…excerpts from the book of Matthew; “I praise you, Father…you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children…”
“…the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
He called a little child and had him stand among them. And He said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. …Take my yoke upon you…learn from me…I am gentle and humble in heart…you will find rest for your souls…my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

“Here is my servant (Jesus) whom I have chosen, the one I love, …; I will put my Spirit on Him, …He will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear His voice in the streets.
A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out, till He leads justice to victory.
In His name the nations will put their hope.”

All this has come to pass and still yet more is on it’s way.
Read the book for yourself before judging, cross ref. the prophecies, …or not. Freewill is a very cool thing? Cheers

God bless ye, merry atheists, may nothing you dismay!
Remember, there’s no evidence there was a Christmas day!
When Christ was born remains unknown no matter what men say,
Oh, tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Oh, tidings of reason and fact.

There was no star of Bethlehem, there was no angel song,
There could have been no wise men, for the journey was too long,
The stories in the Bible are historically wrong,
Oh, tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Oh, tidings of reason and fact.

We know our Christmas custom comes from Persia and from Greece,
From solstice celebrations of the ancient middle east,
In fact our so-called holiday is but a pagan feast,
Oh, tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Oh, tidings of reason and fact.

I’d like to claim credit for this, but I got it from a song sheet at a Unitarian church in Charlotte NC in 1977.

[[I notice that you quote figures from Antonov-Ovseyenko (1982).
However, Antonov-Ovseyenko died in
1939 ( in fact, executec by Stalin).
He was hardly unbiased, as he was a political enemy (a Trotsky supporter).]]

I meant that guy’s son. Yes, the Old Bolshevik Antonov-Ovseyenko was eliminated by Stalin (along with most of the other Old Bolsheviks).

Penny,

While estimates range from a low ten million to a high of one hundred twelve million (which I personally find doubtful) as a pre-Columbian Exchange population, it is believed that the vast majority lived in South America. In any case, most of the diseases were probably accidental, seeing as how smallpox had, up until that point, been a strictly Eurasian affair. Also, an oft-downplayed fact is that smallpox often went ahead of the Europeans, devastating indigenous populations before the Euros had contact with them (according to David Cook), and it is also asserted by Cook that there is no evidence of any intentional smallpox spreading by the Spanish, although it was seriously discussed by the British at Fort Pitt, during Pontiac’s Rebellion. (And, yes, I am familiar with Loewen. I have Lies Across America at home.) Also, historians like Las Casas (who described massacres) were writing for reform, and Las Casas was turned from support for the Spanish conquest because he believed it would lead to the collapse of Spain through Divine retribution; his views led to (read this) Native-protecting laws.

Of course, there was widespread killing of and discrimination and violence against Native Americans, and this is inexcusable.

When Barton said “nobody but Christians spoke Latin back then,” I think he was being sarcastic. When a large number of the historians wrote their texts (Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, etc.), the Roman Empire had not yet disbanded.

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/a/n.htm

Maybe, you mean a different Antonov-Ovseyenko ?

Off the thread, as I have to do some work this week. It was fun.

Of course, the Moslem physicist you mention–who gave them the H-bomb
was also religious. Intelligence can be easily overwhelmed by religion.

The idea that greater intelligence tends to divorce a person from evil is one that I get from two sources:
My own experiences with very bright people.
Science Fiction and Futurist essays in my childhood.

Probably, the latter’s overvaluation of the moral value of intelligence stems from the Satanic Roots of Science Fiction. But, that is a conjecture.

Lastly:
You apoligized with:
//
From your posts I had you pegged as a teenager, but for all I know you could be an adult. Sorry about that.//

I COULD BE AN ADULT—what a backhanded and patronizing insult.
You have a facile tongue. Too bad that your “god given gift” of a silver tongued eloquence has been
serving the deviltry and decit of religous
rant.

For all I know, you are in elementary school.

Anyway, it was fun. I enjoyed fencing with you. What are the titles of your Science Fiction books or stories? I guess I could look it all up
on Amazon, but, hey, I am friends with the author.

Can you give us some summaries of them?

I have been reading a very intersting book about the links between the practice of Black Magic and Science Fiction. Such people as Jules Verne got their inspirations
from Occult Brotherhood ideas ( such as Power X, and the Hollow Earth ). H.G. Wells
as well, with direct quotes of Satanic ritual
in ” The Island of Dr. Moreau”. Of course,
L.Ron Hubbard and Aleister Crowley, and
there are many more examples.

It is no wonder that many of the ideas of Science Fiction were poison–polluted by Christianity and its variant: Satanism.

As to your eighty million, as you said, you made up your own numbers—In your model…etc.

The christians colonisers of the Americas
first tried to christianize the Natives ( of which there were tens of millions!), and when it didn’t work decided to kill them.
That was when the church decided that they didn’t have souls and were not really human beings. There was a systematic program of introducing diseases such as smallpox ( by giving out smallpox infected
goods etc.) to help it along.

Start With : “Lies, my Teacher Told Me.”
and ” A People’s History of America” and then read “Guns, Germs and Steel” to find out what REALLY happened.

As to “Nobody but Christians spoke Latin back then”, that is irrelevant , because we
had more than a thousand years where access to the roman classics was indeed only through versions copied and revised by Monks in a culture where most people were kept illiterate by the Church.

Pol Pott killed less than two million.

I notice that you chose to ignore my other examples–such as the Roman Empire–who were pagan but not atheists.

I apologize for calling you “child” in my initial post. It was patronizing. From your posts I had you pegged as a teenager, but for all I know you could be an adult. Sorry about that.

-BPL

[[Optimistic futurist essays, and Science Fiction are almost as bad as religion]]

Gosh, I’m doubly a bad guy, since I have a religion and write science fiction.

[[Although high intelligence is probably no panacea for evil, it has been my experience dealing with some of the brightest mathematicians on the earth, that at a certain level–it becomes more interesting to understand the structure of the primes ( or the n-manifolds) than to dominate and enslave other people or to have lots of silly material toys. ]]

How does that explain Werner Heisenberg working to manufacture an A-bomb for Hitler? Or Werner von Braun putting his expertise to work at bombing civilians in London? Or Mohammed Khan selling nuclear know-how to North Korea?

Intelligence not only isn’t a panacea for evil, it enables someone to perform evil more efficiently. Retarded people don’t tend to be mass murderers. Nor do MENSA members tend to be saints.

[[How about the genocide of the native american aborigines ( aka Indians) by westerners that didn’t believe they had souls? That alone exceeds in number the people killed by Mao, and Stalin combined. ]]

Which westerners didn’t believe the Indians had souls? And do you really expect us to believe that westerners killed more than 150 million native Americans? There weren’t that many native Americans!

There were millions of deaths in the west due to the European colonization, but more than 90% were from infectious disease, not genocide. That doesn’t excuse mistreatment of the Indians, but I think your tendency to blame everything you can on religion leads you to exaggerate a bit.

[[I agree, but far more evil has been committed by the followers of religion than by atheists. ]]

Let’s see. Antonov-Ovseyenko (1982), who had access to the records of the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR, estimated 100 million people had been killed under Stalin. But he was counting deficit births. Using a demographic model I wrote in the 1980s, I make it closer to 80 million.

I think the best estimate for the PRC is about 60 million. Add a few million by Pol Pot, Mengistu Haile Mariam, etc. Altogether, I’d estimate 150 million state murders for officially atheist regimes.

I don’t think all the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Witch Trials together add up to a million, although I’m open to correction on this point. If I’m wrong by a factor of ten, the odds are still heavily weighted toward atheism.

[[Women are repeatedly denigrated and not considered worthy of the religion or even heaven]]

Where did Jesus say that? You may be confusing Christianity with Gnosticism. “Women are not worthy of life” — Gospel of Thomas, Logia #114. Compare to Galatians 3:28 — “In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, bond nor free, but ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

[[Here is a comment about how Christian scribes INSERTED the references by Tacitus etc., into the books:]]

Right, penny. No one would have noticed, since nobody but Christians spoke Latin back then. ROFLMAO.

[[Barton needs to listen less to his pastor ,and the dogma of his CULT,and more to HISTORIANS, who understand such things as the rules of evidence.]]

How silly of me to have a classics minor. I must not have been listening to the historians who taught me.

The word “cult” was originally a technical term in cultural anthropology, and referred to the ritual side of a religion. In modern American parlance, it has come to mean “a religion I don’t like.” For penny, I guess that would be pretty much any religion at all.

As it turns out, I went to bed and slept all this time. I had awful nightmares. But, I am feeling 70% better now.

something like a conjunction of planets in a region marking Israel or something…

I don’t really care though.

I’m willing to be enlightened, if you find the source.

- Jack

Curse you, “Popular Science” and “Analog”!

I should add that part of my bad mood is that I just got back from trying to eat at a chicken restaurant and the crazy christian fanatic owner tried to convert me at my table!

It’s been quite a day. Sorry for the rant.

Sometimes my childhood programming
does break through. Too many optimistic
futurist essays.

Now very depressed, I am going to back to proving a theorem, in the hopes that a rational universe of mathematical thought will at least stop me from crying.

Now, I have learned something, and it
always feels like I have lost something!!