charter.rights

Come to think of it the Christian Churches operate like the Mafia too. I mean they all wear black, they force their opinions and offer protection from the don, "God" in exchange for a basket full of money, they hide their crimes from the public, swear an oath to the secret brotherhood and have a hierarchy where the wise guys at the bottom do all the work and the guys at the top bask in all the riches and glory. Sounds very "mob" like to me..... We should also remind people that all Churches are borderline cults. The only thing that keeps them free from prosecution is the fact that they do not force anyone to stay in the Church....but that could quickly change.

Canadian Blues said: "So in my view religion does not necessarily help, or hurt us as a society." I do believe that the surviving family members of David Koresh and Jim Jones might disagree with you at that point. Fundamentalists hurt everyone not only because they are limited in their thinking but because they try to impose that thinking on others. G. W. Bush considers himself an instrument of God and I know there are a few million Muslims, as well as Christians who consider him the Gad Damned. The point is that religion has been used (and is still being used) to advance personal agendas. It has been used to declare war and to justify the mutilation and genocide against peoples all around the world. Perhaps an atheist would advance war against another nation for economic or political reasons. However, they would not receive the support for such an action without invoking the name of God to garner the support of non-atheists who would have their cases confirmed by their personal priest, ministers or imans. And it has nothing to do with one religion being better than another because both are culpable in a disagreement that sees nations put to the sword. The separation of Church and State must be emphasized and demanded. However, when politicians use religion as an election tool and we put that politician into power, the net result is that we have blurred that separation and no longer have the will to democratize politics. That has been the dilemma in our history as religious nuts have tried to take over the political nuts and turn our government into fruit cake.

Well from my observations the Evangelists and the Baptist don't sit too pretty either. Kengs333 said:"...Christianity in the western world, and the slow evolution towards a non-Christian immoral civilization." That is the problem with arrogant Christians. They promote that being a non-Christian means that you are immoral and uncivilized - as if they were the only ones who were moral and civilized. Too often they dismiss that fact the neither civil behavior or morality comes from religion and in fact more often than not are corrupted by religion obtusely. You're not one of "those" are you Kengs333?

24) He who has ears to hear, let him hear. 25) Peter said to him, Since you have explained everything to us, tell us this also: What is the sin of the world? 26) The Savior said There is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called sin. 27) That is why the Good came into your midst, to the essence of every nature in order to restore it to its root. From the Gospel of Mary Magdelene

Funny...If the Christian Church really embraced women as equal partners to me, it is interesting that there are no Books included in the Bibile written by women. Instead those texts written by women - especially the Gospel of Mary Magdelene - were rejected. One would think that if women were so revered at least the gospel of the woman who was closest to Jesus would have been important for the world to read. But then again, Mary Magdeline presents truths that would challenge the authority of the Church and the Ministers as being intermediaries to God. The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene 4:22-23 22) The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots. 23) For the nature of matter is resolved into the roots of its own nature alone.

I'm not sure why you would dismiss Canadian Blue's rebuttal when only two of the passages were out of place? So while we're talking about the Bible and female character, what about Mary Magdeline? Was she a prostitute, Jesus' wife, or his sister?

Well let me try another interesting addition to this thread: McHale Banned from Caledonia I'm not sure but I think it should work out alright.

My apoligies. I'm fairly new at this and was trying to link here http://voiceofcanada.wordpress.com/

Interesting: I just read this.... http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/293035 Also, It appears that McHale is no longer allowed to communicated with some people http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/293035 Interesting.....