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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Just for the record, INC claims to be Christian and does not claim to be Catholic. The Catholic Church doesn't recognize INC to be Christian at all even though they claim to be Christian. Another thing, the Catholic Church and most Christians would agree that to be Christian, one needs to believe in the Trinity, something that INC does not believe in.
Re: JoC - "Another thing, the Catholic Church and most Christians would agree that to be Christian, one needs to believe in the Trinity..."
Oh, golly gee! That IS a problem. Well shucks!... *tapping chin with index finger while contemplating*... Hmmm... If ONLY there was some sort of perfect holy book inspired by God for everybody to follow so that we wouldn't have all this confusion and different opinions about what God wants. Funny, but you would think a perfect and all-knowing/all-powerful God would have considered such a thing... *shrugging shoulders*... Oh, well...
@JoKer,
Ah yes, a classic example of the No True Scotsman fallacy. Well done.
Re: JoC - "A friend of mine is involved with INC right now and almost everything he tells me just reeks of cult like behavior."
...*flipping through radio stations*... "... -rgency crews are still trying to clear up that wreck in the southbound lanes of I-23 involving an overturned tractor trailer full of adult sex toys. Police say it could take several hours to remove the thousands of silicon penises scattered across all four lanes for a half mile, and they advise motorists to find an alternate route.
And that is all for the morning traffic report. In other news, some rather bizarre reports have been coming in from several engineering offices around the world this morning. Authorities say the offices calling in are all involved in drafting blueprints that will be used to rebuild all the irony meter factories that mysteriously exploded several weeks ago. The cause of those explosions is still under investigation. This morning, however, architects in dozens of offices were understandably alarmed when the irony meter factory plans they were drafting suddenly burst into flames and were totally destroyed. Thankfully, no severe injuries were reported. Investigators suspect the factory explosions and the blueprint fires may be related, and they believe they may have narrowed the cause down to various theist posts on an undisclosed atheist website."... *turning off radio*.... Well, shit. Looks like my irony meter order will be delayed AGAIN.... *grumble*...
Nothing is Christian by the Catholics and I know of no protestant faith, other than the Mormons, that recognizes Catholicism as legit. On any given day, and random 1/4 of all Christians will tell you that the other 3/4 are going to burn in hell for their false teachings. NOTHING NEW HERE.
Though Catholics don't actually teach that being non-Catholic is a ticket to hell. We don't even teach that being a Catholic is a ticket to heaven.
Until anyone can demonstrate a shred of objective evidence for the existence of either, both claims are entirely meaningless.
@JoC: Exactly. Once you are Catholic you still have all the "Works" to accomplish.
1. Feed the hungry (GIVE MONEY TO THE CHURCH)
2. Give water to the thirsty (GIVE MONEY TO THE CHURCH - they will dig the hole.)
3. Clothe the naked (GIVE MONEY TO THE CHURCH)
4. Shelter the homeless (GIVE MONEY TO THE CHURCH)
5. Visit the sick (The Church will tell you who they are and if you can not visit, GIVE MONEY TO THE CHURCH.)
6. Visit the imprisoned, or ransom the captive. (BECOME A MISSIONARY AND GIVE TIME AND MONEY TO THE CHURCH.)
7. Bury the dead (GIVE MONEY TO THE CHURCH.)
Of course there is no guarantee. How in the hell would the Church get money out of you if there was a guarantee? I guess they could sell you indulgences or perform exorcisms.
I see. This actually tells me how little you know of how the parishes operate. When people give money during the offertory in mass, it usually goes towards the direct expenses of the parish - admin fees, electricity, water, salaries for priests (not all priests have a vow of poverty), etc.
The corporeal acts of mercy which you've mentioned here are for individual parishioners to perform. A group may form in the parish which will do these things but at the end of the day, these are done independently of the parish itself.
@JoC: reeks of cult like behavior.
Pot, kettle, black? It takes one to know one.
Just to put this into context, most Christian churches teach a certain moral standard. Some acts are left to your own conscience (i.e., which politician to vote for, how much to give to charity, etc.).
For INC, their church doesn't allow for people to think who they should vote for in elections. INC tells them exactly who. Their church doesn't allow people to decide to give less on a certain month due to financial problems, they will collect 10%. There's many more of those.
@JoC Re: INC explanations
...*near-panic mode*...STOP!!!!... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, JUST STOP!... *pausing a moment to calm self*.... *deeep breath*.... Holy Christ on a buttered croissant, man! Have you no mercy?!?... *running hand through hair*... It's bad enough that you are causing irony meter factory PLANS to self-destruct. But - JESUS! - now you feel the need to make the engineers THINKING about the plans spontaneously combust?!?... *shaking head in disbelief*... Damn! That's just plain EVIL, dude.
Just for context, where does the endemic rape of tens of thousands of children in the care of your church globally, and your church's vile efforts to keep those rapists free from justice, and raping children, fall within this "moral" standard?
The RCC has lost any right to make any claims about what is moral, let alone the assumption of moral ascendancy.
The last two times I went to church, the preacher was telling the congregation exactly who to vote for and why. One was a Christian Mega Church in Santa Ana California and the other was a Methodist Church in Korea. I guess they do it all over the world, though my sample size is quite small.
It's illegal for them to do that in the US; but the IRS has a long history of not enforcing those provisions against churches. But of course, they do enforce it against other 501c3 organizations.
It's a big problem imo.
I would say that's wrong for them to do. To be fair, some churches (even Catholic ones) do that here too. But we aren't bound by it (meaning, we can go against the priest's choice without any reprecussion). The members of INC are bound by it.
@cognostic
That disgusting old twat, Theresa of Kolkuta declared the suffering of the poor was beautiful.
I saw her interviewed on TV over 25 year ago. Thought she was a reactionary old harridan. That didn't seem to matter because she was doing great good. Turned out that was simply not true.
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I was in the Philippines in 1979, Marcos was still in power (my then wife had been an exchange student there) .
The senior Catholic cleric at the time was cardinal Jaime Sin.
Also visited Negros. A dreadful place if you were poor. The old Spanish hacienda system was still going . It was also the time of liberation theology . On Negros, some of the activists turned up dead. -------a fascinating time to be in the Philippines as an outsider.
-------------------also had a glimpse of Tondo, the vast slum in Manilla. Jesus wept.(if you'll forgive the expression)
@cranky47: Fully understand. I have read Hitchens' breakdown of MT and heard all about the faulty Kodak bullshit. And lets never mind that the Catholic Church intentionally lowered its' standard from three miracles to two, just to get MT a sainthood. It's all fucking bullshit.
I can't imagine the Philippines back then. My first trip was 97. It is one of my favorite vacation destinations; however, when I see what the Churches are doing to the country it makes me want to vomit. The Philippines is still a dreadful place if you are poor or if you happen to be an unmarried woman approaching 30. A horrible place to be a woman.
Up here in Toronto we have many Philippine immigrants. Many of them are very willing to take on demeaning and poor paying jobs just to stay here in Canada. That indicates to me that conditions (for these specific individuals) are so poor back in the nation of their birth they just had to flee.
In Oz, in the 1950's ,the Catholic Church founded The Democratic Labour Party in direct opposition to the Australian Labor Party . The ALP began as the political arm of the Trade Union Movement. At that time, the ALP was Socialist with visible atheist members and executive.
Here in my city of Adelaide, priest s DIRECTED the congregations, from the pulpit, not to vote for the godless ALP but to vote for the christian DLP. My parents were livid and ignored the bastard.. My grandfather ,a red under the beds 'believer, voted DLP.
The DLP split the Labor vote and helped keep Labor out of power for 20 years . It still officially exist as a crackpot fringe minor party .
A unionist all of my working and long time member of the Australian Labor Party ,I still take the separation of church and state very seriously .
"The DLP has its origins in the historical Democratic Labor Party,[18] a conservative Catholic-based anti-communist political party which existed from the 1955 split in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) until the 1978 DLP vote for dissolution, and which until 1974 played an important role in Australian politics.[19] The Australian Electoral Commission considers the current DLP to be legally the same as the earlier DLP, and so the party was not affected by laws from the John Howard era (1996–2007) which deregistered parties which had never had a parliamentary presence and prohibited party names that include words from another party's name.[20][21] A party named the Democratic Labor Party or Democratic Labour Party has competed in all elections since 1955.[22]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Labour_Party_(Australia)
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Addendum.
An attack on the morality taught by the christian churches because of the child abuse scandal is Tu quo que and irrelevant
i like how whenever there are natural disasters, such as the fires in Australia, or Volcanoes in the Philippines, it is always because god is angry at either homosexuality or gay marriage, or transgender persons. It is very obvious that god is angry at this group of people, that is why god always strikes random places, & kills many innocents, including billions of innocent animals in the recent fires.
If god really was angry at gays & transgender, he could easily send an unambiguous message, such as sending lightning bolts down to kill all those taking part in gay mardi gras, instead of randomly sending natural disasters all around the place killing people & animals willy nilly. Notice how god always sends his worst disasters to kill & devastate mainly the poorest & most vulnerable in society (from this we can deduce that god hates poor people).
Heres another thought you can say to christians next time they write or expouse this preposterous idea.
Maybe god is angry because there are too many christians in the world who keep worshipping a false mesiah jesus. After all, in the old testament (which christians claim to also believe), god clearly & unambiguously states over & over 'there is one god, & only one god", "there is no other god but yaweh". Not once in the old testament did 'god' ever say that 'there is a 'father, a son & a holy ghost', which is why Jews dont believe the whole jesus or trinity thing!
So NO, you pathetic christians, god is NOT angry at gays, he is angry that YOU LOT keep worshipping jesus, & encouraging others to do the same, who was a false messiah, & who fulfilled NONE of the prophecies written in the old testament about him.
That is why after 2000 years he still hasn't returned, cause he was also a false prophet who said he would be back before the generation of his disciples passed away, but he lied. So when you die, poor pathetic christian, god will say, "I never knew you, because you worshipped jesus instead of me. You are off to hell to suffer eternal punishment!"
THAT is why god is angry!
Of course I don't believe any of the above, but it is sure to mess with a bigoted christians head & make them think twice about their belief!
If the standard of mythology fanboy from the Philippines that keeps turning up on the AR Facebook page, is any indication of the likely inclination of their magic man toward that country, said magic man doesn't so much hate it, as regard it as a source of comedy.
Though I suspect this is what happens when both Roman Catholicism and Islam are let loose in the same geographical region, particularly if warfare is involved at some point.
We're seeing something eerily similar with Nigeria, which is now being given a no-lube buggering by Roman Catholicism, Islam AND American fundagelicals. That's a mix destined to leave some serious shit in its wake. Especially when you factor in the truly rampant level of political and financial corruption blighting that nation, a fair amount of which is eagerly pursued by various "Men of God". One fine example thereof I saw in a video clip turning up to his new "megachurch" in a Rolls Royce Phantom. That's getting on for half a million pounds' worth of limousine here in the UK. The cost of that car could fund a small university's worth of students in their first year of a science degree in that country.
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