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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: average joe who wrote (34511)	3/13/2003 6:53:31 PM
From: 2MAR$	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 39621

well , when Ingersol points out that Paine's thoughts on freeing the common man to use his own judgement and reason breaking the bonds of the church and priests , he could have gone further than just saying it is just as much a revelation today as 200 yrs ago... He could have compared it to----> Revelations itself, for in essence it is as much a "revelation". Paine's reasoning was based on observable facts , and the belief man was not predestined to always wear the chains and burden of some forlorn and gloomy pride , in the name of God or at the direction of self-flaggelating scheming priests and theologians, that wove these tales from the beginning. Virgin Birth ? Did Mary tell them she was a virgin at conception ? That would be a very private matter not openly discussed one would think , so the story-tellers have an advantage as they did with every other aspect of the life of Jesus, tied in with othert former mythologies of the time. They know mostly nothing of this earliest period , Jesus speaks of it not at all. Paine is ignored because he states things by reason that are so obvious , & no-one wishes to try and refute reason or common sense . But only a very few today want to go about talking of Jesus walking on the water , raising the dead and other borrowed fables. They might try and do this with some ignorant tribe in the amazon etc , or their counterparts over in Islam , but not in modern Europe or America. IT is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with another case I am going to mention, that the Christian mythologists, calling themselves the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by anything that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients. The ancient mythologists tell us that the race of Giants made war against Jupiter, and that one of them threw a hundred rocks against him at one throw; that Jupiter defeated him with thunder, and confined him afterwards under Mount Etna; and that every time the Giant turns himself, Mount Etna belches fire. It is here easy to see that the circumstance of the mountain, that of its being a volcano, suggested the idea of the fable; and that the fable is made to fit and wind itself up with that circumstance. The Christian mythologists tell that their Satan made war against the Almighty, who defeated him, and confined him afterwards, not under a mountain, but in a pit. It is here easy to see that the first fable suggested the idea of the second; for the fable of Jupiter and the Giants was told many hundred years before that of Satan. Thus far the ancient and the Christian mythologists differ very little from each other. But the latter have contrived to carry the matter much farther. They have contrived to connect the fabulous part of the story of Jesus Christ with the fable originating from Mount Etna; and, in order to make all the parts of the story tie together, they have taken to their aid the traditions of the Jews; for the Christian mythology is made up partly from the ancient mythology, and partly from the Jewish traditions. The Christian mythologists, after having confined Satan in a pit, were obliged to let him out again to bring on the sequel of the fable. He is then introduced into the garden of Eden in the shape of a snake, or a serpent, and in that shape he enters into familiar conversation with Eve, who is no ways surprised to hear a snake talk; and the issue of this tete-a-tate is, that he persuades her to eat an apple, and the eating of that apple damns all mankind.