedding band they showed the world that I was
married and loved someone special.
They wrote the letters home and trembled and shook when I buried
my parents and spouse and when I walked my daughter down the
aisle. Yet, they were strong and sure when I dug my buddy out
of a foxhole and lifted a plow off of my best friends foot.
They have held children, consoled neighbors, and shook in fists
of anger when I didn't understand. They have covered my face,
combed my hair, and washed and cleansed the rest of my body.
They have been sticky and wet, bent and broken, dried and raw.
And to this day when not much of anything else of me works real
well these hands hold me up, lay me down, and again continue to
fold in prayer. These hands are the mark of where I've been and
the ruggedness of my life.
But more importantly it will be these hands that God will reach
out and take when he leads me home. And He won't care about
where these hands have been or what they have done. What He
will care about is to whom these hands belong and how much He
loves these hands.
And with these hands He will lift me to His side and there I
will use these hands to touch the face of Christ."
No doubt I will never look at my hands the same again.
I never saw the old man again after I left the park that day but
I will never forget him and the words he spoke. When my hands
are hurt or sore or when I stroke the face of my children I
think of the man in the park. I have a feeling he has been
stroked and caressed and held by the hands of God. I, too, want
to touch the face of God and feel his hands upon my face.

Thank you, Father God, for hands.

 

[fishbuff]

religion is deception, mate. Hope you will realize that whatever supernatural beings that you believe in, there are others gods that you have rejected as well.

and all have been proven to be false by science.