Lighten up Christians
Discussion
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id...
I know Easter is a serious time for you lot, but FFS it was ~2000 years ago - surely a bit of levity* won't harm the message for today?
*edited due to deficient linguistic skills
I know Easter is a serious time for you lot, but FFS it was ~2000 years ago - surely a bit of levity* won't harm the message for today?
*edited due to deficient linguistic skills
Edited by gwasoc on Monday 5th April 20:18
The longer it goes on the better.Kermit power said:
There's a rarity - a religious message which doesn't come across as smug, self-righteous or artificially pious. Well done that church.
I disagree. Religious messages should be smug, self-righteous and artificially pious. That's what they do best.The whole "Ch..ch - what's missing? UR!" type of church advert just smacks of them trying to get hip and trendy - something the church shouldn't even attempt to do.
What's wrong with good, old-fashioned fire and brimstone stuff?
Eric Mc said:
Jesus wasn't into the "fire and brimstone" technique. He was quite "cool and ttrendy" by the standards of his day.
And, you have to say, he was pretty effective in getting his message across.
Jesus may or may not have existed, may or may not have been mentally ill if he did exist, and may or may not have been completely ignored by those around him at the time.And, you have to say, he was pretty effective in getting his message across.
The one thing of which we can be certain is that whatever the truth, it has had 2 millenia of polishing and enhancing by generally foul people with a strong degree of self-interest.
What do you think of his basic message?
Is it worth taking at least some of it on board.
I couldn't give a jot about how others may have misused or abused power over the millenia. That has always gone on and always will - no matter what "ideology" is used to hang their power seeking ambitions.
I am, however, interested in listening to what Jesus had to say about life and living.
Is it worth taking at least some of it on board.
I couldn't give a jot about how others may have misused or abused power over the millenia. That has always gone on and always will - no matter what "ideology" is used to hang their power seeking ambitions.
I am, however, interested in listening to what Jesus had to say about life and living.
Eric Mc said:
What do you think of his basic message?
I honestly don't know what it waslots of churchy types these days say it's all about 'Believe in Jesus, son of god (and at the same time God himself) dying for our sins' and that's it
doesn't matter what you do, just believe that before you die
seems a bit crap, but lots of people don't believe in the 'be nice to each other' business that I always thought it was
Eric Mc said:
JonRB said:
I think Bill & Ted summed up Jesus' probable core message before "religion" took it over.
"Be excellent to one another"
"Party on, dude!"
Not that bad an analogy."Be excellent to one another"
"Party on, dude!"
Jesus wasn't averse to the odd party either.
Some years ago I read a fascinating piece of research. If anyone knows a link to it I would love to see it again.
The result was a strong correlation between the appearance of Christian saints during the middle ages and prolonged periods of rain.
Historical data on weather has been compiled using a variety of sources. For example contemporary written records, tree growth rings, river sediment levels. We can’t tell the weather on a particular day, but we can tell which in which years the heavy rains caused the crops to fail.
Saints consistently appeared during the third consecutive year of rain induced famine. The researchers looked for a reason and came up with this.
During the middle ages, the staple diet was rye bread. The agricultural method was that the grain harvest was stored in pits dug in the ground and this worked well. Sufficient was stored to provide food until the next harvest and enough to provide seed stock to sow next spring. In addition there was a reserve of a further year in case the next harvest failed.
With a year in reserve, one bad year didn’t cause famine. But if three consecutive crops failed then famine caused people to be eating the old grain at the very bottom of the silo. This was damp and mouldy. It was unfit for consumption and normally discarded, but there was nothing else, so people ate it.
The chemists and the hippies are now probably way ahead of the rest of you and sniggering, since they can see were this is going.
For the rest of you, the mould that grows on rye is called ergot mould. It synthesises a chemical called ergotamine. It’s the essential ingredient in lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD. It’s not a potent as LSD, but produces much the same effects.
So in the years people were forced to ingest psychedelic drugs, people heard voices that they interpreted on the basis of existing belief systems, such as Christianity. They believed the voices were god talking to them. They could see strange things like lights around people with blurred edges. That looks a lot like an angel with a halo. Groups of people ate the same food and sometimes groups shared experiences.
If today someone reported taking LSD and then have a chat with god nobody would interpret their experience as evidence of divine existence. We understand LSD and would dismiss it as drug induced.
During the middle ages, scientific understanding wasn’t up to explaining the phenomena. So people explained it in the only way they could imagine. They attributed it to god.
If people have a trip that’s one thing; continuing to arrange the world to fit a belief system based upon someone’s recollections of a trip is another. Yet that appears to be what has happened.
As always, it fitted in with other people’s political interests to have such evidence.
In the words of Vice-Pope Eric (Eric Idle in a Monty Python sketch)
“If you’re trying to procreate a creed of poverty, meekness and obedience, you need a rich, powerful authoritarian organization to do it”.
It’s a far more credible explanation than an invisible friend.
The result was a strong correlation between the appearance of Christian saints during the middle ages and prolonged periods of rain.
Historical data on weather has been compiled using a variety of sources. For example contemporary written records, tree growth rings, river sediment levels. We can’t tell the weather on a particular day, but we can tell which in which years the heavy rains caused the crops to fail.
Saints consistently appeared during the third consecutive year of rain induced famine. The researchers looked for a reason and came up with this.
During the middle ages, the staple diet was rye bread. The agricultural method was that the grain harvest was stored in pits dug in the ground and this worked well. Sufficient was stored to provide food until the next harvest and enough to provide seed stock to sow next spring. In addition there was a reserve of a further year in case the next harvest failed.
With a year in reserve, one bad year didn’t cause famine. But if three consecutive crops failed then famine caused people to be eating the old grain at the very bottom of the silo. This was damp and mouldy. It was unfit for consumption and normally discarded, but there was nothing else, so people ate it.
The chemists and the hippies are now probably way ahead of the rest of you and sniggering, since they can see were this is going.
For the rest of you, the mould that grows on rye is called ergot mould. It synthesises a chemical called ergotamine. It’s the essential ingredient in lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD. It’s not a potent as LSD, but produces much the same effects.
So in the years people were forced to ingest psychedelic drugs, people heard voices that they interpreted on the basis of existing belief systems, such as Christianity. They believed the voices were god talking to them. They could see strange things like lights around people with blurred edges. That looks a lot like an angel with a halo. Groups of people ate the same food and sometimes groups shared experiences.
If today someone reported taking LSD and then have a chat with god nobody would interpret their experience as evidence of divine existence. We understand LSD and would dismiss it as drug induced.
During the middle ages, scientific understanding wasn’t up to explaining the phenomena. So people explained it in the only way they could imagine. They attributed it to god.
If people have a trip that’s one thing; continuing to arrange the world to fit a belief system based upon someone’s recollections of a trip is another. Yet that appears to be what has happened.
As always, it fitted in with other people’s political interests to have such evidence.
In the words of Vice-Pope Eric (Eric Idle in a Monty Python sketch)
“If you’re trying to procreate a creed of poverty, meekness and obedience, you need a rich, powerful authoritarian organization to do it”.
It’s a far more credible explanation than an invisible friend.
Uncle Fester said:
Some years ago I read a fascinating piece of research. If anyone knows a link to it I would love to see it again.
The result was a strong correlation between the appearance of Christian saints during the middle ages and prolonged periods of rain.
Historical data on weather has been compiled using a variety of sources. For example contemporary written records, tree growth rings, river sediment levels. We can’t tell the weather on a particular day, but we can tell which in which years the heavy rains caused the crops to fail.
Saints consistently appeared during the third consecutive year of rain induced famine. The researchers looked for a reason and came up with this.
During the middle ages, the staple diet was rye bread. The agricultural method was that the grain harvest was stored in pits dug in the ground and this worked well. Sufficient was stored to provide food until the next harvest and enough to provide seed stock to sow next spring. In addition there was a reserve of a further year in case the next harvest failed.
With a year in reserve, one bad year didn’t cause famine. But if three consecutive crops failed then famine caused people to be eating the old grain at the very bottom of the silo. This was damp and mouldy. It was unfit for consumption and normally discarded, but there was nothing else, so people ate it.
The chemists and the hippies are now probably way ahead of the rest of you and sniggering, since they can see were this is going.
For the rest of you, the mould that grows on rye is called ergot mould. It synthesises a chemical called ergotamine. It’s the essential ingredient in lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD. It’s not a potent as LSD, but produces much the same effects.
So in the years people were forced to ingest psychedelic drugs, people heard voices that they interpreted on the basis of existing belief systems, such as Christianity. They believed the voices were god talking to them. They could see strange things like lights around people with blurred edges. That looks a lot like an angel with a halo. Groups of people ate the same food and sometimes groups shared experiences.
If today someone reported taking LSD and then have a chat with god nobody would interpret their experience as evidence of divine existence. We understand LSD and would dismiss it as drug induced.
During the middle ages, scientific understanding wasn’t up to explaining the phenomena. So people explained it in the only way they could imagine. They attributed it to god.
If people have a trip that’s one thing; continuing to arrange the world to fit a belief system based upon someone’s recollections of a trip is another. Yet that appears to be what has happened.
As always, it fitted in with other people’s political interests to have such evidence.
In the words of Vice-Pope Eric (Eric Idle in a Monty Python sketch)
“If you’re trying to procreate a creed of poverty, meekness and obedience, you need a rich, powerful authoritarian organization to do it”.
It’s a far more credible explanation than an invisible friend.
Nice one, an interesting post!The result was a strong correlation between the appearance of Christian saints during the middle ages and prolonged periods of rain.
Historical data on weather has been compiled using a variety of sources. For example contemporary written records, tree growth rings, river sediment levels. We can’t tell the weather on a particular day, but we can tell which in which years the heavy rains caused the crops to fail.
Saints consistently appeared during the third consecutive year of rain induced famine. The researchers looked for a reason and came up with this.
During the middle ages, the staple diet was rye bread. The agricultural method was that the grain harvest was stored in pits dug in the ground and this worked well. Sufficient was stored to provide food until the next harvest and enough to provide seed stock to sow next spring. In addition there was a reserve of a further year in case the next harvest failed.
With a year in reserve, one bad year didn’t cause famine. But if three consecutive crops failed then famine caused people to be eating the old grain at the very bottom of the silo. This was damp and mouldy. It was unfit for consumption and normally discarded, but there was nothing else, so people ate it.
The chemists and the hippies are now probably way ahead of the rest of you and sniggering, since they can see were this is going.
For the rest of you, the mould that grows on rye is called ergot mould. It synthesises a chemical called ergotamine. It’s the essential ingredient in lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD. It’s not a potent as LSD, but produces much the same effects.
So in the years people were forced to ingest psychedelic drugs, people heard voices that they interpreted on the basis of existing belief systems, such as Christianity. They believed the voices were god talking to them. They could see strange things like lights around people with blurred edges. That looks a lot like an angel with a halo. Groups of people ate the same food and sometimes groups shared experiences.
If today someone reported taking LSD and then have a chat with god nobody would interpret their experience as evidence of divine existence. We understand LSD and would dismiss it as drug induced.
During the middle ages, scientific understanding wasn’t up to explaining the phenomena. So people explained it in the only way they could imagine. They attributed it to god.
If people have a trip that’s one thing; continuing to arrange the world to fit a belief system based upon someone’s recollections of a trip is another. Yet that appears to be what has happened.
As always, it fitted in with other people’s political interests to have such evidence.
In the words of Vice-Pope Eric (Eric Idle in a Monty Python sketch)
“If you’re trying to procreate a creed of poverty, meekness and obedience, you need a rich, powerful authoritarian organization to do it”.
It’s a far more credible explanation than an invisible friend.
I too have heard of possible links to religious experiences/ mass visions etc. and have read a bit about the effects of ergot poisoning (not funny at all and easily capable of hitting large numbers of people in an area if the food supply is so infected)
You might want to look up "The Day of St Anthony's Fire" by J. G. Fuller. or searching for other sources about mass occurrences of poisonings. It's reckoned that thousands may have died of this in a relatively small time span during the middle ages in Europe, especially in France and victims often had hallucinations, visions etc. before recovering (or not!)
There's a theory that it's linked to the Salem Witch Trials and we read at school about Greek mysteries and religious activities being 'fuelled' by this.
No surprise that so many recent religious cults have used drugs in their activities (or to keep the members on side?)
EDITED to add that I just found this that might relate to the report you mentioned?
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a...
Edited by Lost_BMW on Tuesday 6th April 22:35
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