“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
“Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and … know nothing but the word of God.”
“But since the devil’s bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she’s wise, and what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not doctors, no king or emperor, because reason is the Devil’s greatest whore.”
Only yesterday, I was directly approached by a street preacher, asking me the “Heaven or Hell” question, to which I gave the obvious response, completely rejecting his premises. Of course, I made no impression whatsoever, but perhaps I deprived him of the satisfaction of having possibly made a convert. I normally ignore preachers ranting in public, but, if they approach me, I “let them have both barrels” – after all, they started the conversation.
@Son of Glenner
Totally agree: The gloves come off when they approach you.
The last time I was accosted by a proselytising Christian, I told her “Thanks, but I’ve already given my life to Satan”. She was horrified.
I got tired of trying to be honest with these numpties. I found time and again that if I said “Thanks, but I’m atheist”, the response would be “So, you worship Satan”.
So I thought I might as well preempt them and have some fun at their expense.
I’ve got a whole spiel worked out about how great it is worshipping Satan: You get to do what you want, no interminable daily prayers at the mosque, and all that He asks is that you thank him when you do something that annoys Allah like drink a pint or eat a pork pie…
…because, obviously, the Christian is also going to Hell for blaspheming against the Koran. At least I’m going to Hell on my own terms.
M27Holts: I don’t think it’s anything to do with the radon, but we get them all – bornagainers, mormon “missionaries”, even the occasional koran-brandisher. It may just be that the city is seen as like an empty field, ready for cultivation. In the 2011 census, Aberdeen had the highest proportion of atheists in Scotland (and therefore in the UK). (The 2022 census figures have not yet been published afaik.) This year, another six shrinking Church of Scotland congregations have been amalgamated to form two new congregations. A few “black churches” are doing quite well, we have a lot of recent Nigerian immigrants, but they will no doubt decline as their new generations become assimilated.
@Son of Glenner
You saw the Mormon Missionaries too? I wanted to play, but was in a hurry so couldn’t stop. So I just told him that I’d lost my parents’ idiotic religion many years ago, and had no intention of taking up his idiotic religion.
There’s quite a choice of Nigerian churches nearby me… Jesus House, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Deeper Life Ministry, Victoria Gospel Hall (not sure if that’s still on the go), and Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement (technically not a Nigerian church, but I’ve only ever seen Nigerians going there).
As you say, it should calm down a bit with subsequent generations.
I once worked with a Nigerian woman, who gave me a pamphlet from her Church. In it, their (guru?) Claimed to have been dead for years, then rose from the dead when Jesus told him to return and spread the word…She and her other fellow members thought that his claim to be true!!! I tried not to laugh at the absurdities of his claims…I did feel sorry for the woman though…
I read somewhere (hanged if I can find it now) about one of the African churches where the founder claimed to have died and was in the process of being embalmed when he came back to life. I guess that’s even more impressive than Jesus. He sure must have been one holy dude.
You want to laugh, but at the same time I get annoyed at how these pastors are gulling folk out of money.
I’m pretty sure most of the churches in Aberdeen are preaching some form of Prosperity Gospel. You can tell the pastors because they arrive in top-of-the-range Mercedes saloons, wearing pristine hand-tailored suits, and carrying leather-bound, gilt-edged bibles. The congregation walk to church or are bussed in in rust-bucket minibuses.
The pastors are prosperous because they are in grace with God. You can be prosperous too! You can become in grace with God by tithing to the church. The more you give, the more you shall receive.
That may well be the church and Guru I was reading about, but I am sure that the Guru claimed to.have been dead for a considerable time before his resurrection…twas clearly all bollocks anyway…nobody comes back once the brain-stem has ceased to function..once the subroutines for respiration are no longer running the end is inevitable unless you are allowing a machine to keep your heart beating…until they turn it off…
arbeyu: I expect many of the African pastors here, and the few JW and LDS preachers, fit your description. (Prosperity Gospel.) The mainstream preachers, Church of Scotland, Episcopal Church and RC, are more likely to have patches on their elbows and cardboard soles (souls?) on their shoes. Congregants are scarce!
SoG: I was referring only to the African Churches when I mentioned Prosperity Gospel, sorry I was a bit unclear.
I’m well aware that sects like the CoS are ragged-arsed through lack of congregants… My father was a CoS minister, and I get regular updates from my mother about how poorly attended the services are, and how parish after parish in the presbytery are closing churches and amalgamating.
And Pastor James Sakara has shown us the path to enlightenment. Imagine, all the religious nutters burying themselves today….is an additional coda for the Lennon song methinks…
From the online news org called sciencealert: Ancient Worm Resurrected After 46,000 Years of Death-Defying Limbo. I suppose his kin purchased a load of indulgences before they were banned by the RCC in 1567. Though indulgences were no longer sold it was stipulated that donations were allowed.
As a ‘pedantic fooker’ just to say that ‘spunk womble’ is a noun, not an adjective.
I’ve wasted too many hours of my life and my breath engaging with JW’s and the like to bother any more. I reckon if they’ve reached the sad state that they have nothing better to do than come knocking on my door they’ll be as receptive to reason as J n M and good ol’ Martin L.
Nowadays I tend to just shake my head sadly and close the door.
Oh aye. Adjective, Noun and verb…always trip me up…spent too much time reading maths/science…We Have A Kingdom hall round the corner from where I live. The joeys getting out of their cars look like you and me, but their minds are broken, Spunk-Wombling (verb?) their way into another type of loony-bin…
M27, consider an ahistoric a-hole like Ron DeSantis when counting up the cock-wombles, wank-puffins, knob-sockets, shit-flutes, and spunk-trumpets of this ever-warming globe, so effing full of the likes. Or maybe that is just ineffable. Though deplorable, they are a baked in aspect of our world.
Not particularly imaginative that SOG. Come on , I am more of a Tench-Flapper than a Pea-Brain…I have the image of Rab-c- Nesbit for you SoG or maybe Jamesey Cotter?
I do resemble Rab C Nesbit in some ways: my dress sense; my personal hygiene; my huge intellect; my good manners; my moderation and restraint in all matters alcoholic. But I am different in other ways: I am not Weegie; I am not interested in fitba; I do not gamble (except inasmuch as everyday life is a gamble).
I won’t share my mental image of M27Holts except I know he’s tall and not obese.
SoG, your exemplary expletive, pea-brain, akin to doofus, or dork, is a nuanced term of affection, unlike those of M27Holts, whose exotic epithets, as mysterious as they are demeaning, erupt as if from a tench infected with Cymothoa exigua. It is no fluke that these derisive terms are meant to inflict a verbal form of chronic paragonimiasis on their unwitting victims. Author’s admonition that comments of a racist, sexist, or homophobic nature will not be tolerated is to be hewed to nonetheless, to maintain a pissful environment at the **** and bull, though ridicule remains a mainstay here, in the main, if not on the whole. And yes, English is my first language, despite the fact I have butchered, buggered, and botched it badly. May comments of the many heinous hues herein remain uncensored and unstaid.
Sometimes the subject can be very repetitive on this ere message board. I like to take the arguments off-piste if the subject matter is a repeat of discussions previously covered ad-nauseum…we need to avoid the rut that religious dogma takes the badger-boilers into their places of nuttery…
I think we have had the Jesus as a real historical geezer debate 10 times at least..and yes, the religious apologists and christian historians all suffer from blinkered confirmation bias. Jesus was deffo made up until somebody slaps me round the face with one of his flip-flops…
Even if there were an historical person or persons now identified as Jesus, the Jesus of the New Testament and of Christianity is a highly fictionalised representation of that person.
That there is no archaeological evidence nor contemporaneous accounts is largely irrelevant: There is very little direct evidence for any but the most major figures from that period in history.
The historical Jesus, if such a person existed, would have been a very minor figure, one of many preachers teaching end-of-days theology. It was only after his death that a cult sprang up.
Personally, I don’t find the question of “Jesus – Fiction or Fictionalised” all that interesting. What is interesting to me are the beliefs of Christians in the fictional Jesus.
If your religion has a place for a messiah, there’s going to be claimants. It would be weird if there weren’t any. Did any of them go to India? Probably not, but there were certainly those who did. Who cares? None of the Christians are going to be deterred by facts anyway, it is like any religion based on faith alone.
Aye. So many historian/theologians stealing a living by speculating on the veracity of a singular extant jeenutz unit! What a fookin waste of time…another reason to hate the subject of religion ITS FUCKING POINTLESS….
arbeyu — I think you’ve got it right. Now and again I’ll see statements to the effect that “most scholars believe a historical Jesus did exist”, but even if that statement is correct it doesn’t say anything interesting about Christianity beyond “we don’t think this one particular argument against it flies”. After all, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard also existed.
Haven’t been in the discussion for some time, but I do sometimes pop in to binge my way up to date – Just a quick note to the dear Author, I *still* don’t get any email reminders.
Jesus & Mo (the characters) are absurd, blinkered, and oddly very sweet. J&M (the cartoon) is brilliant: sharp, delicious, irresistible. Salman Rushdie
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In a world defined by outrage and offence and liberal spinelessness, Jesus and Mo is a treasure, whose value we should never fail to recognize. Read them. Laugh. And think. Kenan Malik
The brilliant, celebrated, freaking hilarious atheist comic strip ... Greta Christina
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J & Mo is the funniest and most consistently thought-provoking cartoon strip on the Net. In a saner world, it would run in a major newspaper. Nelson Jones, Heresy Corner
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Wittily captures much of the absurdity of religious apologetics. Mano Singham
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Often hilarious, frequently wry, these cartoons do what all the best cartoons do: they tell the truth through humour. Terry Sanderson, NSS President
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October 26, 2017
“One must never converse with Satan – if you do that, you’ll be lost”
— Pope Francis
So true.
Both parts of the bible tell about conversations between god and satan resp. jesus and satan. They’re lost.
Martin Luther on reason:
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
“Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and … know nothing but the word of God.”
“But since the devil’s bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she’s wise, and what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not doctors, no king or emperor, because reason is the Devil’s greatest whore.”
But this J&M strip said it more entertainingly. 🙂
Aye. To Anthromorphosize reason in such a way? The adjective “Spunk-Womble” describes Luther perfectly….
Only yesterday, I was directly approached by a street preacher, asking me the “Heaven or Hell” question, to which I gave the obvious response, completely rejecting his premises. Of course, I made no impression whatsoever, but perhaps I deprived him of the satisfaction of having possibly made a convert. I normally ignore preachers ranting in public, but, if they approach me, I “let them have both barrels” – after all, they started the conversation.
Street preaching in the Granite City? Don’t blame it on the moonlight, Don’t blame it on the good nights, blame ot on the RADON….
@Son of Glenner
Totally agree: The gloves come off when they approach you.
The last time I was accosted by a proselytising Christian, I told her “Thanks, but I’ve already given my life to Satan”. She was horrified.
I got tired of trying to be honest with these numpties. I found time and again that if I said “Thanks, but I’m atheist”, the response would be “So, you worship Satan”.
So I thought I might as well preempt them and have some fun at their expense.
I’ve got a whole spiel worked out about how great it is worshipping Satan: You get to do what you want, no interminable daily prayers at the mosque, and all that He asks is that you thank him when you do something that annoys Allah like drink a pint or eat a pork pie…
…because, obviously, the Christian is also going to Hell for blaspheming against the Koran. At least I’m going to Hell on my own terms.
M27Holts: I don’t think it’s anything to do with the radon, but we get them all – bornagainers, mormon “missionaries”, even the occasional koran-brandisher. It may just be that the city is seen as like an empty field, ready for cultivation. In the 2011 census, Aberdeen had the highest proportion of atheists in Scotland (and therefore in the UK). (The 2022 census figures have not yet been published afaik.) This year, another six shrinking Church of Scotland congregations have been amalgamated to form two new congregations. A few “black churches” are doing quite well, we have a lot of recent Nigerian immigrants, but they will no doubt decline as their new generations become assimilated.
How is Mancunia doing?
@Son of Glenner
You saw the Mormon Missionaries too? I wanted to play, but was in a hurry so couldn’t stop. So I just told him that I’d lost my parents’ idiotic religion many years ago, and had no intention of taking up his idiotic religion.
There’s quite a choice of Nigerian churches nearby me… Jesus House, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Deeper Life Ministry, Victoria Gospel Hall (not sure if that’s still on the go), and Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement (technically not a Nigerian church, but I’ve only ever seen Nigerians going there).
As you say, it should calm down a bit with subsequent generations.
SOG. It’s okay as long as you avoid the proselytising fecking city fans….hahaha
Any cult which bans, pork pies, beer and ra-ra skirts is onto a loser I reckon…
I once worked with a Nigerian woman, who gave me a pamphlet from her Church. In it, their (guru?) Claimed to have been dead for years, then rose from the dead when Jesus told him to return and spread the word…She and her other fellow members thought that his claim to be true!!! I tried not to laugh at the absurdities of his claims…I did feel sorry for the woman though…
I read somewhere (hanged if I can find it now) about one of the African churches where the founder claimed to have died and was in the process of being embalmed when he came back to life. I guess that’s even more impressive than Jesus. He sure must have been one holy dude.
You want to laugh, but at the same time I get annoyed at how these pastors are gulling folk out of money.
I’m pretty sure most of the churches in Aberdeen are preaching some form of Prosperity Gospel. You can tell the pastors because they arrive in top-of-the-range Mercedes saloons, wearing pristine hand-tailored suits, and carrying leather-bound, gilt-edged bibles. The congregation walk to church or are bussed in in rust-bucket minibuses.
The pastors are prosperous because they are in grace with God. You can be prosperous too! You can become in grace with God by tithing to the church. The more you give, the more you shall receive.
That may well be the church and Guru I was reading about, but I am sure that the Guru claimed to.have been dead for a considerable time before his resurrection…twas clearly all bollocks anyway…nobody comes back once the brain-stem has ceased to function..once the subroutines for respiration are no longer running the end is inevitable unless you are allowing a machine to keep your heart beating…until they turn it off…
Cripes! There’s more than one!
Nigerian Pastor Wokoma David, resurrected after three days dead in the mortuary.
Nigerian Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu, resurrected after 48 hours dead, while in the process of being embalmed.
And some honourable failures:
South African pastor Siva Moodley, buried after his family waited 579 days after his death for his resurrection.
South African Pastor James Sakara died after he asked his followers to bury him alive for three days so that he could miraculously resurrect.
Nigeria 2, South Africa Nil.
arbeyu: I expect many of the African pastors here, and the few JW and LDS preachers, fit your description. (Prosperity Gospel.) The mainstream preachers, Church of Scotland, Episcopal Church and RC, are more likely to have patches on their elbows and cardboard soles (souls?) on their shoes. Congregants are scarce!
SoG: I was referring only to the African Churches when I mentioned Prosperity Gospel, sorry I was a bit unclear.
I’m well aware that sects like the CoS are ragged-arsed through lack of congregants… My father was a CoS minister, and I get regular updates from my mother about how poorly attended the services are, and how parish after parish in the presbytery are closing churches and amalgamating.
Martin Luther’s rant against Reason suggests to me that he may have recently fared badly in an argument. 🙂
Perhaps, but religious arguments usually ended in the heretic burning at the stake, or hanging from the gibbet….
And Pastor James Sakara has shown us the path to enlightenment. Imagine, all the religious nutters burying themselves today….is an additional coda for the Lennon song methinks…
From the online news org called sciencealert: Ancient Worm Resurrected After 46,000 Years of Death-Defying Limbo. I suppose his kin purchased a load of indulgences before they were banned by the RCC in 1567. Though indulgences were no longer sold it was stipulated that donations were allowed.
Aye. And scientists have confirmed – Ancient worm has a higher IQ than religious Spunk-Wombles…
Aye..should be an ‘an’ for you pedantic fookers out there…
As a ‘pedantic fooker’ just to say that ‘spunk womble’ is a noun, not an adjective.
I’ve wasted too many hours of my life and my breath engaging with JW’s and the like to bother any more. I reckon if they’ve reached the sad state that they have nothing better to do than come knocking on my door they’ll be as receptive to reason as J n M and good ol’ Martin L.
Nowadays I tend to just shake my head sadly and close the door.
Oh aye. Adjective, Noun and verb…always trip me up…spent too much time reading maths/science…We Have A Kingdom hall round the corner from where I live. The joeys getting out of their cars look like you and me, but their minds are broken, Spunk-Wombling (verb?) their way into another type of loony-bin…
M27, consider an ahistoric a-hole like Ron DeSantis when counting up the cock-wombles, wank-puffins, knob-sockets, shit-flutes, and spunk-trumpets of this ever-warming globe, so effing full of the likes. Or maybe that is just ineffable. Though deplorable, they are a baked in aspect of our world.
I’ve never considered wank-puffin as an insult…I think I have a knob-socket somewhere in my sex-dungeon tho…
M27Holts and postdoggerel: If you must make up weird terms of insult for religious believers, how about yeti-dick? Would that be ridiculous enough?
Aye. Get with the programme SOG. Frog-Nugget , Crab-Nostril and Shrimp-Clit are all good possibiities…
And “pea-brain” for the creators of all these terms!
Not particularly imaginative that SOG. Come on , I am more of a Tench-Flapper than a Pea-Brain…I have the image of Rab-c- Nesbit for you SoG or maybe Jamesey Cotter?
I do resemble Rab C Nesbit in some ways: my dress sense; my personal hygiene; my huge intellect; my good manners; my moderation and restraint in all matters alcoholic. But I am different in other ways: I am not Weegie; I am not interested in fitba; I do not gamble (except inasmuch as everyday life is a gamble).
I won’t share my mental image of M27Holts except I know he’s tall and not obese.
SoG, your exemplary expletive, pea-brain, akin to doofus, or dork, is a nuanced term of affection, unlike those of M27Holts, whose exotic epithets, as mysterious as they are demeaning, erupt as if from a tench infected with Cymothoa exigua. It is no fluke that these derisive terms are meant to inflict a verbal form of chronic paragonimiasis on their unwitting victims. Author’s admonition that comments of a racist, sexist, or homophobic nature will not be tolerated is to be hewed to nonetheless, to maintain a pissful environment at the **** and bull, though ridicule remains a mainstay here, in the main, if not on the whole. And yes, English is my first language, despite the fact I have butchered, buggered, and botched it badly. May comments of the many heinous hues herein remain uncensored and unstaid.
Sometimes the subject can be very repetitive on this ere message board. I like to take the arguments off-piste if the subject matter is a repeat of discussions previously covered ad-nauseum…we need to avoid the rut that religious dogma takes the badger-boilers into their places of nuttery…
I think we have had the Jesus as a real historical geezer debate 10 times at least..and yes, the religious apologists and christian historians all suffer from blinkered confirmation bias. Jesus was deffo made up until somebody slaps me round the face with one of his flip-flops…
Not only was he probably real, I bet a half dozen of him were real.
No Archealogical evidence, thus no proof, thus , just like the flying teapot he DID NOT EXIST….
Oh, goody! A Did-Jesus-Exist bun fight!
My take…
Even if there were an historical person or persons now identified as Jesus, the Jesus of the New Testament and of Christianity is a highly fictionalised representation of that person.
That there is no archaeological evidence nor contemporaneous accounts is largely irrelevant: There is very little direct evidence for any but the most major figures from that period in history.
The historical Jesus, if such a person existed, would have been a very minor figure, one of many preachers teaching end-of-days theology. It was only after his death that a cult sprang up.
Personally, I don’t find the question of “Jesus – Fiction or Fictionalised” all that interesting. What is interesting to me are the beliefs of Christians in the fictional Jesus.
If your religion has a place for a messiah, there’s going to be claimants. It would be weird if there weren’t any. Did any of them go to India? Probably not, but there were certainly those who did. Who cares? None of the Christians are going to be deterred by facts anyway, it is like any religion based on faith alone.
arbeyu: Nicely summed up!
Aye. So many historian/theologians stealing a living by speculating on the veracity of a singular extant jeenutz unit! What a fookin waste of time…another reason to hate the subject of religion ITS FUCKING POINTLESS….
arbeyu — I think you’ve got it right. Now and again I’ll see statements to the effect that “most scholars believe a historical Jesus did exist”, but even if that statement is correct it doesn’t say anything interesting about Christianity beyond “we don’t think this one particular argument against it flies”. After all, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard also existed.
Aye. JB, and they will have a dog in the race, they always do the scum-sucking pond-life that they are…
And beer is going up. Champagne cheaper…Tory smeg-suckers…
M27Holts et al. I immediately thought of this tale of premature internment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVO6HM9EIYw
Entertaining Irish folk song…Would go well with a pint of liffey water and a Jamesons chaser…
I’m rubbish at accents…he from the white rose county…didn’t sound like it to me though, nice nylon string guitar playing though…
Haven’t been in the discussion for some time, but I do sometimes pop in to binge my way up to date – Just a quick note to the dear Author, I *still* don’t get any email reminders.