My Imaginary Friend Jesus

February 20, 2010 By

When I first started seriously questioning the validity and truth of my now past faith, I created a list of hard questions. These were questions that I didn’t have the answer to, and most, if not all of them, held the potential to dislodge my world view. One of those questions was:

“What’s the difference between Jesus and an imaginary friend?”

The question at first seemed absurd, but I knew it had to be answered. When I initially researched it, I found out that the official psychological term for it was “imaginary companion.” I thought companion was a fitting word for how I and most Christians view their relationship with Jesus.

The more I pondered my own belief in Jesus, and what it meant to have an imaginary companion, the more it looked exactly the same. I would constantly ask myself how this could be. How could so many people have the same imaginary friend? Not only that, how could rational adults believe in an imaginary friend, let alone, the same one?

Imaginary friends, which are usually experienced by children to combat loneliness or an emotional deficit in their lives, have names, unique characteristics, and most of all, provide companionship. Even though imaginary friends can’t be seen by the person who is imagining them (except in some rare hallucinatory cases), the person fully believes in their existence. They talk to them, depend on them, and often love them. The alternative to life without them is loneliness, and in some cases, despair.

In Christianity, if you bring together groupthink, a tendency to be superstitious (which includes every human being), religious doctrine, and the desperate need for hope and meaning in your life, then congratulations, you’ll be getting a new imaginary friend named Jesus.

The idea that everyone perceives Jesus in the same way is a fallacy. Jesus is experienced differently by everyone, even for those who are indoctrinated in the most homogeneous of religious sects. While the experience of Jesus may appear identical, that illusion comes from a religious group’s structured archetype of Jesus. The who and what of Jesus is a well defined social construct. The rest is completely up to your mind’s imagination. That’s why Jesus talks to people in different ways, and why they ultimately experience their relationship with him in very unique ways.

During my journey into becoming a rational, logical freethinker, I had the opportunity to meet with a very popular Christian author. This person is very intelligent, has a background in psychology, and is someone who I continue to have great respect for. We met privately, and I presented him with my list of questions. As with most of the questions I presented to him, he didn’t have a reasonable answer for it. When I asked him what the difference was between an imaginary friend and the belief in a relationship with Jesus, he quickly conceded that there wasn’t any difference.

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: ,

Irrational Disbelief Syndrome

February 14, 2010 By


The marketing agency for FiberOne has launched a clever campaign called Irrational Disbelief Syndrome. The advertising campaign is a mixture of clever, stupid, and the absurd, but it’s all of those things on purpose.

The premise is that their high fiber foods taste good and will help you lose weight. From the campaign’s perspective, that’s a fact, like gravity and the existence of bears. What’s interesting about the campaign is that they’re subtly attacking people with superstitious beliefs. The kind of beliefs that make the Creation Museum possible.

The opening video on their Web site begins with a fake doctor, named Dr. Taggert Bane. He sets the tone of the campaign by stating:

Irrational Disbelief Syndrome is when people are incapable of believing things that are universally understood to be true. Things like science, eggplants, and…

Believers who disbelieve in the logical, rational world around them, may end up protesting against this new marketing campaign, because it’s directly mimicking and making fun of them. However, I’m betting they don’t get it, in the same way they don’t believe “things that are universally understood to be true.”

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: ,

Focus on the Family Could Have Spent 2.8 Million On…

February 9, 2010 By

Christine Vyrnon had a productive rant about Focus on the Family spending 2.8 million dollars on a subtle pro-life, anti-choice commercial during the Super Bowl. She proposed that they could have spent:

  • 2.8 million dollars on single mothers in poverty.
  • 2.8 million dollars to lobby for the end of wars that kill or internally, externally maim sons and brothers and fathers like Tebow – instead of the simulation of war in the stadiums.
  • 2.8 million dollars on any number of women and children – just for the hell of it.
  • 2.8 million dollars for young men and women who want to explore the world before they try to teach their kids about the world.
  • 2.8 million dollars to pay for a mother’s or child’s medical bills.
  • 2.8 million dollars to pay grannie’s heating bills.

Focus on the Family’s Super Bowl commercial with Pam and Tim Tebow

Here’s the commercial in question. As I said before, it’s very subtle, and it’s meant to be a teaser to get you to visit their Web site. I have to admit, I didn’t recognize Tim Tebow without the Bible verses taped to his face.

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: ,

Correlating Education, Poverty, Health (and Even Death by Firearm) with the Religiosity of States

January 3, 2010 By

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a study on the religiosity of states. It measured three things; worship attendance, frequency of prayer, and belief in God. Unsurprisingly, the Southern states—also known as the Bible Belt—were found to be the most religious.

I thought it would be interesting to looks at the five most and least religious states, and compare statistics related to education, poverty, health, and death by firearms.

Five Most Religious States

  1. Mississippi
  2. Alabama
  3. Arkansas
  4. Louisiana
  5. Tennessee

Five Least Religious States

  1. New Hampshire
  2. Vermont
  3. Alaska
  4. Massachusetts
  5. Maine

When I compared the top five religious states with the top five lowest religious states, the results were dramatic. The most religious states were, on average, the least educated1, poorest2, and unhealthiest3. People in those states were also twice as likely to be killed by a firearm4. The differences were even more staggering when you removed Alaska from the least religious list. For example, you are almost three times as likely to be killed by a firearm.

Based on these correlations, one could conclude that there is a relationship with being religious and being less educated, having less money, being less healthy and owning, or at the very least, being killed by a gun. All four of which, even without including religion into the mix, usually have a direct relationship with each other.

Religion & Education

Education and access to knowledge has always been the enemy of religion. When critical thought, logic and historical reference are applied to theology, it tears holes into its very foundation. It is no wonder that a culture that is better educated, especially philosophically, would be less religious.

Religion & Poverty

Desperation and fear creates the greatest need for hope. Religion provides a psuedo-hope that people can easily cling too. Religion can be used both as a coping mechanism and an explanation for their current state of affairs. Poverty is often related to poor education, and both of those are often related to poor health.

Religion & Health

While education and poverty can have a direct influence on health, the attitudes — specifically religious attitudes towards life — can influence health too. For example, if life after death will be angelic and perfect, there’s really no need to concern yourself with living a healthy lifestyle. Especially if that means you’ll get to heaven quicker ;)

However, I tend to think (from personal experience), that most people in the South comfort eat in order to get relief from the neurosis caused by following and believing in illogical superstitions.

Religion & Guns

At the core of most people’s religious beliefs is fear. Fear of damnation and fear of death. It’s that fear that makes it easy to believe in make believe and it’s that same fear that gets people to unnecessarily arm themselves.

Conclusion

While this article is intermingled with correlations (which aren’t all that scientific), speculation, and personal opinion, I do think there are significant patterns within cultures that can be attributed to — both as a source and symptom — superstitious beliefs.

References
  • 1 “This fourth Smartest State designation is awarded based on 21 factors chosen from Morgan Quitno’s annual reference book, Education State Rankings, 2005-2006. Morgan Quitno Press, 2005
  • 2 Percent of People Below Poverty Level in the Past 12 Months (For Whom Poverty Status is Determined). American Community Survey 2004
  • 3 Health Index by state. “The Healthiest State designation is awarded based on 21 factors chosen from the year 2005 edition of our annual reference book, Health Care State Rankings. Morgan Quitno Press, 2005
  • 4 Number of Deaths Due to Firearms per 100,000 Population, 2002. statehealthfacts.org
Related Articles
Filed Under: Culture, Religion

Religion Wanes While Superstition Increases

October 31, 2009 By

The University of Chicago just released a new survey on religion. In the survey, they discovered that more Americans are praying and more people believe in an afterlife, but less people have any formal religious affiliation. The study also found that New England and the Pacific North West are the least religious populations.

As I’ve stated before, religion is the survivalism of higher reasoning, which means it’s here to stay. And while I try to live a rational and logical existence, I realize that unless human beings can collectively reject a portion of their own nature, religious belief, in some form, is here to stay. With that being said, I really appreciated what Ray Waddle recently wrote in the Faith and Values section of the Tennessean about this survey and what it means to our culture.

Religion will outlast all theories of secularization. The weather of belief doesn’t go away. But unlike the daily uncontrollable motions of sun and rain, people can choose which kind of religious climate should prevails.

Healthy belief advances the cause of humane society, the spirit of God and scientific inquiry too. Sick religion dreams of authoritarian control and the destruction for everyone who disagrees

That is really the idealistic hope of the secularist – that religions of the world will reflect tenets that are conducive to humanistic philosophy. I realize that appears like an impossible juxtaposition, but what I’m really trying to say is that my hope is that if religion is here to stay – which it is – that the cultural influences on its dogma reflect tolerance and acceptance of other beliefs and lifestyles. That their belief system would include that all human beings have inalienable rights, and that their beliefs, or non-beliefs as some would see it, are respected within the canons and cultures of their religion.

Download the full report here: Religious Change Around the World (PDF)

Filed Under: Culture

Our Reality is Defined by Our Senses

February 15, 2009 By

We see, smell, taste, touch and hear the environment around us, and then our minds (both unconsciously and consciously) create realities based on what our senses tell us.  We generally believe that we are experiencing all there is to perceive, and we make assumptions based upon those perceptions, which ultimately shape our actions, world view and ideologies.

Without our senses, we wouldn’t be able to thrive and understand the world around us. Yet, at the same time, we are severely limited by our senses. This is especially true when we compare ourselves to other animals. Although human beings have a unique trait of higher-reasoning and self-awareness, our reality may actually be a limited, illusory perception.

When individual senses are directly compared to humans and other animals, we look primitive in comparison. In fact, there is an entirely different reality being experienced by amphibians, fish, mammals, birds, insects and reptiles. These enhanced senses undoubtedly shape an entirely unique perception of existence for the life of these animals.

Unique Animal Senses

Sight

  • Some insects like ants can see polarized light, while some fish can see infrared light.
  • Cats have a mirror-like membrane in the backs of their eyes that lets them hunt and move in almost complete darkness.
  • The eyes of insects and birds are attuned to wavelengths of light outside the visible range that humans see in

Smell

  • A Silkworm Moth can detect pheromones up to 11km away
  • Snakes smell with their tongue, which collects scent particles in the air, and then makes contact with the Jacobson’s organ, located on the roof of the mouth.

Taste

  • A pig’s tongue contains 15,000 taste buds compared to the 9,000 taste buds that a human has.

Touch

  • Rats use the long hairs in the same way that blind people use canes. By whisking the hairs across objects they come across, rats and other rodents form mental pictures of their surroundings.
  • Butterflies have hairs on their wings to detect changes in air pressure.

Hearing

  • Dogs can hear sound as high as 40,000 Hz.

Additional Senses

  • Migrating birds use the Earth’s magnetic field to stay their course during long flights. One recent study suggests birds might have a form of synesthesia that lets them “see” the planet’s magnetic lines as patterns of color or light that is overlaid on their visual surroundings.
  • Bats and dolphins use echolocation for movement and locating objects.
  • Sharks have specialized electrosensing receptors with thresholds as low as 0.005 uV/cm. These receptors may be used to locate prey. The dogfish can detect a flounder that is buried under the sand and emitting 4 uAmp of current.

A Different Reality

The limitations of our senses raise unlimited questions about what we perceive as our reality. For example, the following questions immediately come to mind:

  1. What would our relationships be like if we had a heightened sense of pheromones?
  2. What would our environment tell us and how would we interact with it, if we could see polarized and infrared light?
  3. How would we interact with our environment if we could hear sounds from far away and at different spectrums?
  4. What would it be like if we could use echolocation to determine where we go and how we identify objects?
  5. If we could taste like a pig, would we be overly consumed with taste and eating (more so than we are now)?

Our limited perceptions, coupled with our survival instincts, contribute to our inability to fully comprehend our true reality and also fuels our instinctual superstitious behavior. When spiritualists claim that there is much more beyond what we can perceive, they are absolutely correct. Except in our case, it has more to do with our limitation to perceive our environment and our higher-reasoning’s desire to survive and live forever.

So why don’t we have these enhanced senses? The answer is simple. The process of evolution decided we didn’t need them to survive and thrive.

References

Filed Under: Evolution

Warning Label for Bibles

December 13, 2008 By

Warning: This is a work of fiction: Do NOT take it literally.

Content Advisory: Contains verses descriptive or advocating suicide, incest, bestiality, sadomasochism, sexual activity in a violent context, murder, morbid violence, use of drugs or alcohol, homosexuality, voyeurism, revenge, undermining authority figures, lawlessness, and human rights violations and atrocities.

Exposure Warning: Exposure to contents for extended periods of time or during formative years in children may cause delusions, hallucinations, decreased cognitive and objective reasoning abilities, and, in extreme cases, pathological disorders, hatred, bigotry, and violence including, but not limited to fanaticism, murder, and genocide.

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: ,

101 Contradictions in the Bible

November 2, 2008 By

101 Contradictions in the Bible

Filed Under: Religion

What Would Republican Jesus Do?

September 4, 2008 By

What Would Republican Jesus Do?

Found at Zazzle

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With:

Jesus Christ is a False Messiah

September 4, 2008 By

Preface — From an epistemological perspective, all religious scripture is embellished history at its best. However, the exercise of presenting the imperfections and logical fallacies of religious canons can be a useful first step for individuals who are beginning to doubt their faith. I don’t remember where I found the research below, but I felt it was interesting enough to share.

According to Jesus’ admissions, as well as the Bible’s prophecies, Jesus of Nazareth could not have been the Messiah. This of course, would invalidate Christianity as we know it. The compilation presented here shall be split in three sections. The first shall be the biblical prophecies that were made in order to identify the messiah, which Jesus does not fulfill. The second shall be the prophecies that Christians use to say that Jesus was the Messiah, yet they clearly fail. The third set shall be the prophecies and statements Jesus made yet they are false and have never came true.

Prophecies to Identify the Messiah, Which Jesus Does Not Fulfill

  1. Matthew 1:23 says that Jesus (the messiah) would be called Immanuel, which means “God with us.” Yet no one, not even his parents, call him Immanuel at any point in the bible.
  2. The Messiah must be a physical descendant of David (Romans 1:3 & Acts 2:30). Yet, how could Jesus meet this requirement since his genealogies in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 show he descended from David through Joseph, who was not his natural father because of the Virgin Birth. Hence, this prophecy could not have been fulfilled.
  3. Isaiah 7:16 seems to say that before Jesus had reached the age of maturity, both of the Jewish countries would be destroyed. Yet there is no mention of this prophecy being fulfilled in the New Testament with the coming of Jesus, hence this is another Messiah prophecy not fulfilled.

Prophecies Christians Use to Verify Jesus as the Messiah, Yet Clearly Fail:

  1. The gospels (especially Matthew 21:4 and John 12:14-15) claim that Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9. But the next few verses (Zechariah 9:10-13) show that the person referred to in this verse is a military king that would rule “from sea to sea”. Since Jesus had neither an army nor a kingdom, he could not have fulfilled this prophecy.
  2. Matthew (Matthew 2:17-18) quotes Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:15), claiming that it was a prophecy of King Herod’s alleged slaughter of the children in and around Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus. But this passage refers to the Babylonian captivity, as is clear by reading the next two verses (Jeremiah 31:16-17), and, thus, has nothing to do with Herod’s massacre.
  3. John 19:33 says that during Jesus’ crucifixion, the soldiers didn’t break his legs because he was already dead. Verse John 19:36 claims that this fulfilled a prophecy: “Not a bone of him shall be broken.” But there is no such prophecy. It is sometimes said that the prophecy appears in Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12 & Psalm 34:20. This is not correct. Exodus 12:46 & Numbers 9:12 are not prophecies, they are commandments. The Israelites are told not to break the bones of the Passover lamb, and this is all it is about. And Psalm 34:20 seems to refer to righteous people in general (see verse Psalm 34:19, where a plural is used), not to make a prophecy about a specific person.
  4. “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” Hosea 11:1. Matthew (Matthew 2:15) claims that the flight of Jesus’ family to Egypt is a fulfillment of this verse. But Hosea 11:1 is not a prophecy at all. It is a reference to the Hebrew exodus from Egypt and has nothing to do with Jesus. Matthew tries to hide this fact by quoting only the last part of the verse (“Out of Egypt I have called my son”).
  5. “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” Micah 5:2 The gospel of Matthew (Matthew 2:5-6) claims that Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem fulfils this prophecy. But this is unlikely for two reasons.
    1. “Bethlehem Ephratah” in Micah 5:2 refers not to a town, but to a clan: the clan of Bethlehem, who was the son of Caleb’s second wife, Ephrathah (1 Chronicles 2:18, 2:50-52 & 4:4).
    2. The prophecy (if that is what it is) does not refer to the Messiah, but rather to a military leader, as can be seen from Micah 5:6. This leader is supposed to defeat the Assyrians, which, of course, Jesus never did. It should also be noted that Matthew altered the text of Micah 5:2 by saying: “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah” rather than “Bethlehem Ephratah” as is said in Micah 5:2. He did this, intentionally no doubt, to make this verse appear to refer to the town of Bethlehem rather than the family clan.

Statements Jesus Made Which Are False

  1. Jesus in John 14:12 & Mark 16:17-18 said: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” This implies that Jesus’ true followers should be able to routinely perform the following tricks: 1) cast out devils, 2) speak in tongues, 3) take up serpents, 4) drink poisons without harm, and 5) cure the sick by touching them and MANY other of Jesus’ “works”. Curiously I have yet to see a Christian that can do any of the above on demand.
  2. In John 14:13-14 Jesus stated: “And whatsoever ye ask in my name I do, that the Father may be glorified in the son. If ye ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” In reality, millions of people have made millions of requests in Jesus’ name and failed to receive satisfaction. This promise or prophecy has failed completely.
  3. Paul says Christianity lives or dies on the Resurrection (1 Corinthian 15:14-17). Yet Jesus said in Matthew 12:40 that he would be buried three days and three nights as Jonah was in the whale three days and three nights. Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning is only one and a half days, so he could not have been the messiah by his own and Paul’s admission.
  4. Jesus’ prophecy in John 13:38 (“The cock shall not crow, till thou [Peter] hast denied me three times”) is false. Mark 14:66-68 shows the cock crowed after the first denial, not the third.
  5. In Mark 10:19 Jesus said: “Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.” Jesus needs to re-read the Ten Commandments. There is no Old Testament commandment against defrauding. The only relevant statement about defrauding is in Leviticus 19:13 , which says : “Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor.” This is an OT law, but is not listed with the Ten Commandments. Surely, if Jesus was god incarnate he would know the commandments.
  6. “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3:13). If Jesus is in heaven, how can he be down on earth speaking? Moreover, according to 2 Kings 2:11 (“and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven”) Jesus was not the only person to ascend into heaven, nor was he the first. Elijah preceded him and apparently Enoch did also (“And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him”–Genesis 5:24).
  7. In Luke 23:43 Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” This obviously has to be false, for Jesus was supposed to lay dead in the tomb for three days following his crucifixion.
  8. Jesus says : “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy” (Matthew 5:43). This statement does not exist in the OT either. In fact, Proverbs 24:17 says, “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth…”
  9. Jesus is reported to say: “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it” (Luke 16:16). Certainly every man is not pressing to enter the kingdom of God. The very fact that I am an atheist (one third of the world’s population does not believe in a god) proves this verse to be false.
  10. “Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?” (Matthew 12:5) Nowhere does the OT state that the priests in the temple profaned the Sabbath and were considered blameless.
  11. “Yea; have ye never read, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise’” (Matthew 21:16). Jesus is quoting Psalm 8:2, which says, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies…”. “Perfect praise” has little to do with “ordaining strength because of thine enemies.” Another misquotation!
  12. “But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him” (Mark 9:13). There are no prophecies in the OT of things that were to happen to Elijah.

Jesus, in all his “God incarnate” wisdom, contradicts himself

  1. Jesus consistently contradicts himself concerning his Godly status. “I and my father are one.” (John 14:28) Also see Philippians 2:5-6 Those verses lead us to believe that he is a part of the trinity and equal to his father being a manifestation of him. Yet, Jesus also made many statements that deny he is the perfect men, much less God incarnate. Take the following for example: “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God” (Matthew 19:17). “My father if greater then I.” (John 14:28) Also see Matthew 24:26 Clearly, Jesus is denouncing the possibility of him being the Messiah in those three verses.
  2. Jesus said, “whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire” (Matthew 5:22). Yet, he himself did so repeatedly, as Matthew 23:17-19 and Luke 11:40 & 12:20 show. Clearly Jesus should be in danger of hell too?
  3. Does Jesus support peace, or war? Matthew 5:39 “Resist not evil, but whoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Also note Matthew 6:38-42 & 26:52 where Jesus teaches non-resistance, Non-violence. Now read (Luke 22:36-37) Where Jesus commands people to take arms for a coming conflict. (John 2:15) Jesus uses a whip to physically drive people out of the temple.
  4. Matthew 15:24 Jesus said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of lsrael,”. This would of course mean that he is here only to save the Jews. The scriptures repeatedly back up this notion that Christ is savior to the Jews and not the gentiles (see Romans 16:17, Revelations 14:3-4 & John 10). The contradiction lies in what Jesus later tells his followers: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
  5. Can we hate our kindred? Luke 14:26 Jesus says “If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brother, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be my disciple.” John 3:15 “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” Also see Ephesians 6:22, 5:25, & Matthew 15:4
  6. Even many of the staunchest defenders of Jesus admit that his comment in Matthew 10:34 (“I came not to send peace but a sword”) contradicts verses such as Matthew 26:52 (“Put up again thy sword into his place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword”).
  7. Deuteronomy 24:1 & 21:10-14 all say that divorce is allowed for the simple reason if a “man no longer delighteth in his wife”. Yet Jesus comes along and breaks his father’s law by saying in Matthew 5:32 that adultery is the only way one can be divorced.
  8. In Mark 8:35 Jesus said: “…but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s the same shall save it.” How could Jesus have said this when there was no gospel when he lived? The gospel did not appear until after his death.
  9. Matthew 6:13 Jesus recites a revised prayer and states, “Don’t bring us into temptation.” God is the cause of everything, even Satan. God has been leading people into temptation since the Garden of Eden. Otherwise, the trees of life and knowledge would have never been there.
  10. Matthew 12:1-8 Jesus thinks it’s okay to break his father’s laws, by breaking the Sabbath day. He states that he is basically exempt for such fiascoes and that he is Master of the Sabbath.
  11. John 3:17 Jesus contradicts himself when he says, “God didn’t send his son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.” Jesus seems to forget his own stories.
  12. James 4:3 If your prayers are not answered, it’s your own damned fault. This is in direct contradiction to where Jesus says “seek and ye shall find, ask and it shall be known to you”.
  13. “If Jesus bears witness of himself his witness is true” John 8:14, “If I bear witness of myself it is not true.” John 5:31
  14. “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20), versus “For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always” (Matthew 26:11 , Mark 14:7, John 12:8) and “Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am thither ye cannot come” (John 7:34). Is this the kind of friend one can rely on?
  15. “And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her” (Mark 10:11 & Luke 6:18), versus “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery” (Matthew 19:9). In the book of Matthew, Jesus said a man could put away his wife if one factor– fornication–is involved. In Mark and Luke he allowed no exceptions.
  16. Jesus is quoted: “Judge not, and ye shall be not judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven” (Luke 6:37 & Matthew 7:1), versus “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24). Jesus stated men are not to judge but, then, allowed it under certain conditions. As in the case of divorce, he can’t seem to formulate a consistent policy.
  17. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46, (also note the time before crucification where Jesus prays for the “cup to passeth over me”) versus “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, for this purpose I have come to this hour” (John 12:27 RSV). Jesus can’t seem to decide whether or not he wants to die. One moment he is willing; the next he isn’t.
  18. In Luke 23:30 (“Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us”) Jesus quoted Hosea 10:8 (“…and they shall say to the mountains, cover us; and to the hills, fall on us”). And, like Paul, he often quoted inaccurately. In this instance, he confused mountains with hills.
  19. “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they know him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist” (Matthew 17:11-13). John the Baptist was beheaded, but Jesus was not. And what did John the Baptist restore? Nothing!
  20. We are told salvation is obtained by faith alone (John 3:18 & 36) yet Jesus told a man to follow the Commandments-Matthew 19:16-18 (saving by works)-if he wanted eternal life.
  21. In Luke 12:4 Jesus told his followers to “Be not afraid of them that kill the body.” But Matthew 12:14-16, John 7:1, 8:59, 10:39, 11:53-54, & Mark 1:45 show that Jesus consistently feared death. Jesus went out of his way to hide, run, and attempt escape from the Roman and Jewish authorities.
  22. Matthew 5:28 says to sin in “your heart” is considered a sin in itself. The messiah is supposed to be God incarnate, not able to sin, yet in Matthew 4:5 & Luke 4:5-9, Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert, which is sinning in his heart. Jesus also took upon all the sins of the world during his crucifixion, so how can it be said that “Jesus was the perfect man without sin”? This would lead one to believe he was not the Messiah.
  23. Jesus told us to “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you,” but ignored his own advice by repeatedly denouncing his opposition. Matthew 23:17 (“Ye fools and blind”), Matthew 12:34 (“0 generation of vipers”), and Matthew 23:27 (“. . . hypocrites . . . ye are like unto whited sepulchres. . .”) are excellent examples of hypocrisy.
  24. Did the people of Jesus’ generation see any signs? (Matthew 12:38-40) Jesus announced that no signs would be given to that generation except the Resurrection itself. (Mark 8:12-13) Jesus announced that no signs would be given to that generation. (Mark 16:20) They went out preaching, and the Lord confirmed the word through accompanying signs. (John 20:30) Jesus provided many wonders and signs. (Acts 2:22) Jesus provided many wonders and signs. (Acts 5:12 & 8:13) many signs and wonders were done through the apostles.
  25. Jesus commands the disciples to go into Galilee immediately after the resurrection. Matthew 28:10 Jesus commands the disciples to “tarry in Jerusalem” immediately after the resurrection.
  26. Matthew 28:18 & John 3:35 both tell that Jesus said he could do anything. Yet Mark 6:5 says Jesus was not all powerful.
  27. Jesus says in Luke 2:13-14 that he came to bring peace on earth. Matthew 10:34 Jesus back peddles and says he did not come to bring peace on earth.
  28. Did Christ receive testimony from man? “Ye sent unto John and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man.” John 5:33-34 “And ye shall also bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.” John 15:27
  29. Christ laid down his life for his friends. John 15:13 & 10:11 Christ laid down his life for his enemies. Romans 5:10
  30. Deuteronomy 23:2 says that bastards can not attend church unto the tenth generation. If Jesus was spawned by Mary and Jehovah as the Bible claims then he is technically a bastard and should not be the leader of the church.
Filed Under: Religion
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »