Photo Post

I went for a walk around Hampton Park today with my camera, the first three photos are a few of the shots I took. The last two photos I shot down at Sky High, a beautiful place with a view that looks all over Melbourne. They also serve amazing coffee.











Happy Easter, everyone.

Apocalypse, please

Here is a list of people of people who I can rightfully kill under the laws of Christianity.

Homosexuals.

Adulterers

Disobedient children

Women who have sex before marriage

Any non-Christians

Anyone accused of wickedness by more than two people

Anyone who works on the Sabbath.

I'm willing to bet I could wipe out the vast majority of mankind under those laws. Of course thats assuming no one kills me first, which would be quite justified.

Now, just for kicks, lets take a few leaps backwards in feminism.

It is shameful for a woman to speak inside a church

A man must approve of his wifes words for them to have force

A woman must not teach or hold authority over a man

If a woman is suspected of cheating on her husband, the husband may serve her a poison drink. If she becomes deformed, that proves her guilt.

And here are some interesting facts to boot.

God supports slavery.

It's okay to beat slaves if they don't die within two days

Marriage is the lesser of two evils for Christians who can't resist their sexual urges

It's okay to beat your children with a rod. After all, it won't kill them.

The bible includes many good and inspiring passages, of that I'm sure. But I wonder, how do you take such messages from the same book that endorses killing women, children, non-Christians, homosexuals, etc? I realize that in todays world, much if not all of the above listed is considered evil by Christians. My question is how can there be people out there who take the bible seriously, word for word, in some places but completely ignore others?

Some of you might think I'm unfairly attacking Christianity. The truth is, it's the only religion I know what little I do about it. For the record, I feel the same way about pretty much all religious beliefs. However, being Australian, the biggest religion in my life happens to be Christianity, therefore it has more influence than, say, the Muslim belief.

I also feel the same way about psychics, seers, UFOs, ghosts, astrology, etc. While they can be fascinating stories, I simply can't believe them as fact. Tricksters, liars and the genuinely confused.

Is religion still relevant today? Will it be relevant tomorrow? Does the good religion do outweigh the evil? If someone leads a good and charitable life because he believes he will be rewarded after death, is this such a bad thing? I don't think so. But by the same token, I'm deeply disturbed by the idea that this life is simply a gateway into another, eternal life. Spending what I believe is your one and only life auditioning for a second, non-existent life is unhealthy and downright wasteful.

However, let's assume that there is life after death. Should a man who abides by the laws of his country and generally leads a good life truly burn in hell for eternity because he doesn't believe Jesus died for his sins? Growing up, this is what probably bothered me the most about religion. Before I developed solid atheist opinions about these things, I used to reject the idea of hell. I thought maybe you'd spend a certain amount of time in 'hell' until you were ready for heaven. Or that you'd be reincarnated over and over until you passed some divine test and gained entry into the Big Party In The Sky. But really, that was just doing what I accuse religious people of doing, taking bits and pieces of belief systems and putting them neatly together for my own peace of mind. I now believe (almost used the word 'know') there is only one life. You're born, you live, you die.

A good friend of mine, Maz, is Catholic. When we discuss religion and such, I gather he believes in the story, but not necessarily every word of the bible. For a complete report on what he believes you'd have to ask him, but I know he believes in God, but I can't see him killing anyone because they don't believe in his God. Again, you'd have to ask him, but I think he'd agree with me in that the bible itself has been corrupted over the years. Yet this doesn't affect his knowledge that God does exist, whereas if I were ever religious it probably would. Am I just skeptical?

When a religious person looks at an animal hunting, he may see design whereas I see natural selection or evolution. Where he sees a mountain created by God, I see something that has been shaped by nature for a millennia. Is this skeptical? Is being skeptical a bad thing? It doesn't seem so to me. A healthy skepticism seem like a very good thing.

I'll end the post on an obnoxious note with this image:


EDIT: Since writing this (I have it posted on a few pages), I have received a lot of comments reminding me that much of what I have listed is from the Old Testament, which was phased out and replaced with the teaching of Jesus. I accept this (and won't get into the hypocrisy of it). However, I wonder why it was changed? Clearly some of the vicious teachings didn't sit well with the faithful, who, under the watchful eye of the Old Testament God were at risk of being turned into a pillar of salt for the more minor of sins (if they can even be called that).

The addition of Jesus into the bible, I assume, was to show the Church and God in a more positive light. While Jesus is a far more pleasant character than Yahweh, I still find it startling that he was so adamant about tearing apart families.

Anyway, my main point was yes, I know the Old Testament is regarded as barbaric by the vast majority of Christians. I just find it amusing that religious folk try to tell me that religion is the origin of morality. If so, why do people see the Old Testament as out of touch with modern morals? What defines moral behavior? If it were the bible, the New Testament would never have needed to be written.

Oh yes...

I will own this.

For anyone who's interested, Nine Inch Nails have released a digital instrumental titled Ghosts I-IV. It's available for download here: http://ghosts.nin.com/main/home. The first nine tracks are free, the rest you can buy for $5. Or you could just illegally download the entire thing, but that would just be bad form.

It's my birthday!

I really have nothing to add to that. I just felt you all should know that I was born this day twenty two years ago.