Let's Present Some Evidence ...

[Copernicus]

Throughout the centuries, various religions have come up with various prescriptions that were designed specifically to be a response to God's will for mankind, and for the spiritual healing of mankind as it's reward. These prescriptions tend to be direct reflections of the image of God the various religions profess and promote, and the promised results tend to exemplify an idealization of mankind's proper condition in "God's eyes".

I don't completely disagree with this. I think that primitive cultures tended to see their misfortunes in terms of punishment from a god and their good fortunes in terms of help or advocacy from a god. This is certainly true of the Gilgamesh epic, in which Enlil caused the global flood that nearly destroyed mankind (leading to Uta-Napishti's construction of the ark) and Enki advocated for the human race in the face of Enlil's anger against us. In modern cosmology, the dominant God is an advocate for humanity, and Satan, demoted to a kind of super-demon, causes evil in the world.

It's important to understand that these kinds of prescriptions are the direct result of a specific God-concept, being acted upon as one believes God wishes, in hopes of achieving the results that God has promised, and which mankind rightfully deserves.

Well, my interpretation of all of this is that God is human-besotted precisely because he is a figment of human imagination. Hence, his morality tends to be informed by humanistic principles--those that we intuitively feel benefit our species in general.

A classic example of such a prescription might look something like this:

1. To pray for humility.
2. To reflect upon one's "sins".
3. To confess these sins to a priest or minister.
4. To make some act of contrition or restitution for the damage these sins have done to others.
5. Repeat previous steps for all future "sins".

This kind of reasoning is predicated on the belief that our misfortunes derive from the anger of a god. We can somehow appease that god by praising him/her and making sacrifices to show our devotion. That will lead to an improvement in our circumstances in the future. At a minimum, it guarantees triumph over human mortality. That was the basic theme of the Bilgames/Gilgamesh epic, which preceded the Abrahamic scripture by perhaps a millennium.

This and similar prescriptions have been practiced over the centuries by countless humans beings from various religious traditions and ideologies, and most found that through this prescription they achieved pretty much exactly what was promised. It's a simple but effective way of learning to alter one's own behavior in favor of an ideal based on the concept of "God".

I think that you miss something vitally important here. Human beings are notoriously susceptible to the technique of cold reading, where people ignore missed guesses and predictions in favor of the relatively few positive ones. We tend to cherry-pick what we want to believe in. So the one time that a rain dance precedes a deluge, people leap to the wild conclusion of causal effect, when, in fact, it was just normal serendipity.

A concept of God, when acted upon according to that idea, produces the results that the idea itself promises. I believe this is evidence in the same way any other idea is ratified by testing it through action.

The fact that we are predisposed to believe what we want to believe is a problem for your position. It took humanity many millennia of trial and error to discover the scientific method, which serves as an antidote to flawed reliance on supernatural explanations for phenomena that we cannot immediately explain in terms of naturally understood physical laws.

A similar idea might be something like: Carol claims she loves Bill, and wants to marry Bill and live with Bill as his wife. But BIll is skeptical, so he proposes that they live together unmarried for a time, to see how it goes. But as they live together, Bill discovers that Carol does not behave as a woman who loves her husband, but as a woman who wants to possess him, and control him, and punish him when he does not oblige her needs. She says she loves him, and wants to be his wife, but she doesn't act as if she loves him, nor does she treat him like a husband. Bill was presented with an idea. And he wanted to find out if that idea had correspondence in reality (the measure of truth). So he lived as if the idea was "real" for whatever length of time it took for him to satisfy himself that it either was or was not actually true. In this case, Bill discovered that the idea was false. It did not have correspondence in actuality.

Yet there are many men who come to feel alienated from their wives because they misperceived their behavior and held unrealistic expectations about them. As you grow older, you learn that people are a lot more complex than they seemed during your youth. It is not usually the case that one person is wrong and the other right in such situations.

The religious prescription I posted, above, has been tried and tested by millions of human beings, throughout centuries, and found to work for them as claimed.

It has also been found to fail. But, if we ignore the failures, then it seems like a huge success.

 

[PureX]

When I view this example of a religious prescription, and how it has "worked" for people, I'm not viewing it as an example of pleading to God for rain, receiving rain, and so then assuming that God heard my plea. This sort of 'prescription' may work some of the time, but will not work often, and I don't agree with you that people tend to forget those disappointments. I think people are shattered by these kinds of disappointments, and remember them for a long time. Religions do themselves great harm when they lie to their adherents, and make claims for their gods that their gods can't deliver. In fact, I would suspect that it's exactly this sort of disappointment that has driven most of the people who have left a religion, away.

What I'm talking about is different. It's more natural and functional than that sort of magical thinking. And in fact can and is paralleled by science, but using a very different terminology.

I was watching on TV some years ago, a Chicago preacher who was forever talking about casting demons out of people. I watched because I was trying to understand how he and his followers could believe in such nonsense in this day and age. Finally, one afternoon he spelled out his process for casting out some specific demon. Unfortunately, I don't recall what demon he was specifically referring to, or the exact process, but what I do recall, and what struck me, was that if I simply changed the language he was using, I could have been listening to a modern psychologist describe his course of treatment for some specific personality disorder.

The preacher talked about someone being "possessed of the demon of rage", and as such he needed to be approached with love for the sinner, but hatred for the sin. And I realized that a psychologist would have to take a similar position in being on the side of the patient, without condoning the patient's violent behavior toward others. Otherwise he would lose his patient's trust. And step by step, as the preacher went through is 'prescription' for healing a man possessed by a demon of rage, he was outlining the same course of action that any good psychologist might take in dealing with a patient who has a problem managing his anger. What was strikingly different, was the language the preacher used, and the "visual imagery" he used to describe the "illness" (demon). He and the psychologist came from two very different conceptual paradigms, but both had discovered the path to healing violent rages in other people.

The religious prescription I posted earlier is directed at a different spiritual problem, and promises a different spiritual result, but follows along those same logical therapeutic lines as any other psychological prescription. And this is why it works for people. It doesn't work for everyone, but then neither does modern psychology. But for a lot of people, it's easier to understand. It's easier to practice. If the idea of "God" is right, the prescription will be right, and the practice of it will work for most people. And it has worked this way for centuries - centuries without psychology, or science. The language and imagery are different, but the healing process is the same. And it works.

We've used the idea of God, and found that for most people, most of the time, it works. Just as now days we use the idea of science based psychology and find the same processes achieve the same results. The "casting out of demons" is just a more primitive way of describing the same healing process.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Just because it "works" doesn't make it true, neither does it appearing to "work" actually means that it does, PureX.

 

[Enoch07]

Just because it "works" doesn't make it true, neither does it appearing to "work" actually means that it does, PureX.

Your atheistic views "works" for you. You believe them to be true, because they "work" for you. So you admit that all your beliefs could be wrong, which means your quote could be wrong.

 

[Vile Atheist]

Your atheistic views "works" for you. You believe them to be true, because they "work" for you. So you admit that all your beliefs could be wrong, which means your quote could be wrong.

What atheistic view would that be? I'm pretty sure atheism is just a skeptical position saying that God probably doesn't exist (due to lack of evidence).

And yeah, anyone's beliefs could be all wrong. This is why we use objective evidence to base our beliefs on things. Because the chances it is wrong is slim. This is in contrast to merely accepting a book at face value and not questioning it.

 

[autonomous1one1]

Greetings. The energy exhibited in this thread is remarkable and the attention given is very much appreciated. Perhaps the activity has slowed enough to prevent a new line of discussion from being too disruptive.

I think the biggest problem is going to be that we're going to come down to subjective experience, and subjective reasoning. I would contend that collective experience, subjective or otherwise, must stand as evidence of something. The rest of that aspect of the discussion will likely fall to what that something is, exactly. For example, millions of people "experience God" in some way. So the questions become, what are these ways? Can we categorize them somehow? And then can we ascertain how these experiences effect the plausibility of there being an actual God?........What do you think?

In follow up to the opening on ‘experience’ as evidence that ‘God is,’ permit me to offer one particular experience towards that end. For this thread, this experience might be said to be the realization of union with God. Every religion has a word for this – Samadhi by the Hindus, nirvana by the Buddhists, fana by the Muslims, the mystic union and perhaps theosis by the Christians, enlightenment by many, and many other expressions as the experience permeates our modern era. Some of us think that such a breakthrough experience is the key for the founders of each of the major religions and is at the heart of religion.

Many hold the thought that one must have this experience, which involves a direct awareness, to understand it fully. This notion is not a cop out, just the way it is and this says nothing about the brilliance of individuals on either side. This is more due to the nature of the experience, the inadequacies of language, and inabilities to conceptualize and explain it with wisdom. It is often difficult to bring the experiential into concepts and language for others. (Try explaining the taste of bee honey to someone who has never tasted or even seen honey.) However, imo a reader can acquire some understanding from reading books such as those by Evelyn Underhill, such as William James’ book on religious experience, and such as the following free book (first noted for us by Ben d) on the internet: History of Mysticism: The Unchanging Testament by Swami Abhayananda (Free copy at: Spiritual Teaching Courses, Workshops and Intensives in Perth, Western Australia). Note that this latter author includes Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and the authors of the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, along with many others. If memory serves me correctly, William James has a good explanation of this particular experience and he wrote that he had not personally had it.

My wisdom may not be sufficient to offer to this specific group how this particular experience can be viewed as evidence that ‘God is’ except to say ‘experience it for yourself.’ Then you will know. However, perhaps if there is interest we could explore together what evidence, if any, there is here for anyone. Consider the following facts:

• ·This ‘realization’ is actual and well documented for many cases; more information about it is available today than ever before. That the experience happens cannot really be questioned legitimately imo. (How the experience is interpreted can be questioned of course.)
• ·The ‘realization’ is greatly transformative and is expressed in similar being and interpretation by all those so experiencing it in such a way that one can recognize a fellow ‘awakened’ human. Exceptional characteristics expressed are nonduality and a shifted perspective of reality, eternal transcendent and infinite being, lack of fear, underlying joy, transcendence of the ego, oneness with all, and more.
  
• ·The experience can be transmitted to others and has been repeated down through the ages to us and to increasing numbers at the present period. Imo, in a limited sense it has intersubjective verifiability.

In effort to crystallize what the evidence is here, from one perspective one might conclude that the ‘resultant being and awareness’ from the experience is the evidence of God, and that the objective evidence of the evidence () is the corroborative testimony from many, the consistency of interpretation, the enormous transformative power, and the repeatability.

Regards,
a..1

 

[Copernicus]

When I view this example of a religious prescription, and how it has "worked" for people, I'm not viewing it as an example of pleading to God for rain, receiving rain, and so then assuming that God heard my plea. This sort of 'prescription' may work some of the time, but will not work often, and I don't agree with you that people tend to forget those disappointments...

Do you, or do you not, believe that "cold reading" works as a successful technique for fortune tellers and mystics to convince people that they have occult powers? If it does, then you have evidence that people are predisposed to ignore counterevidence when they want to believe a claim. Science works precisely because it does not rely on subjective impressions and interpretation of events.

I think people are shattered by these kinds of disappointments, and remember them for a long time. Religions do themselves great harm when they lie to their adherents, and make claims for their gods that their gods can't deliver. In fact, I would suspect that it's exactly this sort of disappointment that has driven most of the people who have left a religion, away.

Perhaps, but consider this. William Miller predicted that the Second Advent of Jesus Christ would occur in 1843. He and his followers were so utterly convinced of this that many gambled everything and made elaborate plans for it. He and they did experience the shattering type of disappointment that you mention here. Indeed, it was called The Great Disappointment. Nevertheless, the movement split off into further major religious movements. Most people did not become atheists. They ignored The Great Disappointment and just continued believing the nonsense and baloney--but under different brand names.

What I'm talking about is different. It's more natural and functional than that sort of magical thinking. And in fact can and is paralleled by science, but using a very different terminology.

So far, I see no real difference, except that you claim that you are talking about a different kind of thinking. You may believe that, but I see nothing yet to substantiate your claim. You are talking about reliance on private revelatory experiences (inaccessible to others) that you think ought to be taken as serious "evidence".

The religious prescription I posted earlier is directed at a different spiritual problem, and promises a different spiritual result, but follows along those same logical therapeutic lines as any other psychological prescription. And this is why it works for people. It doesn't work for everyone, but then neither does modern psychology. But for a lot of people, it's easier to understand. It's easier to practice. If the idea of "God" is right, the prescription will be right, and the practice of it will work for most people. And it has worked this way for centuries - centuries without psychology, or science. The language and imagery are different, but the healing process is the same. And it works.[/quohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment.

Again, you seem to be arguing for religion as a kind of placebo effect. Placebos (in the form of folk medicine and magic) have been around since history began. They effect real cures sometimes, but they are not the real cause of the cure. The real cause is usually something else--like a stimulated immune system. Basing conclusions on subjective evidence of that sort leads to self-deception.

We've used the idea of God, and found that for most people, most of the time, it works. Just as now days we use the idea of science based psychology and find the same processes achieve the same results. The "casting out of demons" is just a more primitive way of describing the same healing process.

I'm not going to argue about something else--the value of certain ideas of therapeutic psychologists which may or may not have a real grounding in scientific methodology. That is an argument from analogy. My point of view is that your "religious prescription" is nothing new. It is just an attempt to claim legitimacy for the idea that untestable claims can be legitimately defended with subjective experiences that people may be wildly misinterpreting.

 

[PureX]

Do you, or do you not, believe that "cold reading" works as a successful technique for fortune tellers and mystics to convince people that they have occult powers?

Yes, but that has nothing whatever to do with the example I gave. It is not "occult". It is not a "cold reading". It is not a "trick" of any kind. It's a simple process that when followed honestly and earnestly, will result in a person's ability to change who they are from within, for the better. Something that is otherwise very difficult to do.

... consider this. William Miller predicted that the Second Advent of Jesus Christ would occur in 1843. He and his followers were so utterly convinced of this that many gambled everything and made elaborate plans for it. He and they did experience the shattering type of disappointment that you mention here. Indeed, it was called The Great Disappointment. Nevertheless, the movement split off into further major religious movements. Most people did not become atheists. They ignored The Great Disappointment and just continued believing the nonsense and baloney--but under different brand names.

But you've picked an extreme case, and now wish to use it to inform the norm. That's not a legitimate argument. Also, because it is such an extreme case, I would argue that this isn't even an example of religion in action, anymore, but of cult fanaticism. It would surprise no one that such fanatics could not let go of their bizarre beliefs or behaviors even in the face of such a letdown. They have developed a kind of addiction to them.

You are talking about reliance on private revelatory experiences (inaccessible to others) that you think ought to be taken as serious "evidence".

No, I'm talking about a process that you or anyone can use to change themselves. It does not rely on any revelatory experience.

Again, you seem to be arguing for religion as a kind of placebo effect.

No, it is not a placebo effect. It works exactly the same way modern psychology works.

I'm not going to argue about something else--the value of certain ideas of therapeutic psychologists which may or may not have a real grounding in scientific methodology. That is an argument from analogy. My point of view is that your "religious prescription" is nothing new. It is just an attempt to claim legitimacy for the idea that untestable claims can be legitimately defended with subjective experiences that people may be wildly misinterpreting.

Most of the things that most people believe to be true they have not tested scientifically. They believe them because they have shown themselves to be true experientially.

I gave this example:

Carol claims she loves Bill, and wants to marry Bill and live with Bill as his wife. But BIll is skeptical, so he proposes that they live together unmarried for a time, to see how it goes. But as they live together, Bill discovers that Carol does not behave as a woman who loves her husband, but as a woman who wants to possess him, and control him, and punish him when he does not oblige her needs. She says she loves him, and wants to be his wife, but she doesn't act as if she loves him, nor does she treat him like a husband.

Bill was presented with an idea. And he wanted to find out if that idea had correspondence in reality (the measure of truth). So he lived as if the idea was "real" for whatever length of time it took for him to satisfy himself that it either was or was not actually true. In this case, Bill discovered that the idea was false. It did not have correspondence in actuality.

Please explain to me why Bill's experience of this idea should not be taken as evidence for or against the truthfulness of the idea? And if it can be, then why can't we take the experience of a successful religious prescription (example above) as evidence of it's authenticity, as well?

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Your atheistic views "works" for you. You believe them to be true, because they "work" for you. So you admit that all your beliefs could be wrong, which means your quote could be wrong.

Well duh, great deductive reasoning. Of course I could be wrong, but I don't think so, and neither do you concerning your beliefs, if you did, why would you continue to believe them? That is not the issue. Whether either of us are wrong or right, the fact that we believe our statments to be true has no bearing on if they actually are true or are not.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Purex, do you even know what you're talking about becuase clearly you are vague.

 

[themadhair]

And in fact can and is paralleled by science, but using a very different terminology.
….
Unfortunately, I don't recall what demon he was specifically referring to, or the exact process, but what I do recall, and what struck me, was that if I simply changed the language he was using, I could have been listening to a modern psychologist describe his course of treatment for some specific personality disorder.
…
Just as now days we use the idea of science based psychology and find the same processes achieve the same results. The "casting out of demons" is just a more primitive way of describing the same healing process.

This is so ignorant that it is difficult to know where to start. Clearly you have no conception of evidence based practices and haven’t a clue about the value of trying different ideas under a variety of double blind trials and experimental conditions to ascertain the underlying workings. The huge irony to all this is that, earlier in this same thread, you argued that your theology cannot be subject to scientific testing and verification.

Here is the huge gaping hole in what you are presenting – when these allegedly ‘parallel’ (to use your term) practices are compared one comes out on top each and every time. Medicine is entirely and solely concerned with finding and using the techniques and medications that work best. If your theology really worked as you believe then, after being experimentally verified, it would be used as medicine.

Pay attention to this next bit because it is the culmination of scientific methodology on this topic, and it is something that you seem intent on not understanding. Are you ready? It is this:
[SIZE=+1]The reason your theology is not used as medicine is because it has [/SIZE][SIZE=+5]NOT[/SIZE][SIZE=+1] been demonstrated to work as you claim.[/SIZE]

 

[PureX]

This is so ignorant that it is difficult to know where to start. Clearly you have no conception of evidence based practices and haven’t a clue about the value of trying different ideas under a variety of double blind trials and experimental conditions to ascertain the underlying workings. The huge irony to all this is that, earlier in this same thread, you argued that your theology cannot be subject to scientific testing and verification.

You seem to have a very narrow idea of what science is, and the habit of insulting anyone who uses the term more broadly than you like.

from wikipedia: "Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") refers in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique or practice."

For centuries, healing was left to the priests, holy men, shamen, and whatever other religious/spiritualists there were in a given culture. And these each in their own way practiced a form of trial and error, to eventually build up some sort of knowledge base and skill at healing people. They did not use the scientific method that we use today, but they did use "prescriptive practice(s) that (are) capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome". And I have listed one common example. They did not arrive at this prescription by modern scientific method. But they did arrive at it by practical application, and trial and error. They did use science in the broad sense of the term. And the result is that they came up with a prescription that worked most of the time for most people, which is about as good as modern science achieves today.

You keep throwing around insults but you can't explain any of this away. Religion WAS medicine until fairly recently on the timeline of human development. People used it because IT WORKED. And IT STILL WORKS. And people believe that when an idea works, it's probably an idea that represents actuality. And this is logical. A lot of our modern medical practices were learned from these spiritual healers. Modern medics use modern scientific language, while healers use whatever language they learned their skill in, but what works, works, regardless of the language and culture, and what doesn't work, doesn't work regardless of the language and culture. Modern science can tell modern medics WHY something works, which it could not do for the healers who did not have modern science to work with, but that still doesn't alter the fact that by trial and error they both learned a lot about what works and what doesn't.

Here is the huge gaping hole in what you are presenting – when these allegedly ‘parallel’ (to use your term) practices are compared one comes out on top each and every time. Medicine is entirely and solely concerned with finding and using the techniques and medications that work best. If your theology really worked as you believe then, after being experimentally verified, it would be used as medicine.

IT IS. Many of our modern medicines are derived from the medicines used by primitive faith healers. Many of our modern psychological techniques are derived from faith-based healers of the past. You have turned science in to some sort of modern demi-god, and it's not. It's just a method we can use to find out why things work, as opposed to just finding out that they do work. But we've been learning what works and what doesn't work since the dawn of mankind, without the help of science.

Pay attention to this next bit because it is the culmination of scientific methodology on this topic, and it is something that you seem intent on not understanding. Are you ready? It is this:
[SIZE=+1]The reason your theology is not used as medicine is because it has [/SIZE][SIZE=+5]NOT[/SIZE][SIZE=+1] been demonstrated to work as you claim.[/SIZE]

But theology (religion/spiritualism) is and has been used as medicine from the dawn of time. I know of many people who have used the prescription I gave as an example in the above post, and for whom it worked very well. And I have met modern psychologists who will agree that it works, and can explain why it works.

 

[Vile Atheist]

from wikipedia: "Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") refers in its broadest sense to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique or practice."

And what predictions does religion make? And how have they come true (objectively)?

 

[themadhair]

Quoting myself in the hope that PureX will actually read and understand its contents.

This is so ignorant that it is difficult to know where to start. Clearly you have no conception of evidence based practices and haven’t a clue about the value of trying different ideas under a variety of double blind trials and experimental conditions to ascertain the underlying workings. The huge irony to all this is that, earlier in this same thread, you argued that your theology cannot be subject to scientific testing and verification.

Here is the huge gaping hole in what you are presenting – when these allegedly ‘parallel’ (to use your term) practices are compared one comes out on top each and every time. Medicine is entirely and solely concerned with finding and using the techniques and medications that work best. If your theology really worked as you believe then, after being experimentally verified, it would be used as medicine.

Pay attention to this next bit because it is the culmination of scientific methodology on this topic, and it is something that you seem intent on not understanding. Are you ready? It is this:
[SIZE=+1]The reason your theology is not used as medicine is because it has [/SIZE][SIZE=+5]NOT[/SIZE][SIZE=+1] been demonstrated to work as you claim.[/SIZE]

 

[themadhair]

And what predictions does religion make? And how have they come true (objectively)?

PureX doesn't actually know what predictive power is in science, as evidenced by this very thread.

 

[Vile Atheist]

IT IS. Many of our modern medicines are derived from the medicines used by primitive faith healers. Many of our modern psychological techniques are derived from faith-based healers of the past. You have turned science in to some sort of modern demi-god, and it's not. It's just a method we can use to find out why things work, as opposed to just finding out that they do work. But we've been learning what works and what doesn't work since the dawn of mankind, without the help of science.

Care to name these medicines and practices derived from faith healers?

 

[Vile Atheist]

You keep throwing around insults but you can't explain any of this away. Religion WAS medicine until fairly recently on the timeline of human development. People used it because IT WORKED. And IT STILL WORKS. And people believe that when an idea works, it's probably an idea that represents actuality. And this is logical. A lot of our modern medical practices were learned from these spiritual healers. Modern medics use modern scientific language, while healers use whatever language they learned their skill in, but what works, works, regardless of the language and culture, and what doesn't work, doesn't work regardless of the language and culture. Modern science can tell modern medics WHY something works, which it could not do for the healers who did not have modern science to work with, but that still doesn't alter the fact that by trial and error they both learned a lot about what works and what doesn't.

1) Religion was - for a long time - the only option until modern science came along.

2) When you get sick, where do you go? The hospital, or the church?

3) Most of our modern medicines were derived from knowledge of plants and herbs and their properties. Not any sort of religious ooga-booga practices.

It isn't the witch-doctor telling you to stand naked in a barrel of eels at midnight that does the healing. It's the actual medicine you take along with the psychological empowerment that SOMETHING is being done for you to be healed. If you don't know any better, you expect it to work. We call this the placebo effect.

 

[Enoch07]

Care to name these medicines and practices derived from faith healers?

Sure thing. Here is the recipe for an anti-bacterial soap listed in Numbers 19. Apologetics Press - God’s Soap Recipe. This recipe was has been in the Bible for thousands of years and only recently has science been able to catch up.

 

[OmarKhayyam]

"I would argue that this isn't even an example of religion in action, anymore, but of cult fanaticism. It would surprise no one that such fanatics could not let go of their bizarre beliefs or behaviors even in the face of such a letdown. They have developed a kind of addiction to them. "

Indeed they have. Just like the religious among us.

Please explain the objective difference between these 2 statements.

If I believe in Jesus Christ as my savior - really really believe - I will live forever in a wonderful paradise.

If we just trust James Jones he will lead us to a wonderful place where we can live forever in peace and prosperity and health.

One is a cult and one isn't??????

WHICH one do tell.

 

[OmarKhayyam]

BTW, the HRCC's prescription for dealing with the plague was to whip ourselves and pray to god for forgiveness of sin.

Science has a rather different answer. I am willing to bet sight unseen that there are disinfectants in your bathroom. Something the Pope forgot to mention.

BTW, just a quick observation. I know of no hospital staffed with theologians and a library of biblical commentary. Perhaps you do. If so pls advise.