It's that time of year again. Those infrequent Christians pack into ancient buildings to thank god for their misfortunes and the promise of a better afterlife. So I sit here now and could ramble about the idiocy of such a lifestyle or the illogicality of religious devotion in general, but I won't. Frankly, it's gotten too much publicity as it is and I have no desire to feed the beast.
That said, I will make a few observations.
Those who believe in god get to go to heaven. Isn't that like saying those who are faithful to the president get cabinet positions? I prefer a merit-based system myself, you know, where you are rewarded with a position for revolutionary thinking or a little something called skill. But by all means, an all-knowing god would certainly choose the low road. After all, whose god doesn't show favoritism nowadays anyways?
How about Noah and his magical ark? You know, the one that he fit two of each animal on? Two animals, one male and one female, of each of tens of thousands of species on earth that weren't fish or birds. Erm... He was able to find two of each animal, or did they come to him? Like, across the ocean from the Americas too? And where did all this water come from that it could cover the whole Earth? The ark didn't sink when they all got aboard? Obviously it was large enough, where did he get that amount of wood in the desert? Now that we've determined that this was impossible, how was he able to feed them and dispose of their waste for forty days and forty nights? How was he somehow able to stop them from mating, dying, and eating or killing each other? Wow, that's amazing! Certainly anyone who's ever worked with animals would be able to do that.
The Roman soldiers in The Passion of the Christ spoke Latin. Actually to be historically accurate, they should have been speaking Greek. Oh well, I guess Mel Gibson is just a bad Christian.
When the pope releases a papal bull stating something, it doesn't mean that from that point on it is doctrine. Actually, it means that from the beginning of time that has been doctrine, even if previous doctrine had said otherwise. Come again?
The books of the bible were put together by a pagan, Emperor Constantine.
Come to think of it, wouldn't the creators of the church have had to have been pagan at some point too as all religions besides Catholicism are considered pagan by the church.
The pope is considered infallible. But he denounced Galileo as a heretic for daring to suggest a heliocentric universe.
There are no non-Christian saints.
Herman Melville's Moby Dick only became popular because the pope banned it because it gave soul-like qualities to a whale.
The bible makes no mention of limbo, actually a pagan author, Dante, created it. It was then later melded into Church doctrine. However currently there is a motion underway to de-doctrinize limbo, as asked by Pope John Paul II, it has yet to been affirmed however.
If you want a picture of what the church sees the ideal Christian as read the book of Job and see if you really want to be one.
In the words of George Carlin: "The only thing a Christian desires is to die. Help them..."
Slavery was justified by the church because (particularly) the Spanish and Portuguese promised to convert them to Christianity.
I have a serious question: Where did the Easter Bunny come from?
The papacy uses the Swiss Guard for protection, yet the Swiss are only 42% Catholic. They also have a 41% Protestant population and a 4% agnostic population. Maybe they'd want to switch. How about the Conquistadors? The Spanish are devoutly Catholic after all (76%), but then again their atheist population is around 19%. Ah... life.
Up until the seventeenth century, the church did not want commoners to read the bible because it would distract them from listening to their sermons. Why?
That's all for today. Enjoy your day off from work.
FlyFreeForever.
5 comments:
Don't call others idiotic just because you don't believe what they do. It is rather unbecoming. The search for meaning is illogical? If you say so, but...
+ "Those who believe in god get to go to heaven." That depends on your religion. Roman Catholics, for example don't believe any such thing.
+ Many religious people consider the story of Noah's Ark to be allegorical . Furthermore, the great flood story is found across many cultures, suggesting it may be based on a historical event.
+I am unsure of why you believe Constantine put together the bible. From what I understand, the canonical books were decided at the Council of Rome under Pope Damascus
+"There are no non-Christian saints." Under Roman Catholicism at least, saints are "followers of Jesus." It seems common sense that there would be no non-Christian saints.
+Moby Dick? That seems made up. What Pope was that? I tried to find that but most things I read claim otherwise; it seems that it become popular in the 1920's from a handful of literary essays.
+The concept of purgatory existed long before The Divine Comedy
+Job? It has yet to be explained by any scholars...not a terribly valid example.
To preface, Rantings of a Mad Man, are observations of mine and are subject to my beliefs. Therefore my calling it idiotic or illogical is my opinion from which I give supporting information in the remaining text, though by no means provide and end all and be all argument.
Moving on though... The Roman Catholic Church states that only those who believe in the Roman Catholic god are elegible to gain entry into heaven. That is doctrine.
It is true that many sects believe that Noah's sotry is allegorical, however I was remarking not on those instances, but rather on the illogicallity of such a thing actually occurring.
Getting to Pope Damascus I (I assume you meant the first)... He did not create the bible. He merely created the Latin version that was used universally from his time up through the Renaissance called the Vulgate or the Latin Vulgate translated by (St.) Jerome. It was renown for its translation inaccuracies as discovered by Desiderius Erasmus during his research and retranslation of the bible into Greek, called the Testamentium or the Textus Receptus.
The oldest known copies of the "bible" as it is now known (roughly anyways) came out in the 4th century A.D. and were distributed in Constantinople under the direction of Emperor Constantine I. He comissioned the council and paid for the labor that put hand-copied some 50 into public use. It was from these copies that the modern bible had been through the generations hand copied. These copies go under two names the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus.
As for Moby Dick, it was quite unpopular when first written. However it became popular in the 1920's after the re-publication of his books and the subsequent banning of many of them (Moby Dick included as well as Billy Budd) in the Roman Catholic "Index Librorum Prohibitorum".
Also on the topic of purgatory, I did in fact make a small error when I wrote that purgatory and limbo had been a creation of Dante, in his Divine Comedy. This is not wholly true. Actually limbo was created by Dante whereas purgatory held its roots in ancient Jewish oral tradition. I have corrected the mistake. Thank you.
And finally Job, just go read it. If you have a particular problem afterwards, we'll discuss. Though, remember it is an observation and I don't particularly care if anyone agrees.
As always,
FLYFREEFOREVER.
Oh, and I will add one more thing about Moby Dick. There is no complete list of banned books in existence (outside of Vatican archives) today. So finding such a list in general, nevermind a particular book is exceedingly difficult. I google searched it and found squat. So, take that with a grain of salt if you must, or trust in my memory.
On that note as well, I rarely actually research these things, they come more from memory. It is possible for some cases that these things have since then been proven wrong, it is possible, though not relevant this time.
As Always,
FLYFREEFOREVER
so very, very wrong about
~"Those who believe in god get to go to heaven..." Different sects disagre on this point, though the Roman Catholic Church in its Vatican II Reforms states: "The non-Christian may not be blamed for his ignorance of Christ and his Church; salvation is open to him also, if he seeks God sincerely and if he follows the commands of his conscience, for through this means the Holy Ghost acts upon all men; this divine action is not confined within the limited boundaries of the visible Church."
~The Noah thing. Jesus was so fond of speaking in parables, don't you think that it might be a trend throughout the entirety of Biblical writings? Just seems like an expression of yea-olde Godly might.
~If the pope is infallible, then of course the bulls have to be retroactive. And he's only infallible when it come to matters of church doctrine, they have never claimend to be omniscient.
~There are and have been multiple Bibles. They are just a collection of accounts, and those that are included are based upon their general importance and discernable validity. One of my alternative fav's is the Gospel of Thomas
~oh, and the Swiss Guard only fill in the role because they had worked as mercenaries as the Papal States were collapsing and were more trustworthy and more competant than those soldiers serving in the army.
They are just keeping an ancestral position.
Yikes, more stuff....
Alright, you yourself in your quote prove that you need to believe in god to get into heaven. "if he seeks god sincerely..."
I already answered the Noah thing.
The pope thing as you mention it contridicts itself. If the pope is infalliable about church doctrine then why do they contridict themselves over the centuries, such as the church's condemnation of Newton or Galileo.
Yes there are multiple bibles. Yet I was merely mentioning that the most popular is so because of a pagan.
And the reason behind why the Swiss Guard is used is not my beef, rather an ironic twist that they come from a country today that is only 42% catholic.
FLYFREEFOREVER.
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