waypoetic said:

Real talk: moderators on NeoGAF don't allow people to bash christianity or islam (or judaism i suppose). I've been banned for a light hearted joke about christians and their faith and i've been banned for expressing my thoughts about what child indoctrination does to a kid and how i feel about it.
Now, make a light hearted joke about a republican or a liberal and see what happens; nothing. Because you're just joking about an ideology, a set of ideas. A joke directed towards the ideology of christianity is off limits however. It's a set of ideas that aren't even scientific; a belief that giants walked the Earth, that Earth itself is a young Earth, that angels exist and that man was made from dirt and woman from a freaking rib.

You may draw goodness from those religions. I don't. I've read the bible and i'm on my way of finishing the qur'an. And in a lot of churches around the world, they do behave in the same way as the Church of Scientology and their churches, but no, they're not pyramid schemes - but they do steal money from people.

It was set up as a con, yes i know. "You know what i could make money on? By inventing a religion!". You know how religions are created? By men who want money and power. You could create one right now and it would still be as legit as the christian religion. There was no Jesus, there is no God and you can't prove it as much as you can't disprove that there's a flying teapot over at Pluto right now.

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Oh, you are one of those people that believe Jesus from Nazareth never existed in the first place.

Now I know we aren't talking to a rational person. Learned Scholars, Atheists included, would disagree with your statement.

Trojita said:

Oh, you are one of those people that believe Jesus from Nazareth never existed in the first place.

Now I know we aren't talking to a rational person. Learned Scholars, Atheists included, would disagree with your statement.

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I don't know what kind of scholar you're talking about (i'm finishing up a history phd and i've been teaching full time for 4 years), but your sentence sounded horribly unscientific. Capital letters on atheists and scholars shortly after mentioning reason is pretty ironic.
All I know is pretty factual, nothing was written about him during his lifetime, except for the biblical source, which makes some sense since had he existed, he would have been leading a pretty small sect during his lifetime. His name only shows up with Tacitus, much later, when dealing with Christians once the group grew. His very existence is a belief, not a matter of historical enquiry because there just is so little to learn from archives... You pretend there is proof. No, there is not.

Good.

DiipuSurotu said:

People who keep downplaying Scientology's evil acts by saying "But what about X, what about Y" are the reason we can't crush Scientology.

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They'd rather maintain that smug feeling of superiority, than help.

1871 said:

I don't know what kind of scholar you're talking about (i'm finishing up a history phd and i've been teaching full time for 4 years), but your sentence sounded horribly unscientific. Capital letters on atheists and scholars shortly after mentioning reason is pretty ironic.
All I know is pretty factual, nothing was written about him during his lifetime, except for the biblical source, which makes some sense since had he existed, he would have been leading a pretty small sect during his lifetime. His name only shows up with Tacitus, much later, when dealing with Christians once the group grew. His very existence is a belief, not a matter of historical enquiry because there just is so little to learn from archives... You pretend there is proof. No, there is not.

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You are contradicting yourself.

DiipuSurotu said:

People who keep downplaying Scientology's evil acts by saying "But what about X, what about Y" are the reason we can't crush Scientology.

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No. You're completely wrong. Scientology won't be crushed simply because it has enough money to cover the level of evil acts it commits. Same with every other large business. The richer they are, the more they can get away with, and the opinion of the average person will never have the slightest effect on that.

1871 said:

I don't know what kind of scholar you're talking about (i'm finishing up a history phd and i've been teaching full time for 4 years), but your sentence sounded horribly unscientific. Capital letters on atheists and scholars shortly after mentioning reason is pretty ironic.
All I know is pretty factual, nothing was written about him during his lifetime, except for the biblical source, which makes some sense since had he existed, he would have been leading a pretty small sect during his lifetime. His name only shows up with Tacitus, much later, when dealing with Christians once the group grew. His very existence is a belief, not a matter of historical enquiry because there just is so little to learn from archives... You pretend there is proof. No, there is not.

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Oh wow, you got me on two capilization errors. Oh my!

The overwhelming majority of scholars, with only a handful of exceptions, accept that there was a historical Jesus. The evidence for his existence is not great, but it is the equivalent to the evidence for other Jewish preachers, prophets and Messianic claimants of the time, which is understandable since such people didn't interest most of the historians of the time.

The Jewish historian Josephus mentions Jesus twice in his Antiquities of the Jews. Josephus describes Jesus and his execution briefly in Book XVII.3.3 and then mentions him again when describing, in passing, the execution of his brother James at Book XX.9.1. Josephus would have been a young man at the time of these events and he tells us in his biography that he was in Jerusalem at the time. He was also a member of the priest caste and his father and family would have been closely connected to events of that day. The Antiquities XX.9.1 reference to Jesus and his brother is solid evidence that Jesus was known to be a recent historical figure. The same James is also referred to in passing by Paul in Galatians 1:19, where he mentions meeting “James, the brother of the Lord” in Jerusalem. Paul was clearly talking about meeting a person known to his audience to be Jesus’ brother and not a mythical being. Taken together, the Josephus passages and the Paul reference indicate clearly that Jesus was a historical person and was known to be so in the decades following his death.

You have fringe views that are not recognized by most scholars, religious or irreligious.

1871 said:

I don't know what kind of scholar you're talking about (i'm finishing up a history phd and i've been teaching full time for 4 years), but your sentence sounded horribly unscientific. Capital letters on atheists and scholars shortly after mentioning reason is pretty ironic.
All I know is pretty factual, nothing was written about him during his lifetime, except for the biblical source, which makes some sense since had he existed, he would have been leading a pretty small sect during his lifetime. His name only shows up with Tacitus, much later, when dealing with Christians once the group grew. His very existence is a belief, not a matter of historical enquiry because there just is so little to learn from archives... You pretend there is proof. No, there is not.

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Your believe in whatever you believe is quite reasonable. However, bashing religions that people really feel attached to for the sake of bashing it is somewhat frowned upon in the entirety of the world. Folks like things to be black and white that way, and humanity is still waging wars over it, and still paying for the believe or disbelieve.

Sure, there is or isn't any proof and we cannot go back in time or see who lied and who didn't and which God descended or which fruit was descended or who is condemned to hell or if there is a heaven or hell. I guess what I'm trying to say is that every religion has goods and bad, and when they were ideologized, they were ideologized on those particular humans living in the particular state of mind who needed some teaching or way of living without being barbaric.

I have nothing against any religion or non-religion of the world. Scientology is a money making, blackmailing and extorting religion. Super secretive about what they do and what they believe in. It fucking took South Park to educate the masses, that's how bad it is. It's a religion started as a cult and will end as a cult. Good on you for voicing your feelings.

Incredible if true. I saw this last night; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mkUp1V3ys0

And I thought to myself; You could make the best montage of an actors career if you took this track and put it over all his films. Seriously.

There has been so many films I really like that starred Tom Cruise. It's true that a actors personal life shouldn't reflect their acting presence, but really, I would very much like to be able to think of John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Will Smith without thinking about Scientology.

waypoetic said:

Real talk: moderators on NeoGAF don't allow people to bash christianity or islam (or judaism i suppose). I've been banned for a light hearted joke about christians and their faith and i've been banned for expressing my thoughts about what child indoctrination does to a kid and how i feel about it.
Now, make a light hearted joke about a republican or a liberal and see what happens; nothing. Because you're just joking about an ideology, a set of ideas. A joke directed towards the ideology of christianity is off limits however. It's a set of ideas that aren't even scientific; a belief that giants walked the Earth, that Earth itself is a young Earth, that angels exist and that man was made from dirt and woman from a freaking rib.

You may draw goodness from those religions. I don't. I've read the bible and i'm on my way of finishing the qur'an. And in a lot of churches around the world, they do behave in the same way as the Church of Scientology and their churches, but no, they're not pyramid schemes - but they do steal money from people.



It was set up as a con, yes i know. "You know what i could make money on? By inventing a religion!". You know how religions are created? By men who want money and power. You could create one right now and it would still be as legit as the christian religion. There was no Jesus, there is no God and you can't prove it as much as you can't disprove that there's a flying teapot over at Pluto right now.

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This guy must live in a different universe...Neogaf doesn't allow bashing of religions? What a load of nonsense. You were banned for being a dickhead most likely, judging by your last paragraph. Maybe try cleaning the earwax from your head listen to yourself. "Neogaf coddles religions and I was banned for questioning stupid religions because religions are stupid and since you can't prove god is real religions are a con".

What will this great mind disprove next?

Even if some dude called Jesus (Yeshua? Joshua?) did exist, that doesn't mean he was a semi-divine being capable of transmutation and ressurrection. It just means someone was annoyed/impressed enough to briefly write about some crazy street preacher babbling about end times, of which there was dozens.

AFAIK, there's no writings outside Christian ones (all of which date from after his supposed death). Any other writing just barely mentions in passing some loud-mouth Jewish rebel/street preacher with a similar name, and there is what one maybe two sources as such?

Cuyejo said:

You are contradicting yourself.

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I keep re-reading it and I can't see the contradiction.