Church Of Reality

[All Gods Fail]

Haven't gone through the whole site yet, but it looks pretty interesting.

 

http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/

 

The Church of Reality is a religion based on the practice of Realism, believing in everything that is real. Our motto is, "If it's real, we believe in it." Since no one knows all of reality, the Church of Reality is about the pursuit of reality the way it really is. We commit to being intellectually honest with ourselves and with others so that we can cut through the mythology. We want to know about the way things really are in the real world.

 

The Church of Reality provides a religious identity for people who have made a personal commitment in their lives to pursue reality the way it really is. The pursuit of reality is something that is a shared process. It's something we do together as a church, as a community, and as the human race.

 

This is also pretty funny:

 

Classification of Atheists

Swiped from Aukland University Atheists.

 

Fundamentalist Atheist: There is no God, and anyone who thinks there is a God is a misguided and dangerous fool.

 

Evangelical Atheist: It is not sufficient that there is no God. We must do our best to make sure that nobody even believes that there is one.

 

Theological Atheist: The principles of logic demonstrate the absence of any omnipotent and omniscient being in the universe.

 

Adolescent Atheist: Since I am a teenager, I know everything, and I know there is no God. The fact that many adults think that there is a God proves my case.

 

Scientific Atheist: There is no God because I cannot create a falsifiable hypothesis concerning His existence.

 

Social Atheist: Well, everyone I know and respect is an atheist, so there must be something to it.....

 

Campus Atheist: I need attention, and also to feel important, and I can get these things by being obnoxious about the existence of God.

 

Politically Correct Atheist: God has a consistent history of discrimination on gender, racial and cultural grounds, therefore must be banned from existing.

 

Closet Atheist: There are no good reasons for believing in God, but what harm can there be?

 

Lethargic Atheist: Religion is such a hassle, why bother?

 

Paranoid Atheist: Religion - sounds like another conspiracy, along with the aliens, the dolphins and the CIA - they’re all out to get me!

 

Nihilistic Atheist: Life has no point, and the existence of a god would invalidate this, so it is obviously not true.

 

Puritanical Atheist: We shall smite the evil believers in nonsense, and continue our purge until not one theist is left alive...

 

Philosophical Atheist: I don't believe, therefore I am.

 

Which kind of atheist are you?

[MQTA]

*sigh* and Tiffic?

[Vigile]

I'm an atheist until I can be proven otherwise.

 

Aside from that, the closest fits were probably scientific and theological. Though I do have some evangelical urges.

[Dio]

I'm probably closest to closet or lethargic atheist - rather laissez faire in my approach to religion. I found the nihilistic atheist description amusing however, and it got me to thinking: Why is it that if God or a god exists, then there must also exist some intrinsic meaning to life that is nonexistent in the absence of a deity? So, if there is no god, there is no meaning or purpose to life, but if God does exist then that meaning or purpose is......?????? What?

 

Serve him? Obey him? Fear him? Know him? Please him? What's meaningful about that?

 

Thanks for the link, btw.

[Kalidasa]

Fundamentalist Atheist here. *nods* And damn proud of it too!

[All Gods Fail]

Interesting to note, the church just got it's tax-exempt status from the IRS.

[Dianka]

Politically correct Atheist here.

[MQTA]

just started reading that site, good so far

 

If God created me and I am imperfect and I commit sin - is it my fault? Not hardly! Why would it be my fault? After all - God created me - God knew how I would turn out if he created me with flaws. God saw it in the future - so why blame me? God should take responsibility for his own work and not try to pass the blame on for flaws he created - intentionally! I think so! God should quit acting like a baby and fix his own work.

 

For example. If I build a shed and I don't pour enough concrete to hold the main posts in place and the wind blows and lifts my shed out of the ground - who's fault is that? Do we blame the shed or the builder? If I write a computer program with bugs in it and the program fails - it is the fault of the program or the programmer? It's the programmer! If we are God's work and God is omnipotent and he makes us this way - then we are doing what we were created to do, what it was foreseen that we would do. What God already knew we would do before we were born. So - who really fucked up here? God did!

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

I found this on the site, as well:

 

Well - we know that God can come out - but he doesn't That means he chooses not to. He could write a new updated Bible - maybe even publish it on the web - but he doesn't - and he chooses not to.  God could come out in public - but he doesn't. Therefore he chooses not to.

 

People claim to have a personal relationship with God, and that God reveals himself individually to people who open up to him. But I have observed that those who seem to truly believe they have a personal relationship with God are getting very different messages. Some are getting a peace and love message while others are being called to arms to fight a holy war against other people who believe God is on their side supporting their cause. I therefore have to believe that some of these people if not all of them just think God is talking to them when he really isn't.

 

God apparently doesn't reveal himself to realists like me. God could reveal himself to me - but he chooses not to. And even if he did reveal himself to me personally - that doesn't qualify him as real to the Church of Reality. I am after all just a guy with an idea. I do not control reality. God doesn't become real based on the belief of Marc Perkel. In order to qualify as real to the church of Reality - God have to come out in an objective form that everyone can observe in the real world.

 

 

I find it funny that he's got that tax-exempt status, though!

[MQTA]

Excellent site. Reading this page

 

Christianity Sucks

~ A Frank Discussion on Dealing with Christians ~

 

 

Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech 

First I will say that I believe that every person on the planet has a right to believe in any religion, no matter how stupid it is. I also believe that every person has a right to free speech and a right to talk about stupid religions and the reasons they are stupid, even if "people of faith" get offended. Just because I respect your right to practice your stupid religion doesn't mean that I have any respect for it, nor do I have to pretend your religion isn't stupid and/or isn't a dangerous and destructive cult. If you are offended by frank discussions of religions, you can leave now.

 

I find Christians particularly offensive. Everyone is going to burn in Hell except them. They have no respect for any other religion. In fact, most Christians hate most other Christians. The Pentecostals think the Catholics are all going to burn in Hell. It's a very dishonest religion and has a holier than thou culture; they believe they are better than everyone else. They like to pose as persecuted, but more often than not they are the persecutors. They tend to lie and steal a lot because they are "forgiven" and therefore can indulge in sin. The religion is theoretically based on the Bible which is, quite frankly, a stupid book, and certainly not written by a God. But Christians hardly follow their own teachings and are more likely to cheat and steal than your average person off the street.

 

that's just the first comment on that page. great reading there.

 

Looks real interesting.

 

[MQTA]

more

Even though God created the universe and created billions of us, and he's all powerful and all knowing, he seems to have an identity problem and is so insecure that he needs us to worship him. Kind of like a kid shaking his fist over an ant colony demanding to be worshiped and obeyed, but on a much larger scale. God loves us but needs to punish us, unless we worship him. It's like God is some southern hick child abuser or something. Maybe we should call family services on God for child abuse? Anyhow, Christians believe God has a God sized ego problem and needs us to worship him, or he throws fits like destroying the world and such. God doesn't seem to have much control over his behavior and often is controlled by his own strong emotions.

 

God doesn't seem to really care much about what you do, but in what you believe in. It's "faith" not "works" that impress God. So, a mass murderer who gets "saved" during his lethal injection will go to Heaven, but the Dalai Lama is going to burn in Hell. So, you can be bad all your life and change at the last minute and get into Heaven. Christians obviously think God is pretty stupid and will fall for something like that. Actually, they don't "think" that because you're not supposed to think. You've got to "have faith" to believe something that stupid. Faith is the belief in something that has no basis in logic or reason.

 

The bottom line is, Christianity is about the fear of going to Hell. They say it's about "love" too, but hey, people who love you don't torture you in Hell forever, so I'm not buying the "he loves you" crap. And even though God created the universe, he's just not very good with money, and he needs you to give him your cash. God was a lot more out there in ancient times than he is today. God likes to work behind the screens, being the invisible guy in the sky, and letting the churches do his work. He doesn't talk directly, so he needs babbling nut cases to speak for him, (in tongues), with another nut case interpreting it. God is rather impotent these days and his authority seems to be limited to getting even with you after you're dead. So God needs his army of Christian Soldiers to do his work for him.

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

This is good, too:

 

The Bible says - God is a Mass Murderer of Children 

I remember being a young Jew and being taught about Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt, especially the events that led up to that. According to the story, God killed the first born male of all the Egyptian families. Being the first born and male - this was a sensitive issue for me. From my perspective they were saying that God would kill me if I had the wrong parents. I took a look at my parents and thought - Holy Fuck! - I'm in trouble!

 

The Jews put had to mark their houses by killing a goat or a lamb and smearing the blood around the door so that when God came to kill children, he didn't accidently kill the wrong ones. God's all powerful - but he's easily confused and needs to have things marked so that he doesn't make a mistake. And - God had to be appeased with animal sacrifices or he's going to come kill your children.

 

Now - if I told you there was this guy in the neighborhood who was going around slaughtering first born males of everyone who didn't have goats blood smeared around there door, we'd lock that guy up and make him the poster boy for the death penalty. But this is God we're talking about here who's the insane criminal. God - the all powerful creator of the universe - who knows everything - and loves us all - is also a mass murderer of children. Even at the age of 5 I wasn't buying it and I was living in a world where the adults were stupid scary people who were trying to force me to believe things that made absolutely no sense at all. Fortunately for me though I had parents who had their own lives screwed up so much that they didn't have it together enough to force this nonsense on me the way most kids were forced. And being a Jew wasn't nearly as insane as the what the Catholic kids in the neighborhood went through. I'm afraid of how I might have turned out if I actually bought any of this nonsense. But every day parents are abusing children by filling their heads with this sort of religious nonsense.

 

 

That's it, I've bookmarked this site!

[MQTA]

I just finished reading that page. I can't quote all of it, it's too good to not go there and read it ALL. Just that one page says it all, and the other pages are great too.

 

Since Christians are right, and everyone else is wrong, Christians are mandated to expand their cult to try to include everyone in the world. They want Christian controlled governments to enforce their Christian way of life on the masses, and to have the authority to punish the non-believers. The idea of personal rights and liberties is contrary to surrendering your life and free will to Jesus and doing "his work" as dictated by the church. After all, if you're not serving Christ, you're serving Satan, and you are the tool of the Devil and serving an evil purpose. So the idea of personal liberty and free thinking is the same as giving rights to Satan to be evil. Something God would never approve of but seems powerless to stop. The omnipotent creator seems to have to rely on us mere mortals to do his work for him, and we, according to Christianity, have that task of winning souls over to Christ. So it's ok to repress the heathen non-believers because we heathens are the enemy of God. Obviously, Satan is working through me right now making me write this, and you're being influenced by Satan in reading it. Pray that you don't believe a word I say!

[MQTA]

Christianity is a, "we're better that you," religion that openly disdains all other religions, including other Christians. It creates a highly exaggerated sense of self-importance that is sustained by the oppression and judgment of others. Christians see the world as a battlefield where God is at war with the Devil. The adversaries are fighting this war through human surrogates with Christians as the good guys and everyone else as the bad guys. And since this is a holy war, all is fair. It is ok for Christians to be dishonest in order to gain power to fight for Jesus.

 

For example, if a Christian were to kill me for posting this web page, publicly the churches would condemn it as murder and wrong. However, in their hearts they would be thankful that some one killed me because I am an instrument of Satan and therefore deserve to die. I would be an enemy killed in battle. At a minimum, they are out there praying for my soul, because I am lost, and they are found.

 

From the perspective of a non-believer, I see Christians in general as self-righteous, hate-filled, and indulging in behavior that is very bizarre. If someone is speaking in tongues, either God is speaking through them, or they are so mentally ill that they are hallucinating that God is speaking through them. Is God really speaking through them? Well, if God is all powerful then can't he speak for himself? If not, God has a problem. If so, then the Christian who thinks he's speaking for God has a problem. The bottom line is, Christianity is a cult, actually, thousands of related cults, and as a culture, it sucks.

 

Culture... Christian Culture... CHRISTian CULTure

[MQTA]

For the record - I was raised Jewish - sort of. My parents are Jewish - sort of - in name only. Much like the followers of any other religion of people who identify with a religion because of ancestry rather than actually believing and practicing something. I remember back when I was 5 years old being forced to study the old testament and thinking - no way in hell does this make sense. Having said that - Judaism is perhaps one of the least stupid of the stupid religions in that they aren't out beating on your door like the Christians do wanting to know if you know Moses. But come on! Judaism is based on ancient bullshit and it's time to give it up and move on.

 

Judaism is a stagnant religion that is stuck in the past.

 

Judaism is one of the world's oldest religions. The oldest one in terms of religions who created a knowledge tree that still exists today. There are other religions that are older - but forgotten - because they failed to create a knowledge tree. Judaism is the predecessor to Christianity who took a bad idea and made it worse.

 

Great stuff here too

[MQTA]

The Jewish god is modeled after the early oppressive kings. In those times kings had absolute power and if they got in a bad mood - they might have thousands slaughtered. Since God is the supreme king - then he would be the ultimate oppressor. The God of the Bible fits this model. He's a tyrant who loses his temper and slaughters a lot of people when he gets pissed off. And he gets pissed off because he's not worshiped the right way. Think about it - God needs animal sacrifices? The being that created all the universe - all the galaxies - needs people to sacrifice animals to it? hmmmmm ... do you buy that? The God of the Jews is nothing more than a petty tyrant modeled after their petty tyrant kings - and that's according to THEIR beliefs!

 

 

So - if the Bible isn't real - then God didn't pick the Jews as the "Chosen People" and Jews are just ordinary people - just like all the rest of us.

[MQTA]

Open Question for Atheists 

 

Here's something to think about for all you Atheists out there. Atheism is technically defined as not believing in God. God doesn't exist. God isn't real. But - people ask - what do you believe in?

 

Many Atheists have a problem answering that question in behalf of Atheism because Atheism is what you don't believe in - not what you do believe in. But when you think about it when you say that God doesn't exist then you are making a statement about God in relation to reality. For the statement to mean anything - reality must exist.

 

My point is - I think that one can safely say that Atheists believe in what's real, and that if an Atheist is asked, "What do you believe in?" that Reality is a correct answer. After all - if you don't admit that you do believe in reality, then the statement that God isn't real doesn't mean anything.

 

another good page. lots of FFT!

[Checkmate]

Fundamentalist Atheist: There is no God, and anyone who thinks there is a God is a misguided and dangerous fool.

 

Evangelical Atheist: It is not sufficient that there is no God. We must do our best to make sure that nobody even believes that there is one.

 

As an anti-theist, these both fit me. I like 'em!

[Checkmate]

No Rituals - We don't throw virgins into volcanoes. We don't baptize anyone. We don't speak in tongues. We are suspicious, however, of people who aren't into Star Trek.

 

Wisdom at it's finest! (I'm certain that Khan would approve.)

[MQTA]

the pages are awesome; I'm lost in them already

 

 

You can't have it both ways 

 

 

This last point can be briefly explained. Despite its simplicity, I think it is a very powerful argument for a completely fictional Jesus. It has been said “many times in many ways,” as the song lyric goes, but Frank Zindler recently stated it quite succinctly.

 

Zindler notes that many liberal Christian apologists will readily agree that, “While the gospels cannot be taken literally, they are at least evidence of somebody [emphasis in original] extraordinary. But these same apologists miss the irony of Jesus being so obscure that no secular record of him survives. (It is ironic also that despite being a well-known public figure and rabble-rouser, Jesus nevertheless is so colorless and forgettable that the authorities have to bribe Judas to point him out!)” (The Jesus The Jews Never Knew, p. 5) This last point Zindler puts in parenthesis because it assumes that the reader might think that at least some part of the gospel fables might be true. I believe, as does Zindler, that this is extraordinarily unlikely, to the point of a vanishing possibility.

 

In conclusion, I believe that in this article I have at least “hit the highlights” of the arguments for a purely fictional Jesus with his purely fictional “gospel.”

 

Clarence Darrow may have summarized the pure-myth position most succinctly when he said, “I don’t believe in Jesus because I don’t believe in Mother Goose.” No, Virginia, I’m afraid that it is time now to grow up. There really isn’t any Santa Claus. And even though there may have been a Christian bishop, born in 270 CE, who was rumored to have secretly shared his inherited wealth with the poor, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the myth of the fat guy in a red suit who, on December 25th, drops down the chimney’s of every world-wide Christian family who has one or more children to deliver presents, with the aide of a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. Additionally, there is also no Tooth Fairy, no Mother Goose, and Jesus never was. 

 

http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/is_jesus_fiction/

[Guest vanesa]

Church of Reality, what a fucking joke. About as valid as atheist Xtianity. You Ex-Xtians are so gullible with all your hokey religions.

[MQTA]

Church of Reality, what a fucking joke. About as valid as atheist Xtianity. You Ex-Xtians are so gullible with all your hokey religions.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Did you read ANY of it? It's not what a site is called, it's the contents.

 

You can call a snack what you want, but the ingredients make the value.

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

Church of Reality, what a fucking joke. About as valid as atheist Xtianity. You Ex-Xtians are so gullible with all your hokey religions.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

The site is written by an atheist as something of a joke (or a joke-with-lots-of-points)

about religion. Are you normally this snippy?

 

[MQTA]

I'm sorry, this ain't no Joke site! This is good shit, man, have a hit of Faith

 

Faith Based Salvation 

Many religions, especially Christians believe that you are saved by faith. In fact that is the only criteria. If you don't have faith then you don't get into Heaven, end of story. It doesn't matter how good you are or what works you did - it's all rests on faith. So if faith is so important, then what is it?

 

 

If Salvation is based on faith, and if faith is believing without proof, then proving God is real undermines salvation.

 

Faith means to believe in something without evidence or proof. Using the term in the Christian sense faith is required. You have to make a commitment to accept statements as true without evidence or proof. In fact that is God's test to see if you can believe in him without any reason other than trust in the authority of the church and it's holy books. And you are prohibited from doubting, questioning, scrutinizing, or putting the object of faith to the test. Once something that relies on faith is proven, then it becomes science. If everything were proven then there would be nothing left that is real to have faith in.

 

The requirement of faith puts an interesting twist in the rules. If faith were optional then it wouldn't matter how you believed in something. But when the test of salvation is based not on what you believe in, but how you believe in it, i.e. faith, then if you don't believe in it by that method, you burn in Hell forever. Based on this science can not lead you to God because if you get to God through science then you don't have faith and you got there the wrong way. There isn't anything in the Bible that indicates that you are saved through scientific discovery. It's about faith, and only faith. 

[MQTA]

But Faith in What? 

The test of salvation is faith. You are required to believe through faith and not through science. But what are you required to have faith in? There are tens of thousands of choices out there to put your faith in, but what if you pick the wrong one? Will you go to Hell if you pick the wrong one? Most definitely you will.

 

One Sunday afternoon as you are sitting on our porch a Jehovah's Witness and a member of the Assembly of God walk up to you at the same time to convert you to their religion. Both of them claim to be Bible believing Christians who are out to save your soul so that you might enter the Kingdom of Heaven to live forever in eternal paradise. However it is soon apparent that these religions are mutually exclusive, each claiming the other is the road to hell. Perhaps there are 10 different religions represented as other Christians start gathering. Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, Messianic Jews, Baptists, Moonies, and throw in a Muslim, all of them claiming that all the others are false beliefs and that unless you make the correct choice, your soul is forever lost. But the one thing they have in common is that you must believe through faith.

 

So - how do you choose? How do you decide which one is right?

 

Obviously you can't start out by using reason because if you use science and logic then you will surely pick the wrong one. If the belief is scientifically provable then you won't be able to believe in it through faith. Since faith is required then scientifically proof would be prohibited. Suppose there were one true religion, the religion who got it all right (or at least really close). And suppose that it had the salvation by faith clause. Then suppose that science proved that this religion were real. What would that mean?

 

If the one true religion required faith based salvation and it were proven to be true scientifically then that would undermine faith because faith is belief without proof and if you have proof then faith is excluded. So if science proved the one true religion then everyone who believed in the true religion would all go to hell, because their faith was undermined by scientific verification. This would create a paradox for God - so the only solution must be that God would make sure that the one true religion must never be scientifically provable.

 

There is some evidence of this because it would explain why God remains hidden from science and totally scientifically undetectable. And it explains why so much of the Bible can't be proved with science because if it could be it would undermine the faith requirement preventing the believers in the true religion to obtain salvation through faith. Thus the Bible has to be unscientific so that it can never be scientifically proven and have Bible believers lose faith because of proof and evidence.