PDF said: Avinash_Tyagi said: This is no more than a opinion.  You are putting religions in a bad light.  This isnt the medival age anymore.  Most churches do not run on witch hunt tacktics.  The General Idea for most christians churches isnt to force you in an force you to stay but to ley you kno they are always open.  They want people to meet jesus and not fear the Devil.  They want us to love not hate.  You are wrong and obviously do not understand.   Please leave such topics as personal as this out of a light hearted VG forums.  I disagree, I don't need to paint religion in a bad light, it does that itself, this is the same religious groups that try and influence politics so they can push their own beliefs on the public, that is not love, that is force, you are trying to mold society into your religious views in spite of those who may feel differently, even when the evidence is against your beliefs, like with evolution, the same groups that scream bloody murder when companies say happy holidays instead of Merry christmas, in spite of the fac tthat christmas isn't even a real holiday, just a bastardized version of various pagan fesitvals, these religions today try to push a much more subtle method of conversion, rather than forcing individuals to convert they try to change the society and its laws wether you like it or not today is jesus birthday and if your celebrating christmas you are celebrating him.  Christmas hmm lets look at that word,  Christ=jesus. America was founded on religous values, vaules which we still have today.  They are trying to force it on you.  You are trying to take it away.  It was here 1st.  Religion help start every culture that exist today.  You cant force somthing that is already there.  You are trying to remove are values because you dint like the idea that there somone more important than you and everyone you love.  You reject the idea that you will go to hell so there for you rather not believe and live you care free life.  In the end if I am wrong it wont matter.  I would of lived a good life and we will just be dead.  If I am right i will live in enternal happiness and you will doomed. I respect everyone rights to beleive any religion or no religion at all if they choose.  I will not go out of my way to bash you.  Many Christians confuse the word of god that tells them to spread to non believers.  They try to tell you what to believe but I am not like that and niether are alot of good christians.  We let you live your life and we are jsut good friends that let you kno the door is always open if your ever ready, but if you arnt we will leave you alone.

 Actually even if christ was a real person he was not born today, he was likely born in fall say most scholars, in addition christmas is really just a theft of the holiday of Yule, hence the yule log, and the decorating of the tree.

Most of the founding father's were not chrisitians at least not in the sense of today, many were in fact deist and were against the christian religion, even calling it a source of darkness.  Our laws are not based on judeo-christian beliefs.  Even if religion is at the heart of many cultures it is not the same faiths or beliefs that form every culture, in addition today we have many who choose not to practce any belief, or a belief totally different, when one religious group attmepts to dictate law and culture to others that is forcing their beliefs, that is what religious organizations do.  Also you assume I don't have belief, that is false, what I don't have is religion in the sense that I don't consider myself a member of any religious group or organization, however I do have my own personal beliefs, if you do belong ot a group or organization that is fine, however you need to accept that religious groups exist to push their belifs into the public arena.  As for your concept of the afterlife, if you want to believe in an evil being as your god, you are welcome to it, any god that would sentence people to hell is not worthy of my respect let alone worship.

 

wir mussen mich verherlichen, jah?

wir mussen mich verherlichen, jah?

are you saying

We have to conceal, yes?

You know what I hate?

When my mom calls everything video game related "el super nintendo:..

A god that condenes acts of rape, genocide and murder is not good and just, your god is not a god I believe in

James Madison

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every
noble enterprise."
-letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774

"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
- "A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785

John Adams

"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
-letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved-- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"
-letter to Thomas Jefferson
"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes."
- letter to John Taylor

I can post more if you'd like, most were deist and had no love for the judeo christian religious groups

Liberal yes, Democrat not so much, as I dont agree with a lot of the party's platforms, especially on economic issues, they are however the lesser of two evils in my opinion

Avinash_Tyagi said: wir mussen mich verherlichen, jah? are you saying We have to conceal, yes?

perfect translation:)

PDF said: Avinash_Tyagi said: @Avinash_Tyagi I have dissagreed on more topics with you than anyone else on this site. Even tho I have clashed with you, I think you are a good person who stand up for what you believe in and I repect that. Just curious, are you a democrat? Liberal yes, Democrat not so much, as I dont agree with a lot of the party's platforms, especially on economic issues, they are however the lesser of two evils in my opinion "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." 7George Washington I can quote too.  That is jsut one of many but I gotto go eat dinner now.  Interesting I am more conservative excpet on some issues like economy.  I dont believe in reganomics.  I like the social idea better for the most part eventho it is flawed.

 I don't believe in reganomics myself, but I do believe in free trade and keeping spending in check with a balanced budget, although I don't like tax cuts in most cases.

 

Also Thomas Jefferson said:

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."

- "Notes on Virginia"

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." 

 

Also on GW:

The father of this country was very private about his beliefs, but it is widely considered that he was a Deist like his colleagues. He was a Freemason.



Historian Barry Schwartz writes: "George Washington's practice of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not himself a Christian... He repeatedly declined the church's sacraments. Never did he take communion, and when his wife, Martha, did, he waited for her outside the sanctuary... Even on his deathbed, Washington asked for no ritual, uttered no prayer to Christ, and expressed no wish to be attended by His representative." [New York Press, 1987, pp. 174-175]



Paul F. Boller states in is anthology on Washington: "There is no mention of Jesus Christ anywhere in his extensive correspondence." [Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, pp. 14-15]

 "Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself."
-Thomas Jefferson, in his private journal, Feb. 1800

Christianity was just a sect ,a sect that grew big enough to impose themselves .How ,well they instilled fear ,used good PR (feeding the poor etc ) ,created the usual bonds between sectarian people ,fueled the hate toward the more wealthy citizens and their traditional gods ,etc .Plus fanatism that can be a very strong weapong when correctly used as we sadly see today .

Once the emperor Constantin ,called The Great by the Christians as he gave them a lot of power (but was otherwise a terrible emperor whose military changes ,for instance ,put the empire on the way down by destroying their efficiency and disbanding the Legions in fear they could overthrow him one day) learnt that a religion that taught obedicence and resignation ,hope of the next world and resignation with this one ,one religion that made holy the power on earth as an emanation of power on heaven ,a religion that was well controlled by a proffesional clerus and churchmen that had a big weight in the mentalities and activities of their correligionaries ....once he learnt that religion would serve his imperialist needs way more that the traditional roman religion wich had dozens of gods with a large past and different doctrines ,a religion without a dogma etc ...when he learnt that he pushed to impose the christianism and that was the end of many things and the start of other things that have caused a good deal of grief over the hystory .

We know very few about Jesus .The texts about his life werent written by anyone that actually knew him and were written many years (decades ) after his decease .The Christianims rose because Saint Paul fanatism and good work in the propagation and proselitism ,some social issues and specially the imperial interest to propagate that religion in the Roman population .Thinking otherwise is being a bit ingenuos .Back in 356 ,way later that Constantin ,the great majority of the imperial population was still pagan even after the enourmous push Constantin and his sons were giving the new religion .Even in a city as Antioquia were there was maybe the biggest concentration of christians of the Empire ,the census of that year showed only 1/3 abscribed to the local diocesis of the Church .But the violence and the economic strangulation the succesive emperors used to impose this religion finally managed to create a "de facto " situation that wasnt easily reversable specially since the power from then and always saw the christianims as the way to keep their subdits docile .Only Julian the Apostate made a change of politics regarding this ,and in the years he was in the power the balance started to change agains as he finished the economic and political benefits of the christians and tried to organize a pagan clerus to compete with it .But Julian lived too short time and the rest is hystory .

Okay this thread was aboout the PS3 hitting 8 mil, Not religous, let's get back on topic.