How long left for religion?

[Blindwatchmaker]

It has been 113 years since the death of Darwin, 105 years since the death of Neitzsche. Religion has, since then, found itself with no intellectual room for manoeuvre, forcing it into ridiculous suppositions such as ID.

As a meme, it should be deceased by now. But it isn't. Its expansion amongst the third world is to be expected, its placebo effects serve to balm open wounds and create false comfort.

In the first world, it is still prevelant, even in relatively secular Europe, organised religion is being replaced with equally ridiculous suppositions of a transcendental nature.

Will we ever be rid of these childish memes?

[Karma Police]

we'll be rid of religion when ignorance becomes illegal.

[Blindwatchmaker]

we'll be rid of religion when ignorance becomes illegal.
LOL! If only you could legislate for ignorance! :lol:

We need to attack the meme of faith with full gusto. The fewer people who are conditioned into believing in 'faith' each generation, the closer we will get. The intellectual batttle is very much over, its just a case of 'winning the peace'.

[Jennifer]

ignorance becomes illegal
I like it. First there was the Spanish Inquisition. Then there was McCartheism. Next Came Rovism. And finally the end to it all THE IGNORANCE INQUISITION.

[Blindwatchmaker]

ignorance becomes illegal
I like it. First there was the Spanish Inquisition. Then there was McCartheism. Next Came Rovism. And finally the end to it all THE IGNORANCE INQUISITION.
;) Never fear, Jen, the ignorance inquisition will come in the form of improving education standards, improving understanding and research. No red capes for us! :D

[Jennifer]

improving understanding and research
No! I want iron maidens and dark dungeons. Revenge of the Academics.

[Blindwatchmaker]

improving understanding and research
No! I want iron maidens and dark dungeons. Revenge of the Academics.
:lol::lol::lol:

We can get the revenge of the academics by challenging them to put a man on the moon without the use of science, transmitted live to every TV on the planet!

They could hold some quaint rituals and maybe do some babbling as the academic's rocket takes off behind them.

Worldwide shame will reduce religion to an anthropological study case!

[Jennifer]

>Worldwide shame will reduce religion to an anthropological study case!

Too much oportunity for sidewinding. Have you seen the Princess Bride?

[Blindwatchmaker]

>Worldwide shame will reduce religion to an anthropological study case!

Too much oportunity for sidewinding. Have you seen the Princess Bride?
It will become extinct within a few generations. No need for massacres!

[alaspooryorick]

One of my big academic interests is WB Yeats's histeriosophy, which claims Christianity at least, will be doomed in the very near future.

According to Yeats, time moves in gyres which spiral away from its center focal point that is its..."launch" perhaps, namely a seemingly insignificant event that propels an entire culture. When the gyres get too far from the center point, it collapses. The mythological reference is the rape of Leda by the Swan, which then brings forth the Iliad, the Odyssesy--years of Greco Roman dominance. About the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, a child is supposedly born of a God in Bethlehem....spiraling for another two thousand years. Although we here think Christianity is far too alive and kicking, the importance of it has really diminished as time passes. Art is no longer all church-related, for example.

So, according to his theory at least, which I like for more literary reasons than occult, the "center cannot hold" on Christianity forever, just as all "things fall apart."

Just an idea, however invalid it is.

[thomas]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?

[Evil_Mage_Ra]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Theoretically, we also have families that will be affected by happenings in the future.

[thomas]

Give it up. Forget your children, you've only got about 70 years left. Go out and have a good time, and forget about all this saving the world crap. You don't have time.

[Evil_Mage_Ra]

Give it up. Forget your children, you've only got about 70 years left. Go out and have a good time, and forget about all this saving the world crap. You don't have time.
Ah, but I've mastered the art of multi-tasking!

[WITHTEETH]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Not according to your "current" rapture date. 2012AD your god is suppose to save us from his followers.

[Amazonis]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Ahh, yet another good example of the weak morality of christianity. Without you imaginary afterlife, you fail to see the point of helping humans and the planet.

[CFett]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Because this planet is way more important than my stupid life. And if i can get others to see that, then the planet's gonna be in better shape. I can't say I admire humans, the way most of us seem to. Every generation wastes and destroys more. Greed will always drive us. But i do feel sympathy for what our horrible, destroying race has done to the planet that nurtures and shelters us.

Give it up. Forget your children, you've only got about 70 years left. Go out and have a good time, and forget about all this saving the world crap. You don't have time.
I don't personally have time to change the entire world, but if i can make others aware, than that awareness can only spread, and who knows how far my tiny little wake up message to a few friends can have travelled in 20 or 40 or 60 years. The same way your religion spread, the religion of anti-ignorance and logic will spread as well.

Religion worked when people were illiterate, and when the answers religion gave could only be contested by some opposing religion's view. The children of this world are raised with science. And science is currently giving better answers. Kids are taught the scientific method, i don't know if it sticks in, but kids today (i hope) are taught to look for evidence more so than any other generation before, due to the progress of science in the last few centuries.
And when one looks at religion with a scientific approach to knowledge...

Especially in a multi-cultural country like Canada, where we're encouraged to support other's cultural beliefs, the exposure to other religions is an important aid in seeing that others have different views. i find most of my peers have abandoned their faith, due to the knowledge they've gained through schooling, and through gaining a wider world view.

It's a trend that i hope continues. And it's a trend that I can have an affect in, so i'll never stop trying.

[HeWhoAsks]

Give it up. Forget your children, you've only got about 70 years left. Go out and have a good time, and forget about all this saving the world crap. You don't have time.
Thomas, this post is not worthy of what I imagined you to be. Are you trying to imitate a barren, atheist worldview? You only managed a pale, distorted imitation, as if atheism somehow mandated a hedonistic, "for the moment only" philosophy.

[peepnklown]

thomas
If you are saved and have heaven in your future then I could post the same questions.
I do it simply because, “I can…”

[whoneedscience]

You know, I've noticed that regular sarcasm somehow doesn't apply with hard-core theists. Too bad, really, because what thomas said could be histerical.

[Nicole]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
After reading a lot of your posts I'm guessing that you've just written this to light a spark. There is the interesting notion that if a theist is sure that they are heading off to heaven, why bother worrying about what comes next for those left behind?

As for religions' final exit; Perhaps we will see the end of conventional religion but I think it will be replaced with something else. Evolution of religion to go along with evolution of humans. Wish I was going to be here to see it.

[Kamikaze189]

There will always be stupid/ignorant people.

[overman16]

Well put; we are truly , perhaps, reaching an end of days, not from religious supernatural entities, but from the self-fullfilling prophecies of The Last Believers, here in the USA, whom have reduced Belief to the checking of a box on an index card at a megachurch; whose worshippers file out in countless SUVS at 11:45 AM on Sunday, in order to get in front of a TV and watch the NFL or NASCAR all afternoon, which is their true religion(s). An encounter with other, like-me suburbanites is substituted for an encounter with reality, and all the different peoples and nations that reality entails.
Far easier to feel good about 5,000 fellow worshippers cheering a lame Christian pop band than to have to ponder the meaning of 140,000 American troops in Iraq. But, HEY, Zell Miller said it ain't an occupation! And what would Jesus do? We all know, by now I hope, that Jesus was a hard-core free-market American capitalist imperialist, who used the sword to demand unregulated international movement of not only tangible goods, but also investment capital. Jesus was also squarely against flag-burning, condoms, and Darwin. Read your Bible-it's all right there, brothers!
Now about that da Vinci Code book- only a heathen would believe Jesus would have a heterosexual relationship with an actual woman. You see, in the world of "religion", a "woman" is a metaphor for the love of "Man" for the "Church", as best expressed by a bunch of old guys in the Vatican prissing around in skirts and gaiely colored hats; these men are not "gay", they are suppressing their sexuality for love of "Jesus", and it just so happens they have a rich city of great art and architecture, with secret tunnels, etc., and only men are allowed. But that is just coincidence-these manly men actually know all about women, to the point that they have the right to dictate to a woman that she should bear the child of a rapist, if the situation arises. These manly men know all about such things, and their Word must not be challenged. They sit comfortably in a Disneyesque, all-male Fantasyland, and talk smack about how to raise kids, and how it's bad to be gay. But these Vatican Guys are the gayest men in history! When will the world wake up to the ultimate hypocrisy? If Joan of Arc rose from the dead and walked thru the Vatican topless, the Pope B-16 would have the whole placed fumigated, because he saw some tits!

[overman16]

Typical Christian a-hole. Preach all the live-long day about eternity, but devalue totally the life you have. And fuk-suk to the future generations. Let's face it, Neitzsche nailed it, Christianity was borne of fear of the Roman masters; but by submission and mock psychosis some of them avoided persecution unto death.
Current American Christianity is the payback; American consumers and investors are the Masters now, with Pentagon and Holy Book as Shield. "Turn the other cheek" is not literal; it is a metaphor for "Load the other missile bay". This is the new, badass Jesus-no longer is He a marginal figure on the outskirts of mainstream society, preaching introspection and empathy, HELL NO, He is Special Forces, weapons salesman, fighter pilot, dude who breaks bricks and shreds phone books for The Lord, real estate investor, casino operator, champion of Texas Hold'em, professional bass fisherman, expert celebrity makeover carpenter, and all things to all people at all times. But conservative Christians want a 'strict interpretation' of The Constitution.

[Paradox]

Well put; we are truly , perhaps, reaching an end of days, not from religious supernatural entities, but from the self-fullfilling prophecies of The Last Believers, here in the USA, whom have reduced Belief to the checking of a box on an index card at a megachurch; whose worshippers file out in countless SUVS at 11:45 AM on Sunday, in order to get in front of a TV and watch the NFL or NASCAR all afternoon, which is their true religion(s). An encounter with other, like-me suburbanites is substituted for an encounter with reality, and all the different peoples and nations that reality entails.
Far easier to feel good about 5,000 fellow worshippers cheering a lame Christian pop band than to have to ponder the meaning of 140,000 American troops in Iraq. But, HEY, Zell Miller said it ain't an occupation! And what would Jesus do? We all know, by now I hope, that Jesus was a hard-core free-market American capitalist imperialist, who used the sword to demand unregulated international movement of not only tangible goods, but also investment capital. Jesus was also squarely against flag-burning, condoms, and Darwin. Read your Bible-it's all right there, brothers!
Now about that da Vinci Code book- only a heathen would believe Jesus would have a heterosexual relationship with an actual woman. You see, in the world of "religion", a "woman" is a metaphor for the love of "Man" for the "Church", as best expressed by a bunch of old guys in the Vatican prissing around in skirts and gaiely colored hats; these men are not "gay", they are suppressing their sexuality for love of "Jesus", and it just so happens they have a rich city of great art and architecture, with secret tunnels, etc., and only men are allowed. But that is just coincidence-these manly men actually know all about women, to the point that they have the right to dictate to a woman that she should bear the child of a rapist, if the situation arises. These manly men know all about such things, and their Word must not be challenged. They sit comfortably in a Disneyesque, all-male Fantasyland, and talk smack about how to raise kids, and how it's bad to be gay. But these Vatican Guys are the gayest men in history! When will the world wake up to the ultimate hypocrisy? If Joan of Arc rose from the dead and walked thru the Vatican topless, the Pope B-16 would have the whole placed fumigated, because he saw some tits!
Typical Christian a-hole. Preach all the live-long day about eternity, but devalue totally the life you have. And fuk-suk to the future generations. Let's face it, Neitzsche nailed it, Christianity was borne of fear of the Roman masters; but by submission and mock psychosis some of them avoided persecution unto death.
Current American Christianity is the payback; American consumers and investors are the Masters now, with Pentagon and Holy Book as Shield. "Turn the other cheek" is not literal; it is a metaphor for "Load the other missile bay". This is the new, badass Jesus-no longer is He a marginal figure on the outskirts of mainstream society, preaching introspection and empathy, HELL NO, He is Special Forces, weapons salesman, fighter pilot, dude who breaks bricks and shreds phone books for The Lord, real estate investor, casino operator, champion of Texas Hold'em, professional bass fisherman, expert celebrity makeover carpenter, and all things to all people at all times. But conservative Christians want a 'strict interpretation' of The Constitution.
http://computer-ease.com/emoticon/tpworship.gif

[thomas]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Not according to your "current" rapture date. 2012AD your god is suppose to save us from his followers.
That's no date of mine. Where did you get the assumption that I would think that. There is no date in the Bible and even the word rapture isn't in there. In fact, Jesus specifically says that nobody, not even Him, knows the date of the end of the world.

[thomas]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Ahh, yet another good example of the weak morality of christianity. Without you imaginary afterlife, you fail to see the point of helping humans and the planet.
You're right that I fail to see the point. Remind me. What is the point ?

[thomas]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Because this planet is way more important than my stupid life. And if i can get others to see that, then the planet's gonna be in better shape. I can't say I admire humans, the way most of us seem to. Every generation wastes and destroys more. Greed will always drive us. But i do feel sympathy for what our horrible, destroying race has done to the planet that nurtures and shelters us.
Why are you worshipping this planet ? You think you're just a collection of atoms that occurred by chance and you're worried about the other random collection of atoms that you happen to exist on ? Get real ! You may think I'm strange for believing in God, but at least I haven't stooped to the madness of personifying a large rock hurtling through space.

Give it up. Forget your children, you've only got about 70 years left. Go out and have a good time, and forget about all this saving the world crap. You don't have time.
I don't personally have time to change the entire world, but if i can make others aware, than that awareness can only spread, and who knows how far my tiny little wake up message to a few friends can have travelled in 20 or 40 or 60 years. The same way your religion spread, the religion of anti-ignorance and logic will spread as well.
But why do you care ? Do you have one good reason why you should care about future generations of random collections of atoms ?

[GodlessHeathen]

But why do you care ? Do you have one good reason why you should care about future generations of random collections of atoms ?
Why do you care about future generations? They're collections of atoms whether you believe in god or not. So, it would appear that you're saying that if we don't believe in god, we can't possibly love our children or grandchildren (or great-grandchildren, etc.) and want them to be happy and live in a safe and clean environment. Or, maybe you're saying that since we don't believe in god, that we shouldn't value life.

[Tenspace]

Thomas, why do you insist that you can't be human without belief in God? After all, we are made of the same goo, we share the same neural structure, and we respond quite the same to our body's chemical soup, us theists and atheists. Are you jealous of those who walk through life without a crutch? (you know I had to zing ya) :)

You have religion to give your life meaning; I find meaning in the act of living. Why is your way right and my way wrong? Hmmm???

Tenspace

[Kamikaze189]

I care about the future of this planet... It's our home, and will be our future family's home.

I also don't want humanity to die off. We've come a long way.

I do know humanity as a whole will probably kill itself off, regardless of anything I do.

[James]

I don't think religion has that much longer. It will have a final come-back, and disappear. Comfort, food, the computer will replace right-wing religious values in third-world countries.

I shouldn't worry.

The human-race won't be dick heads forever.

Will we?

[psyadam]

As long as people can make money off of it, and as long as people are stupid enough to pay them.

[Tenspace]

If we (meaning the general populace) don't stop the Dominionists from playing out Revelations for us all, then I really think we are doomed as a species, and maybe in our lifetimes.

Tenspace

[Switch25]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Ahh, yet another good example of the weak morality of christianity. Without you imaginary afterlife, you fail to see the point of helping humans and the planet.
You're right that I fail to see the point. Remind me. What is the point ?
Atheists care for life because we know each of us only has one. We do not like the thought that the future of mankind will be torn apart by the same religious wars that are present now. Our planet has been like a mother to all of us and to think of what we do to it makes us worry about our future families. And the really fucked up part about it all is that many theists still consider atheists to be moral less bastards who hate everyone.

Your God loves us, yet with out a second thought is willing to watch us burn for eternity just because we don't worship him. I hope for mankinds sake that the world will be rid of religion, as soon as possible.

[Crackerus Dadderus]

Your God loves us, yet with out a second thought is willing to watch us burn for eternity just because we don't worship him. I hope for mankinds sake that the world will be rid of religion, as soon as possible.
Hallelujah!

[inthesownd]

Switch25 wrote:
Your God loves us, yet with out a second thought is willing to watch us burn for eternity just because we don't worship him. I hope for mankinds sake that the world will be rid of religion, as soon as possible.

Hallelujah!
....WAIT, WAIT, I thought 'god' was all knowing, and therefore he knows some will disobey, therefore he intentionally 'created' some of us to suffer, even though i thought he loved me, and i was created in his image? WAIT.....IM CONFUSED!:(.....not.

...religion, what a crock of supernatural shit.

[moxnix46]

Ummm, I hate to sound like a doomsday sayer, but wether or not religion passes by the way in the future, isn't important to any of us right now. I forsee a great global war coming our way over oil. This war is fueled by religion but oil is the goal. If any of us survive, religion will be the least of our worries. "peak Oil" is driving our administration, but we are backed by god. Bin Laden is trying to stop us and he is also backed by god. The chinese and Russian's don't care about god, but they have the same need for the oil. Our biggest fears should be that the chinese throw in with Bin Laden. If there was a god, I would be the first one to pray right now.

[inthesownd]

Ummm, I hate to sound like a doomsday sayer, but wether or not religion passes by the way in the future, isn't important to any of us right now. I forsee a great global war coming our way over oil. This war is fueled by religion but oil is the goal. If any of us survive, religion will be the least of our worries. "peak Oil" is driving our administration, but we are backed by god. Bin Laden is trying to stop us and he is also backed by god. The chinese and Russian's don't care about god, but they have the same need for the oil. Our biggest fears should be that the chinese throw in with Bin Laden. If there was a god, I would be the first one to pray right now.
...I understand your point. Have you tried reverse logic on your own argument?

...think about it. If, at the very least 'religion' was erradicated, they might be forced to actually create policies based upon REALITY, without the ability to hide their various agendas under the guise of 'religion'.

[benjaminbp18]

Intelligence helped our ancestors survive. We not only evolved with a great mental capacity, but also instinct to fill that capacity: curiousity. As humans we ask questions and seek out answers. Our ancestors created myths and legends to understand the natural phenomena around them. When they began wondering about death, religion was born; they applied their ideas to the fate of man. Also, religion not only heped explain the physical world around them, but it helped them understand themselves, emotions and instincts. That is why a heavy emphasis is placed on morality in religion today (a moral nature evolved as a mechanism to enforce social behavior, which in effect, aided survival).

In this context, religion isn't childish at all. They were man's first stepping stones toward greater understanding. It would seem as though such beliefs resemble those of a child, but the existence of Santa Claus, unicorns, and little green men can be tested and judged on the basis of probability; God(s) cannot. There is no place to look, its very nature is beyond what we can see. In our more advanced society, religion is of course a severely outdated look on the natural world. However, people today don't follow religion for the worldly explanations it gives as much as the emotional satisfaction.

[moxnix46]

...I understand your point. Have you tried reverse logic on your own argument?

...think about it. If, at the very least 'religion' was erradicated, they might be forced to actually create policies based upon REALITY, without the ability to hide their various agendas under the guise of 'religion'.
Yes I try being optomistic and imagining a world living in peace. Unfortunately I feel we are to far down the crapper at this point to turn things around. Misguided policies and a quest for oil to keep the big wheels turning. What are the chances that humanity can change significantly within the next five years? Little or none, especially when they are blinded by religion.

[Philboid Studge]

In this context, religion isn't childish at all.
Is too!

In our more advanced society, religion is of course a severely outdated look on the natural world.
It's also a severely outdated look on the spiritual world, as these Iron Age mythologies have not progressed in any meaningful way in 3000 years. Why couldn't it keep pace with the sciences?

This war is fueled by religion but oil is the goal.
I love that equation, in which oil is not the fuel.

[antbite]

Religion has, since then, found itself with no intellectual room for manoeuvre
very true indeed. since the alexdrian library had been burned, since the minds of the world were killed, religion has then found its own way, hiding in the darkest corners, capturing every individual, clouding their minds, setting their mental resolutions into a desolate and desperate belief.

I wish 50 years from now or earlier, people would realize atheists' view of what the world really is, on what should be done regarding these religious memes. And from there on, these people who swore they were right being on the side of religion would slowly disappear and reappear again as a whole new individual, fresh as a non-believer (how ironical).

[oliverwxyz]

Religion worked when people were illiterate, and when the answers religion gave could only be contested by some opposing religion's view. The children of this world are raised with science. And science is currently giving better answers. Kids are taught the scientific method, i don't know if it sticks in, but kids today (i hope) are taught to look for evidence more so than any other generation before, due to the progress of science in the last few centuries.
And when one looks at religion with a scientific approach to knowledge

Especially in a multi-cultural country like Canada, where we're encouraged to support other's cultural beliefs, the exposure to other religions is an important aid in seeing that others have different views. i find most of my peers have abandoned their faith, due to the knowledge they've gained through schooling, and through gaining a wider world view..
Yes, well there's a lot of room for improvemnet in terms of teaching kids to think for themselves and question things though. It's like ok, we teach them to ask questions in science and history etc maybe , but when it comes to religion you are just supposed to learn the beliefs and not anayse whether or not they might be true. In UK schools they are still supposed to have daily religious assemblies (not that most actually do) and RE lessons are still meant to be predominately about Christianity, with some mention of other major faiths. And Tony Blair wnats to set up more and more schools aimed at one faith or another, with state funding, including new public/private 'academies' where some rich businessman can put a couple of milllion into a new school and then gets to run it how he wants - ie teaching Creationism in biology. <sigh>

relgion should be seen as no different from any other branch of knowledge - there to be analysed and questioned, not just acepted on tradition.

Even worse is the new law against inciting religious hatred our government wants to bring in, which some people fear could mean you could get arrested for criticising or making fun of a religious belief.

Oliver

[ekimmike2002]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Not according to your "current" rapture date. 2012AD your god is suppose to save us from his followers.
where did ya get that 2012AD

[calpurnpiso]

I predict you will all be dead before Christianity is no more. Given that you have just this one life span and no more, why would you worry or care about the future of the human race beyond your timespan ?
Not according to your "current" rapture date. 2012AD your god is suppose to save us from his followers.
where did ya get that 2012AD
AHHHH...1844, the year of Visions and Foundation of Religions.

Hmm....doesn't anyone remember that old retarded fool William Miller who while reading intensely that compendium of idiotic anachronistic delusions called the babble, found out that the Lord would arrive on March 22, 1844c.e on a sunny afternoon? Well, as usual Penis-Christ did not show up, creating that famous date in the history of Christ-psychosis induced delusions refered to as the "great Disappointment of 1844"....I bet in 1844 there was an unusual growth of Clavicepts Purpurea (ergot) on the grasses, specially RYE due to atmospheric conditions. Ergot is highly psychoactive and LSD is synthesized from this fungus.!!..and we know what LSD does to the brain. Hmmm...Rye Bread contaminated with LSD!! and this psychoactive fungus is resistence to high temperatures of baking, surviving to bring bread lovers a vision of the divine!. In 1844 there was an influx of religious psychosis all over the world, what a coincidence eh? Unusual visions, the Bahaii faith was founded by Baha'Ullah in Persia, other nuts in Sudan created strains of Islam-psychosis. Check this out, from:

http://bahai-library.com/excerpts/apocalyptic.amanat.html

The Babi Movement and the Baha'i Faith

" The rise of what came to be known as the Babi movement in Iran in the 1840s and 1850s was an outgrowth of a wide range of messianic speculations of which Shaykhism was the most prevalent. In May 1844 the founder of the new movement, Sayyid `Ali Muhammad Shirazi (1819-1850), a self-educated young merchant with Shaykhi leanings from Shiraz (the capital of the Fars province), declared that he is the bab (gate) to the Hidden Imam and the sole source of legitimate authority. Though the Bab, as he came to be known to the general public, employed the early Shi`i notion of "gateship" now revived by the Shaykhis, even in his earliest declarations he was equivocal about his exact status. To Mulla Husain Bushru'i, an ardent student of Rashti who became the Bab's first convert, as well as a group of mostly Shaykhi clerics who consti-
tuted his circle of early believers, the Bab gradually confided that he was not merely a gate to the Hidden Imam but the manifestation of the expected Imam, the Qá'im himself, whose appearance the Shi`is expected for a thousand years.

Preoccupied with numerology and occult sciences, the Bab drew on the fact that his "manifestation of the [divine] cause" occurred in the year 1260 AH, a thousand years after the presumed Greater Occultation of the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad ibn Hasan al-`Askari, in the year 260 AH/873-874. He also drew on the fact that he was a sayyid, a descendant of the house of the Prophet, from which the Mahdi will appear, while stressing his own intuitive experiences and visions, his purity of character, and his ability to utter holy verses similar to the Qur'án. Implicitly denying the doctrine of Occultation, he further stated that his manifestation was a symbolic return of the Lord of the Age and not the flesh-and-blood reappearance of Muhammad ibn Hasan al-`Askari, who had died a millennium earlier "

Very SANE people eh?.....and here it is the other psychotic fool William Miller:

From: http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/william-miller/

"Basically, Miller singlehandedly revived the "End Is Near" mania. Lots of other religious figures began making similar apocalyptic claims. Miller drew a large following, and in 1840, he finally announced a specific range of dates for the second coming of Jesus Christ. He said it would occur sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.
When March 22, 1844 arrived without any perceptible return of Christ, it was kind of a problem for Miller. Thousands of followers had given away their possessions in anticipation of the big day. Not good. But then one of Miller's followers realized that his calculations had been off by one year, because he neglected to count the BC to AD rollover. So he revised the date to October 22 and tried again. "

Was this poor man sane?...Don't think so!
_______________________________

Then we have that poor demented woman Ellen White, founder of the Adventists, that Christ-psychotic William Miller had started! This woman was really NUTS!

From; http://www.egwestate.andrews.edu/issues/egwbio.html

"In the year 1840, Ellen, with her parents, attended a Methodist camp meeting at Buxton, Maine, and there, at the age of 12, she gave her heart to God. On June 26, 1842, at her request she was baptized by immersion in Casco Bay, Portland. That same day she was received as a member of the Methodist Church. "

"The keenness of the Great Disappointment that Jesus did not return to earth on October 22, 1844 was not lessened by Ellen's youth, and she, with others, studied the Bible and prayed earnestly for light and guidance in the succeeding days of perplexity. When many were wavering or were abandoning their Adventist experience, Ellen Harmon, one morning late in December, joined four other women in family worship at the home of a fellow believer in South Portland. Heaven seemed near to the praying group, and as the power of God rested on Ellen she witnessed in vision the travels of the Advent people to the city of God. (Early Writings, pp. 13-20.) As the 17-year-old girl reluctantly and tremblingly related this vision to the Adventist group in Portland, they accepted it as light from God. In response to a later vision, Ellen traveled with friends and relatives from place to place to relate to the scattered companies of Adventists that which had been revealed to her in the first and in succeeding revelations. "

AHHHH...that ergot contaminated bread!..It WORKS everytime, and the amanita mushrooms growing in the fields been TOUCHED by her! Those great visions! Hmmm...and then we have Moromon founder Joe Smith experiencing equally vivid visitations from the ubiquitus Archangel Gabriel and Holy Birds !!....Hmm..those psychoactive plants work in mysterious ways!..LOL..
________________________________

Here is an interesting view of christ-psychosis infected fools discussing the veracity of the Christian Delusions induced by the neurosis:

http://www.thepropheticyears.com/reasons/The%20age%20is%20almost%20over.htm

Here is another view by another Christ-psychosis infected "scholar". Alas, with such diseased brains, who needs schizophrenia, dementiae or alzheimers!

from: http://www.uufhc.net/s000227.html

"A fine Biblical scholar," Brady tells the court, "Bishop Usher, has determined for us the exact date and hour of the creation. It occurred in the year 4004 BC." "Well, that's Bishop Usher's opinion" Drummond replies."It's not opinion," says Brady, "it's a literal fact which the good Bishop arrived at through careful calculation (which he then describes), in fact,"he continues, "he has determined the actual time of creation as having occurred on the 23rd of October, 4004 BC at 9 am."Drummond pauses for a moment, then asks, "Was that Eastern Standard time or Rocky Mountain time...it couldn't have been Daylight Savings Time because the Lord didn't make the sun until the 4th day....how long was that first day?" He asks."The Bible says it was a day." Brady answers"Yes, but was it a literal day, was it a 24 hour day, could it have been 25 hours? We don't know because there was no sun, could it have been a 25 hour day?"

I can open the babble and Lo and behold I can find in it that I was posting in an atheist Forum
as a "Raving Atheist" under the name Calpurnpiso! on 1st of August of 2005. I can also find this revelation in "Lord of the Rings" and Alice in Wonderland" or ANY word of god books!....:lol:

Crazy is as crazy does and drug addict is as drug addict does......what a concept eh?

[calpurnpiso]

As the Bush administration clearly shows, the more mental illness changes the more it remains the same....:)

[vheltrite]

religion sucks!!!
they all sucks!!!

[miata]

One of my big academic interests is WB Yeats's histeriosophy, which claims Christianity at least, will be doomed in the very near future.

According to Yeats, time moves in gyres which spiral away from its center focal point that is its..."launch" perhaps, namely a seemingly insignificant event that propels an entire culture. When the gyres get too far from the center point, it collapses. The mythological reference is the rape of Leda by the Swan, which then brings forth the Iliad, the Odyssesy--years of Greco Roman dominance. About the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, a child is supposedly born of a God in Bethlehem....spiraling for another two thousand years. Although we here think Christianity is far too alive and kicking, the importance of it has really diminished as time passes. Art is no longer all church-related, for example.

So, according to his theory at least, which I like for more literary reasons than occult, the "center cannot hold" on Christianity forever, just as all "things fall apart."

Just an idea, however invalid it is.
Verry valad idear.

[kmisho]

As I was saying elsewhere, religion will never die just as superstition will never die...the former being a subset of the latter.

As a friend of mine says: 'Religion' is just 'superstition' misspelled.

[Marquis de Sade]

It has been 113 years since the death of Darwin, 105 years since the death of Neitzsche. Religion has, since then, found itself with no intellectual room for manoeuvre, forcing it into ridiculous suppositions such as ID.

As a meme, it should be deceased by now. But it isn't. Its expansion amongst the third world is to be expected, its placebo effects serve to balm open wounds and create false comfort.

In the first world, it is still prevelant, even in relatively secular Europe, organised religion is being replaced with equally ridiculous suppositions of a transcendental nature.

Will we ever be rid of these childish memes?
Actually, we are in a cold-war stalemate people:

Atheism is essentially being stopped by the profliferation of weapons of mass-ignorance, such as Fox News, Bush, and the education system - this is so bad that the proliferation of deliberate ignorance by theist evangelists has left atheists as a fairly static community - this is why its important that an atheist revival movement commences, we need new philosopers, active intellectuals, etc.

[oliverwxyz]

Atheism is essentially being stopped by the profliferation of weapons of mass-ignorance, .
Or weapons of mass deception , maybe?