Christian Reality Check

Do we really know what we believe in?

Religion

Most people's belief structures are formed at a very young age by the Environmental and socio-cultural norms which surround us. Because of the religious structure held as acceptable by both our parents and peers we grow up accepting, albeit apathetically, and relating to the universe by the degrees set down by others.

Why then are there so many beliefs and ideas?

One is anger. The anger stems usually from fear. People who have been taught to fear the 'wrath of God' may become angered at being told that. They may begin to question a God who can cut down the life of a little child for no apparent reason; They may question the rightness of a God who will allow the killing of millions in the name of religion and who will not stop it; One who will wipe out a whole nation through starvation, or who will allow the cruel and arrogant to prosper above and beyond the loving followers of  the established religion.

On one hand that are being told that God is love and on the other hand they are being told that the same God will cast them into the depths of hell for any transgressions. Then again we can always blame it on the devil, but more about him later.

Another is curiosity. Curiosity that demands answers to questions that just always seems to be there. And when answers are given they don't always make sense. To ask 'why?' and to be told 'because it is so!' is not what I call satisfying. Worse is when a question gets avoided and a statement ignored or twisted.

There is also feeling. A gnawing within the very depths of the self that says 'this is not truth and I must find it in my life.

Seekers of truth can be found everywhere. Why is the Christian religion divided into so many groups, looking for truth? The only groups to be wary of are those attitudes, which are hypocritical in practice, or bigoted in their view of others. What really bewilder me are how different people with different interpretations and point of views and standards and childhood's and culture.... Etc., can take one God, one book and tell me that they come in the name of God and that this is what he means when he says this...

Have you notice that after reading out of the Bible the person will almost always start of by saying 'what God means....', or 'what God is trying to say here...'. Does no one except whoever is reading the Bible know what God is trying to say to us in that specific passage? Another thing I find fascinating is the need for people to consider God to be in man's image. Why not woman's or a bird's or anything else for that matter. Why is it necessary to give form to something that is supposedly eternal and is supposed to be vast enough to create an entire universe? To say that God is a man is to endow Godhead with the qualities of man and to assume that man is supreme. This is preposterous, and also too limited. If man was made in God's image, in what image is woman? Eve disobeyed God by the want for knowledge. And 'unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'.

Eve was castigated for desire; not the urge to take a quick snack from the apple tree, but surely for her desire to gain 'knowledge'.

Why did the once happy pair not cover their eyes or their mouths? Their genitals were the focus of embarrassment. Why has religion taken such a hard-line approached to sex and sin? Maybe the feared female aspect of God? One of humankind's most fundamental urges is called sinful. Bigotry!

Beside Mary the virgin has been paced, quite clearly by design, that other Mary, Mary Magdalene, the so-called penitent whore. With her as a role model, less fortunate Christian womanhood was condemned to a life second-class citizenship, the endless and unenviable inheritance of the 'curse of eve'. The effects, on medieval wives and the 20th century convent-educated schoolgirls alike, was severe and at times catastrophic. (E.g. Fire executions)

Apart from the nature of things that interest you generally, it is important that you accumulate as much knowledge of a diverse nature as you can, as there is power in knowledge for it's own sake.

With all information that you receive it is important that you take time to put the qualities of your own mind into action to enable you to ascertain the difference between what is purely hearsay on the part of the authors and people concerned. All things are to be analyzed and should lead to a balanced viewpoint based on your own judgement with the guidance of your soul (Judgement,Holy ghost). No knowledge is ever wasted and it is necessary to know enough to trust your own findings. Less than 10% of Christians know what you are about to learn.

Ignorance is never a bliss, and all material viewed can only extend your capacities of mind.

I do not condemn anyone or any religion or belief but to get bombarded by point of views and attitudes of other people all the time eventually forces you to share yours, especially when they start condemning you. When you start experiencing another person's mind you automatically gain more knowledge of your own and then also of how other people think, which can guide you to your way of thinking. It is for this reason that I am sharing my mind and insights, experiences, spiritually.

Let's talk about Christianity seeing that it is the biggest spread religion and also one of the few that claims to have a book written by God, and that it is the only truth. This book, the Bible, condemns everyone who do not believe in Jesus Christ to eternal damnation.

The truth? do we have proof, positive or is it all down to blind faith?

The  question is very trenchant one in the case of the life and times of Jesus because he is one of the most problematic figures in all history. There is no contemporary record of him. His origins are wreathed in mystery and legend. His vocation is at best open to conjecture. The circumstance of his death is incomprehensible. Nothing in his life can reasonably account for the subsequent rise of the Christian movement.

All of this suggests, at once that there is something amiss, that aspects of the story have been lost, concealed, or changed. A great limitation to disentangling reality from the legends which surround the origins of Christianity is that nowhere among the volumes making up the new testament does anything emerge which can be properly described as an historical account. Although theologians now take academic note of material once considered heretical, the Bible narratives are all that the Christian church will accept officially as observation of Jesus' life and times. Yet the canonical gospels, those ancient manuscripts written in Greek on scrolls of papyrus and incorporated for whatever reason into the Bible, may have been compiled from little more than lists of quotations noted down by followers and later padded out into the familiar stories, marking the brief public life of the man. The synoptic works - the narratives to Matthew, Mark and Luke - are so-called because they disclose undeniable similarities when read in there original tongue.

Certain words and common phraseology suggest that all were derived from an earlier but lost written source. Today we have other 'heretical' material which at least corroborates parts of the official biographies, but in reality it is almost impossible to verify if any of the sayings and parables attributed to Jesus are accurate, or to confirm or deny his activities, and in many respects his life remains enigmatic.

One aspect which is massively lacking is any attempt to explain cause and effect. The biblical material merely takes Jesus into a series of very limited contexts and implies, probably truthfully, that the man was really quite harmless and well-meaning towards everybody but came in for very unjust treatment from his own people.

The gospels must have been edited very circumspectly. They could not, for example, have pointed the finger of blame at the Romans - that would really have put the imperial cat amongst the kosher pigeons. There are also heavy questions over authorship and dating of the new testament writings. The earliest work is that ascribed to Mark, followed 10 years later by Matthew and Luke. Yet Mark is thought to have been written, at the earliest, between ad. 60 and ad. 70, in other words 30 to 40 years after the crucifixion.

The Christian experience began as a Jewish experience. This much is certain. Whatever we do not know about it, we can at least be sure that it arose in response to a very particular and peculiar national problem. Jesus was a Jew. He was brought up in Jewish traditions, suffered the penalties of being a citizen of a country under the yoke of a foreign domination, and by all accounts were quite orthodox in many of his views and habits. An immediate uncertainty is the nature of Jesus' relationship to other Jews. And yet it is an important question, since something about the man and his destiny provoked an irrevocable and anguished rift between Jews and Christians.

More than a billion people on this earth call themselves Christians. The only thing that keeps them together is a book called 'the Bible'. Against their better judgement the churches proclaim that the Bible is 'God's word'.

Hans Conzelmann, professor of new testament studies, Gottingen, admitted that the Christian community really continues to exist because the conclusions of critical examinations of the Bible are largely unknown to them. The 'original texts,' of the Bible that are so frequently consulted and so often referred to in theological hair-splitting, do not exist at all.

What do exist are transcripts that without exception originated between the 4th and 10th centuries' ad. And these transcripts, some 1500 of them, are transcripts of transcripts, and not a single transcript agree with another. More than 80 000 variations have been counted. There is not a single page of the 'original texts' without contradictions. From copy to copy the verses were understood differently by different authors, and their functions were transformed to suit the needs of the times in which they were translated.

The codex sinaiticus -written in the 4th century ad., like the codex vaticanus- was found in the sinai convent in 1844. It contains 16000 corrections, which can be traced back to seven correctors. Many passages were altered 3 times and then replaced by a 4th 'original text'. Most Christians associate the concept 'original text' with the very first version, an undisputed and indisputable document.

What would the Christian layman say if he were told openly from the pulpit that an original text in this sense does not exist?

For the first 200 years the Christians had no 'scripture' apart from the Old Testament. The written versions of the New Testament came into being very slowly, that for a long time no one dreamed of considering these New Testament writings as Holy Scriptures. Jesus was a Jew. His date of birth is unknown. His name is not to be found in any register of births, yet the Christian west bases it's calendar on the ostensible (and accepted) year of Jesus' birth. The first time that his name appears is in one of St. Paul's epistles, in about the year 50 of the new era. In gospels according to St. Matthew and St. Luke, it says Jesus was "born at Bethlehem". St. Mark, on the other hand, names Nazareth as the place of birth.

Right from the birth of the Redeemer, confusion and contradiction make the Bible adventurous reading.

According to the official biography, the new Testament, the trail of the infant Jesus is lost after birth until he suddenly crops up again in the temple as a twelve-year-old runaway-in heated theological conversation with scholars. He disappears again until the age of 31. Unfortunately we never know what is true and what is not, what actually happened and what forgers invented (original texts).

Most people today speak of 'Christianity' as if it were a single specific thing. Needless to say 'Christianity' is nothing of that sort. There are numerous forms of 'Christianity'; Roman Catholicism, the Church of England, various denominations of Protestantism (Lutheranism and Calvinism) If there is a single factor that does permit one to speak of 'Christianity', A single factor that does link the otherwise diverse and divergent 'Christian' creeds, is the Bible, and more particularly the unique status ascribed by the New Testament to Jesus, his crucifixion and resurrection.

If there is any unity, then, in the diffuse phenomenon called Christianity, it resides in the New Testament - and, more specifically in the accounts of Jesus known as the four gospels. These accounts are regarded as the most authoritative on record.

1) The Bible:

From childhood one is led to believe that the 'story' of Jesus, as it is preserved in the four gospels, is, if not God inspired, at least definitive of the people, who today call themselves Christians. Relatively few are aware of the fact that the four gospels not only contradict each other, but, at times, violently disagree.

Only two of the gospels - Matthew and Luke say anything at all about Jesus' origins and birth.

1) According to Matthew, Jesus was an aristocrat, if not a rightful and legitimate king - descended from David via Solomon.

According to Luke, Jesus' family though descended from the house of David, was of somewhat less exalted stock; and it is on the basis of Luke's account that the legend of the 'poor carpenter' came into being.

2) According to Luke, shepherds visited Jesus, on his birth.

According to Matthew, kings visited him.

3) According to Luke Jesus' family lived in Nazareth. From here they are said to have journeyed to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born in poverty of a manger for census which history suggests never in fact occurred.

According to Matthew, Jesus' family had been fairly well to do residents of Bethlehem all long, and Jesus himself was born in a house.

In Matthew's version Herod's persecution of the innocents prompts the family to flee into Egypt, and only on their return do they make their home in Nazareth

4)According to John (19:14) the crucifixion occurred on the day before the Passover.

according to Mark (14:12-17), Luke (22:7-14) and Matthew (26:17-20), it occurred on the day after.

5) Nor are the gospels in accord on the personality and character of Jesus. Each depicts a figure that is patently at odds with the figure depicted in the others.

Luke, a meek lamb-like savior.

Matthew, powerful and majestic sovereign, who comes 'not to bring peace but a sword'.

6) Jesus' last words Matt.27:46,50: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost."

Luke23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:" and having said thus, he gave up the ghost."

John19:30: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished:" and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

7) According to Mark and Luke, Jesus stayed in Peter's house, and afterwards healed the leper. (Mark 1:29-45; Luke 4:38; Luke 5:12)

According to Matthew (8:1-4 and 14) Jesus healed the leper first.

8) According to Matthew (8:5), the papernaum centurion spoke man-to-man with Jesus.

According to Luke (7:1) he sent 'some Jewish elders' and friends to speak on his behalf.

9) According to acts (1:18), Judas Iscariot died from an accidental fall after betraying Jesus. According to Matthew (27:5), he 'went and hanged himself'

10) The high priest asked Jesus if he was the Son of God and he replied:

Matthew (26:64), "thau hast said."

Mark (14:62), "I am"

Luke (22:70), "ye say that I am."

11) Compare the gospels accounts about the woman's visit to the tomb of Jesus.

Mark (16:1-8), with John (20:1-2) and Luke (24:1-6) and Matthew (28:1-9).

12) In Mark (10:9), Jesus forbids divorce unconditionally with the words: "what God has joined together, man must not separate", but adds a saving clause to it.

In Matthew (19:9), "if a man divorces his wife for any cause other than unchastity, and marries another, he commits adultery.

13) "How old was Jehoiachin when he began his rule?"

2 Chronicles 36:9 -according to this verse he was "8" and ruled for 3months and 10days then "lost favour with God" and was replaced, by a man who ruled for 11 years.

2 Kings 24:8 this is the same story only it says he was "18!"

Some will say he started at 8 and "reruled" at 18, but remember he was replaced by a man who ruled for 11years (in 2 Chronicles 36:9) so he would have been at least 19!

14)How long was Jesus in the (Totally against Jewish burial custom) tomb?

-Matt 28:1 - 3 Days 2 Nights

-Mark 16:2 - 3 Days 2 Nights

-Luke 24:1 - 3 Days 2 Nights

-John 20:1 - 2 Days 2 Nights!

Jesus said 3 Days & 3 Nights (Matt 12:40) He did not fulfil the prophesy!

15) God good to all, or just a few?

PSA 145:9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.

JER 13:14 And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.

16)War or Peace?

EXO 15:3 The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.

ROM 15:33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

17)Who is the father of Joseph?

MAT 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

LUK 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.

18)Who was at the Empty Tomb?

MAT 28:1 In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

MAR 16:1 And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

JOH 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

19)Is Jesus equal to or lesser than?

JOH 10:30 I and my Father are one.

JOH 14:28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

20)Which first--beasts or man?

GEN 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

GEN 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

GEN 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

GEN 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

21)The number of beasts in the ark

GEN 7:2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

GEN 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, GEN 7:9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

22)How many stalls and horsemen?

KI1 4:26 And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.

CH2 9:25 And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.

23) Is it folly to be wise or not?

PRO 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

ECC 1:18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that in- creaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

1 Cor.1:19: "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."

24)The sins of the father

ISA 14:21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

DEU 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin

26)Rabbits do not chew their cud

LEV 11:6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

'Gerah', the term which appears in the MT means (chewed) cud, and also perhaps grain, or berry (also a 20th of a sheckel, but I think that we can agree that that is irrelevant here). It does *not* mean dung, and there is a perfectly adequate Hebrew word for that, which could have been used. Furthermore, the phrase translated 'chew the cud' in the KJV is more exactly 'bring up the cud'. Rabbits do not bring up anything; they let it go all the way through, then eat it again. The description given in Leviticus is inaccurate, and that's that. Rabbits do eat their own dung; they do not bring anything up and chew on it.

26)Insects do NOT have four feet

LEV 11:21 Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;

LEV 11:22 Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.

LEV 11:23 But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

27)Snails do not melt

PSA 58:8 As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

28) Fowl from waters or ground?

GEN 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

GEN 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

GEN 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

29)The shape of the earth

ISA 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

MAT 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

Astromical bodies are spherical, and you cannot see the entire exterior surface from anyplace. The kingdoms of Egypt, China, Greece, Crete, sections of Asia Minor, India, Maya (in Mexico), Carthage (North Africa), Rome (Italy), Korea, and other settlements from these kingdoms of the world were widely distributed.

30)Earth supported?

JOB 26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

JOB 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

31)Heaven supported too

JOB 26:11 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.

32)Order of creation

Here is the order in the first (Genesis 1), the Priestly tradition:

Day 1: Sky, Earth, light

Day 2: Water, both in ocean basins and above the sky(!)

Day 3: Plants

Day 4: Sun, Moon, stars (as calendrical and navigational aids)

Day 5: Sea monsters (whales), fish, birds, land animals, creepy-crawlies (reptiles, insects, etc.)

Day 6: Humans (apparently both sexes at the same time)

Day 7: Nothing (the Gods took the first day off anyone ever did)

Note that there are "days", "evenings", and "mornings" before the Sun was created. Here, the Deity is referred to as "Elohim", which is a plural, thus the literal translation, "the Gods". In this tale, the Gods seem satisfied with what they have done, saying after each step that "it was good".

The second one (Genesis 2), the Yahwist tradition, goes:

Earth and heavens (misty)

Adam, the first man (on a desolate Earth)

Plants

Animals

Eve, the first woman (from Adam's rib)

33)How orderly were things created?

#1: Step-by-step. The only discrepancy is that there is no Sun or Moon or stars on the first three "days".

#2: God fixes things up as he goes. The first man is lonely, and is not satisfied with animals. God finally creates a woman for him. (funny thing that an omniscient god would forget things)

34)How satisfied with creation was he?

#1: God says "it was good" after each of his labours, and rests on the seventh day, evidently very satisfied.

#2: God has to fix up his creation as he goes, and he would certainly not be very satisfied with the disobedience of that primordial couple. (funny thing that an omniscient god would forget things)

35)Moses' personality

Num.12:3: "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the fact of the earth."

Num.31:14, 17, 18: "And Moses was wroth...And Moses said unto them, "Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman, ... But all the women children ... keep alive for yourselves."

36)Righteous live?

Ps.92:12: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree."

Isa.57:1: "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart."

37) Jesus' first sermon plain or mount?

Matt.5:1,2: "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying...."

Luke6:17,20: "And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people...came to hear him.. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said..."

38) Years of famine

II SAMUEL 24:13: So God came to David, and told him, and said unto him, shall SEVEN YEARS OF FAMINE come unto thee in thy land? or will thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue. thee?

I CHRONICLES 21:11: SO God came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Choose thee. Either THREE YEARS OF FAMINE or three months to be destryed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee;

39)Moved David to anger?

II SAMUEL 24: And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

I CHRONICLES 21: And SATAN stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

40)The GENEALOGY OF JESUS?

In two places in the New Testament the genealogy of Jesus son of Mary (PBUH) is mentioned. Matthew 1:6-16 and Luke 3:23-31. Each gives the ancestors of Joseph the CLAIMED husband of Mary and Step father of Jesus(PBUH). The first one starts from Abraham(verse 2) all the way down to Jesus. The second one from Jesus all the way back to Adam. The only common name to these two lists between David and Jesus is JOSEPH, How can this be true? and also How can Jesus have a genealogy when all Muslims and most Christians believe that Jesus had/has no father.

41)Can God be seen?

Exod. 24:9,10; Amos 9:1; Gen. 26:2; and John 14:9

God CAN be seen:

"And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my backparts." (Ex. 33:23)

"And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." (Ex. 33:11)

"For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." (Gen. 32:30)

God CANNOT be seen:

"No man hath seen God at any time." (John 1:18)

"And he said, Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live." (Ex. 33:20)

"Whom no man hath seen nor can see." (1 Tim. 6:16)

42)CRUEL, UNMERCIFUL, DESTRUCTIVE, and FEROCIOUS or KIND, MERCIFUL, and GOOD:

"I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy." (Jer. 13:14) "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling."

"The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." (James 5:11)

"For his mercy endureth forever." (1 Chron. 16:34)

"The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." (Ps. 145:9)

"God is love." (1 John 4:16)

43)Tempts?

"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham." (Gen 22:1)

"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." (James 1:13)

44) Ascend to heaven

"And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." (2 Kings 2:11)

"No man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, ... the Son of Man." (John 3:13)

45)What was Jesus' prediction regarding Peter's denial?

Before the cock crow - Matthew 26:34

Before the cock crow twice - Mark 14:30

46)How many times did the cock crow?

MAR 14:72 And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept.

MAT 26:74 Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew.

MAT 26:75 And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

LUK 22:60 And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew.

LUK 22:61 And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

JOH 13:38 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, still thou hast denied me thrice.

JOH 18:27 Peter then denied again: and immediately the cock crew.

47)Who killed Saul

SA1 31:4 Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.

SA1 31:5 And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.

SA1 31:6 So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.

SA2 1:15 And David called one of the young men, and said, Go near, and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died.

48) Does every man sin?

KI1 8:46 If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near;

CH2 6:36 If they sin against thee, (for there is no man which sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far off or near;

PRO 20:9 Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?

ECC 7:20 For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

JO1 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

JO1 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to for- give us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

JO1 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

JO1 3:9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

49) Who prophesied the potter's field?

Matthew 27:9-10 (mentions Jeremy but no such verse in Jeremiah) is in Zechariah 11:12-13

50)Who bears guilt?

GAL 6:2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

GAL 6:5 For every man shall bear his own burden.

51) How many children did Michal, the daughter of Saul, have?

SA2 6:23 Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death.

SA2 21:8 But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite:

52) Marriage?

Proverbs 18:22

1 Corinthians 7 (whole book. See 1,2,27,39,40)

53)Did those with Saul/Paul at his conversion hear a voice?

ACT 9:7 And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.

ACT 22:9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.

54)Where was Jesus three days after his baptism?

MAR 1:12 And immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness.

JOH 1:35 Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples;

(various trapsing)

55)How many apostles were in office between the resurection and ascention?

1 Corinthians 15:5 (12)

Matthew 27:3-5 (minus one from 12)

Acts 1:9-26 (Mathias not elected until after resurrection)

MAT 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.

56)Solomon's overseers

550 in I Kings 9:23

250 in II Chron 8:10

57)The mother of Abijah:

Maachah the daughter of Absalom 2 Chron 9:20

Michaiah the daughter of Uriel 2 Chron 13:2

58)When did Baasha die?

26th year of the reign of Asa I Kings 16:6-8

36th year of the reign of Asa I 2 Chron 16:1

59)Should we own slaves?

Leviticus 25:45-46 "Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, . . . and they shall be your possession . . . they shall be your bondmen forever."

Genesis 9:25 "And he [Noah] said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."

Exodus 21:2,7 "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. . . . And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the manservants do."

Joel 3:8 "And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the Lord hath spoken it."

Luke 12:47,48 [Jesus speaking] "And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes."

Colossians 3:22 "Servants, obey in all things your masters."

vs.

Isaiah 58:6 "Undo the heavy burdens . . . let the oppressed go free, . . . break every yoke."

Matthew 23:10 "Neither be ye called Masters: for one is your Master, even Christ."

Pro-slavery bible verses were cited by many churches in the South during the Civil War, and were used by some theologians in the Dutch Reformed Church to justify apartheid in South Africa. There are more

God said, Let us make man in our image."

Genesis 3:22 "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil."

I John 5:7 "And there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

It does no good to claim that "Let us" is the magisterial "we." Such usage implies inclusivity of all authorities under a king's leadership. Invoking the Trinity solves nothing because such an idea is more contradictory than the problem it attempts to solve.

60)Are we all sinners?

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

Romans 3:10 "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one."

Psalm 14:3 "There is none that doeth good, no, not one."

vs.

Job 1:1 "There was a man . . . who name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright."

Genesis 7:1 "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."

Luke 1:6 "And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."

61) How old was Ahaziah?

II Kings 8:26 "Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign."

vs.

II Chronicles 22:2 "Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign."

62)When was Jesus crucified?

Mark 15:25 "And it was the third hour, and they crucified him."

vs.

John 19:14-15 "And about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out . . . crucify him."

It is an ad hoc defense to claim that there are two methods of reckoning time here. It has never been shown that this is the case.

63)Shall we obey the law?

I Peter 2:13 "Submit yourself to every ordinance of man . . . to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors."

Matthew 22:21 "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." See also Romans 13:1,7 and Titus 3:1.

vs.

Acts 5:29 "We ought to obey God rather then men."

64)How many animals on the ark?

Genesis 6:19 "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark."

Genesis 7:8-9 "Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah."

Genesis 7:15 "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life."

vs.

Genesis 7:2 "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."

65)Were women and men created equal?

Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

vs.

Genesis 2:18,23 "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. . . . And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

66)Were trees created before humans?

Genesis 1:12-31 "And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: . . . And the evening and the morning were the third day. . . . And God said, Let us make man in our image . . . And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."

vs.

Genesis 2:5-9 "And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. .Ê.ÊAnd the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground . . . And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food."

67)Did Michal have children?

II Samuel 6:23 "Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death."

vs.

II Samuel 21:8 "But the king took the two sons of Rizpah . . . and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul."

68)Did Paul's men hear a voice?

Acts 9:7 "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man."

vs.

Acts 22:9 "And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me."

69)Is God omnipotent?

Jeremiah 32:27 "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?

Matthew 19:26 "But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."

vs.

Judges 1:19 "And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron."

70)Does God accept human sacrifice?

Deuteronomy 12:31 "Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods."

vs.

Genesis 22:2 "And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."

Exodus 22:29 "For thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors; the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me."

Judges 11:30-39 "And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hand, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon . . . and the Lord delivered them into his hands. . . . And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: . . . And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed."

II Samuel 21:8-14 "But the king [David] took the two sons of Rizpah . . . and the five sons of Michal . . . and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest . . . And after that God was intreated for the land."

Hebrews 10:10-12 " . . . we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ . . . But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God."

I Corinthians 5:7 " . . . For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us."

71) The Christian God is omnipresent, but has to move around to see things.

Pro 15:3 The eyes of the LORD [are] in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

Psa 139:7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

Psa 139:8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou [art] there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou [art there].

Psa 139:9 [If] I take the wings of the morning, [and] dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

Psa 139:10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

Job 34:21 For his eyes [are] upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings.

Job 34:22 [There is] no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.

Gen 11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

Gen 18:20 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;

Gen 18:21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

72)The Christian God creates circumcision as an eternal covenant, then decides it was a bad idea.

Gen 17:10 This [is] my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.

Gal 5:2 Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

Following in the critical tradition, in the years 1834-6 Tubingen University tutor David Friedrich Strauss launched his two-volume 'the life of Jesus critically examined', making particularly penetrating use of the parallel  passage technique. Because of the discrepancies he found, he cogently argued that none of the gospels could have been eyewitnesses, but instead must have been the work of writers of a much later generation, freely constructing their material from probably garbled traditions about Jesus in circulation in the early church.

Given these discrepancies, the gospels can only be accepted as a highly questionable authority, and certainly not as definitive. They do not represent the perfect word of any God; or, if they do, God's words have been very liberally censored, edited, revised, glossed and rewritten by human hands.

The Bible, it must be remembered is only a selection of works, and, in many respects, a somewhat arbitrary one. In fact, it could well include far more books and writings than it actually do. Nor is there any mention of the missing books having been 'lost'. On the contrary they were deliberately excluded.

In ad. 367 bishop Athanasius of Alexandria compiled a list of works to be included in the New Testament. This list was ratified by the church council of Hippo in 393 and again by the council of Carthage four years later. At these councils a selection was agreed upon. Certain works were assembled to form the new testament as we know it today, and others were cavalierly ignored.

How can such a process of selection possibly be regarded as definitive? How could a conclave of clerics infallibly decide that certain books belong in the Bible while others did not? Especially when some of the excluded books have a perfectly valid claim to historical veracity?

The Bible has also been subjected to some fairly drastic editing, censorship and revision. In 1958, for example, professor Morton smith of Columbia university discovered, in a monastery near Jerusalem, a letter which contained a missing fragment of the gospel Mark. The missing fragment had not been lost. On the contrary, it had apparently been deliberately suppressed - at the instigation, if not the express behest, of bishop Clement of Alexandria, one of the most venerated of the early church fathers. Clement, it seems, has received a letter from one Theodore, who complained of a Gnostic sect, the Carpocratians. The Carpocratians appear to have been interpreting certain passages of the gospel of Mark in accordance with their own principals - principals that did not concur with the position of Clement and Theodore. In consequence, Theodore apparently attacked them and reported his action to Clement. In the letter found by professor smith, Clement replies to his disciple as follows:

(P280 'The Holy blood and the Holy Grail.) It is an extraordinary statement for a church father. In effect Clement is saying nothing less than, "if your opponent happens to tell the truth, you must deny it and lie in order to refute him." but that's not all. In the following passage, Clement's letter goes on to discuss Mark's gospel and it's 'misuses', in his eyes, by the Carpocrations:

... (P280-281 'The Holy blood and the Holy Grail.) Clement freely acknowledges that there is an authentic secret gospel of Mark. He then instructs Theodore to deny it:

(P281 'The Holy blood and the Holy Grail') what was this 'secret gospel' that Clement ordered his disciple to repudiate and that the Carpocratians were 'misinterpreting'? Clement answers the question by including a word-for-word transcription of the text in his letter:

(P281-282 'The Holy blood and the Holy Grail.) This episode appears in no existing version of the gospel of Mark. In it's general outlines, however it is familiar enough. It is, of course, the raising of Lazarus, described in the four gospels, ascribed to John. In the version quoted, however, there are some significant variations.

1) There is a 'great cry' from the tomb before Jesus rolls the rock aside or instructs the occupant to come forth. This strongly suggests that the occupant was not dead and thereby a single stroke, contravenes any element of the miraculous.

2) Certainly the passages quoted attests to some special relation between the man in the tomb and the man who 'resurrects' him. If Mark's gospel was so readily doctored, it is reasonable to assume that the other gospels were similarly treated. We can therefore not accept the gospels as definitive and unimpugnable authority.

What about the 'gospel of Thomas', part of a manuscript, discovered in 1945 near the modern town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt?

Even the opening words are intriguing: ' these are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke, and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.' A collection of some 114 sayings attributed to Jesus.

The content was extremely simple, imparting no special title to Jesus, containing no account of his crucifixion and resurrection, but embodying a fascinating collection of sayings attributed to him.

E.g. " ... Rather, the kingdom is inside of you and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known." etc.

To this day, scholars puzzle over the exact significance of the gospel of  Thomas.

Jesus' famous saying: '.... Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the meaning of the law and the prophets' (Matthew 7:12) may be found mirrored almost exactly in a saying of the great Jewish rabbi Hillel, from less than a century before Jesus. Another shock was the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. (p76 'miracles of the Gods')

Although generally thought to have been written by the Essenes, a Jewish sect contemporary with Jesus, they prove disappointingly to throw little new light on Jesus and early Christianity, at least in any direct way. The scrolls contain no recognizable mention of Jesus, just as the Christian gospels, surprisingly, fail to refer to the Essenes. But the intriguing feature of the scrolls are that their authors, undeniably full-blooded Jews, were using in Jesus' times precisely the type of language and imagery previously thought 'Hellenistic' in John.

But lets look a little closer at the bible. In the bible the word slaughter appears at least 56 times, slay appears 118 times, slew shows up 171 times, & smote is written more than 226 times. This does not even count; destroy, smoteth, slayeth, die, etc. you get the idea. The bible is violent reading material. If someone made an accurate movie it would be one of the most graphic, violent, disturbing film of all time, and would surely be banned. Many times "The God of Love" order followers to murder children, & other horrible crimes- without pity.

"HAPPY is he who takeith thy little ones and dasheth them against the stones!" (Psalms137:9) This is not some biblical bad guy talking either, these are Godly men.

"I will corrupt your seed, and spread DUNG upon your faces" -God(Mala 2:3)

"Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun(Num25:8) [Christian's Satan sounds like God's identical twin!]

God kills infants & pregnant mothers!

"...They shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child (pregnant) shall be ripped up!" (Hosea 13:16)

"No Human who has been solemnly vowed is to be redeemed. He is to be sacrificed without fail!" (Lev. 27:29) [fully translated]

...And his faithful servants comply "They kill their daughters as burnt offerings to their god" (Judges 11:30-39)

<--sad story!>

God orders child murder & rape!

"Their children shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes! There houses spoiled, and their wives raped...Dash the young men to pieces...have no pity on the fruit of the womb, the children shall not be spared!" (Isa 12:16-18)

God's angelic hit-man slaughters first born

"... at midnight the Lord smote all the first born in the land of Egypt, from the first born of the pharaoh... unto the first born of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the first born cattle" (Exodus 12:29) -prisoners kids too?! [the bible says God is the one who hardened pharaoh's heart?!] talk about "touched by an angel"

God kills 70,000 of his own worshipers!

King David took a census of Israel. So God kills 70,000 for innocently following their king. (1Chron 21:2,7,14) Why was "the lord" upset at the census he caused David to take? (2 Sam 24)

-"Does the lord do evil?"

"Shall a trumpet be blown and the people not be afraid, Shall there be EVIL in a city and the Lord hath not done it!"(Amos 3:6) You can further back this up by Isaiah 45:7 where the lord says that he creates evil!!

One, in a long list of Godly Genocide's

"And thou shalt consume all the people, which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee, thine eye shall have no pity upon them... But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed." (Deut. 7:16-23) God orders Millions to stone, one man!

The Loving/Forgiving God of the Christians; kills a single man, using millions to stone him to death. (Numbers 15:35-36)

"people lamented because the Lord had smitten many people in a great slaughter". (1Samuel 6:19)

"...Smite through the loins of them that rise against him...that they rise not again!" (Deut.33:11)

God orders bears to maul 42 kids!

"Q-ball" Elisha was snickered at by some kids for being bald, so the "loving" god orders bears to tear them limb from limb, as Elisha grins! (2kings2:23-24) This was used to scare children into doing whatever the preacher man said, lest god be mad at them.

What about our great bible heros?

Try to imagine the scene. After battle Moses and his army surround the remaining widows & children who huddle in fear. Then he calmly tells his soldiers kill every male child; panic erupts, as scampering toddlers are butchered! He then decides to kill the wailing mothers too... His demented gaze falls on the traumatized little girls, his brutal soldiers howl when he tells them "save the little girls -for yourselves!"(Num 31:15-18)

What did "The apple of Gods eye" King David do?

Imagine being strapped down and slowly being dismembered with saws! That pain would be soon overshadowed when you see your family forced into a burning brick kiln -and they die screaming your name! (2Sam 12:31) Put yourself into the place of the victims, really imagine it:

You are a mother, hold the hand of your daughter. You shield her face from her dismembered father and brothers, you want only to spare her from the pain. She stares up at you, and you wipe a tear from her check hugging her tightly, partly to hide your own fear and tears, you whisper to her "Don't worry it will be over soon, I will be with you." The guard opens a huge stone door, a blast of super heated air whips around you. She screams, as you are both shoved into the oven! "Praise the Lord, the consuming fire"

And what does the bible tell us about women?

Women know your place!

Christianity's position on women is quite clear. Woman is a lesser being, created for man to be his servant. She is chattel, and seen as a "necessary evil". She is blamed for the fall of humanity. Basically Christendom hates women; this is all proven in these pages.

Herein we shall show, biblically:

--The subservient role of women, spelled out over and over.

--That "The Fall of Man" is woman's fault, and All women inherit that guilt.

--The "Godly curse" of child-birth pain.

--Righteous men offering their daughters to crazed mobs for rape.

--God advocated Rape!

--Biblical heroes, get rich "pimping" their wives.

--The Demonisation of a woman's menstrual cycle.

--And more..

Godly women, do you have the "shamefacedness" the bible commands?

"...That women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array...Let the women learn in silence with all subjection... suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp the authority over the man but be in SILENCE!" (1Timothy 2:9-12)

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body." Ephesians 5:22-23

"Neither was the Man created for the woman; but the woman for the Man." --- 1 Corinthians 11:9

"Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing." Ephesians 5:24

Many modern Christian women will get all puffy and say "I'm a NEW TESTAMENT woman, so all that does not apply to me." For one thing you cannot completely divorce the OLD Testament from the NEW even though many would like to, Besides the above scriptures are NEW TESTAMENT!

A great man of god explains the evil of woman:

"And do you not know that you are an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert -that is, death - even the Son of God had to die." -- Tertullian, great Church father

Woman's transgression & punishment

"For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and chastity and holiness with sobriety." ---- 1 Timothy 2:13-15

The last line hearkening back to the original curse, from the first book of the bible:.

"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." -Genesis 3:16

The basic message here being, if a woman does not bear a child in pain and sorrow, (being barren or using pain medication) is not 'saved' from Eve's sin, and thus, eternally damned! Example, in Malleus Maleficarum 1484 (The official church's manual on witch-hunting. Or rather the torture, rape, and murder of women, sanctioned by Christendom), it states "no one does more harm to the catholic faith than midwives" Even as late as 1914 the use of painkillers in childbirth was considered a sin against god, and in America chloroform was regarded as a "decoy of Satan"

"If [women] become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth -that is why they are there."-- Martin Luther, Protestant hero, founder of Lutheranism

Godly men throw their daughters to mobs for rape!

Righteous men routinely offer to have mobs rape their virgin daughters! Thats right they plead with the crazed mob to rape them!

"I have two daughters that have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and ye do to them as is good in your eyes: only to these men do nothing."(Genesis 19:8)

And in (Judges 19:24) a similar story I guess it was good the mob did not want the first father's daughters, because he gets to have sex with his own daughters in (Genesis 19:33). [Oh, but according to the story they got him drunk, and they wanted it! -Yeah right, where have I heard this before, Oh I remember it was out of the mouths of degenerate incestuous child-molesters!]

The crime of rape, is not a crime against the woman, but rather against the woman's owner.

Rules on rape are quite simple in the bible; If you are betrothed it is looked at as a crime, but it should be noted that this is not a crime against her it is a crime against the man to whom she is engaged. What if a young woman is not engaged, and is raped? This is also simple the man who raped her must pay her father 50 shekels, and since he brutally raped her -she is forced to marry him!

And he is forced to stay with her, which will undoubtedly lead to terrible abuse.

Her situation does not matter so long as her "Godly" father is able to get some cash for "damaged goods" and is able to "un-load" her as well.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 "If a man find a damsel that is a virgin which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and force her to lie with him, and they be found.

Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father 50 shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her he may not put her away all his days."

God advocated rape!?

"Their children shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes! Their houses destroyed, and their wives raped... Dash the young males to pieces... have no pity on the fruit of the womb, the children shall not be spared!"- (Isaiah 13:16-18)

Moses turns orphan girls over to his soldiers for rape.

"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." (Numbers 31:17-18)

Can you just see this murderous savage, Moses, grinning evilly, wringing his hands in anticipation, and salivating, lustfully surveying the huddle of frightened little girls.

[Some ignorant Christians will try to say that they kept them as daughters or wives, but that is hardly consistent with a genocidal maniac. In a horrific rampaging slaughter killing the infants, and toddlers, then gutting the crying mothers , but taking the orphan girls under your wing?! Perhaps patting their little heads with a hand covering in the blood of their dying mother. Sorry, but no.]

*There are biblical 'rules' for taking a woman from a captured land, but in those same 'rules' it allows for the man to 'put her out' (abandon) after he is done with her, although those 'rules' were not likely done in this case.

You know there was a time before a woman's menstrual cycle was referred to as "The Curse". There was a time when it was sacred, as it was a sign of life and fertility. Lets read what the bible says, shall we:

Leviticus 15:19-23 And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood she shall be put apart for seven days, and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean, until the even...everything she lieth on is unclean...everything she siteth upon...Whoever toucheth her bed shall bathe himself and still be unclean until the even. And whosoever toucheth anything that she sat upon shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and be even then be unclean until the even.

"Woman is a temple built upon a sewer" -- Boethius, Christian philosopher

'Father' abraham sells his wife (Who was also his sister)

"and it came to pass that when Abram was come into Egypt the Egyptians beheld the woman(Sarah his wife) that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her and commended her before pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house, and he entreated Abram well for her sake and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and men servants and maid servants and she asses and camels." (Genesis 11:14)

Just in case you may think this is a fluke of fate, or as most Christians think that he had no choice, Abraham realized that it was a good deal, and tried it AGAIN:

Genesis 20:2 "and Abraham said of Sarah his wife, she is my sister, and Abimelech the king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah".

(However God came to Abimelech in a dream before he slept with her and threatened him with curses.) And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and men servants and women servents, and gave them unto Abraham and restored him Sarah his wife.

Not only that but Abraham's son Isaac, obviously learning by his great father's example, did the same with his wife Rebecca! (in Genesis 26:6-9)

Bizarre chemical torture, abortion or both?!

The following scripture was often quoted to advocate wife beating! It tells how a jealous man, suspecting his wife of adultery, may bring her before the priest to be tried by poison, part of which consists of the dirt off the temple floor, which causes much pain and suffering, even if she is not guilty.

Numbers 5:14 -"And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him and she be not defiled.

Then shall the man bring bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of ephah and barley meal, he shall pour no oil upon it, nor pour frankincense thereon,for it is an offering of jealousy,an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.......................

etc...etc... 21- and the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing and the priest shall say unto the woman, the lord make the a curse and an oath among thy people when the lord doth make thy thigh to rot and thy belly to swell. And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels and make thy belly to swell and thy thigh to rot and the woman shall say amen amen, and the priest shall write the curses in a book and shall blot them with the bitter water and he shall make the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her and become bitter. (Many people view this as a "chemical induced miscarriage", and that the nature of suspected adultery, leading to forcing some bizarre chemical concoction on the woman, rather than simply beating the woman, shows that is may indeed be an abortion procedure. Also since the procedure is done on the man's suspicion, 'whether she be defiled or not', indicates this may have been a preventative measure.)

"Finally Eve's sexual and autonomy are cursed. She must desire only her husband and submit to his will. Eve's curse neatly disposes of goddess worship, scared sexual practices, and female equality with men all in one succinct sentence." --- Sacred Sexuality

"Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman." -- 1 Corinthians 7:1

Now I shall quote some great, and respected, Godly men of Christianity. Keep in mind that if Christianity does not teach a negative view of women, it is strange that great Christians of history seem, by coincidence I suppose, to view them that way.

"Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman" --- St. Clement of Alexandria

"Girls begin to talk and to stand on their feet sooner than boys because weeds always grow up more quickly than good crops" -- Martin Luther

"We are born between shit and piss" ---Augustine of Hippo

"When you look upon a woman consider that you not face a human being but the Devil himself, the voice of a woman is the hiss of a snake"--- St. Anthony

" Woman is a tool of Satan and a pathway to hell" --- Jerome

" to embrace a woman is to embrace a sack of manure" -- Odo of Cluny

Suggesting that God had made a mistake in creating woman: "nothing [deficient] or defective should have been produced in the first establishment of things; so woman ought not to have been produced then." --- St. Thomas Aquinas

This hatred of women pays no heed to common denominational barriers, as it is a central tenet of "Christianity" in general. The Council of Macon voted as to whether women had souls. Protestant Lutherans at Wittenberg debated whether women were really human beings at all. These views show how the roles of women changed after a feminine 'divine' was totally excluded by force in favour of the new patriarchal Christianity which changed sexuality from being sacred into the 'original sin' and women from powerful priestesses into 'submitting in silence.'

"All women have been sexually abused by the bible teachings, and institutions set on its fundamentalist interpretations. There would be no need for the women's movement if the church and the Bible hadn't abused them." -- Father Leo Booth

The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation." -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Christian excuses for the misery they bring:

In terms of dealing with women, Christians may be quick to point out Islamic nations and their treatment of women. First of all Muslims and Christians both worship the same God, the God of Abraham. Muslims are only more literal in their scriptures. Also a common tactic used by the early church, as it is today is that any hardships, would have been much worse in other times. Christians and those in power destroyed much of past history and painted non-Christians as inhuman monsters, so now even today many even most people believe the Christian propaganda.

As far as their re-writing of history dealing with women Christians have all but wiped out histories of pre-Christian cultures that gave women power, and revered also the feminine divine.

Misogyny is Misogyny, unbalanced negative views are not a good thing, no matter what they are compared to. And Christianity is not the final word, on spirituality. You need not perpetuate a system you know deep down inside grinds against everything you value.

Also see Pagan Roots in the Bible

2) The crucifixion:

The gospels were composed during and after the revolt of ad. 68 -74, when Judaism had effectively ceased to exist as an organized social, political and military force. According to the gospels, Jesus is initially condemned by the Sanhedrin - the council of Jewish elders - who then bring him to Pilate and beseech the procurator to pronounce against him. Historically this makes no sense at all.

In the three synoptic gospels Jesus is arrested and condemned by the Sanhedrin on the night of the Passover. But by Judaic law the Sanhedrin was forbidden to meet over the Passover.

In the gospels Jesus' arrest and trail occur at night, before the Sanhedrin. Judaic law forbids the Sanhedrin to meet at night, in private houses, or anywhere outside the precincts of the temple.

In the gospels the Sanhedrin is apparently unauthorized to pass a death sentence. And this would ostensibly be the reason for bringing Jesus to Pilate. However, the Sanhedrin was authorized to pass death sentence - by stoning, if not by crucifixion. If the Sanhedrin had wished to dispose of Jesus, therefore, it could have sentenced him to death by stoning on its own authority. There would have been no need to bother Pilate at all.

There are numerous other attempts by the authors of the gospels to transfer guilt and responsibility from Rome. One such is Pilate's apparent offer of a dispensation - his readiness to free a prisoner of the crowd's choosing.

According to the gospels of Mark and Matthew, this was a 'custom of the Passover festival'. In fact was no such thing. Modern authorities agree that no such policy ever existed on the part of the Romans, and that the offer to liberate ether Jesus or Barabbas is sheer fiction. Pilate's reluctance to condemn Jesus, and his grudging submission to the bullying pressure of the mob, would seem to be equally fictitious.

In reality it would have been unthinkable for a Roman procurator -and especially a procurator as ruthless as Pilate - to bow to the pressure of a mob. Again, the purpose of such fictionalisation is clear enough. To exonerate the Romans, to transfer blame to the Jews and thereby to make Jesus acceptable to a Roman audience.

Given the portrait of him in the gospels, it is inexplicable that Jesus was crucified at all. According to the gospels, his enemies were the established Jewish interests in Jerusalem. But such enemies, if they in fact existed, could have stoned him to death of their own accord and on their own authority, without involving Rome in the matter.

According to the gospels, Jesus had no particular quarrel with Rome and did not violate Roman law. And yet Romans punished him, in accordance with Roman law and Roman procedures.

And he was punished by crucifixion - a penalty exclusively reserved for those guilty of crimes against the empire. If Jesus was indeed crucified, he cannot have been as political as the gospels depict him. On the contrary, he must, of necessity, have done something to provoke Roman - as opposed to Jewish - wrath.

There is also, quite simply, no reason why his crucifixion, as the gospels depict it, should have been fatal. Despite the agony, a man suspended from a cross, with his feet fixed, - and especially a fit and healthy man - would usually survive for at least a day or two. Indeed, the victim would often take as much as a week to die. The attenuated agony could be terminated more quickly by breaking the victim's legs or knees - which, in the gospels, Jesus' executioners are about to do before they are forestalled. Jesus should therefore, in theory at least, have survived for a good two or three days. And yet he was on the cross for no more than three hours before pronounced dead. In the gospel of Mark, even Pilate is astonished by the rapidity with which death occurs (Mark 15:44) what can have constituted the cause of death? Not the spear in his side for the fourth gospel maintains that Jesus was already dead when this wound was inflicted on him. (John 19:33)

When Jesus declares that he is thirsty he is proffered a sponge allegedly soaked in vinegar - an incident that also occurs in the other gospels. This sponge is generally interpreted as another act of sadistic derision. But was it really? Vinegar - or soured wine - is a temporary stimulant, with effect not unlike smelling salts. It was often used at time to resuscitate flagging slaves on galleys. For a wounded and exhausted man, a sniff or taste of vinegar would induce a restorative effect, a momentary surge of energy.

And yet in Jesus' case the effect is just the contrary. No sooner does he inhale or taste the sponge than he pronounces his final words and 'gives up the ghost'. Such a reaction to vinegar is physiologically inexplicable. On the other hand such a reaction would be perfectly compatible with a sponge soaked not in vinegar, but in some type of soporific drug - a compound of opium and/or belladonna, for instance, commonly employed in the Middle East at the same time. A drug designed to produce a resemblance of death when the victim, in fact was still alive.

According to the gospels Jesus is crucified at a place called Golgotha, "the place of the skull". Later tradition attempts to identify Golgotha as a barren, more or less skull-shaped hill to the northwest of Jerusalem. The fourth gospel says, 'now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.'

(John 19:41) Jesus, then, was crucified not on a barren skull-shaped hill, nor, that matter, in any 'public place of execution'. He was crucified in or immediately adjacent to a garden containing a private tomb.

According to Matthew (27:60) this tomb and garden were the personal property of Joseph of Arimathea - who, according to all four gospels, was both a man of wealth and a secret disciple of Jesus.

Popular tradition depicts the crucifixion as a large-scale public affair, accessible to the multitude and attended by a cast of thousands. And yet the gospels themselves suggest very different circumstances. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, the crucifixion is witnessed by most people, including the woman, from 'afar off' (Luke 23:49)

Jesus' death was probably not a public event, but a private one. Given the prohibition against burying crucified men, it is also extraordinary that Joseph receives any body at all. On what grounds does he receive it? What claim does he have to Jesus' body? If he was a secret disciple, he could hardly plead any claim without disclosing his secret discipleship - Unless Pilate was already aware of it, or unless there was some other factor involved which militated Joseph's favour.

3) The ascent into heaven:

According to Matthew (28:16-17), Jesus had summoned the disciples to a mountain near Galilee for the appearance. When they saw him, they worshipped him, "but some doubted."

Mark (16:19), "so then after the lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand side of God."

Luke (24:50-51) makes Jesus himself lead the disciples "out as far as to Bethany." while he was blessing them, "he parted from them, and carried up into heaven."

John (21) has nothing to say about the ascension into heaven.

The most important events in Jesus' life are undoubtedly the resurrection and the ascent into heaven. The evangelists recorded so many unimportant details that one cannot understand why they did not describe the two central events on which the Christian dogma is based in colourful, gripping images and genuinely inspired language.

If Jesus had ascended into heaven in full view of everybody, or at least in the circle of his disciples, the news would have spread through the streets of Jerusalem like a forest fire on the very same day, for the people had taken a lively interest in the trail and crucifixion. But not a single Roman or Jewish historian noted down a single word about these earthshaking events!

4) The church:

Jesus' message, as it appears in the gospels, is neither wholly new nor wholly unique. It is probable that himself was a Pharisee, and his teachings contain a number of elements of pharisaic doctrine. As the Dead Sea scrolls attest, they also contain a number of important aspects of Essene thought.

Jesus himself was undoubtedly an immensely charismatic individual. He may well have had an aptitude for healing and/or hypnosis.

It is clear that by the time of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem Jesus had recruited a following. But this following would have been composed of two quite distinct elements - whose interests were not precisely the same.

On the one hand there would have been a small nucleus of 'initiates' - immediate family, other members of the nobility, wealthy and influential supporters whose primary objective was to see their candidate installed on the throne.

On the other hand there would have been a much larger entourage of 'common people' -the 'rank and file' of the movement, whose primary objective was to see the message and the promise it contained, fulfilled.

Christianity, as it evolves through its early centuries and eventually comes down to us today, is a product of the 'adherents of the message'. By the time the gospels were composed, the basic tenets of the new religion were virtually complete. The new religion was orientated primarily towards a Roman or Romanised audience. Thus the role of Rome in Jesus' death was, of necessity, whitewashed, and guilt transferred to the Jews.

In order for Jesus - whom nobody had previously deemed divine - to compete with Caesar, he had to be deified as well. In Paul's hands he was. 

Before it could be successfully disseminated - from Palestine to Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, Rome and the Western Europe - the new religion had to be made acceptable to the people of those regions. And it had to be capable of holding it own against established creeds. The new God, in short, had to be comparable in power, in majesty, in repertoire of miracles, to those he was intended to displace. If Jesus was to gain a foothold in the Romanised world of his time, he had perforce to become a fully-fledged God. Not a Messiah in the old sense of that term, not a priest-king but God incarnate - Who, like his Syrian, Phoenician, Egyptian and classical counterparts, passed through the underworld and the harrowing of hell and emerged, rejuvenated, with the spring.

It was at this point that the idea of the resurrection first assumed such crucial importance, and for a fairly obvious reason - to place Jesus on a par with Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, Osiris and all the other dying and reviving Gods.

For precisely the same reason the doctrine of the virgin birth was promulgated. And the Easter festival - the festival of death and resurrection was made to coincide with the spring rites of other contemporary cults and mystery schools.

To further the claim of universality, all political and dynastic elements were rigorously excised from Jesus' biography. And thus all references to zealots, for example, and Essenes, were also discreetly removed. In the end nothing was left but what was contained in the gospels.

By pandering to a Roman audience, deifying Jesus and casting the Jews as scapegoats, the spread of what subsequently became Christian orthodoxy began to consolidate itself definitively in the second century, principally through Irenaues, bishop of Lyons around ad 180. Deploring diversity, he maintained there could be only one valid church, outside which there could be no salvation. Whoever challenged this assertion, Irenaues declared to be heretic - to be expelled and, if possible, destroyed. Among the numerous diverse forms of early Christianity, it was Gnosticism that incurred Irenaues's most vituperative wrath. Gnosticism rested on personal experience, personal union with the divine.

We have only to look at the reign of Constantine to realize that the hands of the early church are full of blood. It all began with the councils, the assemblies of ecclesiastical senior pastors for dealing with important ecclesiastical affairs. A prerequisite for the appointment of an official of the church is that he has 'charisma'. I.e. That he share the 'divine gift of grace.' the assemblies of the five ecumenical (which means the whole Catholic Church) councils of the early Christian world set the standards for the doctrine and organization of the new religion. In ad. 321 Constantine ordered the law courts closed on 'the venerable day of the sun', and decreed this day be a day of rest.

Christianity had hitherto held the Jewish Sabbath - Saturday - as sacred. Now, in accordance with Constantine's edict, it transferred its sacred day to Sunday. This not only brought it into harmony with the existing regime, but also permitted it to further dissociate itself from its Judaic origins.

Until the fourth century, moreover, Jesus' birthday had been celebrated on January 6th. Christianity brought itself into alignment with the regime and the established state religion by moving it to the 25th December (the festival of Natalis Invictus, the birth, or rebirth, of the sun, when the days began to grow longer.).

Faith for Constantine was a political matter; and any faith that was conductive to unity was treated with forbearance. While Constantine was not, therefore, the 'good Christian' that later tradition depicts, he consolidated, in the name of unity and uniformity, the status of Christian orthodoxy. In ad. 325, for example, he convened the council of Nicea. At this council the dating of Easter was established.

Rules were framed which defined the authority of bishops, thereby paving the way for a concentration of power in ecclesiastical hands. Most important of all, the council of Nicea decided by vote, that Jesus was a God, not a mortal prophet.

In short, Christian orthodoxy lent itself to a politically desirable fusion with the official state religion; and in so far as it did so Constantine conferred his support upon Christian orthodoxy. Thus, a year after the council of Nicea, he sanctioned the confiscation and destruction of all works that challenged orthodox teaching. He arranged for a fixed income to be allocated to the church. Then, in ad. 331, he commissioned and financed new copies of the Bible. This constituted one of the single most decisive factors in the entire history of Christianity, and provided Christian orthodoxy - the 'adherents of the message' - with an unparalleled opportunity.

The second ecumenical council at Constantinople: Emperor Theodosius I (347-395) did not lag behind his colleague Constantine in moral qualities. He was an oppressor of the poor, history tells us. He swamped the common people with intolerable burdens, which his tax collectors exacted with brutal tortures. In 390 (almost ten years after the holy council) he had 7000 rebellious citizens murdered in a frightful bloodbath in the centre of the town of Thessalonika - at the same time the 'halleluya' came into use in Christian churches. ...etc.

The third, fourth and fifth ecumenical councils were equally headed by trouble some figures.

5) Jesus

Jesus! praise his incorrect name!

It would be difficult to be called Jesus when there is no "J" in your language! There was no "J" in English for over 1,500 years after Jesus' birth. Jesus, comes from Greek Iesous & means annointed, but that was not his name either. His name was Yeshua, a shortened form of Yehoshua.

Jesus of where? - no such place as "Nazareth"

"Jesus of Nazareth"? The city of Nazareth did not exist until a Christian king, embarrassed of that fact, named a town Nazareth in the 5th century [Actually, the intended phrase referred to a type of holy man] Greek translators mistook Nazarine for an person from a city called Nazareth. A logical assumption but wrong!

"The messiah" & christ

Messiah from Hebrew Masiah & Aramaic Meshina, is literally expected king and deliverer of the Jews, not the son of Yahweh/God! Christ is from the Greek Christos. literally meaning, annointed. Every single Jewish king was a "Christ" it simply meant an