What it means to be a Christian

Being a Christian is not about how many times you go to the church, or how much tithes you give. It is the surrendering of your life to Jesus Christ and accepting him as your saviour. Most people think that it doesn’t matter if one subscribe to religion as long as his/her belief is not too fervent and fundamental. I beg to differ.

Believing in Jesus is to sacrifice the life you have today in hope there will be eternal life somewhere somehow. But what we make of our lives is not a gift to god. We don’t owe it to anyone in particular. Instead, what we do in our lifetime is our responsibility to Man. We are not going to be judged by which invisible imaginary friend we believe in but what we leave behind for our children. Do we leave behind a peaceful world where they will be free to grow up in, or do we leave behind a world divided by the various sects of religion, fighting to destroy one another. 

It amazes me still when I think about the vast number of people who think that religion represents peace, love and tolerance. In a perverse way, it is peaceful, loving and tolerant only towards people who agree with them. This pattern repeats itself throughout all religions past and present. Gallileo Gallilei, the father of modern science was sentenced to house arrest by the Church and his writings were burnt, all for telling us that the Earth revolves around the Sun, not the other way round. What great irony that he was a Roman Catholic himself. 

Always remember, every soul you harvest in the name of god’s Kingdom, is another nail in Man’s coffin. If you unfortunately is a man of faith, the least you can do is to keep it to yourself, and spare the rest.

We would be 1500 years ahead if it hadn’t been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake

Religion: Abusing Children BC

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 20, 7:07 pm ET

DUBLIN – After a nine-year investigation, a commission published a damning report Wednesday on decades of rapes, humiliation and beatings at Catholic Church-run reform schools for Ireland’s castaway children.

The 2,600-page report painted the most detailed and damning portrait yet of church-administered abuse in a country grown weary of revelations about child molestation by priests.

The investigation of the tax-supported schools uncovered previously secret Vatican records that demonstrated church knowledge of pedophiles in their ranks all the way back to the 1930s.

Wednesday’s five-volume report on the probe — which was resisted byCatholic religious orders — concluded that church officials shielded their orders’ pedophiles from arrest amid a culture of self-serving secrecy.

“A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from,” Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse concluded.

Victims of the abuse, who are now in their 50s to 80s, lobbied long and hard for an official investigation. They say that for all its incredible detail, the report doesn’t nail down what really matters — the names of their abusers.

“I do genuinely believe that it would have been a further step towards our healing if our abusers had been named and shamed,” said Christine Buckley, 62, who spent the first 18 years of her life in a Dublin orphanage where children were forced to manufacture rosaries — and were humiliated, beaten and raped whether they achieved their quota or not.

The Catholic religious orders that ran more than 50 workhouse-style reform schools from the late 19th century until the mid-1990s offered public words of apology, shame and regret Wednesday. But when questioned, their leaders indicated they would continue to protect the identities of clergy accused of abuse — men and women who were never reported to police, and were instead permitted to change jobs and keep harming children.

The Christian Brothers, which ran several boys’ institutions deemed to have harbored serial child molesters and sadists on their staff, insisted it had cooperated fully with the probe. The order successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.

The Christian Brothers’ leader in Ireland, Brother Kevin Mullan, said the organization had been right to keep names secret because “perhaps we had doubts about some of the allegations.”

“But on the other hand, I’d have to say that at this stage, we have no interest in protecting people who were perpetrators of abuse,” Mullan said, vowing to “cooperate fully with any investigation or any civil authority seeking to explore those matters.”

Buckley, who said she was abused at an orphanage run by the Sisters of Mercy, which ran several refuges for girls where the report documented chronic brutality, said the religious orders for years branded the victims as money-seeking liars — and were incapable of admitting their guilt today.

She criticized Mullan for suggesting that “today, having read the report, he doesn’t mind if the abusers are named and shamed. Isn’t that a little bit late for us?”

The report found that molestation and rape were “endemic” in boys’ facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

“In some schools a high level of ritualized beating was routine. … Girls were struck with implements designed to maximize pain and were struck on all parts of the body,” the report said. “Personal and family denigration was widespread.”

Ireland’s myriad religious orders, much like their mother church, have been devastated by 15 years of scandals involving past cover-ups of abusers in their ranks.

The Christian Brothers have withdrawn from running several schools that still bear their name and the order has had few recruits in Ireland in the past two decades. Other orders are down to a handful of members, and their bases are closer to nursing homes than active missions.

“Most of these orders will literally die out in Ireland within the next generation or so,” said Michael Kelly, editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper in Dublin. “Many of them are already in wind-up mode. They lack the confidence even to seek new vocations (recruits), due to the stigma associated with their members’ shocking, scandalous behavior.”

The Irish government, which in 1999 apologized for its role in permitting decades of abuse and established the commission to nail down the full truth of the matter, has tried to use money to bring closure to the victims.

A government-appointed panel has paid 12,000 survivors of the schools, orphanages and other church-run residences an average of $90,000 each — on condition they surrender their right to sue either the church or state. About 2,000 more claims are pending. Irish Catholic leaders cut a controversial deal with the government in 2001 that capped the church’s contribution at $175 million — a fraction of the final cost.

Some victims emphasized, even as they began thumbing through the report, that nothing — not even criminal convictions of their long-ago tormentors — will ever put right their psychological wounds and make their nightmares go away.

Tom Sweeney, who spent five years in two Christian Brothers-run institutions where he was placed for truancy, says he suffered sexual abuse and beatings. He also has bitter memories about more everyday humiliations — such as being forced to wrap his urine-stained sheets around his neck and parade in front of other children when he’d wet his bed.

“It’s something you’ll never forget, the way you lived in these industrial schools,” he said

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

We all know that under the veil of love and tolerance that religion preaches, it’s most damning contribution to mankind is the widespread indoctrination and the drilling of religion thoughts by both its leaders and parents. Young parents today have set up blogs in the name of their toddlers who do not even have the ability to say ‘mum’ yet seems to grasp the knowledge of the cosmic and god, extremely well. They know for sure who he is, what he wants and what we are suppose to do in his name. None of them understand that whichever religion you subscribe to, is basically an accident of time and place. 

Not only are children mentally abused, but physically too. Perhaps you might say that these people do not represent the church of god. But the catholic church knew learnt of these sinister acts way back in the 1930s. So what did these faithful, god-fearing people decide to do? Hide. Just like how god is hiding between all the gaps in science today. Even today, the exact names of the abusers are being withheld. And this is why I will never have respect for religion, not a single bit. For god doesn’t do evil because there is no god. The trouble lies with the men with god.

I distrust those people who know so well what god wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. – Susan. B Anthony

What happens when after I die

God,” Do you know where you are?”

Me,”Hmm, Heaven? And holy shit God you exist”

God,” OF COURSE I DO! WHO DO YOU THINK CREATED YOU?”

Me,” Alright man, chillax God.”

God,” NO! I can’t chill. I’m here to judge you and you shall go to hell!”

Me,” Ok. I know I used to not believe in you but I guess there’s a way I can make it up right?”

God,” No, for not believing in me, you go to Hell.”

Me,” Oh C’mon God. How would I know you existed if you didn’t leave any evidence behind?”

God,” If I did, it wouldn’t be called faith right?”

Me,” So you would rather me not using my brain to think?”

God,” No, but you still should have known it’s your fault!”

Me,” Ok, what about all those nonsense quotes that you wrote in whichever holy book you wrote?”

God,” Those weren’t nonsense 2000 years ago. How would I have know that humans would progress so quickly”

Me,” Anyway God, just before I go to Hell I have a few questions for you. Why do you have to kill so many people? Including children”

God,” I’m God, I can do anything I like. Do I even need to explain to you?

Me,” But everyone who knows that you exist says you are the most merciful and kind creature around.”

God,” I am!”

Me,” But you kill thousands of innocent people, and so do your followers. And they go to heaven and I, hell?”

God,” Yes, I am merciful to all those who believe in me of course. Why should I give a shit about those who don’t give a shit about me?”

Me,” Ok. I guess it’s too late to change my mind now? I promise I’ll be good and sing songs to praise and worship you. I’ll even sacrifice all my Sunday sleep-ins just to go to Church and give money for them to waste it.”

God,” It’s too late, my child.”

Me,” I’M YOUR SON! YOU ARE SENDING YOUR OWN SON TO HELL?

God,” If I can send my REAL Son to death on Earth, what do you think?”

Me,” HOLY SHIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTT!!!!! I’M SORRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYY”

Me,” Hello Charles, George, Benjamin, Albert, Mahatma, Napoleon, Abraham, Sigmund! It’s a shame great minds think alike, and make the same stupid mistake of using their brains too much eh?”

Difference between Atheism and Christianity

The 2 pictures above summarised the difference between Christianity and Atheism nicely. I might be biased so take what I’m going to say with a pinch of salt. 

Atheism is NOT the belief that nothing happened to nothing. It is not even a belief to begin with. All that Athesits and the Agnostics are saying is that we can use evolution to explain the diversity of life. However, we do not know how life started. Science does not have an answer to the origin of life. Therefore, it is not the belief that nothing happened to nothing. It is just simply saying “I don’t know” We don’t know because we have no proof. What religion does is that it replaces an unknown with another unknown – that of the supernatural. Nothing was magically rearranged, we just don’t know. Ironically, magic has been religion’s forte and now it has been labelled upon the atheist. Take magic out of religion and you will probably have nothing left.

On the other hand, other than the word zombie used to describe Jesus, I don’t think that whatever said about Christianity is false. Jesus rose from the dead. Zombies rise from the dead too. That just creates the possibility that IF there exist a Man named Jesus and IF he was really the Son of God and IF he truly managed to resurrect himself after dying on the cross, he COULD be a zombie. Maybe you can enlighten me if you are a Christian.

Anyway, I would like to give you this hypothetical scenario. Let’s say one day God called you on your mobile and told you that if you were willing to be tortured and die a horrific death, your reward would be eternal bliss in Heaven alongside the one and only Sky Daddy, what would you do? I’m sure all of us will consider his offer carefully and some of us will take up his offer. We are always reminded that God is kind and merciful because he sent his only Son to die for us on the cross. But does it qualify as a sacrifice if he knew he would be resurrected? Dear God, you could have just told any primitive Man walking on Earth and he would gladly ‘sacrifice’ himself. There’s really no need to trouble your Son. And because you sent your Son and impregnated a virgin woman, now there are different groups of people who worship you and Virgin Mary fighting each other. Not an idea generated by a supreme being I presume.

One of the most memorable line in the Bible must be that from John 3:16 – For God did not send his only Son to the World to condemn the World but to save the World. That is just a very nice way of saying – For God sent his only Son to the World to save those who believe in him, no matter how much they sinned. Only to condemn those, no matter how pure they are, to eternal suffering. 

Since the Bible and the Church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going? – Anonymous

JESUS CHRIST!

People have been complaining that some of the entries are too wordy. I apologise and I’ll try to come up with a Q and A page for the general discussions that you may see or come across. So please look out for that. 

People always see the apparition of  Jesus or Virgin Mary on cloths, toasts, paintings etc. This definitely beats any apparition that I’ve seen so far. I wonder why no one bothered checking their dogs, to be more specific the underside of their dogs. You may just discover Jesus hiding there, and it’s actually true that he is EVERYWHERE. I gotta admit this, including your dog’s ass. Or maybe, just maybe, the dog is trying to say “Religion my ass” Come to think of it, animals (other than humans) are pretty smart creatures. We don’t see dogs praying, or cats going berserk on Sundays, they just live their lives.

Animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that. – Ronnie Snow

A prayer for rationality

Dear God, we thank you for ________ and we pray that __________. 

For believers, this must look very familiar. When you pray, you often thank God for something that he gave you, and then proceed to pray for more. At this juncture, it seems that the almighty God can is benevolent, merciful and can do no wrong. God will grant you a pay rise, good grades, everlasting relationship, good health, a new car, basically everything you want, if you work hard enough and pray hard enough.

Now let’s go back to the idea that God is almighty and wise and powerful. He created all of us in his own image, and has a plan for all of us – The Divine Plan. Apparently, you can get him to change his divine plan by praying. Here lies 2 problems. 1) Why call it the divine plan when it can be changed by any Tom, Dick or Harry who prays? 2) If the plan can’t be changed, why pray in the first place? So the next time you pray, bear in mind these two questions. The act of praying itself supports the fact that God is neither almighty nor wise. If he is, his plan would be so flawless that you wouldn’t need to pray in the first place.

The next problem with a God who has a divine plan for everyone is this. His divine plan is flawed because it shows that he is unjust and downright evil. If God has a divine plan for everyone, does disabilities count? Surely it would be unfair for a child to be born blind or deaf just because “God has a special plan for him” What about starving African children? What’s God’s plan for them? To starve and die? What about people who were born in the wrong places? For Christians, imagine yourself born in Iraq and for Muslims, imagine yourself born in the United States. Isn’t it very unfair to you, that God in line with his divine plan, plans that you born in a place where the ‘wrong’ God is preached? Thus his plan for you would be to burn in Hell forever. What are his divine plans for intelligent human beings with great contribution to mankind. Thomas Edison is an atheist, who has more than 1000 inventions to his name and is most famous for inventing the lightbulb. The very same one used by everyone in every household, church, mosque and places of worship today. What is his reward? Hell.

Thus, there can only be two conclusions.

1) There is no God. This reason is relatively simple, rational and logical. Once you apply “there is no God” to all the cases mentioned above, everything makes sense.

2) There is a God, but he is not almighty, wise, caring, loving, benevolent in anyway. If you apply this reasoning to all the cases mentioned above, everything will make sense too. Which just begs me to ask. Why call him God? And why in the world do you pray to him?

Many will say that there is evil and injustice in the World today because God gave us free will and people have misused it. This sounds kind of funny to me because apparently, God gave us “free will” but if we choose not to worship him, we’ll burn in Hell forever. 

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. – Gene Roddenberry