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I am not talking about your average everyday normal Christians, or any religious person for that matter. I am talking about the absolute wack jobs that I have seen personally, and the ones I have seen on the news and online. There were 4 seperate groups of them protesting in Salem on Halloween. The first thing that one of them said is that their message was more important than helping a friend out of a burning building. Then they just continued with more and more nonsense, all day and night. I used to be a Christian myself, I was actually a CCD teacher as well, I just had a change of beliefs somewhere along the lines. They were saying the most ridiculous things, like anyone who has sex before they are married will get aids, and that if you masterbate you will burn in hell, that dead soldiers are punishment for what the world is becoming and so on. I know a lot about the bible, and I learned most of what I know after I stopped believing in it. The qoutes that they were using and saying were the words of god were completley false, they are no where to be found in the bible at all, and they know that they are not in there, they just say what they want to try and get their false message across.
Another thing that they were trying to say is that jesus is the one and only true god, which is absolutley foolish to think. Jesus' religion is a combination of judaism and pagan Roman religions, with a few name-changes and Roman misunderstandings of Jewish ideas, a new religion was born full to the brim with old ideas. Elements that were common in previous pagan mystery religions include much of the religious content of christianity. All elements of jesus' life such as the events around his birth, death and ministry were already parts of the myths surrounding other god-men of the time. Peripheral elements such as there being twelve disciples were similarly present in other more ancient religions and sometimes with an astonishing amount of duplication. First century critics of christianity voiced accusations that christianity was nothing but another copy of common religions. All the actual sayings and teachings of jesus were also not new, and much of the time speeches attributed to jesus are more like collections of jewish and pagan sayings. Even distinctive texts like the sermon on the mount are not unique. If we remove the content that jesus could not have heard and repeated himself, there is nothing left. If we remove the supernatural elements of christianity that are copies of already existing thought and religion, there is nothing left which is unique! Even much of the sayings of subsequent christians are not unique. Jesus appears to not have taught anyone anything that was not already present in the common culture of the time.
This shows us that not only did christianity follow on, as expected, from previous thought in history but that we do not even need to believe in god or supernatural events in order to account for the history of christianity. Stephen Hodge very usefully lists many of the similarities found in the Dead Sea Scrolls to the teachings and organisation of jewish christianity. He also concludes that these jewish documents make the teachings and appearance of jewish christianity less revolutionary.
Believe what you want, but keep it to yourself! There is no need for people to try and bleed their beliefs into other peoples heads. You will never see an atheist show up to protest at a gay rights parade, or at the funeral of a fallen soldier, or even at a church for that matter. Atheist keep their thoughts and ideas to themselfs unless someone else starts the conversation first. We dont care what you believe as long as you keep it to yourself, if it makes you happy, that is great, I am happy for you, this is how it should be, everyone does what makes them happy. But when you start insulting me because I am celebrating Halloween, or because I like to wax the dolphin every now and then a line gets drawn. Dont tell other people they are bad and condemed to hell if they dont believe in what you believe. Dont try and piss on my parade, and I wont piss on yours.
What I have found out is that in the city, there are designated spots where they were allowed to speak, and they needed to buy a permit in order to stand there and use amplified sound. The city will only issue 1 permit to 1 group for each of the designated areas. If they dont have a permit, they can go there and speak, but they can not use any amplified sound, they can just use their voice. They will be surprised next year when they go to get their permit, because the permits for Friday, Saturday and Sunday are already gone! Me and a few other haunters in the city bought them all yesterday and will be posting a DJ advertising all of the haunts in the city and playing music all day and night. So if they decide to show up again, which they will, they will not be heard no matter where they go!
Another thing that they were trying to say is that jesus is the one and only true god, which is absolutley foolish to think. Jesus' religion is a combination of judaism and pagan Roman religions, with a few name-changes and Roman misunderstandings of Jewish ideas, a new religion was born full to the brim with old ideas. Elements that were common in previous pagan mystery religions include much of the religious content of christianity. All elements of jesus' life such as the events around his birth, death and ministry were already parts of the myths surrounding other god-men of the time. Peripheral elements such as there being twelve disciples were similarly present in other more ancient religions and sometimes with an astonishing amount of duplication. First century critics of christianity voiced accusations that christianity was nothing but another copy of common religions. All the actual sayings and teachings of jesus were also not new, and much of the time speeches attributed to jesus are more like collections of jewish and pagan sayings. Even distinctive texts like the sermon on the mount are not unique. If we remove the content that jesus could not have heard and repeated himself, there is nothing left. If we remove the supernatural elements of christianity that are copies of already existing thought and religion, there is nothing left which is unique! Even much of the sayings of subsequent christians are not unique. Jesus appears to not have taught anyone anything that was not already present in the common culture of the time.
This shows us that not only did christianity follow on, as expected, from previous thought in history but that we do not even need to believe in god or supernatural events in order to account for the history of christianity. Stephen Hodge very usefully lists many of the similarities found in the Dead Sea Scrolls to the teachings and organisation of jewish christianity. He also concludes that these jewish documents make the teachings and appearance of jewish christianity less revolutionary.
Believe what you want, but keep it to yourself! There is no need for people to try and bleed their beliefs into other peoples heads. You will never see an atheist show up to protest at a gay rights parade, or at the funeral of a fallen soldier, or even at a church for that matter. Atheist keep their thoughts and ideas to themselfs unless someone else starts the conversation first. We dont care what you believe as long as you keep it to yourself, if it makes you happy, that is great, I am happy for you, this is how it should be, everyone does what makes them happy. But when you start insulting me because I am celebrating Halloween, or because I like to wax the dolphin every now and then a line gets drawn. Dont tell other people they are bad and condemed to hell if they dont believe in what you believe. Dont try and piss on my parade, and I wont piss on yours.
What I have found out is that in the city, there are designated spots where they were allowed to speak, and they needed to buy a permit in order to stand there and use amplified sound. The city will only issue 1 permit to 1 group for each of the designated areas. If they dont have a permit, they can go there and speak, but they can not use any amplified sound, they can just use their voice. They will be surprised next year when they go to get their permit, because the permits for Friday, Saturday and Sunday are already gone! Me and a few other haunters in the city bought them all yesterday and will be posting a DJ advertising all of the haunts in the city and playing music all day and night. So if they decide to show up again, which they will, they will not be heard no matter where they go!
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