Monstrous
Apocalypse Soon => Religions, Cults & Sects => Topic started by: Jake on June 24, 2012, 01:47:41 PM
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A pastor who believed Christians must handle rattlesnakes as a sign of their faith has died – after suffering a rattlesnake bite at an outdoor service in Bluefield, West Virginia.
Mack Wolford, who was 44, based his belief on Mark 16:17-18, which says: "And these signs will follow those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."
Wolford was well-known in his region of the US on account of his snake-handling, an archaic Pentecostal practice that he continued to enthusiastically promote, despite watching his own father die from a rattlesnake bite when he was just 15.
Appealing for followers to join him at what would be his final service last Sunday, Wolford promised an inspiring day out in the West Virginia countryside. "I am looking for a great time this Sunday," he wrote on his Facebook page. "It is going to be a homecoming like the old days. Good ’ole raised in the holler or mountain ridge running, Holy Ghost-filled speaking-in-tongues sign believers. Praise the Lord and pass the rattlesnakes, brother."
Full story here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/serpent-handling-pastor-profiled-earlier-in-washington-post-dies-from-rattlesnake-bite/2012/05/29/gJQAJef5zU_story.html?wprss=rss_style); seen on New Humanist.
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buahahaha :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
there goes his reptile faith
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...Or it was a lesson that reptiles don't prove faith, the person's heart does. *shrugs
Maybe they need to redefine what a serpent means in the bible rather than assuming the only serpents are poisonous snakes? Either way snake handling may be proving their faith, but gives no glory to God. They should be celebrating Him, not reptiles that look best in a tank on my shelf.
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...Or it was a lesson that reptiles don't prove faith, the person's heart does. *shrugs
So the "word of God" reported in Mark 16:17-18 are lies? God told his believers that it was okay to handle snakes, but he was actually lying, and wanted them to pick up snakes, get bitten, and die an agonizing death prolonged over several hours, to teach them that "reptiles don't prove faith, the person's heart does"?
Why would the author of the Bible, who is supposed to be God, who is supposed to love us all, deliberately lie, knowing it would lead to agonizing death for people who really, really believed in him?
The reason is because God is imaginary. "God" had nothing to do with the Bible. The Bible was written by primitive men, many of whom were obviously insane.
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Why would the author of the Bible, who is supposed to be God, who is supposed to love us all, deliberately lie, knowing it would lead to agonizing death for people who really, really believed in him?
Indeed why? Maybe it wasn't God that wrote it?
I mean, Baudelaire wrote a lot of nice stuff on opium and hashish, maybe it was God too? :D
ps: thank God for free wi-fi spots xd
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...Or it was a lesson that reptiles don't prove faith, the person's heart does. *shrugs
So the "word of God" reported in Mark 16:17-18 are lies? God told his believers that it was okay to handle snakes, but he was actually lying, and wanted them to pick up snakes, get bitten, and die an agonizing death prolonged over several hours, to teach them that "reptiles don't prove faith, the person's heart does"?
Why would the author of the Bible, who is supposed to be God, who is supposed to love us all, deliberately lie, knowing it would lead to agonizing death for people who really, really believed in him?
The reason is because God is imaginary. "God" had nothing to do with the Bible. The Bible was written by primitive men, many of whom were obviously insane.
Depends on who a person believes wrote the bible and what it means to their life. In my view the bible is a collection of stories with people i can relate to and their experiences with an enigmatic god. then some silly roman emporer gets a hold of it, a mysoginistic, cruel king of england translate it all into old english from latin, that came from greek, that came from aramaic, that was written in sanskrit, so how does anyone know what the origional sources really said?
I suppose that's why i enjoy movies like dogma, stigmata and even clive barker. They show what a tainted book in the hands of mere mortals can inspire in People; in general i agree...what does god have to do with it, it's back to Man and how the human heart versus the mind can to amazing, even if atrocious things.
Back to calling people who experience overwhelming spirtuality and interact with a non physical connection they can't explain as insane?
i agree with your final statement, you don't have to be such a...tosser about it. :P
I don't believe faith can over rule the physical laws of nature, it's not a physical feature...snakes are a physical creature.
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Back to calling people who experience overwhelming spirtuality and interact with a non physical connection they can't explain as insane?
i agree with your final statement, you don't have to be such a...tosser about it. :P
Hm, I didn't mention anything about "spirituality" or "non physical connections" or any of that New Age guff.
I just said that "The Bible was written by primitive men, many of whom were obviously insane."
Did I also mention that they were flagrant misogynists, too?
Basically, go out to Afghanistan, find the most primitive, backwards village you can, and understand that the men you see there are pretty much the same as the men who invented "God" and wrote the Bible.
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victims of their culture, compare it to todays culture...theres a difference between hating women and a culture that insists they keep their place. One doesn't need to go to afghanastan, just find a nice indian town that enforces the caste system. Religion didn't get patriarchial until the cultures of greece and then rome came into power...back to those feckin romans screwing up the known world.
God nor religion has anything directly to do with how a culture views their women, it's the culture tha morphs the religion to suit their needs, the history of judaism and christianity demonstrate that perfectly. What was once the ideals of disgruntled working class jews looking for better opportunities free from a "for hire" religious hierarchy into what we're discussing now. tis man that's the doom of men, not a book, a nameless belief some believe in and others don't but men who want to shape the world into their vision and will use any means or devices to satisfy their desires.
how do you know they were insane, because they wrote stories about a god and his people?
primitive man thought, saw and demonstrated in symbols, so if that's your argument it would only work if the bible is taken as literal...but i like my signature, i'm more symbolic and less "god wrote these rules so obey them".
i think the state of the world demonstrates his displeasure with where this culture is taking his words, the entirety of rome fell and their church is now floundering, resorting to their demonology to strum up business. :P
God has left the building!
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Religion didn't get patriarchial until the cultures of greece and then rome came into power
The Old Testament was written between the 8th and 5th centuries BC - long before there was any Greco-Roman cultural influence. "Women in ancient Israel had their position in society defined in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the interpretation of those scriptures. Their status and freedoms were severely limited by law and custom in ancient Israel:
1.Women were restricted to roles of little or no authority.
2.Women were confined to the homes of their fathers or husbands.
3.Women were inferior to men, under the direct authority of men, their fathers before marriage, or their husband after.
4.Women were not allowed to testify in court trials.
5.Women could not appear in public venues.
6.Women could not talk to strangers.
7.Women were required to be doubly veiled when they ventured outside of their homes."
God nor religion has anything directly to do with how a culture views their women
For the life of me, I will never understand the rank hypocrisy you exhibit regarding "God" vs "Bible." You are quite happy to reject the notion that the Bible is God's Word to mankind, but seem oblivious to the fact that, without the Bible, there is no case for God. And the Bible - God's Word - is very clear and direct about how God-believing, Bible-believing cultures should view their women: "Misogyny is fundamental to the basic writings of Christianity. In passage after passage, women are commanded to accept an inferior role, and to be ashamed of themselves for the simple fact that they are women. Misogynistic biblical passages are so common that it’s difficult to know which to cite. From the New Testament we find "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. . . ." (Ephesians 5:22–23) and "These [redeemed] are they which were not defiled with women; . . ." (Revelation 14:4); and from the Old Testament we find "How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" (Job 25:4) Other relevant New Testament passages include Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:7; 1 Corinthians 11:3, 11:9, and 14:34; and 1 Timothy 2:11–12 and 5:5–6. Other Old Testament passages include Numbers 5:20–22 and Leviticus 12:2–5 and 15:17–33...
This misogynistic bias in Christianity’s basic texts has long been translated into misogyny in practice. Throughout almost the entire time that Christianity had Europe and America in its grip, women were treated as chattel - they had essentially no political rights, and their right to own property was severely restricted. Perhaps the clearest illustration of the status of women in the ages when Christianity was at its most powerful is the prevalence of wife beating. This degrading, disgusting practice was very common throughout Christendom well up into the 19th century, and under English Common Law husbands who beat their wives were specifically exempted from prosecution. (While wife beating is still common in Christian lands, at least in some countries abusers are at least sometimes prosecuted...)
As for the improvements in the status of women over the last two centuries, the Christian churches either did nothing to support them or actively opposed them. This is most obvious as regards women’s control over their own bodies. Organized Christianity has opposed this from the start, and as late as the 1960s the Catholic Church was still putting its energies into the imposition of laws prohibiting access to contraceptives. Having lost that battle, Christianity has more recently put its energies into attempts to outlaw the right of women to abortion."
i think the state of the world demonstrates his displeasure with where this culture is taking his words
You're joking, right? Or do you really believe that a supreme being so powerful, omnipotent and omniscient that he could spin the mindblowing awesomeness of our universe into existence is now a bit pissed off with how man is "taking his words"? Didn't the all-powerful lord of all creation know this from the outset? After all, the Bible clearly 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) This is God's plan for humanity. It is all laid out in black and white, from creation to the judgement day to the life hereafter.
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.
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" a contradiction, doesn't it? Yet Christians seem to attach themselves to both ideas, despite the irresolvable problem the two ideas create.
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? 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."
If you think about it as an intelligent person, you will realize that the statement "It is part of God's plan" is one of those meaningless palliatives. When you sit down and think it through using your common sense, the statement makes no sense. That lack of sense shows us how imaginary God is.
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The Old Testament was written between the 8th and 5th centuries BC - long before there was any Greco-Roman cultural influence. "Women in ancient Israel had their position in society defined in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the interpretation of those scriptures. Their status and freedoms were severely limited by law and custom in ancient Israel:
God nor religion has anything directly to do with how a culture views their women
For the life of me, I will never understand the rank hypocrisy you exhibit regarding "God" vs "Bible." You are quite happy to reject the notion that the Bible is God's Word to mankind, but seem oblivious to the fact that, without the Bible, there is no case for God. And the Bible - God's Word - is very clear and direct about how God-believing, Bible-believing cultures should view their women: "Misogyny is fundamental to the basic writings of Christianity. In passage after passage, women are commanded to accept an inferior role, and to be ashamed of themselves for the simple fact that they are women. Misogynistic biblical passages are so common that it’s difficult to know which to cite. From the New Testament we find "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. . . ." (Ephesians 5:22–23) and "These [redeemed] are they which were not defiled with women; . . ." (Revelation 14:4); and from the Old Testament we find "How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" (Job 25:4) Other relevant New Testament passages include Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:7; 1 Corinthians 11:3, 11:9, and 14:34; and 1 Timothy 2:11–12 and 5:5–6. Other Old Testament passages include Numbers 5:20–22 and Leviticus 12:2–5 and 15:17–33...
...As for the improvements in the status of women over the last two centuries, the Christian churches either did nothing to support them or actively opposed them. This is most obvious as regards women’s control over their own bodies. Organized Christianity has opposed this from the start, and as late as the 1960s the Catholic Church was still putting its energies into the imposition of laws prohibiting access to contraceptives. Having lost that battle, Christianity has more recently put its energies into attempts to outlaw the right of women to abortion."
How did Jesus treat women? If, by this belief he was a god in the flesh wouldn't it suggest he discovered humans can not act like gods and showed us how to be human? He changed the very fundamentals of ancient judaic law. Mysogyny hardly has a place in our world anymore, but it's still there even with atheism on the rise. However unless God sat down himself and wrote out the words, they were still interpreted by man. On one hand christians are condemned for following the bible as law and then criticized if they don't...people with that attitude take the "free will" out of the equation saying "god wants this, god expects this etc." If he does indeed have it all planned out, then wouldn't that suggest each person is on their own path and if it's difficult then they took the wrong fork in the road or fail to have the faith in themselves that their god does?
back to "he never gives you more than you can handle."
i think the state of the world demonstrates his displeasure with where this culture is taking his words
You're joking, right?
yes, i was joking...humanity has always been subject to the whim and damage nature can cause, god or no god it won't change the fact, we're subject to the laws of nature. It was those forces that first created gods and they morphed as humanity did, to many atheists seem to take the human out of humanity, choice...we all still have it and that includes personal worship, fellowship and all the other things we as humans get to do, that not even gods can.
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.
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" a contradiction, doesn't it? Yet Christians seem to attach themselves to both ideas, despite the irresolvable problem the two ideas create.
http://www.gotquestions.org/God-allow-Holocaust.html (http://www.gotquestions.org/God-allow-Holocaust.html)
God nor religion has anything directly to do with how a culture views their women
For the life of me, I will never understand the rank hypocrisy you exhibit regarding "God" vs "Bible." You are quite happy to reject the notion that the Bible is God's Word to mankind, but seem oblivious to the fact that, without the Bible, there is no case for God. And the Bible - God's Word - is very clear and direct about how God-believing, Bible-believing cultures should view their women: "Misogyny is fundamental to the basic writings of Christianity. In passage after passage, women are commanded to accept an inferior role, and to be ashamed of themselves for the simple fact that they are women. Misogynistic biblical passages are so common that it’s difficult to know which to cite. From the New Testament we find "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. . . ." (Ephesians 5:22–23) and "These [redeemed] are they which were not defiled with women; . . ." (Revelation 14:4); and from the Old Testament we find "How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" (Job 25:4) Other relevant New Testament passages include Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:7; 1 Corinthians 11:3, 11:9, and 14:34; and 1 Timothy 2:11–12 and 5:5–6. Other Old Testament passages include Numbers 5:20–22 and Leviticus 12:2–5 and 15:17–33...
the words of god tainted by men, no longer are words of a god, how did jesus treat women? If he was God in the flesh, as i believe wouldn't it suggest that he changed his attitude a bit, humanity from it's concept never played by his plan, before abraham most religious cultures were matriarchial societies where women did have power and influence, even take up weapons and could fight more fiercely then the men in their tribes.
There have always been gods to worship with out a bible, who put the book together from collected stories burided for hundreds of years?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion)
religion's been around a whole lot longer then the bible...
and before men got together to pick and choose what to include, what to exclude and why they chose certain books and locked others away, so that's my reasoning in stating the bible is more so created by man then God...they put the book together and made it dogma.
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/our_patriarchal_society.htm (http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/our_patriarchal_society.htm)
misogynistic bias in Christianity’s basic texts has long been translated into misogyny in practice. Throughout almost the entire time that Christianity had Europe and America in its grip, women were treated as chattel - they had essentially no political rights, and their right to own property was severely restricted. Perhaps the clearest illustration of the status of women in the ages when Christianity was at its most powerful is the prevalence of wife beating. This degrading, disgusting practice was very common throughout Christendom well up into the 19th century, and under English Common Law husbands who beat their wives were specifically exempted from prosecution. (While wife beating is still common in Christian lands, at least in some countries abusers are at least sometimes prosecuted...)
As for the improvements in the status of women over the last two centuries, the Christian churches either did nothing to support them or actively opposed them. This is most obvious as regards women’s control over their own bodies. Organized Christianity has opposed this from the start, and as late as the 1960s the Catholic Church was still putting its energies into the imposition of laws prohibiting access to contraceptives. Having lost that battle, Christianity has more recently put its energies into attempts to outlaw the right of women to abortion."
Who enforces the rules and make the laws of a society?
i think the state of the world demonstrates his displeasure with where this culture is taking his words
You're joking, right? Or do you really believe that a supreme being so powerful, omnipotent and omniscient that he could spin the mindblowing awesomeness of our universe into existence is now a bit pissed off with how man is "taking his words"? Didn't the all-powerful lord of all creation know this from the outset? After all, the Bible clearly 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) This is God's plan for humanity. It is all laid out in black and white, from creation to the judgement day to the life hereafter.
yes, i was joking...but he's destroyed cities before that displeased him, the united states is a little bigger then sodom and ghomorra however. :P
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.
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" a contradiction, doesn't it? Yet Christians seem to attach themselves to both ideas, despite the irresolvable problem the two ideas create.
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? 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."
If you think about it as an intelligent person, you will realize that the statement "It is part of God's plan" is one of those meaningless palliatives. When you sit down and think it through using your common sense, the statement makes no sense. That lack of sense shows us how imaginary God is.
Isn't that the point of a final judgement? We can do anything we want, but people of faith are held accountable for their actions, the trick is they don't know what's right or wrong until their dead...until then it's balancing faith and human society trying to find a happy medium.
you're the one going on about what "god has planned" i'm of the unpredictability school of thought. Just because people have children, make the best plans for them and even save for the future of those plans...kids still screw up and go their own way all you can do is love them until they come home and then you get the "I told you so" satisfaction.