Why I’m no longer a Christian

[waaasssuuup]

Sister Kathryn Lust wrote:

<quoted text>I have no earthly idea what you just said, much less what I'll say before I leave this plane - if anything.
What I did say, on the other hand, was that you and your version of 'god' have no power over me, because I don't relinquish responsibility for myself to a 'deity' of any kind.
But if that's your cup o' meat, feel free to gnaw it at will.
Happy Monday!!

let me break this down for you:

you said - "I don't relinquish responsibility for myself to a 'deity' of any kind"

this means that instead of allowing Christ to atone for your sins (which is the only way to the Father), you agree to pay for them yourself.

i'm just trying to cut threw the crap so you can see how it looks from God's perspective:)

[waaasssuuup]

New Age Spiritual Leader wrote:

<quoted text>
No - you made the claim - you support the claim, or please be quiet.
Stop diverting.
Your ilk has been using this tactic far too long. From now on, if you respond to me, you best be providing a link or somoe sort of support, or you will be called out for it.
You bullshite has got to stop sooner than later.

LOL! that new age composer sure don't seem to work when it's confronted with the truth;)

[waaasssuuup]

Huh wrote:

<quoted text>Well, since his god lives in his pocket...

i'm still cracking myself up from "honey bunny butt"!:)

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
lol! no - i'm openly claiming that you're a murderer, a thief and adulterer at heart:)

The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? Because they are acquainted with each other.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, quoted from the book Ingersoll the Magnificent, edited by Joseph Lewis, which does not cite references

The ministers are in duty bound to denounce all intellectual pride, and show that we are never quite so dear to God as when we admit that we are poor, corrupt and idiotic worms; that we never should have been born; that we ought to be damned without the least delay.... The old creed is still taught. They still insist that God is infinitely wise, powerful and good, and that all men are totally depraved. They insist that the best man god ever made, deserved to be damned the moment he was finished.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses" (1879)

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
LOL! that new age composer sure don't seem to work when it's confronted with the truth;)

On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design.
If God created man -- if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic?
Should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank God?
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, from "Why I Am an Agnostic" (1896)

[G_O_D]

Xcntrik InVidor wrote:

<quoted text>
The result of bad history.
Confirmation bias.

Exactly. Sadly it is almost as common in academia as the church.

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
i'm still cracking myself up from "honey bunny butt"!:)

You're already cracked.

No man with a sense of humour ever founded a religion.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, quoted from Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Insulting Quotations

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
let me break this down for you:
you said - "I don't relinquish responsibility for myself to a 'deity' of any kind"
this means that instead of allowing Christ to atone for your sins (which is the only way to the Father), you agree to pay for them yourself.
i'm just trying to cut threw the crap so you can see how it looks from God's perspective:)

Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Individuality" (1873)

[DearthOfCouth]

water_nymph wrote:

<quoted text>That was the full Monty, wasn't it?

Indeed it was. I'm still reeling with it.

I think it deserves a replay:

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
i do know people who have been used to raise people and i do expose evil spirits. i probably could raise people too if they weren't embalmed or cremated before i got to them;)

What else is there to say?

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
time to repent of self-righteousness, mr w! who knows, you too could find yourself incarcerated some time!

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense. Whoever investigates a religion as he would any department of science is called a blasphemer. Whoever contradicts a priest; whoever has the impudence to use his own reason; whoever is brave enough to express his honest thought, is a blasphemer. When the missionary speaks slightingly of the wooden god of a savage, the savage regards him as a blasphemer. To laugh at the pretensions of Mohammed in Constantinople is blasphemy. To say in St Peter's that Mohammed was a prophet of God is blasphemy. There was a time when to acknowledge the divinity of Christ in Jerusalem was blasphemy. To deny his divinity is now blasphemy in New York.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Interviews," Works, v. 5, p. 50, quoted from Joseph Lewis, The Ten Commandment, "Third Commandment," pp. 212-3

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
ever read in the Bible how God looks at our hearts? yeah, the sermon on the mount is all about that:
"he who looks at a woman to lust after her has commited adultery in his heart" "he who hates his brother without cause has murdered him in his heart" etc
time to repent of self-righteousness & come to Jesus.....

[Passage]:
The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God? And yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, The Gods

The heart is just a pump, nitwit.

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
sssssooooo you're perfectly righteous in-and-of yourself and don't need God's provision for the sin of the world.
you won't be able to say that no one tried cuz it's on record that we did:)

The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian -- like a doctor of divinity.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, from "Superstition" (1898)

[Anon]

Nevaeh wrote:

<quoted text>
You don't really want to go there. Satan already resides in your house. Look around...

So that's who's been spitting pumpkin seed husks all over my wood floors. Bloody bastard!

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
can you be specific, mr w?
also, please remember the "....as we forgive those who trespass against us" part of the Lord's prayer:)

We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience -- and for them all, man is indebted to man.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "God In The Constitution"

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
i have in a sense, when i was baptised into the death and ressurection of Jesus! it's the only way to cease from being a fallen, lying, murdering, covetous & selfish human.
now it's your turn:)

We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Gods" (1872)

[G_O_D]

Xcntrik InVidor wrote:

<quoted text>
Bad history.
The Gospels are "historical documents" in that thet relay particular views from specific times and places of origin.
The Gospels are not historical accounts, they are religious propaganda.
See actual historians for the opinions of historians here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows...

Why do you consider religious propaganda as less "historical" than political propoganda (which is exactly what most of the documents are)?

Is the medieval copy of Gallic Wars more reliable than the 2nd cent. Gospel of Thmoas ? If so, why ?

Was the person who wrote Caesar's alleged memoirs above reproach ?

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
let me try again:
how can the 'coexist' preaching, politically correct types think thet they're so tolerant when in fact they are the most narrow-minded & socialistic tyrants of all?

The moment you introduce a despotism in the world of thought, you succeed in making hypocrites -- and you get in such a position that you never know what your neighbor thinks.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Limitations of Toleration"

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
and yet your kind always seeks out my kind when you finally come to your end.....

Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men -- nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, quoted from the Address, Ingersoll the Magnificent, delivered by Joseph Lewis on August 11th 1954 dedicating, as a Public Memorial, the house in which Robert G Ingersoll was born, Dresden, Yates County, in the state of New York.

If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help -- we need not waste our energies in his defense.

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
so you believe every 'tom', dick & harry who contradicts Jesus - what's new?;)

A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. "But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?"
-- Douglas Adams, paraphrase of a parable spoofing modern creationism that Adams often told, as retold by Richard Dawkins in "Lament for Douglas" (14 May 2001)

[Huh]

waaasssuuup wrote:

<quoted text>
and yet your kind always seeks out my kind when you finally come to your end.....

I don't go to mythical places with strange men.
-- Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), quoted from Encarta Book of Quotations (1999)