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.

That would be some bible BM. Better than the King James version.

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

wit a tit. a scholar of bull, heaped upon a pile o mushrooms.

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.

think he had too many mushrooms!!!

Jesus was kind to animals. No more sacrificial goats.

why do people still discuss religion...........its 2016 not 1616

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

they weren't all dosing themselves like now.

portmanpark - a life unexamined is stupid.
wake up. travel to work.travel home. watch some tv. eat your dinner.
have a bet.watch some more tv. take out the dog. read before bedtime?
Don't think?
the bible was for every century. That's why it uses metaphor, poetry,
alagory etc. It spoke to the man of the fifth century and now in the
21st century. Chinese Christianity is flourishing. But apostasy is
prevalent in countries were people just want to drink their pain away.

Is anyone watching the link? youtube.

Nope, gave up after 5 minutes. Boring.

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.

portmanpark
portmanpark 17 Aug 16 10:01 Joined: 07 Dec 03 | Topic/replies: 3,870 | Blogger: portmanpark's blog
why do people still discuss religion...........its 2016 not 1616

Because people who believe a lot of nonsense about sky pixies are always proselytising.
This thread is yet another example.

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 stuck with a bit longer than 5 minutes.
Like DP people like him make no impact on me.
Boring and pointless.

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.

Just another dangerous religious fundamentalist.

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.

Oi - of course he's a psychopath - he explains his delusions in great detail from
the start.
He explains his thought processes. His complete arrogance to the world around him.
He's telling everyone that no matter what they do - they die. There is no winners.
everyone of us is acting as if we will come up with a pill and live for thousands
of years. The Duke of Westminster just died aged 55(with £9 billion in his back pocket)
In twenty years nobody is going to remember him. So why remember a carpenter's son
from 2000 years ago?
If a man with no empathy whatsoever for any human being on this planet can see who
he was? Isn't it worth investigation.
We are all mentally ill, it's only in degrees.
Twitches, stutters, neurosis's,irrational hatreds,cleanliness phobias etc.

Unbelievable lack of attention span on this site. 25mins?

I personally think he's probably gaming the system but He has salient points.
without Christ we are wasting our time here.

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.

Comical fruitcakes.

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).

I like you Zorro and I think your contribution to the drawing thread was wonderful
I differ from you on the subject of religion though. Fkq was wrong about my interest in religion. I'm passionate about it in the same way that Christopher Hitchens was and agree with him that "God is not Great". I understand your love affair with Christianity, but as you alluded to in your reply to fkq, I like many others, see no difference with other religions from the point of view of their basic beliefs.
Moderates like yourself are not the problem individually, it is when money and politics are blended with religion that the trouble starts. It's the moderates that supply both money and demographics to the mix.

the biggest nut job needs the biggest spanner

I'm not RELIGIOUS. I have no religion. I do not go to church.
I do not pay dues to any association. I have a catholic father and a protestant mother.
I believe in one God. the Bible and the jewish old testement has two abiding rules.
Love the lord your God and love your fellow man as yourself.

these rules are not found in the Quran. I'm not sure about the other religions.

So there is no negativity in my beliefs. In real christian belief.

I can see a negative as soon as you talk about Catholicism and Protestantism.
Immediately you put yourself under the authority of other men.
I only recognize one father. the bible explicitly says - call no man father.

So immediately priests in the church are doing something wrong when people address them
as father. There is a book, there's you and there is God. Nobody else should be in the relationship.

God doesn't need my money?

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

Thanks for your reply Zorro. I'm in total agreement with you apart from your basic belief in god. You have my full respect, I mean that.

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.

Yes, without a belief in God, there is no reason why anyone should follow the rules set out in ancient documents like the bible and subsequent plagiarist versions by the deranged and the despotic.

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?

That's the gist of it, the Christian teaching. An odious character like the one in the video gets rewarded in heaven for proclaiming christ whereas someone who leads a decent life with compassion for others but doesn't believe that jesus was god goes to eternal torment. Tells you all you need to know.

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"?

Another anomaly as I understand

you don't understand it though do you, you don't understand anything about it because you're blind to the evidence and won't consider it. I don't know where you got that carrot from anyway but it isn't true. the bible says nothing about what happens with the salvation of those who never hear the gospel. that said, this issue's been discussed to death and every christian has an opinion on it but that's all it is - human opinion; its nothing more than guess work.

blackrock. whilst at a simple level what you say is technically correct, that isn't actually how it works. as per yesteday's post, faith and repentence are a gift and what's to say you would receive that gift on your death bed if you've lived your life so selfishly and with the arrogant belief that you can trick God at the end of it all. it doesn't work.

zorro whats your thoughts on that other post about the OT. i'm interested to hear how you'd respond to that??

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?

It depends what branch of Christianity you belong to.
If you are a Catholic you get to heaven on a mixture of faith and good works
A Lutheran gets there by faith alone
A Calvinist can't do much about it as he/she is either born one of the elect or isn't. This is actually logical because if God is omniscient then he knows from the start if you are damned or not.

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.

Item one - you cannot murder folk and confess five minutes before you enter
the gas chamber? It's not a game where you look for cheats. You have to confess, help the police, hold nothing back and believe in Jesus 100 percent. Then you are forgiven.
The Lord knows if you are bull shi tting.

item two - this is Satan's world. People Die, are tortured, are fed false doctrine. In the desert Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world past and future - Jesus did not argue the point. Because Satan Rules this World... An angel appeared to Muhammid. The brightest angel of them all was Satan. When jesus died his last words were 'it is finished' he completed the Old Testement. He also said False prophets would appear after him. (jehovahs, Muslims, mormons) Jesus said he was the son of God, anyone that disputes this in religious circles belongs to Satan.

item three - God says all will be judged except those that are saved. So you are in a forest in Borneo and have never heard of jesus. You will be judged. That does not mean instant hell. It means God will judge you.

There are references of people who are dead already in Heaven. Moses, Elijah, millions of Martyrs cry out for justice in Revelation. Pre Jesus. they have been judged or are awaiting judgement.

^
Calvinist.

I would guess the Christian's turned to Atheism would outnumber this guy 1,000,000/1.

If, as Pascal's Wager must assume, God is willing to punish good people simply for a lack of belief, this would preclude God being "good" by any sense that we understand the concept of "good" — and "good" is a necessary property of God, at least as understood by Christianity. As it can be demonstrated on Earth that no single specific religion has a monopoly on good and moral people, a God that causes Pascal's Wager to be valid cannot be focused on spreading good around the world. Various responses to Pascal's Wager involve pointing out that to be at the constant beck and call of such a clearly evil being would be less preferable to hell, and so it is favourable to disbelieve.

capital G for Mr G too

mankind's idea of good - isn't the same as God's idea.
'All your good deeds are like filthy rags'
'yet shall i make you white as snow'

over 30 years Live Aid has raised £150 million - this has been repeatedly
hailed as a great triumph of humanity? it works out as five million a year.

there are 1,820 billionaires with an average of £3000 million each.
so one billionaire has the capacity to finance 20 live aids in one year, not thirty.

So Greed is GOOD in humanity. Helping your fellow man is an after thought.

I watched about half of this last night and think this guy is a deranged controlling maniac. I can see how something could change him but I could also see a wild rabid dog in his eyes waiting to get out.

I worry for this planet when I see extreme ideologies.

Although i'm a non believer i actually think Christianity is very positive.It gives people a scaffolding in life and helps them get through tough times.
My father (a firm Catholic) had cancer a few years ago and was helped greatly by the church and the comfort that he felt through prayer and his faith.It helped him greatly to get through it.
I find more religous people (well Christians) to be more upbeat and optimistic about life.I prefer them to these militant athiests who just seem angry all the time.

If you want world peace give everyone a tv and free cable.
people need to become couch potatoes. That's why general crime
has went down Coz people are getting fatter. Not got the energy
for screwy stuff.

zorro.............you didn't knock my door last Thursday??

tbf the jehovases are an average comedy act.

no direction in life and clearly mentally ill in a nice kind of way....not like most other religions.

Zorro

So the 2 year old that dies having never heard of Jesus nor had the chance to do a good deed carries the debt of original sin as default and is doomed in the eyes of God?

The Christians attempt to suggest that Adam's betrayal (Eve's was largely unimportant in the greater picture as Adam had dominion) was all our sin because we all descended from his cursed loins. They say this in the same breath as hinting at having freedom of will.
Religion makes a dog's dinner out of attempting to fix the mistakes of man with regard the references of the Lord triune.
This is where it falls on its face, there are three entities that make up God, and him as his own son......who needed 40 nights in the desert to get his own head around it?
Why did he need that surely he knew the back story?

Whether it's psalms, Old Testament or any other title, the foundation of the religions draw on the same material as is philosophy as it was all written around the same time, it was all experiences of events, proverbs and observations of life.

A relevant example being that Adam and Eve were said to have noticed their nakedness after eating the forbidden fruit and covered up their bits in response, the Christians have you believe that everyone since has shame of their body as a result.
Well actually this is cynic dogma if you like, the cynics would get naked and live as dogs around the time the old works were but down on parchments, it was the stoics that saw shame in their actions, but founder mentally it's the school of cynicism that this all came from I believe.

Should all those who have accepted Jesus not now be walking around naked?
Further more, the sacrifice of Jesus abolished all our sin, the sin that it could be argued was the result of a petty God in the first place.
Also, I have to ask this because I'd love to know.....but what did the serpent used to do before it was cursed by God?
God says as a result it will forever crawl on its belly and eat dirt.......

From the dirt we came and to the dirt we shall return.
Hell is a place absent from God, but the bible also says 'even satan has no power there'

The hedonism of selfish religious types dream up paradise as something they desire....all for saying Jesus was our savour?
You most likely return to dirt and get neither.

As Nietzsche said, we are better having never lived.

I mirror Davy's view.
In fact I often envy those that have faith, as it seems to me to be beneficial to be able to call upon some kind of higher power for solace.
As it is, I can't make myself believe and so you won't find me at prayer. I do however try and live the life of what you might consider a 'good' person nonetheless and hope that I've not misjudged the situation

First off, i do not crave solace. for twenty five years I was a devout atheist.
I preferred the idea of closing your eyes and then nothingness - just like a
long sleep that lasts forever.
The real scary thing to me is my belief now that we are all immortal.
Having lived fifty years already I am bored out of my head. The idea
of living for ten thousand or ten million years is terrifying.

the two year old? what sins has she/he committed? God will be her/his judge,
It doesn't say he will be her/his executioner? A true judge that knows
everything about her/him.
Only those saved by christ get a pass from judgement.
God doesn't want people who don't want him. He's not forcing anyone
into his family. You are a spiritual being within and you are immortal.
spend eternity with your maker or with the other guy.

The two year old in question was a reference you made earlier in this thread.
What sin has the two year old committed?
Well the bible says guilt is ingrained in us all through the original sin, so the two year old is automatically cast out by default, and since the only way back is through Jesus, then that's impossible.
Guilt by association you might say, simply by being born, that is the rule in the bible.

For me the talk in the bible is always about a perfect God who created a perfect paradise.
The first problem is they can't be either since a perfect paradise wouldn't have had margin for error, that's what perfect means, so no temptation would have been possible as it wouldn't register.
Ofc it could be the case that the vindictiveness of God meant he allowed it to test.
Well if that were true then a perfect God came up with a pretty poor method of what constitutes the most important thing in the universe, the passing on of the true message.
Since he allowed man to carry that message warts and all without correcting mistakes or ace rating ambiguity.
The book is so open to interpretation that it's splintered many ways and the truth is impossible to garner without direct guidance since we can't possibly know truth from lies.
I believe there should have been the tree of good and evil for us all, or something akin to Excalibur in the stone, something unrefutable, but there is non, just speculation.

On the point of interpretation, those who carry the message try their best to find the answers to others questions, but it's flogging a dead horse IMO. They said that everyone has ingrained shame about their naked self due to original sin, and that everywhere in the world humans who all were born from Adam have this.
Well that simply is not true.
Sure many wear clothes out of practicality today, but the assertion that all do is incorrect.
Before those carrying the message of Jesus reached Australia and surrounding islands many explorers regularly encounter tribes who lived naked without shame, but they must have originated from Adam if the bible were right, yet knew nothing of Jesus.
That suggests to me that those that follow Christianity clutch at straws.