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Goodbye Jesus

Never Let Christians Be Your Source Of History


Kaiser01

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ok recently i was talking to a person and he had recently read a book called "foxes book of Martyers". He had began to tell me one of the stories in this book and stated that John Locke was put in prision for 12 years and told to denounce christ to be let out of prission. now i could see this happening in the early early days of the christian church but he told me it was in....

 

15th centurary christian england...

 

i was like total bullshit, no way in hell is this posible that some one was thrown in prision for 12 YEARS!!! in ENGLAND for being a CHRISTIAN.

 

foxes book of martyers was written around the time of protostant reform after protostantisms creation as a religion and in this time there was extreme tensions between chatholics and protostants.

 

well for one john locke didnt even exist yet before the book was written so it isnt him to begin with, so i looked into who he could be talking about. the onyl person i could find with the name John was John Wiklife who was a protostant reformest and never thrown into prision for 12 years.

 

my "freind" was attempting to tell evry one around me that john was killed for being a christian in britan when in reality John Wikilife was a early protostant reformist being a predestination junkey. i think this is hilarious for one this guy is a babtist so he is talking about a John who dosnt even belive the same as he does. but the sad part is he never even mentions who throws him into the imaginary prision witch is other christians and for what reason.

 

its jsut silly to belive this could happen in a christian nation at the time without the act being ondorsed by the church.

 

just total bullshit but evry one of those people now belive that england was anti christian in the early renisance period and that John locke died in a unlocked cell witch he stayed in for 12 years.:fun::lmao:

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Not only was he imprisoned for 12 years, but he was anally probed by a nasty, brutal short leviathan.

 

 

 

 

*sorry, you need to know a bit about Locke and Hobbes to get this, and even then it's probably not funny. Couldn't help myself though...*

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You cannot trust xians for "facts" about their buybull either.

 

The Holy Bible, the best selling book that is hardly ever read.:twitch:

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The Holy Bible, the best selling book that is hardly ever read.:twitch:

:HaHa:

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i was like total bullshit, no way in hell is this posible that some one was thrown in prision for 12 YEARS!!! in ENGLAND for being a CHRISTIAN.

 

Yea, I'd get these moments too when I was a xtian. The crap that these people would willingly believe because their (sincere) xtian friend told them, seemed to have no end.

 

My brother repeatedly would tell me that there was some recent discovery 'about to be announced' that absolutely proves that evolution is false. I'd ask him intelligent questions and he could not explain simple things like what it was, who discovered it, where it was discovered and where I could get more information. And yet he'd persist in repeating this for several years(forgetting that he'd told me this before) and have no evidence. He wasn't making this up as a joke. He intended this to impress me. Huh? :shrug:

 

In my 'Death by 1000 Cuts' deconversion process, xtians saying stupid things that had an ***obvious*** ring of 'false' was a frequent cut to the flesh of my faith.

 

I still marvel at the willingness of so many xtians to believe whatever another xtian tells them.

 

Lazy lazy xtians!!!!

 

Mongo

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Not only was he imprisoned for 12 years, but he was anally probed by a nasty, brutal short leviathan.

 

 

 

 

*sorry, you need to know a bit about Locke and Hobbes to get this, and even then it's probably not funny. Couldn't help myself though...*

Maybe he didn't have a contract that was civil enough...

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Another christian who is a total whack job when it comes to history is David Barton.

 

I saw his interview with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show when he gave his explanation of what the Treaty of Tripoli ACTUALLY meant. I looked up a copy on the internet. The dude must have to take mind-altering drugs to read it that way!

 

Or his his religious bias the same as a mind-altering drug . . . ? Hmmmm

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Here's a link to the complete book: Fox's book of martyrs.

 

When it comes to the historicity of Christian martyrs, it is actually true that many Christians were tortured, imprisoned, and killed... by other Christians, mind you.

 

Just like many Muslims were tortured and killed by Saddam Hussein. And many non-believers tortured and killed under communist Soviet, China, and even Korea.

 

The fact that Christians were martyred by other Christians does not make an argument for the truth of Christianity, but rather evidence that Christians are just as much victims and perpetrators of crimes as anybody.

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Not only was he imprisoned for 12 years, but he was anally probed by a nasty, brutal short leviathan.

 

 

 

 

*sorry, you need to know a bit about Locke and Hobbes to get this, and even then it's probably not funny. Couldn't help myself though...*

Maybe he didn't have a contract that was civil enough...

 

He was punished for let it ALL hang out in the state of nature.

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Here's a link to the complete book: Fox's book of martyrs.

 

When it comes to the historicity of Christian martyrs, it is actually true that many Christians were tortured, imprisoned, and killed... by other Christians, mind you.

 

Just like many Muslims were tortured and killed by Saddam Hussein. And many non-believers tortured and killed under communist Soviet, China, and even Korea.

 

The fact that Christians were martyred by other Christians does not make an argument for the truth of Christianity, but rather evidence that Christians are just as much victims and perpetrators of crimes as anybody.

 

yea i know its just the fact that he tried to state christians were persecuted by non christians in a place like 16th centurary England when really it was protostants vs chatholics. the christians at the church i attended were ubsessed with the persecutions in their history but what they never pay attention to is who persecuted them unless it fits their belifes and they also never pay attention to all the people christianity has killed such as pegans jews and philosphers.

 

and i have read Foxes book of martyers and i thought it was a good read but historicaly inacurate and biased it was popular at the church.

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He was punished for let it ALL hang out in the state of nature.

:HaHa:

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yea i know, the christians at the church i attended were ubsessed with the persecutions in their history but what they never pay attention to is who persecuted them unless it fits their belifes and they also never pay attention to all the people christianity has killed such as pegans jews and philosphers.

That's right.

 

When Christians come to power (regardless of denomination) they will exert that power to progress their own particular version of faith, which means that other versions of Christians will suffer together with all non-Christians. That's why freedom of religion and separation of state was so important to the founding fathers of America. But it was too long ago for people to really remember, hence Christians are the ones in the forefront of pushing themselves to the top and take control again... and round and round it goes...

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Just finished Bart Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus

 

Found out some interesting things

 

1. The doctrine of the Trinity was cooked up sometime between 200 AD and 400 AD by the Romans (who were by then governed directly by the military) and doesn't appear in any intelligible forms in the original texts.

 

2. The last 12 verses of modern Mark are absent

from the two oldest and best manuscripts of Mark's Gospel. Again, cooked up later and tacked on.

 

3. the story of The Woman Taken in Adultery is not found in the oldest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of John. Cooked up later

 

4. The King James (published 1611) is translated directly from Greek texts collected by Erasmus around 1500. And these Greek texts were written by christian scholars around 1200 AD. Yes - that is 1200 AD - more than a millennium after most of the earliest Christian happenings - which is plenty of time for all kinds of weird ideological fetishes to be added or subtracted. So the definitive English translation of the WORD OF GOD actually just goes back about 800 years.

 

5. Around 1700 a guy with the last name of Mill published an apparatus isolated some thirty thousand places of variation among the surviving Christian texts. Mill was not exhaustive in his presentation of the data he had collected.

He had, in fact, found far more than thirty thousand places of variation: "I GRIEVE therefore and am vexed that I have found so much in Mill's Prolegomena which seems quite plainly to render the standard of faith insecure, or at best to give others too good a handle for doubting." - Daniel Whitby, a conservative Protestant theologian in 1710

 

6. "For the only reason (I came to think) for God to inspire the Bible would be so that his people would have his actual words; but if he really wanted people to have his actual

words, surely he would have miraculously preserved those words, just as he had miraculously inspired them in the first place. Given the circumstance that he didn't preserve the words, the conclusion seemed inescapable to me that he hadn't gone to the trouble of inspiring them." - Bart Ehrman, one of the foremost scholars of original Biblical texts

 

_____

 

[The Christians'] injunctions are like this. "Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by us to be evils. But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let him come boldly." ( Origen quoting his critic Celsus in "Against Celsus" published 248 AD)

 

Moreover, we see that those who display their secret [Christian] lore in the marketplaces and go about begging would never enter a gathering of intelligent men, nor would they dare to reveal their noble beliefs in their presence; but whenever they see adolescent boys and a crowd of slaves and a company of fools, they push themselves in and show off. (Against Celsus 3.50)

 

In private houses also we see woolworkers, cobblers, laundry workers, and the most illiterate and bucolic yokels, who would not dare to say anything at all in front of their elders and more intelligent masters. But whenever they get hold of children in private and some stupid women with them, they let out some astonishing statements, as, for example, that they must not pay any attention to their father and school teachers. . .; they say that these talk nonsense and have no understanding. . . . But, if they like, they should leave father and their schoolmasters, and go along with the women and little children who are their playfellows to the wooldresser's shop, or to the cobbler's or the washerwoman's shop, that they may learn perfection. And by saying this they persuade them. (Against Celsus 3.56)

 

Draw your own conclusions....

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I had a friend back in high school who must have been a follower of David Barton because she would espouse the same shit he said--and she wasn't an unintelligent gal.

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Here's a link to the complete book: Fox's book of martyrs.

 

When it comes to the historicity of Christian martyrs, it is actually true that many Christians were tortured, imprisoned, and killed... by other Christians, mind you.

 

I took a quick look at your link. I notice that there are many listings of persecutions "under the Papacy." The emphasis of this thread is about Christians denying that Christians persecuted Christians. Yet this makes no sense in light of the fact that they list the Papacy as a persecutor.

 

Unless, as seems to be the case when I read evangelical forums, they take it upon themselves to judge as nonChristian anyone who does not believe exactly as they do. If they think they can write off Roman Catholics as not being Christian (which is ludicrous), then it follows that they can also write off the Church of England as not being Christian. And any other State Church. Or large mainline church in North America and elsewhere outside Europe. Or simply churches that they disagree with, be they large or small. I've noticed that they do this.

 

Once you decide that only your own church is Christian, I suppose you can say with impunity--providing your own church isn't killing anyone for their faith--that Christians have never killed anyone for their faith.

 

However, the story in the OP is ridiculous. According anglican.org, Church History, the Church of England traces its roots to the sixth century (500s AD/CE). John Locke lived a thousand years later. He was born in 1632 and died in 1704. He was not persecuted for being a traditional Christian.

 

However, if we look at his Religious Beliefs, we see that it is possible that he experienced opposition from traditional Christians--such as evangelicals--for not believing in the pre-existence of Christ, meaning Locke denied that Christ existed before his birth in the flesh. (That is taken from two separate Wikipedia articles, as per the links.)

 

In other words, at least for a portion of his life, John Locke held some beliefs about Christ that are very much not traditional Christian belief in a Trinity. I am thinking it is quite possible that Christians found this problematic around the year 1700, or late 1600s. It is quite possible that they put him in jail for it--I don't know if they did or not but it's possible. But it would be for the opposite reason from what the story in the OP wishes to claim.

 

And that reinforces a phenomenon I've noticed before. When it comes to highly respected and famous people, the Christians want to claim them exclusively for themselves, take them away from the "evil atheists" and other "worldly secularists." Einstein is prime example; the Christians like him so much that they take his writing out of context to prove that he was a Christian just like them when he clearly was not. I think that is what they are doing with John Locke--someone who does not understand the subtleties of theology sees that this famous person was opposed for his unique belief regarding Christ (if, indeed, he was).

 

Since (in the Christian's mind) a highly respected famous person could not possibly be an apostate, this twisted story must be the case. That's my guess of what's going on.

 

For this reason, I underscore the title of this thread: NEVER LET CHRISTIANS BE YOUR SOURCE OF HISTORY.

 

The exception is when you want to know the history of Christian thought. Above, I cited Christians re the history of the Church of England because I wanted to know when adherents to that church believe their church originated. Also, I look at what method a person uses to establish historical fact. It is possible for a human being to profess Christ (be a Christian) and also do honest historiography. Honest historians will, however, apply the scientific method to their academic work.

 

I don't trust Christians who argue that the scientific method is bogus/suspect. Such Christians are clearly arguing against the empirical reality of this world/universe as a measuring stick for their "facts." That is why they are untrustworthy as historians.

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Is this somehow related to the, "jesus freaks book of martyrs"?

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Is this somehow related to the, "jesus freaks book of martyrs"?

 

I'd never heard of the Jesus Freaks book of martyrs so I did some research on both books just now. I don't think there is any connection other than the religious conviction that Protestant evangelicals are the True Believers.

 

The title is: Jesus Freaks: Stories of those who ultimately stood for Jesus, Albury Publishing, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1999, written by dc Talk. Dc Talk is "a Grammy-winning Christian rock music trio. The group was formed in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1987" (wikipedia). I read a number of pages in this book online at Amazon. I can see how they get so many "martyrs." Here's one story:

 

She was 17 years old. He stood glaring at her, his weapon before her face.

 

"Do you believe in God?"

 

She paused. It was a life or death question. "Yes, I believe in God."

Suddenly the girl lies "dead at his feet." The author says this happened at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. The girl is made out as having died for her faith. I didn't know too much about Columbine, just read bits and pieces on these forums here and there, so I looked it up in wikipedia. I think we all agree that it was the act of an isolated psychopath or two rather than a government sanctioned executioner. Yet in the part I omitted, the author calls the killer an "executioner."

 

She did not "die for her faith." She died because a dangerous psychopath was on the loose. If Christians want to label all murders of Christians as martyrdom, they really cheapen the meaning of the word. Of course, it allows them to find the requisite martyrs to bolster the validity of their religion...since they are already in the business of lying for Jesus anyway.

 

Fox's Book of Martyrs, on the other hand, was first published in 1552. Subsequent editions came out later in the decade (wikipedia). The shortened title of the book is Acts and Monuments and it was well over two thousand pages at one point. If you read the larger article on Foxe's life, you will see that he experienced persecution first hand. There were burnings in his lifetime and he had to flee his native England for a while. I think his book was inspired by his personal life experience, as well as that of his contemporaries.

 

It seems he was part of the Reformation in which evangelicals broke away from the main church. He seriously despised the Roman Catholic Church. I can see that people following in his religious footsteps say that RCs aren't Christian. That doesn't make it true, though.

 

One of the authors of the Jesus Freak book refers to martyrs of earlier centuries, and I would not be surprised if they have read Fox's Book of Martyrs. But nowhere in the pages I read do they refer to it. They do think that by taking a stand for Jesus they appear weird and are martyring their lives for Jesus, instead of their bodies. They think this is a good thing.

 

So if there is a relationship between being three rich, famous, and popular living martyrs and a "wretchedly poor" guy in exile not getting a penny for the thousands of pages he authors--they all write about Protestant martyrs and have the same religion, I suppose there might be a relationship between the two books. That's the only link I see. I have a lot more respect for Foxe because he actually suffered for his beliefs and I don't see him calling himself a martyr...That's my opinion for what it's worth.

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Another thing about the Jesus Freak book. It says on the cover that "According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, there were close to 156,000 Christians martyred around the world in 1998. An estimated 164,000 will be martyred in 1999."

 

On their Jesus Freaks websitethey have a map showing where all these people are supposedly being killed for their faith.

 

I looked up the World Christian Encyclopedia. Can't find much but what I do find suggests that it is a comprehensive work with the obvious evangelical Christian bias.

 

I have a serious problem with the concept of predicting that 80,000 people will be killed for their beliefs in the coming year--it seems sick. The fact that these people put it on the cover of their book suggests to me that they are reveling in it. Are they sick or what?

 

All the more reason not to let Christians be one's source for historical data--or even contemporary facts, in my opinion. Possibly these people in the Southern Hemisphere are dying from famine or epidemic or war just as are their Muslim and Buddhist compatriots. Given what dc Talk will say in that Columbine story I wouldn't put it past them to just omit the info.

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I used to support The Voice of the Martyrs in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, when I was a fundy. They often bragged that no one was being persecuted in god's chosen land, USA, but that christians were dying by the tens of thousands every year all over the world. This was the same year some one was blowing up churches in the south left and right and christian men were murdering their christian wives. That was the big reason I stopped my support back then. It's all political propaganda designed to encourage good Americans to support religious nonsense, all of which went overseas.

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I believe the reference is, in fact, to John Bunyan. He spent roughly 12 years in prison (give or take some time here and there) and was a Baptist/Puritan during the time it was not good to be anything but Anglican. He was sent to prison for preaching when the law stated he could not (I don't know the specifics of the law but I believe it had something to do with non-Anglican sects having to be of a certain size and he exceeded that size). I haven't looked too closely but I would think that agreeing to not preach his specific brand of xianity would be akin to deny his "christ" which is something that could free him but since he could actually preach to his fellow inmates he could also choose not to do.

 

As much as I like to call out idiots I think this person may have just confused some names because the rest seems in the ballpark.

 

mwc

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I believe the reference is, in fact, to John Bunyan. He spent roughly 12 years in prison (give or take some time here and there) and was a Baptist/Puritan during the time it was not good to be anything but Anglican. He was sent to prison for preaching when the law stated he could not (I don't know the specifics of the law but I believe it had something to do with non-Anglican sects having to be of a certain size and he exceeded that size). I haven't looked too closely but I would think that agreeing to not preach his specific brand of xianity would be akin to deny his "christ" which is something that could free him but since he could actually preach to his fellow inmates he could also choose not to do.

 

Using wikipedia articles as my resource, I patched together a picture that fits your theory. It seems during Oliver Cromwell's rule of England, Bunyan as a Reformed Baptist (link) had the freedom to preach. Wikipedia says Crowell did not identify with one specific religious "sect or position" but promoted religious tolerance "for all the various Protestant groups"--anti-Catholic/Anglican, one might conclude (Oliver Cromwell). John Bunyan's offense was to preach without a license. He was arrested for this in 1658 but not imprisoned (John Bunyan, Imprisonments).

 

Then in 1660, in the Restoration of the Monarchy the Church of England (Anglican) came back into power (Religious Settlement). This brought new liberties to women (Restoration Britain). John Bunyan was imprisoned for conducting church services outside Anglicanism (Imprisonments).

 

More from the Imprisonments section: It was in 1664, after Bunyan was already in prison, that size of congregation was stipulated (no more than five members) for outside the Anglican Church. His wife was appealing his imprisonment but he told authorities that if released he would minister to his waiting congregation and I take it there were more than five members. Even in prison he had a congregation of about sixty. Interestingly, he also had Foxe's Book of Martyrs with him. Finally, in 1672, he was released when the king issued the Declaration of Religious Indulgence.

 

As much as I like to call out idiots I think this person may have just confused some names because the rest seems in the ballpark.

 

After what I learned here I am obligated to agree with you.

 

I think it should be noted that Bunyan was not executed. He died a natural death--he "caught his death of a cold," literally. I guess this kind of thing was common in the days before penicillin to deal with fevers and infections. See account in the John Bunyan article in the part on his life from 1673-1688.

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I'm guessing that he's just totally mixed up on information he got from multiple sources, interpreted and altered a bit in his own mind, and generally misremembered.

 

The most famous John Locke was a 17th century English philosopher. No doubt he had read about John Locke somewhere, at some point and substituted the name with some other John (?).

 

I just searched up the text version of Foxe's Book on Project Gutenberg, which was easy since the entire text was on one page. There was no mention of John Bunyan, but there was an entire short chapter on John Wickliffe, unrelated as it may be to whatever guy may have spent 12 years in prison. In fact, a search of "twelve" and "12" in the book did not turn up anything promising. Locke, Wickliffe, and Bunyan, I think this guy was drawing from a poorly absorbed hodgepodge of at least three sources: I just hope he doesn't bring a blue ox into all this! I also pity anyone within 50 miles of a crime scene where he is a witness.

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Is this somehow related to the, "jesus freaks book of martyrs"?

 

I'd never heard of the Jesus Freaks book of martyrs so I did some research on both books just now. I don't think there is any connection other than the religious conviction that Protestant evangelicals are the True Believers.

 

The title is: Jesus Freaks: Stories of those who ultimately stood for Jesus, Albury Publishing, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1999, written by dc Talk. Dc Talk is "a Grammy-winning Christian rock music trio. The group was formed in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1987" (wikipedia). I read a number of pages in this book online at Amazon. I can see how they get so many "martyrs." Here's one story:

 

She was 17 years old. He stood glaring at her, his weapon before her face.

 

"Do you believe in God?"

 

She paused. It was a life or death question. "Yes, I believe in God."

Suddenly the girl lies "dead at his feet." The author says this happened at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. The girl is made out as having died for her faith. I didn't know too much about Columbine, just read bits and pieces on these forums here and there, so I looked it up in wikipedia. I think we all agree that it was the act of an isolated psychopath or two rather than a government sanctioned executioner. Yet in the part I omitted, the author calls the killer an "executioner."

 

She did not "die for her faith." She died because a dangerous psychopath was on the loose. If Christians want to label all murders of Christians as martyrdom, they really cheapen the meaning of the word. Of course, it allows them to find the requisite martyrs to bolster the validity of their religion...since they are already in the business of lying for Jesus anyway.

 

Fox's Book of Martyrs, on the other hand, was first published in 1552. Subsequent editions came out later in the decade (wikipedia). The shortened title of the book is Acts and Monuments and it was well over two thousand pages at one point. If you read the larger article on Foxe's life, you will see that he experienced persecution first hand. There were burnings in his lifetime and he had to flee his native England for a while. I think his book was inspired by his personal life experience, as well as that of his contemporaries.

 

It seems he was part of the Reformation in which evangelicals broke away from the main church. He seriously despised the Roman Catholic Church. I can see that people following in his religious footsteps say that RCs aren't Christian. That doesn't make it true, though.

 

One of the authors of the Jesus Freak book refers to martyrs of earlier centuries, and I would not be surprised if they have read Fox's Book of Martyrs. But nowhere in the pages I read do they refer to it. They do think that by taking a stand for Jesus they appear weird and are martyring their lives for Jesus, instead of their bodies. They think this is a good thing.

 

So if there is a relationship between being three rich, famous, and popular living martyrs and a "wretchedly poor" guy in exile not getting a penny for the thousands of pages he authors--they all write about Protestant martyrs and have the same religion, I suppose there might be a relationship between the two books. That's the only link I see. I have a lot more respect for Foxe because he actually suffered for his beliefs and I don't see him calling himself a martyr...That's my opinion for what it's worth.

 

yea in my church they would allways try to refrence the columbine killings as martydom but they never tell the whole story or look at it from difrent angles they simply want to belive she died for christianity so to them it becomes fact.

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I think sometimes when psychopaths, like the one at Columbine, ask their victims if they believe in God, they are challenging God to come to their rescue, or in some way mocking the powerlessness of the victim.

 

I would also ask whether the account is actually true--whether any witnesses survive who can testify to it. Or whether a creative evangelical teacher or preacher made it up for his own agenda.

 

I'm sorry to be suspicious but these people don't exactly engender trust, what with their track record of proven unreliability when it comes to factual accuracy as experienced and understood by the majority of humans in the empirical world.

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Odd really that in England the persecutions of Catholics by protestants and protestants by Catholics is not something we generally held up as a positive moment for the Church or indeed the country....

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