These neo cons know about as much about real Christianity as a pig does about Sunday, but not quite that much.

Christianity before any hierarchy was about collectivist socialism or at least something very close to that.

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It's still a legitimate question to ask why there is something instead of nothing.
We still don't know the answer to that.
Us not knowing doesn't mean there is a 'god' anymore than it means there is not such a being. For the moment, it can only mean that We Don't Know.

Descriptions of the quantum properties of particles don't explain where the original particle[s] came from, nor the laws that seem to govern particle behaviors.
If we claim that elementary particles are simply 'a-causally always present,' how is such a claim is any different than claiming a 'god.'
Neither claim tells us much, or is much more than a tautology.

Some western cosmologists claim that elementary particles originated in a monopole cosmic soup after the local inflation of a 'big bang' whose spatial origin was a single point of infinite density and temperature - smaller than a proton.
OK. But whence the single point's origin and design?
Others claim full blown hydrogen atoms originated via 'twists' in the void - ala Fred Hoyle's initial model.
OK. But what's the origin of the force that caused the void to 'twist'--?

Some eastern cosmologists posit a metaverse comprised of a 'conditioned' and an 'unconditioned' aspect, where causality (god) is the unconditioned aspect that 'wants' to condition itself.
OK. This is a little more subtle (god is a lonely Nothingness that seeks Somethingness...), but it's still gibberish.

One could go on.
All human cosmologies, divine or mechanical, imply a deeper question than the depth of any answers they provide
Through no fault of our own, our bewilderment seems, for now anyway, to be infinite.

But I would say this: at least most scientists, unlike most doctrinal religionists, understand that their cosmological claims are models meant to evolve, and not become Absolute Truths to be rammed down a neighbor's throat; i.e., not so likely to result in us enslaving or killing each other over What We Don't Know.

Blessings brethren and sistren.

Any cursory examination of the Bible should reveal at once that Yahshua(the original name of Jesus Christ)in no way embodied the tenets of capitalism that conservatives cherish so passionately.

Yahshua led a very simple life. He was not interested in wealth or materialism on any level. He once had a conversation with a wealthy man who was perplexed that, despite having all of the wealth and material comforts he could want, he was not fulfilled. He asked Yahshua how he could become fulfilled. Yahshua advised the man to give away his wealth and join HIM, that his donated wealth would become a treasure for him in Heaven. Yahshua added that a wealthy man had about as much a chance of entering the Kingdom of Heaven as a camel had passing through the eye of a needle. The man ultimately decided he couldn't part with his wealth.

Yashua whipped money changers who were attempting to profit from the teachings of Yahweh(the original name of God). He also advised his disciples to give debt collectors the clothes off of their backs as a means of exposing their extreme greed.On top of this is the passage in the Bible that declares the love of money to be the root of all evil. What system loves money and promotes the love of money more than capitalism?

"I'm free from material cares and I know my life will never be the same again."

Rootz Underground

It causes me great pain to realize that when I die, people will still be debating the patently idiotic Bible. Has no one ever read that book when they were sober? Angels? Faith? Gods? You must be kidding! It's all rubbish, people, and doesn't bear another moment of serious discussion! Those who superstitiously accept Christian (or Islamic or Hindu or...) dogma are on a dangerous edge, even if their dogma leads them to a platform shred with communists.

Why is sweeping fiction from fiction news worthy.

The only people who believe in that book are lunatics , and they wont miss anything that is removed because they fill in the blanks between most versus with the self righteous judgmental crap.

If Jesus were here trying to tell Christians to act like peace loving, constitutional Americans, they would have him stalked, imprisoned, tortured, nailed to a cross,murdered and then scream the Patriot Act makes it all ok.

Does anyone really believe that God is going to send Jesus back to earth again, since his death we humans have not learned a thing. God knows we would kill Jesus a second time.
Right wing or left wing , its not ok.

Whose house would Jesus foreclose?

- Insurgent

I hope he never wore sandals with socks! Some East coaster claims anyone who wears sandals with socks is a "geek". (somehow, I think she's lying) Lucky she doesn't know about Chinese shoes, (the black ones with clay red soles), or purple hair. I want to amend the Bible to make sure I'm not a geek if I wear sandals with socks...

Jesus was obviously a left wing terrorist.

Look on the sunnyside.
Maybe this will help more people see the absurdity in claiming that the bible is the Word of their Creator.

Honesty demands we humans admit we didn't create ourselves.
Fine - no problem there. But it also demands that we admit we haven't the foggiest notion of Who or What did - or Why.
The sooner doctrinal religionists quit their claims to divine authority, the sooner humans can get out of their soiled metaphysical diapers; stop breaking each other's heads over such nonsense and get about the business of caring decently for each other.
It doesn't require a magical belief in Jesus or any other alleged Divinity, to do this.

True, there is some wisdom in both the old and new testaments, but there is also violence, intolerance, hypocrisy, and rank idiocy.
If a human writing today concocted a similar jumble of common sense insights and vile stupidities as the bible is, and called it a holy book, he/she would be considered confused at minimum, if not dangerously schizophrenic.

It is for this last reason especially, that we better well hope that no transcendent Creator DID inspire the writing of the bible.
Our situation, in that case, would truly be hopeless.

Okay, so the Bible is too liberal. I wonder how many times in the past the Bible has been deemed too liberal and therefore modified? Isn't this supposed to be the literal "Word of God?" The current day fundies take the currently edited by King James Bible as the absolute unabridged truth, so...in the Year 2025 (if we ever get there) will Conservapedia be the literal Word of God? Yeah, probably so, and Capital Punishment will have been expanded to socialists, disobediant children, unmarried women who engage in sexual activity (I am not doing the discrimination..they are), gays, and poor people. The love is killing me.

Hey - stop knocking the R-nuts already.

This is the most creative thing they've done since surgically removing Dennis Miller's sense of humor.

The R-nuts got nothing but the Bible, understand? They don't make movies, TV shows, they don't paint, create music, pen great fiction, do stand-up, or contribute culturally to society one bit.

As my pediatrician used to say to moms worried about her child's fear of the needle: "Let 'em yell. Who cares?" We all know this Conservapedia is just more bullshit to distract the R-nuts from the realization that their 'leaders' have screwed them over royally 6 different ways from zero.

There is a passage in the Bible that says that there will be no changing of any word in it and if they dont know that then they are full of shit but asthey claim that it was edited by men,which I believe,then they can change it to suit themselves and so render the bible as nothing more than a collection of stories in which case they believe in a ghost,statue (Jesus)or whatever they go to church for.Abortion is a private matter between the lady and her Creator and no one elses business.Life begins when the baby takes its first breath with that smack on the ass.Technically there is life before in the manner of any other living critter but it is only existance;a walking,talking,killing bag of bones:it makes perfect sense to many of these people not to give a shit about anything but themselve if you come you die and the only thing to show for it is what you have in your hand and you can take it all to heaven.Right.Without a Soul there is no life and if the grave is the end there is no point and no logic to our being here.WE are just "things" called human and what a waste at that!Tony

Most of the modern versions of the Bible are based on the edition approved by that notorious liberal King James I in 1611. The translations of the supposed words of Jesus also come mainly from that version -- I guess it's somewhat amazing that 'turn the other cheek' and 'love one another' survived to this day, along with the passage about rich men, heaven, and a 'unfiltered' camel fitting through the eye of a needle.

What will the Sermon on the Mount contain in the new juiced-up Conservapedia edition?

"Blessed are the warmakers for they shall bring liberty and democracy to the earth";

"For I say unto you, verily: Turn the other cheek except to those who resisteth the Republican Party and our Christian Nation for which it stands";

"Go ahead and judge anyone you consider inferior due to their religion, color, wealth or social status. Fret not; ye shall still be first in heaven!";

"Ye may lust in thine heart, and commit all manner of adultery and foulness, as long as ye are of sufficient public importance and belong to the C Street Fellowship."

Christopublicans might heed the words of Jesus in the old unedited KJV:

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
-- Matthew 7:3-5

"Beware of false prophets that come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits."
-- Matthew 7:15-16

and

"Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"
-- Matthew 22:33.

Especially the hell you create for yourself on this earth with your religious delusions, hypocritical piety and stupid pride.

When the fundy right takes on the well established history that Jesus was the classic liberal bleeding heart hippie, one issue that even FOX hasn't or won't touch, the truth has the fundicons on the run.

Conservatives have always wanted to keep the Bible translated to their own point of view regardless of the meanings of the words or the context. Andy Shafly complained that an unborn child is pronouned as an "it" in a translation. Unfortunately for Andy, all unborn children (including Jesus) are gender neutral in the text. This is the very reason William Tyndale was burned alive in Holland. His English translation was accurate and therefore unapproved.
Remember the stink raised when the RSV committee translated the Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14 as "young woman" instead of the creedally correct word "virgin?" The Southern Baptist publishers released the New American Standard Bible to deal with the "liberal," "Jewish," "atheist," and "communist" influences of the Revised Standard Version.
The Problem for the conservatives is those who seriously study the Biblical texts are going to find themselves outside of the conservative fold eventually.

Why not appeal to their church leaders to drop their prohibitions against contraception?

This is a church policy that I cannot understand. Those church leaders need to get their lazy butts out of their cushy surroundings and visit the poverty riddled, dirty, hungry, countries of the world. The poor of the world are dying horrible deaths because we all are sitting back allowing it to happen.
We are all guilty of the sin of what we do not do when help is needed. The greatest sin of the Roman Catholic church is their ignoring the cry of the poor in need of birth control facilities.

The next time "conservatives" wanna act this stupid, they should read a little history about their own demise.

THE DEATH OF CONSERVATISM

The Destruction By The Neo-Cons Of All That Was Held Dear By Conservatives Has A Growing Number Joining The Ranks Of Independents

by Samuel A Stanson

http://www.moderateindependent.com/v1i15conservatism.htm

Yeah, this was written in 2003 and yet I think it still stands relevant. If only the true conservatives who are actually moderates in reality could find some way to put these lunatics to rest. Even Archie Bunker wasn't this stupid !

The first thing conservatives rewrite is that Jesus didn't care about his people's suffering under the Roman military tyrants. All that stuff about the Roman court being a kangaroo court, Pontius Pilate saying "And what is truth?", and then torturing an innocent and good man to death on the cross being evil and wrong, that just goes right over their heads when it comes to wrongfully torturing Muslims, who happen to revere Jesus as a great prophet.

"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" is interpreted by conservatives as "pay your taxes and shut up". "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, render unto God what is God's" is more properly interpreted as "Your entire life is God's. Every one of these coins is an unholy (in quite a few ways) graven image. Boycott all such coins!"

The real issue of the Bible is the schizophrenia inherent in the choice of texts and the cosmology it represents. When discipline is desired, the Old Testament is quoted; when mercy is desired, the New Testament is cited. Removing "liberal bias" from the Bible means trimming the message of mercy -- particularly from the New Testament; and seeking to use the prospect of mercy as a tool for discipline. By their own arrangement, however, it inevitably means that these persons seek to put their own words in the mouth of god. In doing so they highlight what it means to believe in god, which is now and has always been nothing other than to invoke divine authority for one's own opinions.

It would appear that even the supposedly devout right wing Bible nuts have learned the lesson from history that the First Council of Nicea in 325 provides: those whom control the liturgy determine whom will rule for generations to come. One can also see this as the opening salvo by Christian conservatives against a movement within Evangelical Christianity that is gaining traction, "Creation Care," (their term of Environmentalism). After all, Christian conservatives right now can have religious cake and eat it too: grow rich & damn the consequences, and you get to go to heaven if you're one of them.

So much for the old fundy argument that the bible is the inerrant word of God, that the holy spirit made sure that everything in the bible was without error and perfect in every way. (that despite having to ignore the continuity errors and the contradictions in the thing.)

So the 'new conservatives' want to re-edit the thing, in much the same way as Constantine ordered the thing to be edited, to bolster their claims that the only way to paradise is by following the GOP line of conservative fundamentalism/fascism. What a big surprise...

One thing to note, is that the bible does indeed come out against birth control. It's in the story of Onan, when he 'spills his seed on the ground' rather than impregnate his sister-in-law. Of course, the fundies screwed their interpretation of that story and say that it's a ban on jerking off, rather than a ban on the withdrawal method of birth control. As such a story could also be used to argue against using condoms (the seed gets spilled on the ground, or trash can...) I'm surprised the bishops haven't re-interpreted that passage yet.

Behold, the fools and fuckheads come nigh
To smite us all hip and thigh.

In response to Conservapedia, check out "Not the Bible- The Ultimate and Eternal Parody." http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24299

This is simply hilarious!

johnshaplin: "Jesus was an apocalypsist".

Also a Socialist.

Abortion might not be the best issue to counter this decidedly anti-Jesus move by the Christian right. But the fear evident in this act by the right at least gives hope that better, more humane times might be in the offing if those of us who hope for a universally compassionate future will just hold the course. You would have to negate all of the sermon on the mount(Matthew 5, 6, 7) to believe that Jesus could agree with more than a very small portion of the right wing swill that fills our public discourse.

Jesus was an apocalypsist. He believed that the world was going to end within the lifetime of his rural, Armaic speaking, illiterate apostles; the forces of evil overthrown and the righteous enthroned, in this world rather than the next. This is one of the relative certain things we know about his life and mission , so, when the Gospels began to be written 50 or 60 years after his death and in the orthodoxy that was established nearly 300 hundred years later, his various moral prescriptions were worked out for a different purpose and in a different context.

Which is not to say the Gospels have no value. Just that thy are human productions which "can inspire us- and warn us- by its examples. It can urge us to pursue truth, to fight oppression, to work for justice, to insist on peace. It can motivate us to live life more fully while we yet can. It can encourage us to live more for others and not only for ourselves. There will never be a time in the history of the human race when such lessons will have become passe, when the thoughts of important religious thinkers of the past will be irrelevant for those of us living, and thinking, in the present."

("Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them)" by Bart D. Ehrman)

One example of such an encouragement is the case of Otto Von Bismarck, one of the most conservative politicians in Europe in the entire 19th century, a Lutheran, who establish universal health care in Germany in 1883 not only to steal the thunder of the socialists but to "apply Christianity",.

T.R. Reid; "The Healing of America; A global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care"

Of course today in America socialists have no political thunder:

" Private health insurance companies would not exist except for their political capacity to forestall the creation of universal public systems, backed by their almost unlimited capacity to sow confusion among the general public over the basic economic facts. Liberals who support anything less than a common, public insurance pool have no argument. They are simply tugging their forelocks and bending their knee before the bastion of private power...not even offering another another glass of the proverbial small beer."

James K. Galbraith "The Predator State"

Focusing on Conservapedia is a kind of liberal small beer, as are so many of the articles published on CommonDreams.
But it is vastly superior to PBS NEWSHOUR which has become a public relations shrill for corporate America.

Can any person be so stupid or ideologically correct that they cannot see that there are two sides to this issue? Yep, A. Zerbisias is one.