On Tue, 18 May 2004 11:56:22 +0100, "Jez"

But I clearly have. My guy walked after being dead for 3 days.

Your clearly fucking insane.

Yet he was seen, jez.

What do you have for your own beliefs?

On Tue, 18 May 2004 04:36:44 GMT, Vic Sagerquist
<address@withheld.com> wrote:

But I clearly have. My guy walked after being dead for 3 days.

Damn. I don't have a guy that could do that.

I know you don't. That's why I believe in God.

Some things *are* constant. Apologists are pretty much the same
through history.

Heads and shoulders above the atheists, who are beyond evidence for
their own beliefs.

Since we don't have beliefs, we don't need this evidence.

Never have you stated anything more truthful.

One may have taken a course in Abnormal Psychology and be able to
give us some insight on religious lunacy.

Ok, now why is it lunacy? Can you offer a suggestion?

You believe in an invisible man who lives in the sky and watches us
(all of us indiviually) 24-7.

Oh, no, you just got thru admitting he rose from the dead.

He is all-magical and zapped all of this into
existence one week a few thousand years ago, then left all kinds of
evidence strewn about that his creation is approximately 4.5 billion
years old.

That's 14 billion years ago.

This, of course, was a test of the truly faithful, who would
go as far as to deny reality to worship him.

What reality is being denied? Just you and your atheist buddies.

For this he promises them
eternity believing they are somehow above the rest of mankind,
especially other religious folks that don't believe exactly what you
do.

Correction, I believe in the one and only. You have the same choice
but say no to it.

Realizing what he was up against, the god sent the divine message to
all of mankind, (well, at least to those of which he created...) that
he needs your money for some reason, to carry on his ...
something....

Nope, God has never asked for money, just love.

On Mon, 17 May 2004 23:10:17 GMT, Big Bucket <bucket@home.com> wrote:

Good old quib. Still can't tell the difference between Greek
mythology and the truths of Judeo/Christian faiths.

Good old duke. Still unable to demonstrate that difference, yet
dishonestly acts as if he is.

But I clearly have.

If you had, no one would argue, now would they?

Sure they would - they're atheists, and scared to death they are wrong.

In article <vo0ga0pae064ehl18s7dtq87o7ec6c4232@4ax.com>,

quibbler <quibbler247@yahoo.com> wrote:

I watched the new movie _Troy_ the other day and I liked the fact that
the movie puts a somewhat anti-religious spin on the Iliad. I've
noticed that many reviews of the movie are somewhat tepid and/or tend

childishly carp and whine about things like the fact that the movie is
almost 3 hours long, or that it doesn't have the formulaic Hollywood
happy ending. However, I can't help thinking that, at least
psychologically, some movie critics also don't like the anti-religious
implications of the show. That may be why they aren't giving it rave
reviews.

Given that the "anti-religious" aspects of the movie are against the
Greek Mythology,

Yes, it's obvious that the anti-religious message will be confined to
bashing the Greek Pantheon, since it is a story about ancient greeks.
However, I think that if you watch the movie then you will see that the
theme being suggested is that you should trust in reality rather than
religion. At multiple points in the movie they reinforce this view.
For example, when the priest tells king Priam that he has seen the
favorable omen of an eagle carrying a snake, (the eagle was a symbol for
Apollo) Hector gets disgusted and says they can't fight a fucking war on
the basis of some dude seeing a bird. To be honest I think this is not
an accurate portrayal of how ancient people thought. Instead, it's a
glaringly modern addition which has been put in there and I don't think
it's an accident. They have larger fish to fry than just attacking
ancient greek religion, since there is little point in attacking a
religion almost nobody in the modern world takes seriously.

which not many people take as truth nowadays, and
which is actually an antithesis of current monotheistic religions, I
don't see how the critics, most of whom are probably Judeo-Christian,
can be negatively effected.

It's quite easy to see really. The greek religion is used as an
allegory for all religion. They show people like Breseis and Priam
being as confident in their religion as modern fundamentalists. But
their faith and piety doesn't count for anything in the end. I think
that people can see, at least intuitively, that a theme of the movie is
that religion cannot help you. You have to help yourself. In fact they
almost put those very words in Agamemnon's mouth. In the movie they
show that listening to religious leaders can be a distinct liability.
All the virtue of Priam cannot save him from the immoral, ruthless
Agamemnon.

In fact, the present day extreme fundementalists right would probably
have been offended if the movie depicted Greek Mythology as truth,
hence I would say the movie actually has religious concerns.

Perhaps, but some fundies maintain that the magic events reported in
pagan religions might have actually done by the devil, in order to lead
the idolatrous gentiles astray. Yes, the right wing xian whackos like
to believe that only their god is real, but they are conflicted at
times, because they too believe fanciful horseshit written down in an
ancient book. Again, the leap is not so great from dismissing the Iliad
to dismissing the bible. In fact, major parts of the old testament and
the Homeric poems might have been written around the same time period,
just as an historical point of reference.

--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins

Yes, it's obvious that the anti-religious message will be confined to
bashing the Greek Pantheon, since it is a story about ancient greeks.
However, I think that if you watch the movie then you will see that
the theme being suggested is that you should trust in reality rather
than religion. At multiple points in the movie they reinforce this
view. For example, when the priest tells king Priam that he has seen
the favorable omen of an eagle carrying a snake, (the eagle was a
symbol for Apollo) Hector gets disgusted and says they can't fight a
fucking war on the basis of some dude seeing a bird. To be honest I
think this is not an accurate portrayal of how ancient people thought.
Instead, it's a glaringly modern addition which has been put in there
and I don't think it's an accident. They have larger fish to fry than
just attacking ancient greek religion, since there is little point in
attacking a religion almost nobody in the modern world takes
seriously.