(no subject)
Awesome to the point writing. From Emmet Fields, 1983:
Just as we were taught to believe what our parents believed. Children have always been taught to believe, but never to question.
They remember the heaven, but they forget the hell.
We are taught to believe it in childhood, and forbidden to question it in adulthood. It endangers our modern world, It prevents intellectual maturity and limits the scope of our thoughts to primitive legends.
Personally, I believe it is asking too much of us to believe that God would write, or inspire, a book that mankind could not agree upon. A book that has caused endless wars, persecutions, torture, bigotry and hatred. A book that is so unintelligible that not only do “non-believers” reject it, but those who believe it to be the true word of God cannot agree upon its interpretation.
From the evil and confusion the Bible has caused, and continues to cause, and from the primitive, foolish and contradictory nature of that book, it is self evident that the Bible cannot represent the word of God.
Some people say there are over two thousand self contradictions in the Bible, some other people say they cannot find even one.
(In reference to the story of Lot’s house) What kind of father would offer his children to a mob to be used as they see fit? I will be honest with you, if you were a guest in my house, I would protect you with all my might, but if it came to the point of it being either you or my children, it would be you. And I would expect the
same, if it were your choice between your children or me. If it were God himself, if there is a God, he would go before my children. I am not a Christian. I am very pro-family, my innocent children come first.
The very idea that we, the human race are born in sin because of some small misdeed that Adam was said to have done is foolish. No! It is more than foolish, it is insane.
The very idea that God would have to be born to a virgin, or anything else, and then have to be murdered by mankind, in order to forgive mankind, is very insane. I believe a God would do just as you would do if your child had been naughty, and you had became angry for a while. You would not say to that child: Bringeth thou me a hammer and hitteth thou me upon thine hand, hard, that I mayeth forgive thee thy naughtiness that thou hath done.”
Get up off your knees and stand upon your own two feet, raise your head, open your eyes and start to use your mind.
There IS good news tonight: Spread the good news!
Our minds are now free to reason;
THE BIBLE IS NOT THE WORD OF GOD!
We are, without doubt, one of the most indoctrinated and deceived nations on earth; at least, at very least, in the area of religion. Today there is no greater threat to our nation, and to our liberty than Christianity. No other force could have silenced and changed American history as Christianity has done. And no other force could have so completely deceived the American public as Christianity has done.
The Christian aggression against America, against the rights of non-Christians, is based on the delusion that the Bible is “the word of God.”
You know Bible-believing Christians have never had any concept of freedom. They have always thought freedom was their right to force their belief upon others.
And whenever Christians lose the power to persecute, they slander and call “immoral” those they can no longer persecute. And yet Christians call the Bible “the word of God,” and themselves “moral”!!
Today Christianity has gained its dangerous power in America by teaching Bible, instead of nation; by confusing piety with patriotism; by calling good Americans “Communists,” good patriots “traitors.” They teach hate and distrust against those who uphold the great American ideals of separation of state and church and hate against the American courts that dare to uphold our nation’s Constitution.
Christians have hidden the fact that the Founding Fathers struggled to insure freedom of conscience; struggled to put Christianity in its rightful place - the equal of every other religious opinion; struggled to put the Bible in its rightful place the equal of every other book.
You do not need to be a scholar to know that fundamentalist Christianity, and the forces of Bible superstition are attacking the very roots of our nation’s freedom today.
History has proved again and again that personal morality cannot survive where people believe in divine forgiveness, believe in the Bible delusion that some “higher power” can remove the guilt from the guilty, without removing the wrong from the victim. Religion always claims that immorality springs from a lack of religion, but the facts prove just the opposite.
How do Christians gain power again and again after failing constantly to establish peace, progress, prosperity and morality?
Their technique is very simple. They call their Bible “the word of God” and themselves “moral.”
We must not allow organized ignorance to destroy this great nation of ours. The American people must be made aware of one simple fact:
The Bible is not, AND CANNOT BE, “the word of God.”
The God of the endless Universe would not murder innocent children. It is a lie that God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” so God would have an excuse to murder little babies. That is a lie and a blasphemy!
Those are not the words of God: Those are words of insanity!
Jesus is said to have said: (Luke 12:5) “But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; I say unto you, fear him.”
Christianity is founded upon fear - and is perpetuated by fear. That would not be the way of the true God, the great God of this endless universe. In the New Testament, as in the Old Testament, we could go on and on quoting cruel, foolish, un-Godlike sayings from the new God. Sayings that we know are the words of men - of cruel, mean, heartless, small minded men. Words of hate and vengeance! words to frighten and oppress!
They are words to give power to the priest, the church and the religion. They are words to destroy reason and to make the human mind a slave.
In the New Testament we find a God that evolved during the first few hundred years of the Christian era. Christianity developed through religious hate. The weak were called heretics and their teachings were brutally suppressed, and so the Christianity that survived is the orthodoxy of the strong and the ruthless. Orthodoxy destroyed the meek and filled Christianity with hate, fire and fury.
The idea of eternal torment, as well as the idea of easy forgiveness of sins became established and soon fossilized into dogma and doctrine.
In the New Testament there evolved a God much worse than the Old Testament God. As much worse in fact, as endless torture is worse than endless sleep, as much worse as eternal burning is worse than simple annihilation.
Unlike the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament was not happy when his victims lay dead and broken before him. The Son of God has not only carried on the family tradition, but has exceeded the wildest expectations of the father.
If we are heartless enough to believe the Bible, we must believe the God of the New Testament pursues the dead into death. This God, we are told, has found a way to torture even those who have paid “the final penalty.”
The New Testament God has set up his torture chamber where there can be no escape, where death cannot be a welcome release. Everlasting torture, eternal burning; this terrible belief, this evil everlasting injustice, has become the heart and foundation of the Christian religion. People believe, NOT through reason, NOT through any desire to goodness or piety, NOT through any hope of making the world better, or mankind better, or themselves better, but through FEAR - simple, devastating, mind-numbing FEAR. They believe because they are afraid to think, afraid to question. They keep their minds as little children - afraid to be adult men and women. They believe simply because they are afraid not to believe!
Those who believe in hell can never know truth, for they are blinded by fear. The idea of hell was invented to establish a religious dictatorship and those who believe live under a tyranny far greater than any human tyrant could ever establish. They believe they are always under the eye of the tyrant! They believe their every word is recorded, their every action noted, even their innermost thoughts are known and judged by their cruel master of endless, unmerciful punishment. To such believers every act and thought is the result of fear. They are to be pitied.
That terrible dogma of hell has destroyed the very foundations of morality. The basic force of morality is “the power of sympathy”; feeling the hurt of others - and caring. The dogma of hell has destroyed that foundation. The mother, it is believed, could sit joyfully in heaven for all eternity and watch her wayward son or daughter burning and suffering in hell.
I detest a belief that can make people so heartless. I could never be a Christian! I could never be happy in a heaven knowing there are people suffering in a hell. I have great sympathy for people, their pain, their suffering, their feelings, their losses, and their hopes.
Religion is big business, and those who hold positions of profit and prestige in that business will not allow mere truth to become a threat to religion.
A true God would be better than the best of us, not worse than the worst of us.
Why even science, philosophy and reason would be respectable - if there
were a God.
Honestly now! Who could worship a God like the God of the Bible? Not a thinking person! Certainly not a kind and gentle person, not a just person nor a loving person. It would have to be a frightened person. A person so afraid that he doesn't think, he just falls down and grovels before a tyrant. Only a coward could blindly worship the murderous, bloody, vengeful tyrant that the Bible describes as “God.”
With a God like the God in the Bible we don't need a Devil.
After all, it has always been the kindest, the gentlest, the most moral and the most respectable people who have eaten deeply of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the very tree the Bible demands that we avoid.
We desperately need a God that commands that we think, instead of believe and worship. We need a God to civilize us, not one that makes us savages.
There is one fact which wise men and heretics have always known, which philosophers and scholars have known for generations, a fact that even theologians know today, a fact that frees the mind and drives away the awful fear. The time has come for the victims to know that fact also: The Bible is not the word of God!
There has never been a greater source of hate than the assumption that we are
doing God’s work, that we have the “word of God” to guide us and that our task is to destroy some “center of evil” in the world. Throughout history that delusion has been responsible for the most terrible wars and atrocities. That delusion may destroy our world!
When we read that Moslem terrorists will drive a truck load of explosives into a building and die to kill others in their “holy war,” we recognize that as a form of insanity.
When we hear a Christian fundamentalist preaching “no coexistence with Godless Communism” we should know that is equally insane in our atomic age.
When we read that a powerful Christian leader has reaffirmed the medieval dogma that birth control and contraceptives are immoral and against Bible teachings; we should realize that too is insanity in our overpopulated world.
If mankind survives, future generations will know this age as “the age of propaganda,” the age of hate for opinion’s sake. Future generations will marvel that our age, with its modern technology and great wealth of solid scientific learning, could remain rooted in the primitive fables of past ages; they will marvel that we could not see the evil and danger of worshipping an historic failure.
The overabundance of religious propaganda in America today would lead us to believe that the primary purpose of this nation is the preservation and expansion of the Christian religion. But that is not true.
Our nation is not, and must not become, the battleship of the Christian religion.
This nation is not fighting “Godless Atheism” nor “Atheistic Communism,” nor any other group or nation that has had Christian hate terms applied to them.
We, as a nation, are opposed to Communism because Communism, like Christianity, is an ideological force that is destructive to human rights and freedom.
“I would rather be dead than Christian or red.”
(In reference to the Treaty of Tripoli) It also proves the United States was not, is not, and must not become, a Christian nation.
Just as we were taught to believe what our parents believed. Children have always been taught to believe, but never to question.
They remember the heaven, but they forget the hell.
We are taught to believe it in childhood, and forbidden to question it in adulthood. It endangers our modern world, It prevents intellectual maturity and limits the scope of our thoughts to primitive legends.
Personally, I believe it is asking too much of us to believe that God would write, or inspire, a book that mankind could not agree upon. A book that has caused endless wars, persecutions, torture, bigotry and hatred. A book that is so unintelligible that not only do “non-believers” reject it, but those who believe it to be the true word of God cannot agree upon its interpretation.
From the evil and confusion the Bible has caused, and continues to cause, and from the primitive, foolish and contradictory nature of that book, it is self evident that the Bible cannot represent the word of God.
Some people say there are over two thousand self contradictions in the Bible, some other people say they cannot find even one.
(In reference to the story of Lot’s house) What kind of father would offer his children to a mob to be used as they see fit? I will be honest with you, if you were a guest in my house, I would protect you with all my might, but if it came to the point of it being either you or my children, it would be you. And I would expect the
same, if it were your choice between your children or me. If it were God himself, if there is a God, he would go before my children. I am not a Christian. I am very pro-family, my innocent children come first.
The very idea that we, the human race are born in sin because of some small misdeed that Adam was said to have done is foolish. No! It is more than foolish, it is insane.
The very idea that God would have to be born to a virgin, or anything else, and then have to be murdered by mankind, in order to forgive mankind, is very insane. I believe a God would do just as you would do if your child had been naughty, and you had became angry for a while. You would not say to that child: Bringeth thou me a hammer and hitteth thou me upon thine hand, hard, that I mayeth forgive thee thy naughtiness that thou hath done.”
Get up off your knees and stand upon your own two feet, raise your head, open your eyes and start to use your mind.
There IS good news tonight: Spread the good news!
Our minds are now free to reason;
THE BIBLE IS NOT THE WORD OF GOD!
We are, without doubt, one of the most indoctrinated and deceived nations on earth; at least, at very least, in the area of religion. Today there is no greater threat to our nation, and to our liberty than Christianity. No other force could have silenced and changed American history as Christianity has done. And no other force could have so completely deceived the American public as Christianity has done.
The Christian aggression against America, against the rights of non-Christians, is based on the delusion that the Bible is “the word of God.”
You know Bible-believing Christians have never had any concept of freedom. They have always thought freedom was their right to force their belief upon others.
And whenever Christians lose the power to persecute, they slander and call “immoral” those they can no longer persecute. And yet Christians call the Bible “the word of God,” and themselves “moral”!!
Today Christianity has gained its dangerous power in America by teaching Bible, instead of nation; by confusing piety with patriotism; by calling good Americans “Communists,” good patriots “traitors.” They teach hate and distrust against those who uphold the great American ideals of separation of state and church and hate against the American courts that dare to uphold our nation’s Constitution.
Christians have hidden the fact that the Founding Fathers struggled to insure freedom of conscience; struggled to put Christianity in its rightful place - the equal of every other religious opinion; struggled to put the Bible in its rightful place the equal of every other book.
You do not need to be a scholar to know that fundamentalist Christianity, and the forces of Bible superstition are attacking the very roots of our nation’s freedom today.
History has proved again and again that personal morality cannot survive where people believe in divine forgiveness, believe in the Bible delusion that some “higher power” can remove the guilt from the guilty, without removing the wrong from the victim. Religion always claims that immorality springs from a lack of religion, but the facts prove just the opposite.
How do Christians gain power again and again after failing constantly to establish peace, progress, prosperity and morality?
Their technique is very simple. They call their Bible “the word of God” and themselves “moral.”
We must not allow organized ignorance to destroy this great nation of ours. The American people must be made aware of one simple fact:
The Bible is not, AND CANNOT BE, “the word of God.”
The God of the endless Universe would not murder innocent children. It is a lie that God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” so God would have an excuse to murder little babies. That is a lie and a blasphemy!
Those are not the words of God: Those are words of insanity!
Jesus is said to have said: (Luke 12:5) “But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; I say unto you, fear him.”
Christianity is founded upon fear - and is perpetuated by fear. That would not be the way of the true God, the great God of this endless universe. In the New Testament, as in the Old Testament, we could go on and on quoting cruel, foolish, un-Godlike sayings from the new God. Sayings that we know are the words of men - of cruel, mean, heartless, small minded men. Words of hate and vengeance! words to frighten and oppress!
They are words to give power to the priest, the church and the religion. They are words to destroy reason and to make the human mind a slave.
In the New Testament we find a God that evolved during the first few hundred years of the Christian era. Christianity developed through religious hate. The weak were called heretics and their teachings were brutally suppressed, and so the Christianity that survived is the orthodoxy of the strong and the ruthless. Orthodoxy destroyed the meek and filled Christianity with hate, fire and fury.
The idea of eternal torment, as well as the idea of easy forgiveness of sins became established and soon fossilized into dogma and doctrine.
In the New Testament there evolved a God much worse than the Old Testament God. As much worse in fact, as endless torture is worse than endless sleep, as much worse as eternal burning is worse than simple annihilation.
Unlike the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament was not happy when his victims lay dead and broken before him. The Son of God has not only carried on the family tradition, but has exceeded the wildest expectations of the father.
If we are heartless enough to believe the Bible, we must believe the God of the New Testament pursues the dead into death. This God, we are told, has found a way to torture even those who have paid “the final penalty.”
The New Testament God has set up his torture chamber where there can be no escape, where death cannot be a welcome release. Everlasting torture, eternal burning; this terrible belief, this evil everlasting injustice, has become the heart and foundation of the Christian religion. People believe, NOT through reason, NOT through any desire to goodness or piety, NOT through any hope of making the world better, or mankind better, or themselves better, but through FEAR - simple, devastating, mind-numbing FEAR. They believe because they are afraid to think, afraid to question. They keep their minds as little children - afraid to be adult men and women. They believe simply because they are afraid not to believe!
Those who believe in hell can never know truth, for they are blinded by fear. The idea of hell was invented to establish a religious dictatorship and those who believe live under a tyranny far greater than any human tyrant could ever establish. They believe they are always under the eye of the tyrant! They believe their every word is recorded, their every action noted, even their innermost thoughts are known and judged by their cruel master of endless, unmerciful punishment. To such believers every act and thought is the result of fear. They are to be pitied.
That terrible dogma of hell has destroyed the very foundations of morality. The basic force of morality is “the power of sympathy”; feeling the hurt of others - and caring. The dogma of hell has destroyed that foundation. The mother, it is believed, could sit joyfully in heaven for all eternity and watch her wayward son or daughter burning and suffering in hell.
I detest a belief that can make people so heartless. I could never be a Christian! I could never be happy in a heaven knowing there are people suffering in a hell. I have great sympathy for people, their pain, their suffering, their feelings, their losses, and their hopes.
Religion is big business, and those who hold positions of profit and prestige in that business will not allow mere truth to become a threat to religion.
A true God would be better than the best of us, not worse than the worst of us.
Why even science, philosophy and reason would be respectable - if there
were a God.
Honestly now! Who could worship a God like the God of the Bible? Not a thinking person! Certainly not a kind and gentle person, not a just person nor a loving person. It would have to be a frightened person. A person so afraid that he doesn't think, he just falls down and grovels before a tyrant. Only a coward could blindly worship the murderous, bloody, vengeful tyrant that the Bible describes as “God.”
With a God like the God in the Bible we don't need a Devil.
After all, it has always been the kindest, the gentlest, the most moral and the most respectable people who have eaten deeply of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the very tree the Bible demands that we avoid.
We desperately need a God that commands that we think, instead of believe and worship. We need a God to civilize us, not one that makes us savages.
There is one fact which wise men and heretics have always known, which philosophers and scholars have known for generations, a fact that even theologians know today, a fact that frees the mind and drives away the awful fear. The time has come for the victims to know that fact also: The Bible is not the word of God!
There has never been a greater source of hate than the assumption that we are
doing God’s work, that we have the “word of God” to guide us and that our task is to destroy some “center of evil” in the world. Throughout history that delusion has been responsible for the most terrible wars and atrocities. That delusion may destroy our world!
When we read that Moslem terrorists will drive a truck load of explosives into a building and die to kill others in their “holy war,” we recognize that as a form of insanity.
When we hear a Christian fundamentalist preaching “no coexistence with Godless Communism” we should know that is equally insane in our atomic age.
When we read that a powerful Christian leader has reaffirmed the medieval dogma that birth control and contraceptives are immoral and against Bible teachings; we should realize that too is insanity in our overpopulated world.
If mankind survives, future generations will know this age as “the age of propaganda,” the age of hate for opinion’s sake. Future generations will marvel that our age, with its modern technology and great wealth of solid scientific learning, could remain rooted in the primitive fables of past ages; they will marvel that we could not see the evil and danger of worshipping an historic failure.
The overabundance of religious propaganda in America today would lead us to believe that the primary purpose of this nation is the preservation and expansion of the Christian religion. But that is not true.
Our nation is not, and must not become, the battleship of the Christian religion.
This nation is not fighting “Godless Atheism” nor “Atheistic Communism,” nor any other group or nation that has had Christian hate terms applied to them.
We, as a nation, are opposed to Communism because Communism, like Christianity, is an ideological force that is destructive to human rights and freedom.
“I would rather be dead than Christian or red.”
(In reference to the Treaty of Tripoli) It also proves the United States was not, is not, and must not become, a Christian nation.