Atheist and interesting story

The real power of Christ

According to John Marco Allegro in “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross”, thousands of years ago magic mushrooms were thought to improve fertility, leading to cults being created around the belief. He sustained that these secret fungal cults eventually led to the concept of Jesus. Essentially, he claims, Jesus didn’t exist: he was a kind of a code word for the mysterious mushroom power. And the “Jesus myth” caught on, rapidly spreading and eventually became Christianity.

Allegro has even gone as far as analysing ancient languages to demonstrate that the name Jesus actually meant something along the lines of "semen", and that Christ meant something like "giant erect mushroom penis." Yes, seriously.

so what does he have for dinner on 25th December?

Old testement book of Daniel was over 550 years before Christ - Jewish book.
Daniel prophecies that the messiah will arrive in Jerusalem to the exact year.

So I can say in the year 2565 a man will walk into London and change a brutal
empire and end it's reign? Absorb that empire and spread a doctrine of peace?
It's not going to happen? after a hundred years my words will mean nothing.
secondly say that I had some mad followers and they trained for five hundred years?
Got a really smart dude to spout all the stuff that Jesus said which is quite a lot.
He'd still have to have supernatural powers?

You see it's not the powers, or the words that makes Jesus the saviour of mankind.
All that stuff, proves his authority. Many a man can spout bullshit but they don't
feed thousands and heal the sick. That was a way of showing he was from God.
Saving Mankind was done by eliminating the daily sacrifice. By sacrificing animals
in the jewish beliefs you cleansed your sins, but the next day you sinned. So were
back to square one. One sacrifice for all sins. Past and future. All you do is claim
Jesus as your saviour. You Don't join a club or religion. Catholics and protestants
trying to claim him as their unique property? He is only interested in sinners who
admit their sins to him and accept the sacrifice. If you are super good and do 1000
good deeds a day but do not accept Christ you are self righteous. Christ will accept a murderer who repents over that 'good' fellow.
That sounds wrong to our ears, because we judge? but it's God's job to judge.
judgement only falls on those that do not accept Christ.
That good fellow might still make it into heaven but he will be judged.
children who died at age two will be judged. I imagine a good judge will give
good judgements.
Law and Grace. Law was Moses. Grace was Jesus. Old and New testaments.

Jesus was kind to animals. No more sacrificial goats.

The Book of Revelations was written by somebody who was on something powerful. As was the Book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament.

Is anyone watching the link? youtube.

In the past religion was used as a means of control.
Surely now we are too enlightened to believe the crap that the preachers spout.

I had a look at the link, Zorro, out of curiosity, but I'm afraid I couldn't listen for very long: I found the guy quite unpleasant and condescending. He seems to me to be just as deluded and self-absorbed as he must have been when he tried (and almost succeeded) in murdering has father. The views of people like him are of little import to me. If he is trying to atone for his horrific actions by devoting his life to helping people in need, this is a good thing. If, however, he just wants to ease his conscience and foist his views on other people, then i don't want to hear him.

I watched the whole thing some time ago. David Wood tries to kill his father with a hammer, as he is deluded and thinks he is center of the universe.Goes to prison and glosses over how a fellow inmate after a few arguments converts him to Christianity. Gets out and preaches the bible,and makes money trying to convert people to christianity, while more recently giving anti-islamic speeches.  He was a nutter before and still is.

Decided to watch another 10 minutes as it hadn't got the interesting bits. The guy appears to be a psychopath without a shred of empathy for his fellow citizens. he went to prison for attempted murder of his own father who by his own admission had done him no wrong. What the hell is he doing out on the streets again? Moreover he tries to draw parallels with his own lack of empathy and other atheists. Any such parallels are totally fallacious and malicious smears. The lack of empathy is a manifestation of his mental illness and has nothing to do with religion or lack of it.

Hi zorro,

be encouraged bud that the lack of response you get off here doesn't take away from the sound nature of your theology or the goodness of the intentions you hold by posting this stuff. think about this from 2 Corinthians 4:-
"Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."

With caution not to become proud, you should consider yourself to be bracketed by verse 2. you;re not using cunning, you're not tampering with God's word, you are giving open statments of truth. but ultimately you're giving them to the veiled. take someone like foinavon for example. despite proclaiming not to hold any interest in religion, he continues to click and post on these threads. why? despite it being explained to him (many times ) that christianity is about belief in christ who demonstably walked on this earth (sorry but i hold accounts by creditable historians like josephus and tacitus as having more integrity than 'the mushroom and the cross' ), he still continues to proclaim that we believe in sky fairies. he just can't, or won't take it in. why? 2 corinthians 4:4 is why. not everyone is going to listen to you, some people's hearts and minds are hardened against the gospel and that's to be expected.

take heart though for 2 reasons,
1) the arguments they have against you are nothing that hasn't been held up against christians in the past. in fact most of them pop up in the bible. just as an example, the implication that those who believe in christ are in some way mentally ill is really vicious and in truth, only works on internet forums because if jimmy met either of us face to face, I think he'd be hard pushed to claim either of us is mentally ill. read Acts 2, accusation of mental illness is exactly how the jewish crowd deal with Peter's sermon at Pentecost. Look how Peter responds Bottom line - you're not up against anything Jesus hasn't already beaten so take heart and keep plodding on.
2) even though you will lose intellectual arguments to people, intellectual wisdom is not and has never been the way to gain knowledge of God. Paul talks about this in a rather cryptic passage from 1 Corintians 1:-
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
I obviously have no idea whether you know this passage but at risk at patronising you, I'll explain that what Paul is saying here is that it was God's intelligent design that knowledge of him would not come about by gaining intelligence. In fact quite the opposite, it pleased him to save those who believed in spite of the outlandish nature of what we preach. People will demand signs, people will demand explanation, but only because (as per 2 Corinthinas 4:4 ) they don't understand that it's only to those who are called that God reveals himself, not those who gain intelligence.

Whilst what you do on this forum is right and good, i'd encourage you to take this enthusiasm into your local church and into your local community. This is how Acts 2 and Acts 4 tell us to go about spreading the word. If you're doing that, great. If you're not, ask yourself what God's trying to tell you in the lack of response you're getting on these threads. But take heart and keep going dude, you're back's covered. When God is for us, who can stand against us?
And if you need a giggle, just think about how many fuses will blow when they read all this . They hate the bible (again, see 2 Corinthians 4:4 ) and it makes them so so angry.

fkqmz - You are spot on. Cannot argue with any of that. It's not my job.
It's the job of Jesus. He reaches out to each man and they make their choice.
Everybody knows his name and shouts it out when they stub their toes.
But I was an atheist for nearly thirty years and understand their reliance
on the world. They look at the world and it's systems and see nothing of Christ
in it. Blinded as you say. But maybe someone will go pick up their bible and
read even one page. I understand that one page has the power to save a soul.
(https://soundfaith.com/sermons/28754-ravi-zacharias-hien-pham)
People might be set in in their choices already, I argued with my brother all
the time about 'his delusions about god' and I loved to bring up other religions
as examples of Man's belief systems. The Greek Gods, Buddha and a bunch of other
stuff. But it made me look? It made me investigate.
The same thing happened to the head of New Scotland Yard in Queen Victoria's day, Sir Robert Anderson. He approached the bible as an investigator and instead of disproving
it. It proved itself true.
How can anyone in this world know God if they don't read even one page of his book.


Having all beliefs lumped together under religion is Satan's best gambit. He has lost his
war but has poisoned the water. Like putting an apple in a box of Donuts and Cream buns.
The bible can be found in the Religious section? of all good book stores. Between Satan's
other books. Get distracted Kiddies. Choose wisely (indiana jones).

the biggest nut job needs the biggest spanner

zorro........you sound a right nut to me

I'm sorry but The Bible and the Old Testament are not separate entities. The latter is the first part of the former and the Old Testament has all sorts of rules of which loving thy neighbour is not one that is immediately obvious. An eye for an eye is more typical. And that sounds a bit like Sharia law to me. Not particularly surprising as Islam just like Christianity derives from Judaism.

If i understand this correctly, then i can be a horrible khant for nearly all of my life, but as long as i recognise Jesus before i pop my clogs, i'll be fine?

Another anomaly as I understand it is that someone who has never heard of christianity, which is the majority of people who ever lived, will be OK but someone who has heard of christ and refuses to believe is condemned to hell. The African of the 19th century would be entitled to ask of the missionary "So why did you tell me"?

You can't give an answer on it because as you well know it's a logical lacune.
If the people who lived before christ are not saved from original sin, why did god wait so long before sending his son with the message? Why did he go to the Levant backwater instead of populous China?
If they are saved what's the point of Christianity?

Many who take DMT have contact with alien/god like beings who are able to seperate the persons ego and direct them to a clear view of the life they have and the new life they can live without the problems that weigh on their mind.  After these encounters many peoples lives are transformed for the better, leaving all depression and anxiety behind.  These 'gods' are freed out of their own minds by a simple chemical reaction and seem to be available to all.

^
Calvinist.