some more older posts from one of my other online journals.

-----------------

on Dr.David Noble (and then religion) 12/9/2003

after reading several summaries of one of his books, and one of his lectures... I think the guy has some very interesting ideas... and so far, the only real flaws I see are where he attempts to make ties to christianity. factually pretty much everything else I read seems right... but referring to "knowledge lost in eden", when supposedly it is precisely knowledge that we gained there by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, whereby we gained the very knowledge of god himself. the only things we supposedly lost, were ignorance, the chance at eternal life through eating the fruit of the tree of eternal life, and thereby becoming gods ourselves, and a nice happy paradise to live in. heck, knowledge was the 1 thing we DID gain there, we lost everything ELSE. (supposedly) ;) it is just a fairytale after all.

anyway... you should read sometime the actual story in genesis about things such as the creation, and eden etc... the glaring fallacies alone in that one book of the bible should be enough to make ANY semi-intelligent person walk away from christianity for good, if not at least seriously reconsidering their beliefs and taking a quite unorthodox stance with their spiritual beliefs. the main point is that you can't have it both ways... you either have to admit that it's just a story, and not remotely literal (aside from being factually erroneous)... or you have to admit that it's wrong. either way, it's no longer a sound foundation for any belief system. because one way you have to admit that it's just a story, a fable of sorts, and therefor all the flaws, errors and inconsistancies should be overlooked as irrelevant to the moral of the story... or you take the stance of the fundamentalist orthodox belief that everything is word for word literally exactly what really happened. which is INSANE to honestly even TRY to claim anymore, as scientifically we've learned better since the bible was written. the animals that the bible claims god created first... weren't the first animals. they were just what animals the people who made up the stories in the bible knew at the time... we learned better in the centuries that followed... and yet people still try to insist that the bible is fact. that it is true down to every last word. how can you do that? or that it literally says that in the garden, god was walking around talking with the angels etc... and had to go looking for adam and eve after they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil... and that when he found them, he had them kicked out because if they had gotten ahold of the fruit of the tree of eternal life, THEY WOULD BE EXACTLY LIKE HIM. the "man" got scared to lose his position of power, so like a jealous little kid, he kicked them out and had an angel with a flaming sword keep them from getting back in. now honestly kids.. do you really believe that god himself was chillin in the garden, and that two magical trees with magical fruit that made you smarter and gave you immortality were there... and it was a perfect paradise, with angels running around and naked people and the animals all living together in peaceful bliss... then god got mad that adam and eve might get to live forever just like him, because they ate the magic fruit from one of the magic trees, and might get the other one? so he has his boys give them the boot and guard the door with a giant flaming sword? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? HAVE YOU NO COMMON SENSE!? it's not even an original story! the story of the tree and the snake and all that... predates christianity completely! christianity just adopted a lot of other previous religions stories as well as common myths and fables... and tied them together with enough historical fact such as places and dates later in the bible.. actual people who lived, ruled etc.. to make it believable to the people of the time. it's incredibly sad that otherwise intelligent adults cannot grasp the huge gap in logical thought that says while it's common sense that you can't magically bring people back from the dead (we're talking DEAD)... and that you can't walk on water... or make water into wine (not talking magic tricks)... we "know" that all of this stuff is just simply not real... and yet because we were taught that the bible is true... we believe all these things we KNOW aren't otherwise true? it's like taking your brain out of your head because christianity has no use for it. I honestly just cannot understand how people can be so terribly blind and stupid even when SHOWN the glaring faults in their thinking.

it's as simple as this... you can prove that the bible is WRONG about a lot of things, inconsistent, contradictory... plainly a fable in large part... and provably so. so with that said... the bible is the ONLY source of Christianity... it is supposedly the word of god (and infallible)... proof of itself (a silly concept in and of itself)... so how can you 100% believe in god if the very foundation of the single source of your "proof" is PROVABLY incorrect, flawed, outdated, wrong, contradictory... aside from being historical fiction?

christians literally have to force themselves to suspend their common sense and intelligence to maintain their belief. suspension of disbelief... and they have to do this at basically every single step of the way. to fight knowing too much, thinking too much... if it interferes with their safety blanket fantasy.

man learned long ago that lightning wasn't the result of the angry sky god throwing magic missiles down upon their heads... science luckily brought us far enough beyond that point that people finally accepted the reality of it. and while that is happening slowly to christianity, people are still holding on... trying to "reinterpret" the bible... ignore chunks of it... whatever they can... and they increasingly keep turning to the few things we haven't proven them wrong on... which isn't much more than "who created the universe.. if anyone at all?" and that's where they'll point to and say "see! there is gods work!"

as evolution (both micro and macro) has been proven (natural selection etc)... and we now know that animals did start out millions of years ago as single celled organisms and evolved from there... from the seas onto land... etc... christianity has been left with little choice but to attempt to adapt... and in the process ignore the bibles story of creation, treat it as a simple fable, or be left behind by factual reality as mankind continues to be enlightened. so they claim that "ok... evolution happened, but god made that first single cell! and he guided evolution! it was all his work!" although we now understand that chemicals naturally strive for the same conditions which make up single celled organisms etc.. simple proteins etc... for instance "mad deer" sickness... it isn't caused by a virus or anything "living" thing... it's just a protein... you can't treat it or kill it unless you physically destroy it with bleach or something like that because it's just a chemical. and yet it "reproduces" itself etc as though it were living... this is the same concept that gave rise to the first proteins in the ocean... complex proteins... a single cell... and so on and so forth. natural selection... if it doesn't work, it doesn't exist. the inefficient or weak fail and don't "reproduce", while the successful do and carry on those successful qualities through their "offspring". over literally hundreds of millions of years, this gives rise to some pretty complex organisms as you can see through any basic dinosaur book with a timeline in it.

no, the sky god didn't scoop up some magic clay in his magic garden and *poof* turn it into a man... then pull out his rib and *poof* magically make a woman. WE KNOW BETTER. USE YOUR HEAD.

anyway... enough for now. more later I'm sure.

some old posts on religion etc.

I'm going to paste some old chatter I made about religion and such about a year ago. I just woke up and don't feel like getting into it at 7am with no breakfast. :) this should be fine as a conversation starter if anyone actually reads it and thinks about it I think.

--------------------------

Saturday, July 31st, 2004
8:55 pm	some other thoughts. it's actually pretty interesting how much simpler and clear your view of the world becomes when you can start to understand where the line between fantasy and reality is drawn. for instance, some of the things that I found really interesting in the past were things like discovering that most REAL satanists don't believe in satan at all. and for the record, his name is not satan, it's lucifer. satan is a rank of demon. it's simply pathetic to see "satan" illustrated and referred to constantly as some half goat with horns and a forked tail, etc etc... now remember kiddies, we're just discussing FICTION HERE, so don't get too caught up in these details like some poor sap we know does.. ;) haha lucifer was the greatest and most beautiful of all the angels and simply chose not to be subservient to god anymore. for standing up for himself, god cast him out of heaven and all those that chose to follow him. now I don't see where he got transformed into a half goat in there... nor do I see where choosing not to be someones servant is a bad thing etc. to put it simply of course. but aside from the obvious joke of christian stupidity there.... the point I'm making here is that satanists simply use the concept of satan as a sort of mascot. a fictional manifestation of the principles they associate with. satan stands for rebellion, for free will etc. now mind you I personally don't care a lot for satanists for other reasons, but in general they have a fundamentally better grasp on reality than christians (or many other religions, just so nobody feels left out). as a perfect example of satanism promoting skepticism, Anton Szandor LaVey himself (whose real name was Howard Stanton Levey), who embellished large parts of his own past for instance (to put it VERY mildly), often stated to trust nothing, not even him. which makes it humorous when people throw fits about him lying about his past... the whole thing becomes hilarious to those who saw the big picture enough to realize that if you fell for the lies, then you were missing his main point to begin with. take it as a lesson and grow from it. (not that I'm a fan of the guy, but he made and illustrated through his own life the absurd joke of religion and made a huge name for himself by exploiting the ignorance of the masses and their need for structure and direction etc in their lives. he was essentially a plagiarist, compulsive liar and hypocrite, but it's not like he didn't warn you about it up front. if you fell for it, you had only yourself to blame.) there is nothing wrong with studying the world around you, that is what you should do (if you want to gain knowledge and wisdom etc)... but without the ability to separate fact from fiction... skepticism etc... all that knowledge becomes rather useless except to try to impress other ignorant people in the same poor boat as yourself. just another pathetic sheep. so as a little mental exercise for you... here's a quote: "the death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is just a statistic." - Josef Stalin. think about that one the next time you see some murdered girl on TV and the massive media hype to make a huge deal out of it and people across the country weeping at the death of a complete stranger. and then hearing about "68 killed in car bomb in baghdad today" and nobody bats an eyelash. learn to see the world for what it is, to see through media hype, the spin on stories, things like that. once you really start to realize a lot of things for the fiction that they are, or the very one sided spins on stories, etc... you start to see the world differently and gain a kind of instinct, a sort of "spider sense" that tingles when you're exposed to bullshit. which is probably why I get so frustrated with the asshat I was bickering with on my friends behalf... because he could somewhat get things right, but miserably failed in other aspects. and simply couldn't detach himself from his book dependant way of thinking. I'd like to hear him admit that the whole concept of original sin is a crock of fictional shit. 100%. that christianity (which is just plagiarised judaism with a bunch of complete fiction written mostly over a century, if not two or three hundred years later tacked onto it) is at it's core just another work of fiction, plagiarised in large part from earlier works of fiction, and that he is a moron to believe as fact ANY of the supernatural aspects of it. I think one thing that suckers in a lot of weak minded people is the fact that it's basically historical fiction. and having actual historical events in the bible, really makes it hard for weak minded people to separate fact from fiction. not that most modern day fiction doesn't employ the same tool in making it's stories believable... hell, the best lies are part true. the real reward is learning to stop and think about things and separate the fact from fiction. to separate reality from fantasy. if I walked up to you today and said that I just saw a guy walking on water, or told you that I had a friend whose mother spontaneously conceived him without ever having sex (or obviously undergoing fertility treatment etc), or that I knew a guy that got violently murdered, was buried and then 3 days later was all fine and healed and walking around again.... what would your reaction be? I'd wager to bet it would be along the lines of "BULLSHIT!!!" so tell me, why is it that the things you know better than to believe as anything other than utterly ridiculous based on your own experience, as well as a modern knowledge of medicine, phsyics, biology etc... you whole-heartedly believe when it comes to ancient superstitious ignorance and fairytales contained in religion? learning to recognize that switch, and remove it, is a great achievement indeed. now hopefully you understand these basic concepts and ideas, which can lend a great insight into your daily life in a useful way that bickering who would win in a fight between Goku and Vegita cannot. ;) *chuckle*
8:11 pm	yee haw. well, after a few days of pointless bickering with a pseudo-intellectual who can't seem to focus on a point outside of one illustrated in books he's read, I dropped the topic to focus on work etc. as he seems to think of himself as the victor, I'll just let him think that. :) a few points that I wanted to make on his last post, without actually replying to it and invoking another bout of "I won't answer your question, but I'll list more names of books and authors to avoid admitting that I'm a fucking idiot and can't think for myself." first off, when I list several points on christianity and some fundamental logical flaws with it, and specifically ask him to respond to those and not just list more books... what does he do? list more books and unrelated points to the main issue I raised. AGAIN. when we're dealing with the fundamental flaws in christianity as a whole, what the HELL do the differences between St.Paul and St.Augustines views on the nature of Original Sin have to do with it!? NOTHING! hahaha if ANYTHING, that half-wit should focus on Constantine and the very roots of modern christianity and it's historically documented MASSIVE pagan influences (to massively understate it) and corruption in the 300 years between when the gospels were first supposedly begun and when the council of Nicene canonized what we now know as the modern christian bible. we KNOW many points such as the gospels being re-written many times to fit political and personal aims in the CENTURIES that passed before the council, we know that there were at least 200 gospels which were recognized by the church as holy etc (of which all but 4 particular "interpretations" of the supposed gospels of matthew, mark, luke and john, were destroyed after the canonization in order to ensure constantines will and the longevity of HIS version of christianity.)... we know that there were DRASTIC differences between many of them, which contradicted each other etc... we know that Constantine as a practicing pagan used christianity to further his own political goals, and while moving under the guise of a christian himself, was never baptised as a christian until he lay on his death bed, and during his reign blended pagan beliefs and christian beliefs to suit his own will. moving a giant pagan phallus into the center of Constantinople and forcing the "christians" to worship it, as well as Apollo, which he also worked into his particular version of christianity. he moved the sabbath day from the traditional 7th day, saturday, to the pagan day of worship to the sun god, sunday. and following in his tradition, such things as all saints day, christmas etc were also moved to incorporate the pagan holidays and beliefs to attempt conversion of the heathens to christianity by both absorbing the previous holidays and also making it easier for pagans to make the transition. such things as the halo's above the heads of the holy and angels etc being adopted from the halos of feathers worn on the heads of the pagan worshippers, and the "holy trinity" being directly adopted from far older religions and ideas, being non-existant in christianity originally. but anyway... the point I was trying to make is that while this fellow would be busy trying to argue which leaf on a tree was more important, he was simply ignoring the fact that I was standing at the base of the trunk with a chainsaw trying to get his attention. the difference in interpretation between eastern and western views on original sin in early christianity are a moot fucking point when you realize that the entire religion is a fucking work of fiction. it's insanely humorous to read early christian works when you can step back and see it for the huge joke it is. I read some of the early works like that occasionally, but to me the historical aspects of the very foundations and precursors of christianity are more interesting to me that the wholly fictitious dogma that evolved long afterward. to put it simply, this fellow in his infinite short-sightedness was so intent on arguing something as irrelevant as whom would win in a fight between Goku and Vegita on Dragonball Z, that he just couldn't see the obvious... IT'S FICTION YOU DUMB FUCK. pull your head out of your fucking books and take a look at REALITY moron. hahaha really... how the hell am I supposed to get through to people like that? it's just sad really. so caught up in his abstract philosophical fantasies that he can't let go of his book "smarts" long enough to realize that a lot of that shit is moot when you realize that it's FICTION. the simple fact that he claims to know so much about his religion, but still practices it, clearly illustrates the great weakness of the poor boys mind. jesus was a jew. he was a radical cult leader and highly charismatic one at that. but he was by NO means unique in his day. many people both before and after him shared the legends of virginal birth, divinity, death and ressurection, healing the sick, crowds of witnesses to all these etc... but let's not miss the point that even judaism is also a work of fiction. as real as greek and roman mythology and their gods. the real issue here is being able to use critical thinking, (un)common sense, rational and logical thought etc... to be able to see through all the superstitious and primitive trappings of religion and see reality for what it is. something this poor fellow seems pitifully unable to do having read too many books that have filled his head with ideas he can't seem to actually sort out between fantasy and reality. like I said before... basically a smart guy, but sorely lacking where it counts.... and amounting in the end to nothing but a pretentious asshole too caught up in himself to realize it. :) but hey.. he'll make a good lawyer. ;D hahaha

first post.

well, a friend of mine has been posting on here, so I figured that in order to more correctly respond to his posts, I should have an account of my own. I don't post to these like I did when I was younger, but I can see their therapeutic value... and that is something he needs right now.