Today's Scripture Reading

[drifter]

Prayer is a Superstition
The dictionary defines the word "superstition" in this way:
An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.

We have all seen plenty of superstitions. There are the superstitions that a rabbit's foot or a four-leaf clover bring good luck. There are the superstitions that breaking a mirror or seeing a black cat bring bad luck. And we all know that these superstitions are silly. A rabbit's foot or a broken mirror has no good or bad influence on the course of events. This is obvious to any intelligent person.
So let's imagine the following situation. Let's say that you have cancer. You are lying in the hospital after a round of chemo and you feel terrible. A person pops into your room with a bright smile on his face and a horseshoe in his hand. He says to you, "This is an amazing and lucky horseshoe. If you touch this horseshoe, it will cure your cancer. But I need to charge you $100 to touch it."

Would you pay the man $100?
Of course not. We all know that touching the horseshoe will have zero effect on cancer. The belief in lucky horseshoes is pure superstition.

It is also very easy to scientifically prove that the horseshoe has no effect on cancer (or anything else). The way we would do it is simple: we would take 1,000 cancer patients and split them randomly into two groups of 500. We would let 500 of the cancer patients touch the lucky horseshoe and we would leave the other 500 alone in a double-blind way. Then we would look at cancer remission rates between the two groups. What we would find is zero benefit from the horseshoe. We would see no statistical difference between the remission rates in the two groups of 500 patients.

Now let us imagine another situation. You have cancer, you have just finished a round of chemo and you feel terrible. This time, a person pops into your room with a bright smile on his face and a bible in his hand. He says to you, "There is a being named God who is the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator of the universe. I am his representative on earth. If you will allow me to pray to God on your behalf, God will cure your cancer."

You agree to the prayer, and the man prays over you for 10 minutes. He invokes all the healing powers of God, beseeching him, reciting verses of scripture and so forth. Afterwards, as he is getting ready to leave, the man says, "Oh, and by the way, God says that you should tithe 10% of your income to the church. Would you consider making a tax-deductible donation today?"

The question is: Is there any difference between the two men? Will the prayer have any effect greater than the horseshoe?
The answer is: No. The belief in prayer is just as superstitious as the belief in lucky horseshoes.

The fascinating thing is that we can prove that prayer has no effect in exactly the same way that we can prove that horseshoes have no effect. We take 1,000 cancer patients. We pray over 500 of them and we leave the other 500 alone. Then we look at cancer remission rates between the two groups. What we find is that prayers have zero benefit. We would see no statistical difference between the remission rates in the two groups of 500 patients.

In other words, we can prove that the belief in prayer is pure superstition. The belief in the power of prayer is no different from the belief in the power of lucky horseshoes.
These experiments have been performed many times, and they always return the same results .Quite simply, prayer has absolutely no effect on the outcome of any event. The "power of prayer" is actually "the power of coincidence." Belief in prayer is pure superstition .

Now here is the problem. We all know that people who believe in superstitions like rabbits' feet and broken mirrors are daft. And we know that the man with the horseshoe asking for money is a complete fraud. These facts are obvious to everyone with intelligence.

It should now be obvious that the believer's faith in prayer is just as daft, and the minister asking for donations is just as fraudulent.

This is the problem with religon. We allow daft and fradulent people to run freely in our society, spreading their superstitions and collecting their money, rather than pointing out the superstition and the fraud:

For a person to say "God answered my prayers today!" is just as silly as a person saying, "My lucky horseshoe granted me my wishes today!" or, "The planet Jupiter answered my prayers today!"

For a person to say, "God wants you to tithe 10% of your income to the church, and if you do, God will answer your prayers and let you into heaven when you die," is completely fraudulent.
The time has come for intelligent people to stop accepting or "tolerating" superstition and fraud and, instead, to call it what it is. It is time to state clearly that God is imaginary. Religion is pure superstition, nothing more -- It has been proven time and time again with dozens of scientific experiments. It is time for us to begin eliminating the superstition and fraud from public discourse, for the simple reason that superstition and fraud are detrimental to society.

 

[drifter]

Understanding "God's Plan"

If you are a Christian, you are extremely familiar with "God's plan." This is the way that Christians traditionally explain things like amputations, cancer, hurricanes and car accidents.

You can see how pervasive "God's plan" is by looking in Christian inspirational literature. For example, if we look in the book A Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, i find this remarkable paragraph in Chapter 2:

Because God made you for a reason, he also decided when you would be born and how long you would live. He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death. The Bible says, "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!" [Psalm 139:16]
There is also this:
Regardless of the circumstances of your birth or who your parents are, God had a plan in creating you.
Under this view of the universe, God plans everything. Take a moment and think about what Rick Warren said. Rick said, "He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death." Let's examine one simple implication of this statement. What this means is that God pre-planned every abortion that has taken place on our planet.

If you think about this implication for a few moments, you will begin to realize how impossible "God's plan" is. If the concept of "God's plan" is true, you can first of all see that God wants us to be aborting children. Every single abortion is planned by God, so God must be doing it for a reason. Second, you can see that both the mother who requests the abortion and the doctor who performs it are blameless. Since it is God who planned the abortion of the child (God chose the "exact time" of the death, according to Rick Warren), the mother and doctor are simply puppets who are fulfilling God's plan. You can also see that all the Christians who are fighting against abortion are missing the point. They are actually fighting against God's plan, and their fight is completely futile. God is the all-powerful ruler of the universe, and his plan is for more than a million children a year to die in the United States through abortion. Each one of those abortions was meticulously planned by God, so fighting against abortion is a totally wasted effort.
If you are a Christian, what you are thinking is, "God does not intend for us to perform abortions!" But if you believe what Rick is saying, then you are obviously incorrect. God is actually the direct cause of every abortion on earth. If you find that notion to be uncomfortable, I would agree with you. Unfortunately, that is the logical outcome of God's plan.

In order to better understand God's plan, let's look at one of the biggest global events that humans have ever witnessed: World War II. According to Encarta:

The human cost [of WWII], not including between 5.6 million and 5.9 million Jews killed in the Holocaust who were indirect victims of the war, is estimated to have been 55 million dead—25 million of those military and 30 million civilian.
In addition, according to Encarta:
61 countries participated in WWII
1.7 billion people participated in WWII
75% of all human beings alive at the time participated in WWII
World War II was obviously a major disaster -- perhaps the most horrific event the world has ever seen. It is safe to say that nearly every human being on planet Earth prayed to God that this war would end.
And don't forget Adolph Hitler. He was evil incarnate, and Hitler is well known for the atrocious things he did. It is interesting to look at Adolph Hitler in the context of prayer, and understand how Christians try to reconcile an all-loving, prayer-answering God with such a hateful man.

What I would like you to do right now is to consider this statement: "Hitler is part of God's Plan." Think about what Rick said:

He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death. The Bible says, "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!" [Psalm 139:16]
Rick also says:
God never does anything accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything he creates. Every plant and every animal was planned by God, and every person was designed with a purpose in mind.
If God has a divine plan for each of us, then he had a divine plan for Hitler too. It is when you stop to think about it deeply that the contradictions hit you.
For example, simply think about what "God's plan" would actually mean. Since God is an all-powerful being, God's plan would, of necessity, need to be all-inclusive. Hitler and WWII would fit as one tiny piece in a supreme plan of massive proportions. Under an all-encompassing plan like this, the 60 million people who died in WWII all died for specific reasons -- each death had meaning -- and each death would have rippled through the world causing countless side-effects, also all part of God's plan. God's master plan would include everyone and everything, including Hitler and WWII.

Now let's imagine that you say a prayer in this sort of universe. What difference does it make? God has his plan, and that plan is running down its track like a freight train. If God has a plan, then everyone who died in the Holocaust died for a reason. They had to die, and each death had meaning. Therefore, Holocaust victims could pray all day, and they would still die. The idea of a "plan" makes the idea of a "prayer-answering relationship with God" ridiculous. Yet Christians attach themselves to both ideas, despite the irresolvable contradiction.

Think about what God's plan means for you personally. If the plan happens to say that you will get hit by a bus tomorrow, or that terrorists will blow you up, or that you will be shot in the head four times, then that's what will happen. It would be the same with any disease. If you contract cancer this afternoon and die three months later, that is God's plan for you. Praying to cure the cancer is a waste. God plans for you to die, so you will die. He has pre-programmed the exact time of your death. There is nothing you can do to change the plan -- no amount of prayer will help -- because your death will have meaning and your death will cause side-effects that are also part of the plan.

Who will you marry? You actually have no choice in the matter. God has pre-planned your wedding in minute detail. Rick Warren says, "God knew that those two individuals [your parents] possessed exactly the right genetic makeup to create the custom 'you' that he had in mind. They had the DNA God wanted to make you." Therefore, your spouse was pre-chosen by God for you so that you would create the children who are a part of his plan. You also have no choice in the number of children you will have -- God has pre-planned their births.

In addition, this sort of universe means that Hitler is blameless. Hitler was not "evil," because Hitler had no free will at all. Hitler was simply an actor forced to play his role in God's plan. God planned for millions of people to die in the Holocaust -- he planned their deaths in exact detail according to Rick Warren. Hitler had to kill those people. Hitler was God's puppet in making that those millions of deaths happen right on schedule.

In the same way then, every murderer is blameless. Since God has planned each of our deaths in exact detail, murderers are actually essential to God's plan. Why do we punish them? We should be rewarding them for doing their God-planned duty. What if you get raped tomorrow and get pregnant? God did that because he planned the exact time of that child's birth and death. God actually pre-planned your rape, and the rapist was God's puppet. Rather than hating the rapist, we should celebrate God's plan.

Do you believe that murderers and rapists should be rewarded? Do you believe that Hitler was sent by God to kill millions of people in the Holocaust? Do you believe that God is the direct cause of every abortion on this planet? Do you believe that you have no choice in your spouse or the number of children you have? If you are a sane individual, then probably not. But that is what you are saying when you state that Hitler or cancer or anything else is part of "God's plan."

The statement "It is part of God's plan" is one of those meaningless palliatives that, when you sit down and think it through using your common sense, makes no sense.

Understanding the illusion of religion

If you are a Christian, you have probably believed in God's plan your whole life. There's a very good chance that you own a copy of Rick's book -- it has sold over 20 million copies. Chances are you read chapter 2 of Rick's book and nodded your head "Yes!" through the whole thing.

But now, if you are a normal, intelligent human being, you can see that what Rick proposes is impossible. If God has "planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death", what that means is that you have absolutely no free will. Humans have no control over anything. We are simply puppets executing the plan. It also means that prayer is absolutely pointless.

So, on the one hand you have a religion that says, "God has planned the days of your life in advance." On the other hand that same religion says, "Pray to God and he will answer your prayers." One of those two statements must be false. In fact, both of them are wrong.

Understand the illusion simply by using your common sense. As soon as you think about it, you will begin to see what is actually going on.

 

[guy-uninterrupted]

Drifter, Thank you for all that videos i find them very illuminating but i doubt you will be able to convince many believrs. By the way mate, i did ask you your belief in God theCreator not in Jesus( we all know where you stand on Him) .

Incidentally do you believe that Jesus even existed? even as a man? thanks for your answers and I pray we(mankind) get guidance onto the right path .

 

[drifter]

Drifter, Thank you for all that videos i find them very illuminating but i doubt you will be able to convince many believrs. By the way mate, i did ask you your belief in God theCreator not in Jesus( we all know where you stand on Him) .

Incidentally do you believe that Jesus even existed? even as a man? thanks for your answers and I pray we(mankind) get guidance onto the right path .

bro , i do believe that theres a guy named jesus back then ...but hes like most of us ...die and never resurrection ....

There are no "atheists"

It is time for us to recognize as a society that there is no such thing as an atheist. Let me help you understand why this is the case.

Do you believe in Leprechauns? Probably not, because Leprechauns are imaginary. Yes, there are lots of books, movies and fairy tales dealing with Leprechauns. People talk about Leprechauns all the time. Leprechauns even have a popular brand of breakfast cereal. But that does not mean that Leprechauns exist.

We know that Leprechauns are imaginary. Why? Because there is no evidence for their existence. Despite all the publicity Leprechauns get, normal people dismiss storybook creatures like Leprechauns as myths, and rightly so.

If you do not believe in Leprechauns, what are you? Are you an aleprechaunist? Of course not. You are normal. People who do not believe in Leprechauns are completely normal.

As discussed throughout this book, there is no evidence for God's existence either:

God has never left any physical evidence of his existence on earth.

None of Jesus' "miracles" left any physical evidence either
God has never spoken to modern man, for example by taking over all the television stations and broadcasting a rational message to everyone.

The resurrected Jesus has never appeared to anyone.

The Bible we have is provably incorrect and is obviously the work of primitive men rather than God.

When we analyze prayer with statistics, we find no evidence that God is "answering prayers."

Huge, amazing atrocities like the Holocaust and AIDS occur without any response from God. And so on…

has presented dozens of different proofs showing that "God," as popularly conceptualized by the world's religions, is imaginary. Therefore, people who do not believe in God are the same as people who do not believe in Leprechauns. They are rational, objective observers of the world around them. People who do not believe in God are normal.
It has come time to openly assert this. When a person refuses to believe in a god who, based on the evidence that we can see all around us, is imaginary, that person is completely normal. The way to begin this transition is for us to honestly and openly discuss the fact that God is imaginary in the public forum.

The new name is "Rational"

In just the same way that we don't use the word aleprechaunist to describe the people who do not believe in Leprechauns, we should not need the word atheist. We should be able to say, "I am a normal person" and be done with it.

The problem is that, in America today, if you say, "I am a normal person," what everyone assumes is that you mean, "I am a Christian." Currently we are a minority, and as long as we are a minority we need a name.

It is time to choose a new name for those of us who know that all human gods are imaginary. There are two good reasons for picking a new name. First, the word atheist is overloaded with extraneous meaning right now, most of it negative. Second, there is no reason to define ourselves as the opposite of theists because theists are delusional. The word "atheist" gives theists way too much credit.

The new name that I would like to propose is Rational Person. As in:
Chris: What religion are you?
Norm: I am a Rational Person. What are you?

Chris: I am a Christian. What do you mean, you are a Rational Person. What do you believe?

Norm: Rational People know that all human gods are imaginary.

Chris: Imaginary?! You must be joking! The Lord Jesus is as real as...

And so on.
The reason I think that Rational Person (or just Rational) is a good name for us to use is because of the dictionary definition of the word "rational":

Having or exercising the ability to reason.
Of sound mind; sane.
Consistent with or based on reason; logical: rational behavior. Rational People are of sound mind. We are sane. We have the ability to reason. We display logical, rational behavior. We are not delusional. Therefore, Rational is a very appropriate name .

 

[drifter]

christains will never dare to read all the stuff i posted because they know its the truth but they refuse to admit it ....

 

[Psalm23]

[You are encouraged to freely share the message with others as the Lord leads but please note that nothing on the message must be used for profit!]​

Today’s Scripture Reading [November 28, 2010]

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. [Isaiah 9:6. KJV]

The birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, our Saviour was told in the Book of Isaiah of the Old Testament. The Book of Isaiah was written some 700 years before the birth of Christ and it is noteworthy to know that the first 39 chapters of Isaiah prophesies doom for a sinful Judah and for all the nations of the world that oppose God. The last 27 chapters of Isaiah prophesies the restoration of the nation of Israel and of a new creation of God’s glorious future kingdom. It’s a interesting ‘coincidence’ that the Bible too comprising 66 books and the first 39 books of the Old Testament give us similar context, scripturally-speaking, of what was told in the first 39 chapters of the Book of Isaiah: The doom of human race that oppose God. Likewise, the 27 books of the New Testament tell us God’s restoration of the fallen human race and of the restoration of a new Kingdom which is similar in context, scripturally-speaking, to what was told by the last 27 chapters of the Book of Isaiah.

In Isaiah 9:6 we are told that a Son would be given to the world and He would bring everlasting peace as impliedly by one of the titles conveyed on Him: The Prince of Peace. But did the birth of Christ bring peace? Not at all! Certainly not when the world is still living in sin and when men and women are still unrelentingly opposing God and we are in a situation where violence, lies, debauchery is the order of the day. The humble birth of Jesus at a manger where sheep and other domestic animals were kept was later marked by the worst massacre of young children by King Herod, an evil King who thought that his kingdom was being threatened by the birth of Jesus. He wanted Jesus to be killed, and to ensure that he would succeed in this attempt, he order all children below the age of two be killed! Herod did succeeded his infanticide of unprecedented scale but failed to kill Baby Jesus. What followed later was that King Heord’s order the execution of Jesus on the cross. This is a big ‘mistake’ that Herod had made but it was certainly no mistake for God who has purposefully planned out to be exactly this way: That Jesus would die on the cross for the remission of our sins because without the death of Jesus on the cross, the restoration of the fallen human race and His Kingdom will never be made possible. But this redemption story is seldom remembered by people and when they heard about this, many simply refuse to believe the redeeming blood of Jesus, but yet people all over the world couldn't wait to celebrate Christmas! Does Christmas really has anything to do with Jesus? Let's examine this question carefully by making some references to the Bible, God's Word.

Christmas is the most celebrated holiday on the earth. During the month of December and in particular on December 25 each year, many people, Christians and non-Christians, celebrate the so-called the birth of Jesus like there is no tomorrow. In some churches, they needed so much resources to organize the event that they scramble for volunteers to help organizing the event, or rather, the ‘party of the year’. You may have read in today’s Straits Times newspaper of an article titled “Throwing the perfect Christmas party” and the content is nothing more than telling you “It’s Party Time”. It is indeed party time for many people and this party that some people organize (and sadly some churches) “will let friends talking about for months”. Every activity and every thing that you see at the Christmas party will be labeled with the word “Christmas” – there will be Christmas dances, Christmas songs, Christmas cakes, Christmas stockings, Christmas wreaths, Christmas chocolates, Christmas snowflakes, Christmas crackers, Christmas trees and, oh yes, Christmas Santa Claus!

One question that is asked by people – both Christians and non-Christians is that: Is there a Biblical ground to hold Christmas event or celebrate the birth of Christ? The answer is very obvous: there is no Biblical basis that warrant nor precept for remembrance of the day of Christ's birth as a day of special religious celebration. The Bible recognizes no such significance. It is intriguing that there are only two birthday celebrations recorded in the entire Bible and they were both those of ungodly kings – a Pharaoh’s birthday (Genesis 40: 16-22) and Herod’s birthday (Matthew 14:6-10; Mark 6: 21-27) and both resulted in an execution! In the case of Pharaoh, he hung one of his court officials, the chief baker, because of a dream that Pharaoh was not pleased with it. In Herod’s case, one of Herod’s dancers asked Herod to behead John the Baptist which Herod willingly accepted her request. We can see from this that quite to the contrary, these two birthday celebrations impliedly tell us that God abhors celebration of birthday, and we all know today that celebration of all kinds is nothing more than indulging in excesses and wastages and it brings nothing of any value to people. Just few days ago, we saw the tragic death of about 400 people in Cambodia who were stampede to death when they were participating in a celebration of the Water Festival. We know from past records and statistics, Christmas season has been marked with record road accidents, some very serious and some fatal ones. We can only pray that those who party whether during this season or any other season, they do it with some responsibility and they should not drive and drink at the same time to avoid any accident.

Since the Word of God does not support the tradition of Christmas, a Christian's conscience ought not and must not be bound by the celebration. The Scriptural support against celebrating Christmas is overwhelming, not even to mention that the celebration of Christmas is actually originated from worshipping of sun gods. In Jesus’ life time, He has never demanded any celebration of His birthday neither did the apostles celebrate His birthday. If celebrating Jesus birth is part of God’s plan, this would have been taught in the Bible. If celebrating Jesus’ birthday is a good mean of reaching out to the lost people or an important part of evangelistic outreach, Jesus or His apostles would have sanctioned it. There is none of these. In fact, celebrating Christmas violates several Ten Commandments. For example, the nativity scenes, pictures of Christ, Christmas cards with “pictures” of Jesus, Mary, etc all violate the commandments: “Do not make yourself any carved image” and “Have no other gods before Me”. The “god of Christmas” is simply idolatrous! Just take a look at the decorations in the shopping malls and in the homes of those who decorated to celebrate Christmas. They are full of images of ‘gods’. Remember, the Bible’s focus on the birth of Christ is for the sole purpose of documenting His virgin birth, His incarnation, and the fulfillment of His prophetic Messiahship, nothing more, nothing less. But the world has made a big deal for a wrong reason by relabeling pagan practices of worshipping sun gods and called it the "birthday of Jesus Christ". We must not accept this label of deception. God cannot accept our worship when the basic premise of this worship began with a lie that Jesus was born on Christmas day! One cannot take something condemned in God’s Word and “use it” to spread the Gospel, neither will God bless it to spread His Word. Unacceptable worship and the ‘mixing-in’ of unholy paganistic forms is surely not the normal means through which God blesses the faithful whatever their intents can be. As expected, the world loves Christmas, but hates the Lord Jesus Christ (John 15:18, 23-25). Sadly, like all truths, they hurt. So when paganistic origin of Christmas is exposed for what it really is, it will anger people, even to some Evangelical Protestant Christians (especially to those couldn’t wait to celebrate Christmas!).

Beyond Christmas celebration, God has warned us about getting entangled with any special days (Galatians 4:10). Notice though, that we are commanded to remember Him in His death (but no special day was specified for this either): "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; this Do in remembrance of Me" (Luke 22:18,19; 1 Cor. 11:23-26). To commemorate His death is Scriptural. Any day of the year will do. To commemorate His birth is non-Scriptural, even extra-Scriptural because we are adding additional practices, additional words to His truth (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Proverbs 30:6; Revelations 22:19), whether one chooses December 25th or any other day. As Christians, we all love Jesus and we should certainly rejoice that He was born and lived amongst us as a man. But if we truly want to glorify Him and bear testimony of who He is, we must stop marrying that blessed gift with the debauchery of paganism. If we want to honor His birth, let it be done as He would have done it: year-round unselfishly serving our fellow man as an unending act of love for our God. Let us put away all of the mixture of pagan customs and take up His mantle and His pure worship, and show the confused world that there is a difference that Christmas is a celebration of consumption, and not of compassion; that Christmas has got nothing to do with Jesus and as Christians we too have nothing to do with Christmas. We must not involve and invoke God’s name in any form of celebration whether Christmas, Good Friday or Easter Day. Those are man-made holidays and festive events! God is spirit and we must worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24) and not let any lie to be the basis of our worship.

 

[drifter]

Understanding the Bible


In this article, I would like to help you see the Bible from a fresh perspective. Let's try to look at the Bible as though you have never seen it before.

Imagine that we are good friends. One day we are talking:

Me: Wow, you will not believe this new book I've been reading!
You: What's it about?

Me: It is a manual for living a better life. It is also a guide to creating a better society for ourselves and our children. It has changed my life!

You: That sounds like an important book. Who wrote it?

Me: The author is supposed to be the smartest person in the universe.

You: That's amazing -- if the author is the smartest person in the universe, the book must be absolutely brilliant. I can't wait to see it. Do you have a copy with you?


Me: Absolutely! I carry it with me everywhere I go! Here, have a look for yourself...

You open the book to a random page, and you find this:
Any of the people of Israel, or of the aliens who reside in Israel, who give any of their offspring to Molech shall be put to death; the people of the land shall stone them to death. I myself will set my face against them, and will cut them off from the people, because they have given of their offspring to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name. And if the people of the land should ever close their eyes to them, when they give of their offspring to Molech, and do not put them to death, I myself will set my face against them and against their family, and will cut them off from among their people, them and all who follow them in prostituting themselves to Molech.
If any turn to mediums and wizards, prostituting themselves to them, I will set my face against them, and will cut them off from the people. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes, and observe them; I am the Lord; I sanctify you. All who curse father or mother shall be put to death; having cursed father or mother, their blood is upon them.

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. [Leviticus, chapter 20]


You are not quite sure what to say. You look at me for a moment.
You: I thought you said that this is written by the most intelligent person in the universe. If we are going to follow what this author says, we have to kill half the people in America. We are supposed to kill everyone who has cursed his father or mother, everyone who has committed adultery, and every homosexual.
Me: Well, that's in the old testament, you see. The book is really two books, and the "old" part of the book doesn't really apply.

You: Are you saying that the smartest person in the universe once wanted us to kill every adulterer and homosexual, but then changed his mind? That somehow makes it better? If the "old part" no longer applies, then why did you hand it to me when I asked to see the book?

Me: Well, parts of it do apply.

You: Didn't you just tell me that it doesn't apply?

You open the book to another random page and you find this:
When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone. But if the slave declares, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person’, then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt unfairly with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out without debt, without payment of money.

Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death. If it was not premeditated, but came about by an act of God, then I will appoint for you a place to which the killer may flee. But if someone wilfully attacks and kills another by treachery, you shall take the killer from my altar for execution.

Whoever strikes father or mother shall be put to death.

Whoever kidnaps a person, whether that person has been sold or is still held in possession, shall be put to death. Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.

When individuals quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or fist so that the injured party, though not dead, is confined to bed, but recovers and walks around outside with the help of a staff, then the assailant shall be free of liability, except to pay for the loss of time, and to arrange for full recovery.

When a slave-owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives for a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property. [Exodus, chapter 21]

Again, you are dumfounded. Here the author of the book is advocating slavery, the branding of slaves, and the wholesale beating of slaves. You are not quite sure what to say. You look at me for a moment.
You: You have to be kidding me. Here the "smartest person in the universe" is telling us that slavery is OK and that we are free to beat our slaves.
You open the book to another random page and you find this:
I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. [1 Timothy, chapter 2]

You are nearly speechless. But you manage to find your voice.
You: Is this some kind of joke? "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man." That is totally sexist! In America, there are millions of female teachers and we have women throughout our corporate and govenment hierarchies. No intelligent person believes that women should be silenced.
As you page through the book further you find that it is totally sexist from beginning to end.
You keep opening the book to random pages, and nearly everything you find is utter nonsense. Either it is meaningless, completely irrelevant, disgusting or downright wrong.

If you are a scientist it is even worse, and it starts with the very first line:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...
That's not true. In the beginning a natural event created the universe as we know it, and the earth did not form until billions of years later. The creation story in Genesis is completely wrong. Simply read Genesis and you can see it. For example, the Bible says that light and darkness are created after the water but before the sun. Everyone knows that the sun came first, then the planet and its rotation (which is what causes light and darkness to occur on a daily basis) and then the water, and this all happened over million of years. There are many other problems with the Bible:

1 )Man did not come from a handful of dust through some mythological being.

2)Man evolved from other species like every other living thing has for hundreds of millions of years.

3 )The Bible talks about a world-wide flood that covered earth in 5.5 miles of water and killed everything, yet we know it never happened. That is clear from the archeolgical record.
There was no tower of Babble.


The list goes on and on. The Bible is nonsense in a thousand different scientific ways.
Ask yourself this simple question: Why, when you read the Bible, are you not left in awe? Why doesn't a book written by an omniscient being leave you with a sense of wonder and amazement? If you are reading a book written by the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator of the universe, wouldn't you expect to be stunned by the brilliance, the clarity and the wisdom of the author? Would you not expect each new page to intoxicate you with its incredible prose and its spectacular insight? Wouldn't you expect the author to tell us things that scientists have not been able to discover yet?

Yet, when we open the Bible and actually read it, we find it is nothing like that at all. Instead of leaving us in awe, it leaves us dumbfounded by all of the nonsense and backwardness that it contains. If you would look at the Bible fresh, and read what it actually says, you find that the Bible is ridiculous. The examples shown above barely scratch the surface of the Bible's numerous problems. If we are honest with ourselves, it is obvious that an "all-knowing" God had absolutely nothing to do with this book.

The Bible is a book written thousands of years ago by primitive men. A book that advocates senseless murder, slavery and the oppression of women has no place in our society today. It is time for us to recognize this simple fact.

 

[Psalm23]

[You are encouraged to freely share the message with others as the Lord leads but please note that nothing on the message must be used for profit!]​

Today’s Scripture Reading [December 5, 2010]

Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. [Philippians 2:2-3. KJV]

It is very normal for people to want to be popular, rich, talented or possessed great power.For this reason, many of us hope that by reading some of the autobiographies and memoirs of the rich and famous we can learn valuable lessons to improve on our chances of becoming like them one day – rich and famous. We read about their struggles and triumphs, their failures and their successes, and we tried to identify their experiences and apply them for our benefits. Sadly, sometimes we are disappointed because at best those autobiographies and memoirs that we read become our social networking talking points. The reason is simple. It is a futile effort to imitate others because no two persons’ experiences and life encounters can be exactly alike. You are what you are; and they are what they are. One of the worst things that can happen to a person is to try to imitate someone whom he admired and then failed miserably to be like him or her no matter how hard the attempts were to imitate his idol! We have known of countless world champion sportsmen, famous actors or actresses whom many admired and they can earn million of dollars just by putting their faces onto the advertisements of the products that they endorsed. Inadvertently and unknowingly, we have made the rich celebrities richer - at no fault of them of course!

I think most of us, including me, at one point or another hope to become one of those people whom we admired, especially those who are wealthy or possessed special talent. It is not wrong to have dream and to dream big. But the problem is that if we are not realistic, our dream can one day turns into nightmare! Let’s not therefore settle for something that we are not sure whether it is really good for us. Every day we are presented with fresh opportunity to dream what we want to be and we must fully make use of this opportunity for the better, and who can be better to improve our life than God Himself because He knows what is really the best for us, and only He and He alone is worthy for us to imitate. We must all become more like Jesus, everyday. We must all take our daily opportunity to improve our relationship with Him. We can never be God, never, ever, but we can pursue to be like Him, and the more we have of Jesus in our lives, the better our lives will be. We must not settle for just occasional encounters with Jesus in some parts of our lives. Instead, we must keep pursuing more of Jesus until our whole life is saturated with His power, and here's how we all can pursue more of Jesus

[Acknowledgement:: The following message is substantially adopted from a book by Anne Graham Lotz)]​

1) Pursue our mind transformation to conform to His image.
Invite God to completely transform us: bending our will, awakening our conscience, breaking our heart, transforming our mind, overcoming your prejudices, soaring in our spirit, and conforming us into His glorious image.

2) Pursue more of His voice in our ear.
Out of the many voices you hear speaking to you each day – through other people, circumstances, etc. - we need to learn how to discern what’s truly God speaking and what’s not. If someone claims to have a message from God for us, test it by making sure that it’s in accord with and confirmed by the Bible. Remember Jesus’ promise that He would go ahead of us to guide us in every situation. Learn how to recognize Jesus’ voice by getting to know the Bible well - reading it, studying it, understanding it, applying it, and living by it - and then trust His guidance when making decisions.

3) Pursue more of His tears on your face.
Jesus understands and cares when we are crying tears of pain. Remember how much He suffered on the Cross, and we must let our own sufferings as opportunities to draw closer to Jesus. No matter what we are going through – the loss of a job, a friend’s betrayal, a health crisis, a spouse’s unfaithfulness, a child’s rebellion – Jesus is crying along with us and will meet us in the middle of our suffering with His presence.

4) Pursue more of His praise on your lips.
It’s easy to praise Jesus when our lives are going well, but Jesus is still worthy of praise even when problems and pressures darken our circumstances. Make the deliberate, conscious choice to praise Jesus every day, no matter what, to honor Jesus and learn how to walk by reliable faith instead of shifting feelings. Praise Jesus for who He is by frequently thinking of one His many wonderful attributes and thanking Him for it. Praise Jesus for what He has done by thanking Him for specific blessings in our lives on a regular basis. Real praise is affirming our faith even in the midst of desperation when we choose to cling to Jesus alone.

5) Pursue more of His death in your life.
Death produces power that leads to more blessings in life. Just as Jesus died on the Cross so we could be spiritually alive, He wants us to die to our own desires and yield to His desires for us so we can experience the best life possible. God uses pressures, problems, and pain in our lives as nails to pin us to cross of our own. If we submit to Him while we go through them, we experience what it’s like to die to ourselves so God’s power can live through us. Every kind of brokenness we experience can lead to a corresponding blessing if we are willing to die to our own: will, goals, dreams, desires, expectations, plans, rights, and reputation. If we choose to die to ourselves, God will pour out blessings like a character that reflects His own, a witness that leads to other people’s lives being transformed, and rewards from God himself.

6) Pursue more of His dirt on your hands.
Just as Jesus was willing to get His hands dirty serving others willingly, humbly, obediently, and gladly, He expects us to do the same. Choose to serve other people whenever God calls us to – even when it’s not convenient or when we are struggling with serious problems of our own. Shift our focus from ours to Jesus and the people He wants us to serve. In the process, our own problems will become more manageable. Never view ourselves as being above any particular type of service – changing diapers, mowing grass, making coffee, visiting prisoners, etc. When we do any task that God calls you to do, our work – no matter how humble – will become important because we are answering God’s call. At the minimum, do at least one act of service for God and make this act of service as our life-long commitment to Him.

7) Pursue more of His hope in your grief.
Jesus has given us the hope of heaven in our grief. Let the promise of heaven sharpen our focus to help us see that any difficult situation we are going through now is temporary compared to a joyful eternity with Jesus. Look forward to the reality of seeing Jesus face to face and enjoying the company of loved ones who have gone before us, when it’s our time to go to heaven. Continuously remind ourselves that His coming is imminent and each day that we live is closer to His coming than ever before.

8) Pursue more of His fruit in your service.
If our service for God lacks the fruit of changed lives, we don’t have to try harder, pray more, or claim greater territory in service. Instead, we should examine our personal relationship with Jesus to see how closely we are connected to Him. It’s the quality of our connection to Jesus that will determine whether or not we will have the power to bear good fruit for His kingdom. The fruit we bear isn’t produced through our own efforts; it’s produced by the Holy Spirit through us as we consistently rely on God. Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches. God may sometimes choose to prune us to bear good fruit by cutting out of our lives everything we depend on – except our relationship with Jesus. When we are forced to pay attention to our relationship with Jesus because that’s all we have, our connection to the Vine gets bigger, empowering us to produce more fruit. Trust God when He prunes the branches of our lives; He knows what’s best to help us grow. Pray for greater fruitfulness and faithfulness in our service, asking God t conform us more closely to the image of Jesus, use us to make others want to know Him better, give us opportunities to share His Gospel and give us the fruit of changed lives as a result, draw others to Himself through a Bible study we lead, or give us one person to share His love with today.

9) Pursue more of His love in your home.
As you give Jesus more of our heart, He will fill it with more of His love, and that will overflow into the lives of the people with whom we interact each day. When we let God’s love flow through us, it will empower us to love even those people who are difficult for us to love – those whose personalities or behavior makes them seem completely incompatible with us. Rather than just avoiding or tolerating difficult people, choosing to show God’s love to them will bless us in the process because God will use them to grind off the weak edges of our character to make us stronger. Ask Jesus to help us love people sacrificially, as He does. Instead of choosing to love only people who meet our needs, whom we get along with, who make we feel good, who do things for us, who give us things we want, whom respond with love, and whom we like, choose to demonstrate love to everyone, regardless of whether or not we like them and how they respond to us. When we love someone sacrificially, our act of love then becomes an act of worshiping Jesus.

10) Pursue more of His courage in your convictions.
Be willing to stand out and speak up for Jesus in all areas of our lives, and with whoever we meet. Take a strong public stand for the uniqueness of who Jesus is; for the truth of the entire Bible; and for the necessity of living a life of integrity, purity, and humility in order to please God. Rather than living a lifestyle that simply blends in with that of non-believers, show people the difference that our relationship with Jesus makes in our attitudes and actions. Pray for the courage we need to stand by biblical convictions when others pressure us to be complacent or politically correct. Ask the Holy Spirit to use all of our conversations with others to glorify God in whatever ways He guides us to do so. No matter how much pressure we encounter to compromise our convictions, decide that we will never give up, shut up, or let up, because of our love for Jesus.

11) Pursue more of His nearness in your loneliness.
When we feel lonely, remember that Jesus is always with us. Pray for more awareness of His presence close to us, and take comfort in it. Although other people may sometimes disappoint us or abandon us, Jesus will always be there for us. Remember that Jesus is much more than just a man, prophet, teacher, revolutionary, icon, or symbol. Jesus is God Himself – and He loves all His children and we are His children!

12) Pursue more of His answers to your prayers.
It’s an incredible privilege to be able to go directly to God at any time and in any place with our prayers. Jesus has promised that when we ask Him for anything according to His will and believing in His power to act, He will answer. Whenever our prayers seem to go unanswered or turn out the opposite of what we asked God to do, we still need to trust Him that all things work good for those who loved Him. Remember that His ways are not your ways, and He will act according to what’s best from His unlimited perspective on every situation.

13) Pursue more of His glory on your knees.
Embrace God’s purpose for our lives single-mindedly and wholeheartedly. Stay focused on what God wants for our life, and do all we can to fulfill that purpose well. Let your determination to do the work God has for you to do lead you to make wise choices like: less sleep and more prayer, less TV and more study, less shopping and more tithing, less eating and more exercise, less talking and more listening, or less work and more worship. Serve God faithfully to glorify Him every day.

 

[drifter]

Here are several examples that can help you to understand how religion works in our world today.

Example 1

Let's imagine that I tell you the following story:

There is a man who lives at the North Pole.
He lives there with his wife and a bunch of elves.
During the year, he and the elves build toys.
Then, on Christmas Eve, he loads up a sack with all the toys.
He puts the sack in his sleigh.
He hitches up eight (or possibly nine) flying reindeer.
He then flies from house to house, landing on the rooftops of each one.
He gets out with his sack and climbs down the chimney.
He leaves toys for the children of the household.
He climbs back up the chimney, gets back in his sleigh, and flies to the next house.
He does this all around the world in one night.
Then he flies back to the North Pole to repeat the cycle next year.

This, of course, is the story of Santa Claus.

But let's say that I am an adult, and I am your friend, and I reveal to you that I believe that this story is true. I believe it with all my heart. And I try to talk about it with you and convert you to believe it as I do.

What would you think of me? You would think that I am delusional, and rightly so.

Why do you think that I am delusional? It is because you know that Santa is imaginary. The story is a total fairy tale. No matter how much I talk to you about Santa, you are not going to believe that Santa is real. Flying reindeer, for example, are make-believe. The dictionary defines delusion as, "A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence." That definition fits perfectly.

Since you are my friend, you might try to help me realize that my belief in Santa is delusional. The way that you would try to shake me from my delusion is to ask me some questions. For example, you might say to me:

1 ) But how can the sleigh carry enough toys for everyone in the world?" I say to you that the sleigh is magical. It has the ability to do this intrinsically.

2 ) How does Santa get into houses and apartments that don't have chimneys?" I say that Santa can make chimneys appear, as shown to all of us in the movie The Santa Clause.

3 )How does Santa get down the chimney if there's a fire in the fireplace?" I say that Santa has a special flame-resistant suit, and it cleans itself too.

4 )Why doesn't the security system detect Santa?" Santa is invisible to security systems.

5 )How can Santa travel fast enough to visit every child in one night?" Santa is timeless.

6 )How can Santa know whether every child has been bad or good?" Santa is omniscient.

7 )Why are the toys distributed so unevenly? Why does Santa deliver more toys to rich kids, even if they are bad, than he ever gives to poor kids?" There is no way for us to understand the mysteries of Santa because we are mere mortals, but Santa has his reasons. For example, perhaps poor children would be unable to handle a flood of expensive electronic toys. How would they afford the batteries? So Santa spares them this burden.

These are all quite logical questions that you have asked. I have answered all of them for you. I am wondering why you can't see what I see, and you are wondering how I can be so insane.
Why didn't my answers satisfy you? Why do you still know that I am delusional? It is because my answers have done nothing but confirm my delusion. My answers are ridiculous. In order to answer your questions, I invented, completely out of thin air, a magical sleigh, a magical self-cleaning suit, magical chimneys, "timelessness" and magical invisibility. You don't believe my answers because you know that I am making this stuff up. The invalidating evidence is voluminous.

Example 2

Imagine that I tell you the following story:

I was in my room one night.
Suddenly, my room became exceedingly bright.
Next thing I know there is an angel in my room.
He tells me an amazing story.
He says that there is a set of ancient golden plates buried in the side of a hill in New York.
On them are the books of a lost race of Jewish people who inhabited North America.
These plates bear inscriptions in the foreign language of these people.
Eventually the angel leads me to the plates and lets me take them home.
Even though the plates are in a foreign language, the angel helps me to decipher and translate them.
Then the plates are taken up into heaven, never to be seen again.
I have the book that I translated from the plates. It tells of amazing things -- an entire civilization of Jewish people living here in the United States 2,000 years ago.
And the resurrected Jesus came and visited these people!
I also showed the golden plates to a number of real people who are my eye witnesses, and I have their signed attestations that they did, in fact, see and touch the plates before the plates were taken up into heaven.

Now, what would you say to me about this story? Even though I do have a book, in English, that tells the story of this lost Jewish civilization, and even though I do have the signed attestations, what do you think? This story sounds delusional, doesn't it?
You would ask some obvious questions. For example, at the very simplest level, you might ask, "Where are the ruins and artifacts from this Jewish civilization in America?" The book transcribed from the plates talks about millions of Jewish people doing all kinds of things in America. They have horses and oxen and chariots and armor and large cities. What happened to all of this? I answer simply: it is all out there, but we have not found it yet. "Not one city? Not one chariot wheel? Not one helmet?" you ask. No, we haven't found a single bit of evidence, but it is out there somewhere. You ask me dozens of questions like this, and I have answers for them all.

Most people would assume that I am delusional if I told them this story. They would assume that there were no plates and no angel, and that I had written the book myself. Most people would ignore the attestations -- having people attest to it means nothing, really. I could have paid the attesters off, or I could have fabricated them. Most people would reject my story without question.

What's interesting is that there are millions of people who actually do believe this story of the angel and the plates and the book and the Jewish people living in North America 2,000 years ago. Those millions of people are members of the Mormon Church, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. The person who told this incredible story was a man named Joseph Smith, and he lived in the United States in the early 1800s. He told his story, and recorded what he "translated from the plates", in the Book of Mormon.

If you meet a Mormon and ask them about this story, they can spend hours talking to you about it. They can answer every question you have. Yet the 5.99 billion of us who are not Mormons can see with total clarity that the Mormons are delusional. It is as simple as that. You and I both know with 100% certainty that the Mormon story is no different from the story of Santa. And we are correct in our assessment. The invalidating evidence is voluminous.

One final example

Now let me tell you one final story:

God inseminated a virgin named Mary, in order to bring his son incarnate into our world.
Mary and her fiancé, Joseph, had to travel to Bethlehem to register for the census. There Mary gave birth to the Son of God.
God put a star in the sky to guide people to the baby.
In a dream God told Joseph to take his family to Egypt. Then God stood by and watched as Herod killed thousands and thousands of babies in Israel in an attempt to kill Jesus.
As a man, God's son claimed that he was God incarnate: "I am the way, the truth and the life," he said .
This man performed many miracles. He healed lots of sick people. He turned water into wine. These miracles prove that he is God.
But he was eventually given the death sentence and killed by crucifixion.
His body was placed in a tomb.
But three days later, the tomb was empty.
And the man, alive once again but still with his wounds (so anyone who doubted could see them and touch them), appeared to many people in many places.
Then he ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of God the father almighty, never to be seen again.
Today you can have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. You can pray to this man and he will answer your prayers. He will cure your diseases, rescue you from emergencies, help you make important business and family decisions, comfort you in times of worry and grief, etc.
This man will also give you eternal life, and if you are good he has a place for you in heaven after you die.
The reason we know all this is because, after the man died, four people named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote accounts of the man's life. Their written attestations are proof of the veracity of this story.

This, of course, is the story of Jesus. Do you believe this story? If you are a Christian, you probably do. I could ask you questions for hours and you will have answers for every one of them, in just the same way that I had answers for all of the Santa questions that my friend asked me in Example 1. You cannot understand how anyone could question any of it, because it is so obvious to you.

Here is the thing that I would like to help you understand: The four billion people who are not Christians look at the Christian story in exactly the same way that you look at the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story. In other words, there are four billion people who stand outside of the Christian bubble, and they can see reality clearly. The fact is, the Christian story is completely imaginary.

How do the four billion non-Christians know, with complete certainty, that the Christian story is imaginary? Because the Christian story is just like the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story. There is the magical insemination, the magical star, the magical dreams, the magical miracles, the magical resurrection, the magical ascension and so on. People outside the Christian faith look at the Christian story and note these facts:

The miracles are supposed to "prove" that Jesus is God, but, predictably, these miracles left behind no tangible evidence for us to examine and scientifically verify today. They all involved faith healings and magic tricks .

Jesus is resurrected, but, predictably, he does not appear to anyone today .

Jesus ascended into heaven and answers our prayers, but, predictably, when we pray to him nothing happens. We can statistically analyse prayer and find that prayers are never answered .

The book where Matthew, Mark, Luke and John make their attestations does exist, but, predictably, it is chock full of problems and contradictions .

In other words, the Christian story is a fairly tale, just like the other examples we have examined.

Now, look at what is happening inside your mind at this moment. I am using solid, verifiable evidence to show you that the Christian story is imaginary. Your rational mind can see the evidence. Four billion non-Christians would be happy to confirm for you that the Christian story is imaginary. However, if you are a practicing Christian, you can probably feel your "religious mind" overriding both your rational mind and your common sense as we speak. Why? Why were you able to use your common sense to so easily reject the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story, but when it comes to the Christian story, which is just as imaginary, you are not?

Try, just for a moment, to look at Christianity with the same amount of healthy skepticism that you used when approaching the stories of Santa, Joseph Smith and Mohammed. Use your common sense to ask some very simple questions of yourself:

Is there any physical evidence that Jesus existed? - No. He left no trace. His body "ascended into heaven." He wrote nothing down. None of his "miracles" left any permanent evidence. There is, literally, nothing.

Is there any reason to believe that Jesus actually performed these miracles, or that he rose from the dead, or that he ascended into heaven? - There is no more of a reason to believe this than there is to believe that Joseph Smith found the golden plates hidden in New York, or that Mohammed rode on a magical winged horse to heaven. Probably less of a reason, given that the record of Jesus' life is 2,000 years old, while that of Joseph Smith is less than 200 years old.

You mean to tell me that I am supposed to believe this story of Jesus, and there is no proof or evidence to go by beyond a few attestations in the New Testament of a Bible that is provably meaningless? - Yes, you are supposed to believe it. You are supposed to take it on "faith."

No one (besides little kids) believes in Santa Claus. No one outside the Mormon church believes Joseph Smith's story. No one outside the Muslim faith believes the story of Mohammed and Gabriel and the winged horse. No one outside the Christian faith believes in Jesus' divinity, miracles, resurrection, etc.
Therefore, the question I would ask you to consider right now is simple: Why is it that human beings can detect fairy tales with complete certainty when those fairy tales come from other faiths, but they cannot detect the fairy tales that underpin their own faith? Why do they believe their chosen fairy tale with unrelenting passion and reject the others as nonsense? For example:

Christians know that when the Egyptians built gigantic pyramids and mummified the bodies of their pharaohs, that it was a total waste of time -- otherwise Christians would build pyramids.

Christians know that when the Aztecs carved the heart out of a virgin and ate it, that it accomplished nothing -- otherwise Christians would kill virgins.

Christians know that when Muslims face Mecca to pray, that it is pointless -- otherwise Christians would face Mecca when they pray.

Christians know that when Jews keep meat and dairy products separate, that they are wasting their time , otherwise the cheeseburger would not be an American obsession.
Yet, when Christians look at their own religion, they are for some reason blind. Why? And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that the Christian story is true. Your rational mind knows that with certainty, and so do four billion others.

 

[drifter]

[You are encouraged to freely share the message with others as the Lord leads but please note that nothing on the message must be used for profit!]​

Today’s Scripture Reading [December 5, 2010]

Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. [Philippians 2:2-3. KJV]

It is very normal for people to want to be popular, rich, talented or possessed great power.For this reason, many of us hope that by reading some of the autobiographies and memoirs of the rich and famous we can learn valuable lessons to improve on our chances of becoming like them one day – rich and famous. We read about their struggles and triumphs, their failures and their successes, and we tried to identify their experiences and apply them for our benefits. Sadly, sometimes we are disappointed because at best those autobiographies and memoirs that we read become our social networking talking points. The reason is simple. It is a futile effort to imitate others because no two persons’ experiences and life encounters can be exactly alike. You are what you are; and they are what they are. One of the worst things that can happen to a person is to try to imitate someone whom he admired and then failed miserably to be like him or her no matter how hard the attempts were to imitate his idol! We have known of countless world champion sportsmen, famous actors or actresses whom many admired and they can earn million of dollars just by putting their faces onto the advertisements of the products that they endorsed. Inadvertently and unknowingly, we have made the rich celebrities richer - at no fault of them of course!

I think most of us, including me, at one point or another hope to become one of those people whom we admired, especially those who are wealthy or possessed special talent. It is not wrong to have dream and to dream big. But the problem is that if we are not realistic, our dream can one day turns into nightmare! Let’s not therefore settle for something that we are not sure whether it is really good for us. Every day we are presented with fresh opportunity to dream what we want to be and we must fully make use of this opportunity for the better, and who can be better to improve our life than God Himself because He knows what is really the best for us, and only He and He alone is worthy for us to imitate. We must all become more like Jesus, everyday. We must all take our daily opportunity to improve our relationship with Him. We can never be God, never, ever, but we can pursue to be like Him, and the more we have of Jesus in our lives, the better our lives will be. We must not settle for just occasional encounters with Jesus in some parts of our lives. Instead, we must keep pursuing more of Jesus until our whole life is saturated with His power, and here's how we all can pursue more of Jesus

[Acknowledgement:: The following message is substantially adopted from a book by Anne Graham Lotz)]​

1) Pursue our mind transformation to conform to His image.
Invite God to completely transform us: bending our will, awakening our conscience, breaking our heart, transforming our mind, overcoming your prejudices, soaring in our spirit, and conforming us into His glorious image.

YOU ARE BRAINWASHING YOUR OWN FUCKING BRAIN ...WAKEUP !!!

2) Pursue more of His voice in our ear.
Out of the many voices you hear speaking to you each day – through other people, circumstances, etc. - we need to learn how to discern what’s truly God speaking and what’s not. If someone claims to have a message from God for us, test it by making sure that it’s in accord with and confirmed by the Bible. Remember Jesus’ promise that He would go ahead of us to guide us in every situation. Learn how to recognize Jesus’ voice by getting to know the Bible well - reading it, studying it, understanding it, applying it, and living by it - and then trust His guidance when making decisions.

YOUR FUCKING LIFE DEPENDS ON A 2000YEARS AGO BOOK ?

3) Pursue more of His tears on your face.
Jesus understands and cares when we are crying tears of pain. Remember how much He suffered on the Cross, and we must let our own sufferings as opportunities to draw closer to Jesus. No matter what we are going through – the loss of a job, a friend’s betrayal, a health crisis, a spouse’s unfaithfulness, a child’s rebellion – Jesus is crying along with us and will meet us in the middle of our suffering with His presence.


IF YOUR FUCKING INVISIBLE MAN UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE GOING THROUGH ...WHY HE DO NOTHING ABOUT 9/11?

4) Pursue more of His praise on your lips.
It’s easy to praise Jesus when our lives are going well, but Jesus is still worthy of praise even when problems and pressures darken our circumstances. Make the deliberate, conscious choice to praise Jesus every day, no matter what, to honor Jesus and learn how to walk by reliable faith instead of shifting feelings. Praise Jesus for who He is by frequently thinking of one His many wonderful attributes and thanking Him for it. Praise Jesus for what He has done by thanking Him for specific blessings in our lives on a regular basis. Real praise is affirming our faith even in the midst of desperation when we choose to cling to Jesus alone.

YOUR FUCKING INVISIBLEMAN IS SO INSECURE THATS WHY NEED PPL TO PRAISE HIM CARRY HIS BALLS AROUND , JUST LIKE PAP ?

5) Pursue more of His death in your life.
Death produces power that leads to more blessings in life. Just as Jesus died on the Cross so we could be spiritually alive, He wants us to die to our own desires and yield to His desires for us so we can experience the best life possible. God uses pressures, problems, and pain in our lives as nails to pin us to cross of our own. If we submit to Him while we go through them, we experience what it’s like to die to ourselves so God’s power can live through us. Every kind of brokenness we experience can lead to a corresponding blessing if we are willing to die to our own: will, goals, dreams, desires, expectations, plans, rights, and reputation. If we choose to die to ourselves, God will pour out blessings like a character that reflects His own, a witness that leads to other people’s lives being transformed, and rewards from God himself.

YOU CHRISTAINS JUST KNOW HOW TO TALK COCK BLINDLY ....SHOW US EVIDENCE ....FUCKING CULTS TRYING TO BRAINWASH PPL .

6) Pursue more of His dirt on your hands.
Just as Jesus was willing to get His hands dirty serving others willingly, humbly, obediently, and gladly, He expects us to do the same. Choose to serve other people whenever God calls us to – even when it’s not convenient or when we are struggling with serious problems of our own. Shift our focus from ours to Jesus and the people He wants us to serve. In the process, our own problems will become more manageable. Never view ourselves as being above any particular type of service – changing diapers, mowing grass, making coffee, visiting prisoners, etc. When we do any task that God calls you to do, our work – no matter how humble – will become important because we are answering God’s call. At the minimum, do at least one act of service for God and make this act of service as our life-long commitment to Him.


NO WONDER TERRIOST EXISTS BECAUSE OF BRAINWASHING ....DIE FOR YOUR GOD ? DIE FOR YOUR SIN ? KNN !!!

7) Pursue more of His hope in your grief.
Jesus has given us the hope of heaven in our grief. Let the promise of heaven sharpen our focus to help us see that any difficult situation we are going through now is temporary compared to a joyful eternity with Jesus. Look forward to the reality of seeing Jesus face to face and enjoying the company of loved ones who have gone before us, when it’s our time to go to heaven. Continuously remind ourselves that His coming is imminent and each day that we live is closer to His coming than ever before.


HEAVEN YOUR HEAD !!! HEAVEN IS CREATED BY THE SMART TO CONTROL STUPID PPL LIKE YOU ....


8) Pursue more of His fruit in your service.
If our service for God lacks the fruit of changed lives, we don’t have to try harder, pray more, or claim greater territory in service. Instead, we should examine our personal relationship with Jesus to see how closely we are connected to Him. It’s the quality of our connection to Jesus that will determine whether or not we will have the power to bear good fruit for His kingdom. The fruit we bear isn’t produced through our own efforts; it’s produced by the Holy Spirit through us as we consistently rely on God. Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches. God may sometimes choose to prune us to bear good fruit by cutting out of our lives everything we depend on – except our relationship with Jesus. When we are forced to pay attention to our relationship with Jesus because that’s all we have, our connection to the Vine gets bigger, empowering us to produce more fruit. Trust God when He prunes the branches of our lives; He knows what’s best to help us grow. Pray for greater fruitfulness and faithfulness in our service, asking God t conform us more closely to the image of Jesus, use us to make others want to know Him better, give us opportunities to share His Gospel and give us the fruit of changed lives as a result, draw others to Himself through a Bible study we lead, or give us one person to share His love with today.


IF PRAYER WORKS THEN WHY YOU SAY GOD HAS PLAN FOR YOU ? YOU MEAN HE CAN SUKA SUKA CHANGE HIS PLAN JUST FOR YOU ?

9) Pursue more of His love in your home.
As you give Jesus more of our heart, He will fill it with more of His love, and that will overflow into the lives of the people with whom we interact each day. When we let God’s love flow through us, it will empower us to love even those people who are difficult for us to love – those whose personalities or behavior makes them seem completely incompatible with us. Rather than just avoiding or tolerating difficult people, choosing to show God’s love to them will bless us in the process because God will use them to grind off the weak edges of our character to make us stronger. Ask Jesus to help us love people sacrificially, as He does. Instead of choosing to love only people who meet our needs, whom we get along with, who make we feel good, who do things for us, who give us things we want, whom respond with love, and whom we like, choose to demonstrate love to everyone, regardless of whether or not we like them and how they respond to us. When we love someone sacrificially, our act of love then becomes an act of worshiping Jesus.

YOUR INVISIBLEMAN CANT EVEN HELP HIMSELF ..NEED YOUR MONEY EVERY SUNDAY AND END OF THE MONTH ..IF HE IS SO POWERFUL WHY CANT HE HANDLE MONEY PROBLEM ? NEED YOUR MONEY ?


10) Pursue more of His courage in your convictions.
Be willing to stand out and speak up for Jesus in all areas of our lives, and with whoever we meet. Take a strong public stand for the uniqueness of who Jesus is; for the truth of the entire Bible; and for the necessity of living a life of integrity, purity, and humility in order to please God. Rather than living a lifestyle that simply blends in with that of non-believers, show people the difference that our relationship with Jesus makes in our attitudes and actions. Pray for the courage we need to stand by biblical convictions when others pressure us to be complacent or politically correct. Ask the Holy Spirit to use all of our conversations with others to glorify God in whatever ways He guides us to do so. No matter how much pressure we encounter to compromise our convictions, decide that we will never give up, shut up, or let up, because of our love for Jesus.

BECAUSE OF PPL LIKE YOU ...THERE IS HOLY WAR !!!

11) Pursue more of His nearness in your loneliness.
When we feel lonely, remember that Jesus is always with us. Pray for more awareness of His presence close to us, and take comfort in it. Although other people may sometimes disappoint us or abandon us, Jesus will always be there for us. Remember that Jesus is much more than just a man, prophet, teacher, revolutionary, icon, or symbol. Jesus is God Himself – and He loves all His children and we are His children!

YOU TALK SO MUCH COCK AS IF THE WORLD IS PERFECT SINCE YOU SAY YOUR INVISIBLEMAN WILL BE THERE FOR YOU ...

 

[drifter]

A simple experiment

If you are a Christian who believes in the power of prayer, here is a very simple experiment that will show you something very interesting about your faith.

Take a coin out of your pocket. Now pray sincerely to Ra:

Dear Ra, almighty sun god, I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Ra's name I pray, Amen.
Now flip the coin. Chances are that you won't get past the fifth or sixth flip and the coin will land tails.
What does this mean? Most people would look at this data and conclude that Ra is imaginary. We prayed to Ra, and Ra did nothing. We can prove that Ra is imaginary (at least in the sense of prayer-answering ability) by using statistical analysis. If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to Ra each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. Ra has absolutely no effect on the coin no matter how much we pray. Even if we find a thousand of Ra's most faithful believers and ask them to do the praying/flipping, the results will be the same. Therefore, as rational people, we conclude that Ra is imaginary. We look at Ra in the same way that we look at Leprechauns, Mermaids, Santa and so on. We know that people who believe in Ra are delusional.

Now I want you to try the experiment again, but this time I want you to pray to Jesus Christ instead of Ra. Pray sincerely to Jesus like this:

Dear Jesus, I know that you exist and I know that you hear and answer prayers as you promise in the Bible. I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Now flip the coin. Once again, after the fifth or sixth flip, the coin will land tails.
If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to Jesus each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. It is not like there are two laws of probability -- one for Christians who pray and the other for non-Christians. There is only one law of probability because prayers have zero effect. Jesus has no effect on our planet no matter how much we pray. We can prove that conclusively using statitical analysis.

If you are a Christian, watch what is happening inside your mind right now. The data is absolutely identical in both experiments. With Ra you looked at the data rationally and concluded that Ra is imaginary. But with Jesus... something else will happen. In your mind, you are already coming up with a thousand rationalizations to explain why Jesus did not answer your prayers:

1 ) It is not his will
2 ) He doesn't have time
3 ) I didn't pray the right way
4) I am not worthy
5) I do not have enough faith
6) I cannot test the Lord like this
7) It is not part of Jesus' plan for me
And on and on and on...

One rationalization that you may find yourself developing is particularly interesting. You may say to yourself: “Well, of course Jesus doesn’t answer me when I pray about a coin toss, because it is too trivial." Where did this rationalization come from? If you read what Jesus says about prayer in the Bible , Jesus does not ever say, "don't pray to me about coin tosses." Jesus clearly says he will answer your prayers, and he puts no boundaries on what you may pray for. You invented this rationalization out of thin air.
If you are a Christian who is offended by the notion of praying about a coin toss, then let's try this instead. Get down on your knees right now and pray as follows:

"Dear Jesus, son of God, the almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. Please hear our heartfelt, unselfish, non-materialistic prayer and fulfill your promises in Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19, Mark 9:23, Luke 1:37, James 5:15-16 and many other places. We pray knowing that when you answer this prayer, it will glorify God and help millions of people in remarkable ways. In your name we pray, Amen."

Will every case of cancer be gone tomorrow? Of course not. If you are a believer, you can create dozens of rationalizations for this unanswered prayer. But that does not change the reality of the situation.
You are an expert at creating rationalizations for Jesus. The reason you are an expert is because Jesus does not answer any of your prayers . The reason why Jesus does not answer any of your prayers is because Jesus is imaginary. We can find dozens of pieces of evidence to demonstrate that the Christian story is imaginary

What this simple experiment shows us is fascinating. When we pray to Ra and nothing happens over thousands of trials, we look at the data rationally and we conclude that Ra is imaginary. But when you pray to Jesus and nothing happens, you do not reach the same conclusion. Instead, you try to rationalize all the reasons why Jesus did not answer your prayers. Ask yourself this simple question: why the difference? Why do you, as a "believer", behave in a completely irrational way?

 

[tanwahtiu]

Here are several examples that can help you to understand how religion works in our world today.

Example 1

Let's imagine that I tell you the following story:

There is a man who lives at the North Pole.
He lives there with his wife and a bunch of elves.
During the year, he and the elves build toys.
Then, on Christmas Eve, he loads up a sack with all the toys.
He puts the sack in his sleigh.
He hitches up eight (or possibly nine) flying reindeer.
He then flies from house to house, landing on the rooftops of each one.
He gets out with his sack and climbs down the chimney.
He leaves toys for the children of the household.
He climbs back up the chimney, gets back in his sleigh, and flies to the next house.
He does this all around the world in one night.
Then he flies back to the North Pole to repeat the cycle next year.

This, of course, is the story of Santa Claus.

But let's say that I am an adult, and I am your friend, and I reveal to you that I believe that this story is true. I believe it with all my heart. And I try to talk about it with you and convert you to believe it as I do.

What would you think of me? You would think that I am delusional, and rightly so.

Why do you think that I am delusional? It is because you know that Santa is imaginary. The story is a total fairy tale. No matter how much I talk to you about Santa, you are not going to believe that Santa is real. Flying reindeer, for example, are make-believe. The dictionary defines delusion as, "A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence." That definition fits perfectly.

Since you are my friend, you might try to help me realize that my belief in Santa is delusional. The way that you would try to shake me from my delusion is to ask me some questions. For example, you might say to me:

1 ) But how can the sleigh carry enough toys for everyone in the world?" I say to you that the sleigh is magical. It has the ability to do this intrinsically.

2 ) How does Santa get into houses and apartments that don't have chimneys?" I say that Santa can make chimneys appear, as shown to all of us in the movie The Santa Clause.

3 )How does Santa get down the chimney if there's a fire in the fireplace?" I say that Santa has a special flame-resistant suit, and it cleans itself too.

4 )Why doesn't the security system detect Santa?" Santa is invisible to security systems.

5 )How can Santa travel fast enough to visit every child in one night?" Santa is timeless.

6 )How can Santa know whether every child has been bad or good?" Santa is omniscient.

7 )Why are the toys distributed so unevenly? Why does Santa deliver more toys to rich kids, even if they are bad, than he ever gives to poor kids?" There is no way for us to understand the mysteries of Santa because we are mere mortals, but Santa has his reasons. For example, perhaps poor children would be unable to handle a flood of expensive electronic toys. How would they afford the batteries? So Santa spares them this burden.

These are all quite logical questions that you have asked. I have answered all of them for you. I am wondering why you can't see what I see, and you are wondering how I can be so insane.
Now, look at what is happening inside your mind at this moment. I am using solid, verifiable evidence to show you that the Christian story is imaginary. Your rational mind can see the evidence. Four billion non-Christians would be happy to confirm for you that the Christian story is imaginary. However, if you are a practicing Christian, you can probably feel your "religious mind" overriding both your rational mind and your common sense as we speak. Why? Why were you able to use your common sense to so easily reject the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story, but when it comes to the Christian story, which is just as imaginary, you are not?

Drifter,

You'd drifted away from the norm, let me steer you back a little. Do you have children? If you do then you would like to Santa around Christmas time.

Every cultures and religions people will find ways to entertain their kids during festivals or occasions. Santa is of course a make up story and not for adult like you to literally take it as if Santa is evil or you have been decieved.

Children lived in their own world of imaginations and gifts from Santa play an important part which help them to grow. Every year chidlren received gifts from Santa are rewards for good behaviour and study well and most importantly live another year. Children die easily from accident or health and to see them every Christmas (which means every year) and getting presents from Santa is a belssing to parents. Santa is not what you think that is created to deceive you to believe it is a hoax. Hello! wake you it is for children and to children gift from Santa is their dream and only from being a good boy/girl do they get gift from Santa.

Friend, don't get upset about Santa. Jesus is for adults to believe there is God and to receive blessing they will also have to behave well and be a good boy/girl through the year.

Leave Psalm23 alone. Let him wake himself up to realise God is man made imagination, like Santa, so people like him will behave well and be a good boy.

 

[drifter]

Here are several examples that can help you to understand how religion works in our world today.

Example 1

Let's imagine that I tell you the following story:

There is a man who lives at the North Pole.
He lives there with his wife and a bunch of elves.
During the year, he and the elves build toys.
Then, on Christmas Eve, he loads up a sack with all the toys.
He puts the sack in his sleigh.
He hitches up eight (or possibly nine) flying reindeer.
He then flies from house to house, landing on the rooftops of each one.
He gets out with his sack and climbs down the chimney.
He leaves toys for the children of the household.
He climbs back up the chimney, gets back in his sleigh, and flies to the next house.
He does this all around the world in one night.
Then he flies back to the North Pole to repeat the cycle next year.

This, of course, is the story of Santa Claus.

But let's say that I am an adult, and I am your friend, and I reveal to you that I believe that this story is true. I believe it with all my heart. And I try to talk about it with you and convert you to believe it as I do.

What would you think of me? You would think that I am delusional, and rightly so.

Why do you think that I am delusional? It is because you know that Santa is imaginary. The story is a total fairy tale. No matter how much I talk to you about Santa, you are not going to believe that Santa is real. Flying reindeer, for example, are make-believe. The dictionary defines delusion as, "A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence." That definition fits perfectly.

Since you are my friend, you might try to help me realize that my belief in Santa is delusional. The way that you would try to shake me from my delusion is to ask me some questions. For example, you might say to me:

1 ) But how can the sleigh carry enough toys for everyone in the world?" I say to you that the sleigh is magical. It has the ability to do this intrinsically.

2 ) How does Santa get into houses and apartments that don't have chimneys?" I say that Santa can make chimneys appear, as shown to all of us in the movie The Santa Clause.

3 )How does Santa get down the chimney if there's a fire in the fireplace?" I say that Santa has a special flame-resistant suit, and it cleans itself too.

4 )Why doesn't the security system detect Santa?" Santa is invisible to security systems.

5 )How can Santa travel fast enough to visit every child in one night?" Santa is timeless.

6 )How can Santa know whether every child has been bad or good?" Santa is omniscient.

7 )Why are the toys distributed so unevenly? Why does Santa deliver more toys to rich kids, even if they are bad, than he ever gives to poor kids?" There is no way for us to understand the mysteries of Santa because we are mere mortals, but Santa has his reasons. For example, perhaps poor children would be unable to handle a flood of expensive electronic toys. How would they afford the batteries? So Santa spares them this burden.

These are all quite logical questions that you have asked. I have answered all of them for you. I am wondering why you can't see what I see, and you are wondering how I can be so insane.
Now, look at what is happening inside your mind at this moment. I am using solid, verifiable evidence to show you that the Christian story is imaginary. Your rational mind can see the evidence. Four billion non-Christians would be happy to confirm for you that the Christian story is imaginary. However, if you are a practicing Christian, you can probably feel your "religious mind" overriding both your rational mind and your common sense as we speak. Why? Why were you able to use your common sense to so easily reject the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story, but when it comes to the Christian story, which is just as imaginary, you are not?

Drifter,

You'd drifted away from the norm, let me steer you back a little. Do you have children? If you do then you would like to Santa around Christmas time.

Every cultures and religions people will find ways to entertain their kids during festivals or occasions. Santa is of course a make up story and not for adult like you to literally take it as if Santa is evil or you have been decieved.

Children lived in their own world of imaginations and gifts from Santa play an important part which help them to grow. Every year chidlren received gifts from Santa are rewards for good behaviour and study well and most importantly live another year. Children die easily from accident or health and to see them every Christmas (which means every year) and getting presents from Santa is a belssing to parents. Santa is not what you think that is created to deceive you to believe it is a hoax. Hello! wake you it is for children and to children gift from Santa is their dream and only from being a good boy/girl do they get gift from Santa.

Friend, don't get upset about Santa. Jesus is for adults to believe there is God and to receive blessing they will also have to behave well and be a good boy/girl through the year.

Leave Psalm23 alone. Let him wake himself up to realise God is man made imagination, like Santa, so people like him will behave well and be a good boy.

1 ) psalm23 is not a kid ...hes an adult who believe in fairy tales .

2 ) i would not tell my kid that santa is real .

3) im just giving out example between santa and jesus ...both are imaginary figure that delusion ppl believe in .

4 ) do you want your kids grown up in his 30s and go around telling people santa is real ?

5) we must teach kids , what is real and whats not .

6 ) i hate parents who tell their kids that if they dont behave , monsters or demons will come and get them at night ,you dont need imaginary figure to teach your kids how to behave ....thats wrong .

 

[tanwahtiu]

1 ) psalm23 is not a kid ...hes an adult who believe in fairy tales .

2 ) i would not tell my kid that santa is real .

3) im just giving out example between santa and jesus ...both are imaginary figure that delusion ppl believe in .

4 ) do you want your kids grown up in his 30s and go around telling people santa is real ?

5) we must teach kids , what is real and whats not .

6 ) i hate parents who tell their kids that if they dont behave , monsters or demons will come and get them at night ,you dont need imaginary figure to teach your kids how to behave ....thats wrong .

Children live in a different world to adults, let them grow up in their own world, don't let them miss their childhood. Childrens' Santa, monsters or demons are imaginative figures which are different from adult type of demon ro monsters.

Your kids will learn that Santa is not real by the time they are teenager and will grow out of it by that time. To you as parents I would suggest you let them be children and Santa is important person who will reward them with gifts for behaving well and study hard for the whole year.

Try to tell kids Santa is not real would not help them grow up. It is the gifts that kids are looking forward to from Santa every year during Christmas time.

Btw, please remember the person in Santa outfit is you, and you are the Santa giving your children gifts in Christmas. It is a wonderful and meanful time to be with your kids, and loving them, and you shd thank God that your children is still alive and healthy over the past 12 months, and you are lookng forward to do the same again next Christmas.

Go talk to someone who had lost their kid and you will know what I mean, sincerely.

 

[drifter]

Children live in a different world to adults, let them grow up in their own world, don't let them miss their childhood. Childrens' Santa, monsters or demons are imaginative figures which are different from adult type of demon ro monsters.

Your kids will learn that Santa is not real by the time they are teenager and will grow out of it by that time. To you as parents I would suggest you let them be children and Santa is important person who will reward them with gifts for behaving well and study hard for the whole year.

Try to tell kids Santa is not real would not help them grow up. It is the gifts that kids are looking forward to from Santa every year during Christmas time.

Btw, please remember the person in Santa outfit is you, and you are the Santa giving your children gifts in Christmas. It is a wonderful and meanful time to be with your kids, and loving them, and you shd thank God that your children is still alive and healthy over the past 12 months, and you are lookng forward to do the same again next Christmas.

Go talk to someone who had lost their kid and you will know what I mean, sincerely.

1 ) no santa does not mean that kids will miss out their childhood . there are still many things around for kids to enjoy their childhood ..

2 ) i can reward my own kids ...who need santa ? end of the day its the reward that makes the kids happy not santa . its like christains who praise or pray to their invisible man for no reason .

3 ) i want my kids to thank me for what i did rather then to thank a invisibleman who did not do anything .

4 ) why should i thank god that my kids are healthy ? so should you blame god that if your kids is dead ?

btw ...santa in christmas is just a marketing tools for company to make ppl spend money ...dont fall for it .

 

[lolabunny]

Children live in a different world to adults, let them grow up in their own world, don't let them miss their childhood. Childrens' Santa, monsters or demons are imaginative figures which are different from adult type of demon ro monsters.

Your kids will learn that Santa is not real by the time they are teenager and will grow out of it by that time. To you as parents I would suggest you let them be children and Santa is important person who will reward them with gifts for behaving well and study hard for the whole year.

Try to tell kids Santa is not real would not help them grow up. It is the gifts that kids are looking forward to from Santa every year during Christmas time.

Btw, please remember the person in Santa outfit is you, and you are the Santa giving your children gifts in Christmas. It is a wonderful and meanful time to be with your kids, and loving them, and you shd thank God that your children is still alive and healthy over the past 12 months, and you are lookng forward to do the same again next Christmas.

Go talk to someone who had lost their kid and you will know what I mean, sincerely.

I don't understand why you old people think that kids like us ever believed in Santa.

 

[lolabunny]

christains will never dare to read all the stuff i posted because they know its the truth but they refuse to admit it ....

You're The Man dude. Everything you've said about being the religion is what is so odd about it. For something that has ABSOLUTELY no proof, note, it's not No Absolute Proof; people seem to be going Gaga over the whole thing.

WHY?

By the way, you don't have to get all worked up over ONE man's opinion over what God is or isn't. There're so many books on Christianity and God, it's ridiculous.

People should just read the Bible and judge for themselves.

 

[drifter]

You're The Man dude. Everything you've said about being the religion is what is so odd about it. For something that has ABSOLUTELY no proof, note, it's not No Absolute Proof; people seem to be going Gaga over the whole thing.

WHY?

By the way, you don't have to get all worked up over ONE man's opinion over what God is or isn't. There're so many books on Christianity and God, it's ridiculous.

People should just read the Bible and judge for themselves.

my job here is to educate people and make people really think about their own religion ...im not mad at those delusion christains ..

sad to say those people cant really judge ...cause their blind faith have already fill their brain with delusions ...

 

[drifter]

I don't understand why you old people think that kids like us ever believed in Santa.

im not old at all ....almost every week , i still go surfing during the summer and snowboarding during the winter . if you see me in person ...you will fall in love with me ..

 

[drifter]

Christians often ask, "Why do you pick on us? Why not leave Christians alone if we are happy?" my goal is to help Christians understand the answer to this question.

Imagine that I have an adult friend. Once you get to know her, you realize something. She believes in Leprechauns. She believes in them with all her heart.

She believes that she can talk to the Leprechauns by speaking silently to them in her head, or by speaking to them outloud with her hands folded.
She believes that by talking to the Leprechauns, they will grant her wishes.
She also believes that the Leprechauns will help her heal diseases.
If she loses something, she calls to the Leprechauns who live in her house to help her find it.
She says she has a personal relationship with the Leprechauns, and they guide her in many parts of her life.
She wears a shamrock necklace.
Every Sunday she has a special ceremony to thank the Leprechauns for everything that they do in her life.
She believes that the Leprechauns created the universe. She says, "No one can deny that the Leprechauns created the universe, and no one can prove that they did not."
When she gets married, she wants a Leprechaun priest to do the ceremony.
When she dies, she believes that he will join the Leprechauns in a magical castle in the sky and live forever.

Now, what do you think of my friend? Her beliefs are harmless, are they not? By speaking out loud to the Leprechauns living invisibly in her house, she feels less lonely and happier.
And yet... there is something creepy about it, isn't there? Yes there is. It is creepy because you know that my friend is completely and totally delusional. She has lost her ability to distinguish the imaginary from the real.

Would you want my friend holding a position of responsibility in our society? For example, would you want my friend to be in a position where she can launch nuclear weapons at foreign countries? Probably not.

Would it be appropriate to talk to my friend and try to help her? Would it be appropriate to heal this delusion?

There is no difference between God and the Leprechauns. God is completely imaginary, and we can help you to understand this.

If you are a Christian, i would love to help you heal your delusion.