Liberating Jesus from Christianity

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Never mind Jesus...time to liberate EVERYONE from Christinsanity.

We're not supposed to clear up confusion with clear explanations? Oh, I see. Ya, what a sin.

Go away, troll.



A reference that is irrelevant to explaining one's views.

Next absurd accusation...



Clearly not Christianity. Look around at the Christians you know, and witness this obvious fact.



Once again, not Christianity. Might as well go as far as including the Nazis as Christians, if you're going to be
this obtuse.



Are you referring to a historical event, or all missionary work?
Most people don't want to go to Hell, so we consider it a favor to follow Jesus' command to bring
the Gospel to people who have not heard it.

Do you, personally, care if they go to Hell?
I do, and I don't want them to.



See my previous answer. Scripture is only an "infection" and "meme" to you because you personally hate it.
That's no reason for you to presume to deny it to those who have not heard or read it.
Talk about hubris!
My friend is a missionary, and reports mostly great gladness and appeciation, often with tears,
from those with whom he shares the Gospel.
Why don't you go harrass those grateful people into giving up the truth they've just found?

From one of Jesus's parables about the Gospel:
(Mark 4:3-4)

Jesus' explanation of His parable:
(Mark 4:15)

So, you'd be in the role of Satan? Or would you not be so bold, but rather just stand by
disapprovingly, and hold your peace while the Gospel was preached, wishing, along with Satan, that it were not?

Last edited by Ragtime on 29 May 2008, 9:45 am, edited 9 times in total.

Not everyone needs to be liberated from Christianity. Christians don't need to be liberated from Christianity. I'd say the Anti-Christians need to be liberated from what has become a morbid fascination. Those who have not been ostracized or disaffected in some way, for whatever reaason, would not feel the need for liberation.

So do we.



Essentially, yes, you can, in that, with hindsight, you can see that He came through for people when they
really needed Him, and when they prayed for specific intervention, they got it.
I know many such people personally, and I am one of those whose prayers have been specifically answered.



No, you are misinterpreting, QM. What Christians shouldn't do is test God in the disrespectful sense --
that is, as a mere phenomenon of nature, which is completely inappropriate, just as walking up to a stranger
and beginning experiments on him is completely inappropriate. God is a person, not an impersonal force,
and we must honor Him as such.
We are told to pray to God, to expect results, and to witness those results as proving His love and power.
Hence, the test is included in the respectful seeking of His help.

Last edited by Ragtime on 29 May 2008, 9:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Amen to that! Bashing Christians and Christianity has become a twisted hobby for some.

So... you don't favor John's Gospel because it was the latest? I see.

Well, let's check the earliest Gospel account, then.

Mark dates to 50-60 AD, less than 30 years after Christ's death.

Mark 14:61-64:


Jesus clearly expresses His divinity here, and the high priest bears witness to
this fact openly, by enragedly calling it "blasphemy", and tearing his clothes in anger.
The high priest doesn't tear his clothes for just any sin, or he'd quickly run out of robes!
Clearly, he was about as angry and hateful as Quatermass sometimes acts toward me.

But the high priest was right, and I'll echo him in asking:
"What need we any further witnesses", WrongPlaneteers, that Jesus claimed He was God?
For, clearly, He did make that claim.

Are you all still taking the Gospels literally like the romans of the Roman Empire did?

It must have something to do with the USA being in many ways like the Roman Empire.

Psst: the Gospels are a parable/story from beginning to end, ( see my post above) .

I actually agree with QM here, as an example, in history, oriental countries were persecuting christians as the result from them trying to convert them, because they did not want their social order to be disrupted, and mostly in a radical way, by things they didn't even understand.

Now I understand what Star Trek Prime Directive is for


Here lies the problem, you are so sure about something, you hold those things as facts and truth to your mind, and want to "help" others, but, the problem is that it might not be that way, the funny thing is that you are so sure about your denomination that you believe to hold the truth, how about fundamentalis muslims from middle east, if they want to help others so they cannot go to hell?

You go about shoving "the Truth" to othes here, which I am quite sure they see it as delusional, and might be annoying to them, I find it funny actually, I find it absurd the way to aproaching it because I believe that absolute truth likely doesn't exist.


I don't think that is that he hates, I can say that what he hates are your posts and the way you make your arguments, which I find them amusing. It is just lack of belief in your dogma, QM, as well many others including me here, prefer to follow things that can be tested, measured and studied, rather than following your own arguments without questioning them, which cannot be properly tested. Not to mention the arguments and views regarding liberals and conservatives, which don't do any help.

Uh, how would the persecution of missionaries be the missionaries' fault exactly???
Can the Chinese say, "Oh, the Christians MADE us persecute them,
because they told us about Jesus!"
You are clearly blaming the victims for the violence of their attackers.

Nobody MADE the Christians bring a foreign religion based on a foreign understanding of the world to people who had managed to get on just fine without Christianity for well over a thousand years. The disruption of social order and general anti-social behavior on the part of Christians is one of the reasons they were persecuted in ancient Rome while Jews were permitted to practice their ancestral religion.

You're arguing from the perspective of a believer, and I realize that it's going to be impossible to get you to even consider that there are perspectives other than the version of Christianity you've chosen to follow, but it's worth a shot.

Ragtime, you are a fool, and cannot be argued with. I have been as patient as I can with you. And I will not tolerate being called a troll. I am many things, but unlike you, I react. I do not provoke.

The Christian religion has blood on its hands from all three of these.

1. The Inquisition claimed it was out to save Christian souls, and yet it was easily exploited by politicians to fulfill political or financial agendas. They silenced the voices of many people, either through death or threats.

2. The Crusades were initiated by Christian leaders. The Muslims who had invaded were treating the native Christians quite well, and if it were just the Eastern Christians fighting the invaders, the world may not have been in this mess we are in today.

The Crusaders were savages. Open up any half-decent text on the First Crusade and look up 'Maarrat an-Numan'. Of course I am not excusing the Muslim side. But the Crusaders started the actual savage, attritional war between Christianity and Islam that goes on to this day.

3. I don't want oblivion. But death is equal to all humanity. Besides, you cannot force them to be Christian.



You dare accuse me of being Satan? I am a humanist. I believe in peace and love, but I am also aware of the vagarities of humanity. I am not anti-Christ, I am anti-Christianity. In fact, I hate most religions except some of the Eastern ones. I am prepared to live and let live, but it is people like you, who think all other viewpoints are irrelevant, that I hate most.

Those people missionaries convert are content, at least, and I will not shatter their illusion. They do not deserve it.

While you go on your quixotic mission to rid the world of intangible evils, I have research to do on a very tangible evil.

it's a sin against god's greatest gift (free will) to do so.


which is something that many christians don't seem to understand.

For more details about free will and God, please read A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. You know, the novel that was screwed up by Stanley Kubrick.

hmm maybe i should pick that up...i could use a nice break and read some fiction. i focus way too much on reading non-fiction.

Just be warned, it's pretty strong stuff. Kubrick oversexed it in the movie, but there is more to be shocked at by in the novel.

If you can, get the version with 21 chapters, not 20. This is very important.

My favorite version of Jesus is the Lukean Jesus. I hate the Matthean Jesus. I think the Jesus Mark portrays is probably the most realistic, since it is the earliest. The others seem to hype up the story. They make Jesus into a God. The Son of Man is not God. He is the eschatological judge, chosen because he is pure of heart and deed, therefore worthy to judge the rest of mankind. The Son of God is the annointed king. There are many Sons of God, not just one. Taoists made Lao-Tzu into a God. There are idols everywhere of the Buddha. People in AA 12-step recovery practically worship Bill Wilson. People who start religious movements that help people inevitably get turned into God-like figures. I don't have to believe that Jesus is God in order to live a Christian life. I don't have to obsessively read the Bible either. Faith and love are the essentials of Christianity. They are absolutes, however. There's no such thing as a halfway Christian, in my opinion. There is no such thing as a rich Christian, either. Christians are poor, and they devote their lives to serving others. Ritual and church attendance have nothing to do with Christianity.

My perspective comes from being educated by a Baptist preacher with less than a high school education, someone who took every word in the Bible as literal. His interpretations were almost the opposite of what Jesus taught. I was insane from all the lies he told me. I'm so traumatized that I refuse to attend any Church services. Even though I know intellectually what he taught me was wrong, that is what I believe, on a deep level, Christianity is. I was brainwashed. Going to different churches didn't help. I had to leave the church completely to find relief. I had to get rid of a literal interpretation of the King James Version, and I had to get rid of all the rules I was taught growing up. That's why I get real defensive when people start qouting scriptures as facts. It's not fact; It's just your opinion. Everybody has a different interpretation of the Bible.

The interpretations I give the most weight to are ones from people who have rigorously studied the scripture, the history of the church, the culture when Jesus lived, and the languages the Scriptures were originally written in, people who devote their entire lives to Christianity. It takes more than saying, "I was called by God, and I read the King James Version," to convince me you know anything about the Bible. I know a lot of church people, including members of the clergy, but I know very few Christians. I respect the words of Christians, not people who can simply quote scripture.