This is an amusing presentation, though I wish he slowed down a little:
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[...] #2: tentative link: http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/05…igion-is-false. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Why I don’t respect your religious beliefs [...]
I only had 15 minutes. Do you know how many slides I had to leave out?
Hmm… Tricky. 42 slides?
That’s a good guess. Since I don’t remember exactly how many, I’m going to say you’re right.
Ha ha… 11:52 and 12:11 are the best parts…
Direct link to flv file for those (like me) with crap…-i-mean-ad-blockers:
http://bitcast-a.bitgravity.com/revision3/flv/oneoff/0030/oneoff–0030–bil-joelgrus–large.fl8.flv
Whoever said this deserves a crown:
“the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree…”
I agree. One of the best parts of the whole thing.
Amusing entertainment for sure and some true and rather sad comments on worldwide “religion” in general which, as I have shared with my “A” list friends numerous times is NOT what Christ offers, but is a man made “system” of external rules, dead dogma, etc.
One glaring error he made was the infamous “Sky-God” reference when Christ did not teach that concept, actually quite the opposite.
All the very, very best, JC
“One glaring error he made was the infamous “Sky-God” reference when Christ did not teach that concept, actually quite the opposite.”
Then why did Christ “ascend” into the heavens in the Gospels? Whats the point if God doesn’t literally reside up there? Wouldn’t it have been more accurate to tele-port, rather than proliferate the myth that God resides in the sky?
Hmmm…..
The “sky” represents the heavenly (spiritual) realm that is “above” or superior to the lower, earthly, natural, physical, seen realm. Christ came out of the spiritual, eternal, true realm into our physical to bridge, intersect “heaven” (undefiled, pristine, spiritual) and our “earth” (physical) world.
Hence…may it be on earth (in our temporal lives, world) as it is in heaven (the real, eternal, spiritual) realm.
Man, you’re still paraphrasing Plato’s Republic here! ;)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/#PlaCenDoc
The difference being that Plato had some understanding but Christ WAS/IS Truth…Himself. John 14:6
God exists because the Bible says so. The Bible is true because it is the word of God.
Or, more likely the writers of the Greek New Testament were stealing ideas from Plato…
And if we need Christ to come to this understanding (seeing as how the NT calls him the word (logos)) then how did Plato manage to come to this understanding all by himself (seeing as how he predates Jesus by 500 years)?
No, cuz Christ (Holy Spirit) is the Writer Himself of the NT and OT..this is partly why it is not understood, so misunderstood just like He was/is misunderstood.
How do any of us come to know certain, but not all truth? Giftings, graces, insight? How do I know certain things about people I see when I have never met them before?
because your ancestors, for thousands of years, have relied on subtle clues to form useful first impressions of strangers to help them inform their fight-or-flight strategies. Also, you only remember the times you were right in these first impressions.
oh, and last time I checked, the writers of the New Testament were Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, and another John, and probably a few other guys I’m forgetting, and the second John had a few odd mushrooms as co-authors…
and as for the Old Testament, sometimes even the same book has lots of different authors.
Those are not the authors of the New Testament. Paul is one I know; there are probably others. But the authors of the gospels are unknown. The appellations “according to Matthew” etc were added centuries later.
Still, there were obviously four canonical gospel writers, each with their own viewpoint and writing style (though the synoptic gospels all include much of the material from Mark, indicating that the authors of Matthew and Luke had read Mark and used it as a source for their own extended work).
Ah, I’m sorry, you meant that Christ was not the author of the NT. Totally.
Oh, I see. So when Christ talked about “heaven,” he didn’t actually mean “heaven.” And at no point did he bother to explain this fact. Obviously.
I showed (a while back) that the word used in the bible for heaven is ‘sky’. You never refuted this with any evidence to the contrary. You just keep repeating the same falsehoods.
Lying for Jesus has no more mindless disciple than you, John.
80 slides in 15 minutes is pretty damn impressive.
Haha.. I rather liked the speediness of it. He did a good job glazing over certain points with a barely audible rediculous comment that somehow made it funnier.
Do you know where this was presented at? Like some atheist conference?
http://bilconference.com/
Dont wander in the desert of human reasoning forever friends, the Author is…One in the same way He would be in you and I…for in Him we live and move and have our very being (Acts 17:28). Reason is good for some things, but there is a higher order, another level and that place (within) is well Lighted indeed.
why, then, is the Author so confused about such things as when He cast the dove-sellers and money-changers from the temple?
Because we are that temple, Fathers house (dwelling place) and those who would barter and merchandise there (as opposed to worship…know) would be as foreigners in the courts of our God and and since He is a jealous God (for us, for our affections, for our hearts) He must scatter the imposters, the many false lovers that we embrace.
Why does Joshua (yeshua) march thru enemy territories (within us) to vanquish (all) the foes until the promised land is finally claimed (meaning when all of us, our fallen and darkened understanding once again belongs to Him, is fully possessed of God) and only Light remains?
I gotta go eat now Wazza…all the very best man, catch you later…take care.
JC
so Jesus didn’t literally go into the Temple at the start of his ministry and overturn the tables?
Or, indeed, at the end of his ministry, as three of the four gospels record it…
There is no evidence that the historical elements of the Bible are anything but purely historical, and adding (in our hearts) does not mean that is what was implied by the original authors.
No, its like this Wazza…
Every man, within himself has Moses and the Israelites, the Sadducee’s and the Pharisees, the patriarchs and the kingdom of heaven and hell. Thus, the events described in the Bible, and looked upon by the pious as being things of a past history, are actually descriptions of eternal processes taking place in the constitution of man himself.
There is more, there is a Life.
where exactly does it say this?
“IT” doesnt, but this is exactly what I have sensed inwardly for many years now. Then, I found this wonderful description in an ancient manuscript. The above is a quote by one of the worlds true mystery man, Jacob Boehme (1575-1624). He was a German philosopher, mystic who is a real mysterious figure and has some exceedingly profound insights and understandings of Holy Writ. It bears the mark of truth inwardly for me, strikes a chord.
Because if something seems true, it is true.
yes, but the Bible quite specifically says that these were real happenings… so you are going against the word of God.
Wazza…I;m not saying all the events in scripture are merely allegorical. For example…Jesus REALLY went to the cross, had to, thats the only way He could have taken our inherited, faulty, human ancestry to its death, praise God.
But some of the OT strikes me as parabolic in nature. Seems like we lost our sensitivity to divine, spirit language and now we have, like children have to be told stories to help us understand again, like Jesus speaking in parables?
But John, how can you decide that something is allegorical and something else is not?
Why not interpret Jesus going to the Cross has the suffering that He endured in his journey to save humanity?
Why not interpret Jesus as a placeholder for all good women and men that suffered and fought with the power of love and compassion to save Humanity from its misery?
@Francesco Orsenigo
That old chestnut — as far as I can tell the what’s true/what’s not is a fine balance between not making the religion look overly stupid; not removing core claims of the religion; not making the religion look cruel. That’s why Adam and Eve can be considered a story (as well as cockney rhyming slang) whereas Jesus must be a real figure. If you move to the position that Jesus is just a metaphor the Christianity is going to be in real problems.
Yep, the ration “true fact” vs “allegory” of the Bible slims at every cultural and scientific development…
But I really want to know what a believer thinks about this, how she or he decides that a part of the Bible is real as opposite as allegory.
because it “feels true”
and that’s a far more sure judge than actually measuring it against the universe
Because you say so.
Because some goatherder tribesmen say so.
Buddha says we’re all (even the gods) locked in a circle of death and rebirth that repeats endlessly until we reach the freedom beyond – Nirvana. Why is he wrong and you are right?
Because Buddha’s method doesn’t sound true. Obviously.
“Don’t wander in the desert of human reasoning forever friends”
What is your alternative to human reasoning?
“Reason is good for some things, but there is a higher order, another level and that place (within) is well Lighted indeed.”
Well Lighted by what?
John C, there are thousands of human religions. I believe that each of them lights a small glow on the human capacity for the emotion of transcendance, but I believe that this is a natural phenomena, and not a divine one. Likewise, I believe that religions are all too human and not divine. Your faith, your belief system — that is indeed a religion. Without the Bible and the historical institutions of the Christian churches, how do you believe that you would even have heard of Jesus? I believe that the true “religion” of humanity resides within ourselves, and anyone can approach it. It is this “mystical contemplation” which has been sought and found by men and women of diverse belief systems in multiple yet eerily similar ways throughout human history. How do you *know* that your mystical experience is better than anyone else’s mystical experience? When you call on Jesus, and someone else calls on Allah, and someone else calls on Krishna — how do you know that you are closer to the “divine”, that you are more “aware”, that you are “saved” in any remarkable way? How do you *know* that your holy book is not less human and more divine than all of the other holy books? How do you *know* that your beliefs are not fundamentally human and divinely unremarkable? You don’t know, John C.
The way is well Trodden, but it is certainly not well Lighted.
Well-lighted by what you ask? You mean…by Whom, The Light Himself. He illuminies the inner man, brighter and brighter from darkness to the full light of day. Prov 4:18
John C,
Again, you just quote scripture at me, but I could quote scripture at you from half a dozen other holy books, and you wouldn’t take it seriously, would you?
If you believed in any other god, you would probably be telling me that you have a personal relationship and that it’s not a religion. That’s cool: I wish you the best. I just wanted to state what seems obvious to me…your spirituality seems no different than many others’….
My “spirituality” can not be fully communicated to you in this limited text manner. We would have to hang out together for you to get to “know” me, to know Him in me.
All the best TELE…journey on my friend, journey on!
Which is a fancy way of saying if you’re lonely or broke or depressed about one thing and another in your life, you can reason your way out of it, you can concentrate on solutions and feel better. If you call that god, that’s not god interfering, that’s just you calling it god.
Daniel – thanks for finding this and posting it.
John C – we’ve heard everything you have to say, and could probably say it along with you and even beat you to some of your lines.
Funny and fast. Too bad he went so fast that some of the jokes didn’t get processed quick enough for some of the audience to understand. Maybe next time the people running the show could alot more time to him. :)
Very good.
You need to use a different video host (like youtube or vimeo etc).
The one you’re using has some sort of problem – I can’t watch the video without it stuttering / pausing intermittently.
The jitter was annoying enough that I didn’t watch the whole video.
Yes Rodney…for you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free!
how can we know the truth? ye olde probleme of induction…
…and what if I’m already free?
I’m glad you’re free from the bondage of religion for sure.
I think you are both wrong and awesome.
Would that make JC awesomely wrong?
Our wrong is an awesome wrong.
Win. That was fantastic.
LOL
You’re referring to a reasonable decucement in the natural realm, the spirit realm is not relegated to the same confines or limitations but is a wholly separate process and function altogether. A different gear if you will (I realize you probably wont, lol).
As usual…my best to Miss LRA!
Thanks, JC! :) I realize that we are very different, but I think our hearts are in the right place. If there is a God, I believe (s)he’ll forgive my insistence on honest knowledge…
Thx LRA, you’re awesome girl! Yes, you are greatly loved…just the way you are.
Think of my above comments another way (since we have had these conversations before many times) that may help you to see what I’m saying about this “inner man”.
What if, on the inside of you, there were more rooms, another “chamber” within that you didnt (yet) know was there, hadn’t yet found the door to. Then one day, you are shown the Key, and you are amazed at where it leads you. You find whole rooms you never dreamed of, places within that are filled with precious jewels, gems and sparkling diamonds. You notice this wonderful place (within) is full of light and truth becomes clear, all darkness and doubts are vanquished in this newly discovered secret place within, all is peaceful, all is right. But until this day, you could not “see” or even imagine all this beauty of inestimable worth could have been here all along, yet unrecognized…it takes your breath away. Oh my, now you “sell all” to obtain forever, to buy this place within never again content to dwell in that dry and barren land of yesteryear.
Sounds kinds fairy tale like huh? Have I ever said….there is…more? LOL :) I just want people to experience this More I speak of, that I have experienced.
Blessings and light, JC
John, what if you where instead just locked in a room with beautiful paintings of the outside but never bothered to let the paintings go and actually GO outside?
Maybe outside is not as ideal as the painting, maybe it smells bed, is big and scary, but maybe you can learn to love it for what it is, without spending your life in a room because the paintings are nicer and feel more true than reality.
Thanks Francesco…
The Life that I have found, that I treasure is the inward life, all the externals only tend to disappoint. If Christ IN us is the “mystery of the ages” (Col 1:27) then an inward turning and fellowship seems quite “reasonable”, lol. We are the “kingdoms of this earth” as scripture refers to and so, allowing Him to rule and reign from the the throne of our inner man w/o opposition from the Self is a beautiful and peaceful life.
All the best, JC
My cursor flickers whenever I look at a page that has this video embedded, which makes it hard to click links on the page. Daniel, can you change the embedded video to a link? Could use the same image: http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3138/yrif.jpg
For those who don’t know it…
The guy’s name is Joel Grus. His website is: http://yrif.org/
He totally had me until environmentalism, then I shut it off. Was he saying that just to appease the righties or some thing? It kind of pissed me off. Environmentalism has great gobs of science and well, humans ARE mucking up the earth even without someone pretending it’s a goddess.
I like that it was included in his list of mocking. It was toward the Gaia worshippers and bandwagoners, people who buy what stores have labeled as “green” without question or research, just to feel involved and like they’re making a difference. Also, we’re environmentally conscious to save ourselves, not the earth. Loads and loads of mockability under this category. I like it, someone thinks it’s funny until some mockery is directed toward something they care about.
This video is doing really weird things to my mouse. Could you find some other video format? As long as I am on this page or on the main page of UF while this article is up, my mouse is quivering constantly. It’s really strange. I hope you can find a way to fix this; I believe someone else has already mentioned this.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the website or the embedded video. Maybe the software you are using (codecs) are not OK. Do you have the newest drivers for your video card?
Sure, the Gaens needed to be mocked as much as the rest, but to show Al Gore is a bit misleading. For all his ‘green’ hypocrisies, he does advocate science and reason over worshiping a recently-created goddess.
And promoting advanced technology as a way to mitigate our impact on the environment isn’t saying we should go back to the stone age.
To be sure, the Earth will be fine without us, we’re the ones who need the climate the way it is.
Loved it, but I miss your take on Atheism.