If possible, can you (or another reader) translate what you wrote into English, so we can understand and respond?

Andy

When an “intellect” (Bill Mahar)uses brutality to make a point, it makes me think of a machanic who uses a monkey wrench to fix things.

What brutality? What point?
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The only ‘brutality’ that comes to mind is the church’s brutality which Maher dutifully reports to make the ‘point’ that power–no matter how wonderful its source may be–can be made just as “evil” as sin!

But I’m also what one might call an ‘Old Testament Apologist’ … maybe I don’t “know” that any of it actually happened, but it ends up making good sense.

I don’t think “The Ten Commandments” were really meant to be “the best grouping of laws God and Moses could create.” That argument is one of the ways Churchianity’s KGB-like hypnosis has trained people to understand works: not by their entireties, but by choice sound-bites from within.

I’m sure there ~were~ “rules against torture, rape and other horrible things” in the reported hundreds of laws below the ‘top ten.’ They didn’t “leave out rules for the really bad stuff, and include commandments prohibiting comparatively lesser infractions”; I’m not even sure the ‘commandments’ WERE ‘rules’ and not just ‘general guidelines’ (like longitude … if I tell you to head north as a rule, and you head north-northwest, then what circle of Hell shall you fall to? lol)

For the sake of any spam filters, I’ll try to keep it down to one link. Anyway, here’s a relatively recent IIDB link on Mithras: http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=5574210#post5574210

This should at least be useful as a starting point.

I get an email for moderation for any comment containing a link. I’ve just checked the stats, and I do not see any other comment from you requiring moderation. Sorry, but it looks like your earlier comment was lost.

Andy

Jesus seems more of a re-writing of even older religious myths. There were gods and powerful beings described thousands of years before Jesus, like a little-known god named Mithras, the Egyptian god Horus and others. The Christ story mimics these very closely, from a holy life, baptism, death and a three-day resurrection. Some of these old, original stories include additional details like a missing body in a tomb found by two women, or a person who baptizes the hero, and the baptizer is later beheaded. This should sound very familiar to anyone who knows the basic story of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Actually, this is commonly recycled misinformation, some of which is even debunked on IIDB. If I were to venture a guess, I suspect that Acharya S was Bill Maher’s source.

Anyways, nice writeup Andy. My own little mini-review: A-

What? You mean I could’ve just saved myself thousands of words and hours of typing?!

In that case, I take back everything I said. An A- sounds good to me too. :)

if my soul intent of having a faith is to avoid “everlasting pitchfork-infested sauna” then I’m not properly following through on my faith.

This should indeed be the case, yes, for people of faith. But that line addressed the NON-believers: “If He exists and you don’t worship him, you’ve just written a one-way ticket to an everlasting pitchfork-infested sauna.””

This was my flippant way of describing one of the methods believers use Pascal’s Wager on non-believers.

Though the ten commandments fail to mention, “major infractions” I think those can assumed as morally unjust.

The point in the movie was just that the 10 don’t seem to be listed in any order of importance, and that a “real” list would be better designed. And besides, why have a list of ten that needs people to assume or guess what the other commandments are? Another point of Bill’s is that a society can help define its own morals without help of a Commandments list. In college, I knew to not wake up my roommate when he was sleeping, and to not use his stuff or eat his food without asking, and he did the same for me. We didn’t need anyone to tell us to behave that way, we figured it out on our own – if we were to live together peacefully, certain rules are obvious. Extend that example into a city or nation (instead of a odd-smelling college dorm), and you’ll see my point.

Personally, I always will be up for watching a controversial movie like this. If in the end it causes questions then it gives me a good opportunity to research and learn more.

Can’t ask for more than that – a very mentally mature and open attitude allows us to develop as a species.

I was originally wondering if the movie would be too in-your-face, and too controversial. To some it certainly will be. But most intelligent people should see the movie brings up some excellent points, ones that, certainly need to be addressed.

I can see how evolution can be hard to believe, we really aren’t capable of comprehending the vast amount of time that has passed. To help get over that I would recommend Richard Dawkin’s “The God Delusion” and “The Blindwatchmaker”. The two of them go a long way towards clearing up so many of the misconceptions that we were taught in school. I own both, let me know if you would like to borrow either of them.

And by saying that you find it easier to believe in an intelligent designer… than where did the intelligent designer come from? You are then confronted with an even larger problem, as it would require a being far more complex than we are.

1. Pascals Wager: “You should worship God, because what if you’re wrong. If God exists, and you worship him, then you’re safe. If He exists and you don’t worship him, you’ve just written a one-way ticket to an everlasting pitchfork-infested sauna.” Without getting to theological if my soul intent of having a faith is to avoid “everlasting pitchfork-infested sauna” then I’m not properly following through on my faith. Your never going to hear me to saying “turn or burn” because that doesn’t address the true idea of Christianity. I’ll gladly share my beliefs off the cuff and I can tell you that they won’t be to avoid “an everlasting pitchfork-infested sauna.”

2 – Believing that macro evolution is wrong: I’ve got to completely agree with Rob in that evolution was never fully explained in our school. In one of our classes we did watch a number of videos that addressed the topic, but no one ever came out and explained more than its wrong and here is why. This was obvious from the school we came from though. I find science and evolution fascinating, but I find it harder to believe that I was created from an explosion that created blue-green algae that evolved and over the course of billions of years created me. In comparison I find it easier to believe I was created by an intelligent being.

A few other points:

The Ten Commandments: I’ll look at it this way, children aren’t born with the idea to rape, kill and torture. If a parent forgets to tell their kids not to kill someone I don’t think they need to worry about their children killing someone. Though the ten commandments fail to mention, “major infractions” I think those can assumed as morally unjust.

God and Country: “Jesus was anti-government” this I’ve got to flatly disagree with. Matthew 22:21 Jesus says, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Pay your taxes and pay your tithe.

Personally, I always will be up for watching a controversial movie like this. If in the end it causes questions then it gives me a good opportunity to research and learn more. And personally opinions aside great review and a fun read!

As far as my friends are concerned the two major arguments that trip them up from leaving Christianity are:
1- Pascals wager: They ask me what if I’m wrong, I ask them the same. I make many of the points that Bill Maher does, such as the vast number of religions to choose from, but they still don’t get it. I think seeing this movie might get them to go… oh, wow, people really believe that? And my belief is pretty much on the same level? Wow.

2 – Believing that macro evolution is wrong: Most of my friends went to the same High School as I did, we were not taught anything about evolution. It was completely glossed over in science classes, it was an area where you just did not go. Or if you did the teacher and other classmates would just outright dismiss it as silly, saying something along the lines of not believing that they came from a monkey.

Once I finally accepted that 99.9% of scientists were not in a conspiracy to defeat Christianity, seeing the logic behind the theory of evolution was easy to see. Evolution is amazing to me, knowing that I came from another species doesn’t make me feel less human, it makes me feel more in tune with nature.

Anyways, nice writeup Andy. My own little mini-review: A-