*grins* Maybe you have to use J.C. as a prayer-mat or something, in order for your coming to belief to have the full effect? *giggles*

*giggle* Quite possibly! There were a whole other series of "get with Jesus" kind of signs, including some of the old "Repent, for the kingdom of god is nigh" and other such silliness.

It is sad, because they don't even know what, "Repent" means. It was translated from the compound Greek words Metanoeo and Metamellamai. They mean Change your mind. Change your emotions. SO, in the new gospel, the kingdom of God where the old testament and the law was fulfilled by the death of Christ, they now mean nothing. So it is, "Change your mind about sin! What is old is passed, and the love of God is here!" Not, "HEY!!!! Turn or burn in hell!!" No, it says the opposite. Not that it matters, but I appreciate your comments!! :) Most of these religion people don't actually know what anything means, they just think that they do. that is how they humor themselves, by being hypocrites that think that sin exists, and every one else but them are going to hell because of sin but them. Then every one gets scared and so on and can't be themselves because of religion that doesn't mean anything.

Wel, I usually don't involve my self into comments. But a first time for anything, right? And plus, I thought that you might like that, from what I am gathering. Aha, but you rock. Thanks for all that you do! XD

Thank you for liking my weird observations on the world! I didn't know that about the word "repent", either- wonderful how simple mistranslations can bork a passage. So many lives were ruined because of "little" things like "suffer not a witch to live" when it supposedly originally read "suffer not a poisoner to live"... There's tons of that sort of thing. The problem with medieval (and earlier)"scholars" was one only had to be able to read a little and be good at ponticifating and convincing others of the correctness of your ideas to be accorded more respect than you deserved. O__o A "scholar" could make all kinds of outrageous claims as long as they had money, came from a noble family and had attended a respected University. Oh, wait. Folks still do that. Heh.

I'm finding, that, as I age, and learn more about the real world as it is, religion is begining to lose it's appeal to me. I like logic as much as mysticism and fantasy, but I'm finding that the logic is taking over in terms of my actual thinking and the mysticism and fantasy are just becoming entertainments for me, probably where they belong, actually.

Ha, well thanks for getting back to me!! I appreciate it! A lot of people don't know what the word repent means. I certainly didn't. There ARE indeed tons and tons of those meanings out there, so it is certainly safe to say that individuality is the only right answer to most beliefs and ideas. Even religion.

Yeah, money and education of one person's opinion has killed people's individuality because they are stupid enough to believe that they don't need to find their own right answer for things. They have to depend on the ones with the money and educations. People are just hurting themselves. Things aren't so black and white as they seem to be.

I mean, I still believe in God, and I have my relationship with what I think is right in my heart. And I am not saying it is bad to go to church either, but these ideas that have circulated are ridiculous and harmful as I see it. I am not saying that Christians are bad people either. It is just that they remain hypocrites as long as they think that trying to stay perfect is the only way to earn God's love, because their fact of being human has crippled that, and they are constantly pointing fingers at people when they have their own issues. They are justified in their own world, though. Just as I am. In the end, it is just what you do with your opinions and beliefs. If you put them forth lovingly and sensitively, then any idea is as good as mine to me, you know? That is how this world should be. A good ideas is a good idea that needs to be sharpened by people as a whole, as a bad idea should be fixed into a good idea with the right research and logic. The uniqueness that every one holds is key and should be expressed and respected. And if some one needs help with something, then that should also be respected. But we are all split apart, and it pains me to see it that way. I can go on, really. But I am sure you have better things to do. lol

I don't know if you believe in God or what ever, but you are justified because it is right in your heart, and what you do with it is the most important thing, and I know that you are probably researching it. I am giving it a go. :) I hope that we all get to share ideas some day, regardless of religious standpoints, gender, and so on.

<3 Amazement!@ Thanks!!

I feel there is something more to each individual than the meat they're made of. I'd like to believe there is something one could call a soul. I am "religious", but only in the sense that I believe I've felt the presence of Deity. It's religion itself, the organized kind, that palls and makes me so angry when people use it as an excuse to be cruel, rude or exclusive with other people. If someone spouts "we are the Chosen of God" as a reason for treating a group, any group, like they're somehow less, I'm disgusted.

To me, the way modern Christianity deals with Yeshua's teachings has broken the meaning of what he was trying to show people. "Love thy neighbour" does not have "only if they're the same as you" attached to it.

I happen to be Wiccan, myself, in that I believe in a more accessable, balanced godhood. Godhood is also something I believe humanity can strive for, and eventually reach, if we work at it. The questions of "What is our purpose?" and "Why are we here?" can both be answered with the same words: "to learn to love, to experience love, to share what love we find." What more do we need to do, after that?

And there is. People just don't know how to get it out of themselves some times. It is just that religion, in a way, is a shared way of living. Not a shared love. No one is like eachother, and it scares people. I mean, people are very similar in ways, but they were made to be different.

That is what religion is. It is a group that excludes ideas and can't accept humanity as a whole. Well.. the way i see it. I grew up liking other boys and couldn't accept it until 2 years ago. Then it took a lot of getting used to. That took another long time. (not that you wanted or cared to know lol) But I feared religion because I thought that because I was born bisexual, I was wrong. But they were wrong, because I matured and was able to realize it. People fear what is *different* and it usually makes them hypocrites. If it is a dangerous thing, then people just want to point fingers rather than help before things get worse.

But I believe that because we are justified through the blood of Christ, we are already justified and Godly. :) And other things in the bible... lol Just achieving beloved unity with ourselves is just a troublesome problem. :( But we will work at getting it, wont we? :) And we will succeed because we tried to show love. And some will understand that it is all ok to need help and to love one another. I don't think I am naive in believing that.

But yeah. You're fun. :)

I often wonder if our habit of forming routines and then sticking to those routines, come hell or highwater, because they're familiar, even if they no longer work, may have something to do with our modern xenophobias. People forget that we are still animals- primates, in our case- and that we still have the same wiring and reactions to the stranger. We have two absolute reactions to the stranger: we either push them away (or outright kill them), or we immediately want to mate with them.

All religion, to me, is a codified way of putting that primate behaviour into a "social context" and is used as justification for those behaviours: "you don't share our faith, convert or get lost, heathen!" So sad, especially when folks like Yeshua and Siddhartha and many others were trying to show us a better way of interacting with the new. "We are the same, inside, where it matters- in our shared soul. No matter how different we are on the outside, we are the same." Individuals can be jerks, or bigots, or just need a little loving. Wholesale groups? I still can only see them as individuals...

To me, love is still love, no matter who it brings together, and if the fools who voted against Proposition 8 (for example) could see that, this world would be a nicer place. You go ahead and love your men- the world will just have to catch up later.

Haha, you are so fun to talk to. :)

I often forget that fact too, and I often get frustrated with my self and my own surroundings. That applies in our social imperfections in many ways in the end.

No one ever really wanted it this way. No one really does. They think and feel that they want this hate, but I am willing to think that this is nothing that any one really wants. They have deprived their hearts of love, but it can come back to them if they would try to realize what has happened.


And thanks! I think that the world would be a better place if people over looked those simple little things and looked at the quality of some one's heart. They will find out sooner or later I hope.

Awww, thank you.

That's been my feeling for a longish while: people don't often really THINK about what they believe, and nor do they often want to. If they were suddenly the group being discriminated against, I'm sure their tune would change rather rapidly. I have noticed that trying to explain another's bigotry in that context, IE "replace "fag" with "jew", or "nigger", and what does that make you sound like? Now, replace "fag" with Christian..." gets folks like that all flustered and confused. It's as if they just cannot wrap their mind around the idea that it's being exclusive that's the problem, not being gay, or jewish or whatever. I get a lot of "but that's not the SAME..." and I have to tell them that, "yes it IS, and if you can sympathize with the different, you'll soon see that they really aren't so different after all."

They are presented with a set of beliefs while they were young and, because it's what they are familiar with, that's what they're comfortable with, and it's steping outside that comfort-zone that can make a bigot go so so nasty. So, taking the bigotry out of people's beliefs will be really difficult, unless it's something that's done when they're kids. Most of us don't last through our "question-everything" phase- it's far too painful a process to go through for most folks. They give up and stick with the beliefs that don't get them hurt, rather than risk the rejection and loneliness that going against the majority can land you with (imagine being gay in the fifties. Now imagine being black, or Communist- you get the idea). I was never part of any kind of mainstream- I'm a mixed-race kid from the wrong side of the tracks who's step-dad was Japanese, who's mom was Native and French, and I was the creative, near-autistic weirdo of a kid that they had to raise... I went against a lot of things more on an instinctual basis: some stuff just seemed automatically wrong, no matter how people tried to pretty it up for me to swallow. Hate of any kind just makes me blink and act confused. Hating someone just because of the colour of their skin, or their religion, or their sexual orientation is so obviously wrong to me, and so illogical (being any of these things doesn't automatically make you bad, and there's no "logic" that will make me believe it so, either), that I just can't understand it. The actual thinking it through part came a lot later, and I discovered that my analytical brain still agreed with my intuitive brain.

I hope they learn it, too- the world really doesn't need any more hate in it.

Yeah, I don't think Jesus would like people believing on him.

Or doing anything else, though He probably really NEEDS it!

Hah!

*snicker* There were at least ten of these guys, most with individually- and professionally-printed signs (there was one traditional hand-painted one, though). White robe, street-side zealots have traded in their robes for more mundane camouflage and high-tech, cheaply available print-shop wares...

I tried believing on Jesus but he pushed me off.

*giggles* Spooging would probably REALLY put him out, too.

lmao

Did that to me, too.

yea, I'm religious but I'm not that crazy about it.

I was raised a Roman Catholic, but I got better.

lol

*grins*

loads shotgun for sign

is tired of religion putting its two coppers up my nose when i dont get to do the same

I just see it as another form of "looking for the big daddy to take care of me"- people prefer to shuck responsibility for their lives, rather than actually think about what their actions could mean or how they affect other people.

But, while I may not agree with their views, nor can I keep myself from laughing at how sadly mindless they are, I still can't condone the shotgun approach to dealing with them. *giggles and takes yer shotgun away*

I don't know... I sort of take exception to that sort of thing in principle-- since it's founded on a patent lie (the existence of God), that screws up LOTS of people's lives (defer living to get into a heaven that's not there.)

Being polite whilst punching people in the face does not win points with me.

I don't care what a person believes, but it somehow ruins any credibility (let alone any sense of class) of a religion that looks down on whores, yet insists that their believers prostitute their religion. And it just does them one worse when they not only quote their Bible, but get it wrong on their stupid sign with a typo, AND still not caring that they are an embarrassment to the educational system by either not noticing the error, or not caring and going out with the silly thing anyway.

Feel free to laugh uproarously.

Its in there, but I think it is simplified. Each act is like a freaken Harry Potter chapter.... might of been verse, I dunno, I read it a while back, so I can now disagree with the Christians claiming to have read or know the bible. Came in handy a few times. :P

Oh, the quote itself is correct- it's the typo I was laughing at. "Believe on the Lord Jesus..." is supposed to read "believe IN the Lord..." I just found it really funny that a guy with an obvious error on his professionally-made sign was still willing to go out and carry it...

Guess it is, but lots of people make typos its almost old. Still, maybe he didn't believe in him that much and that happened.


Now, if it had a different meaning, then lol.

Hmm, still, is a verse longer then an act? Not 100% sure if he made that error, too.

Nope, the only "error" is the possible typo in the text. Acts is one of the books of the New Testament... A verse is a portion of a book, which are numbered in sections, like chapters. Good grief, how can you say you've read the Bible, yet don't know the difference? O_O

Anyway, it turns out that different versions of the Bible (yes, there is a round dozen, or more, out there) have either "in", or "on". It seems that both may be correct. I just think it looks like broken English to have it be "believe on", instead of "believe in..."

Does it help I did it with no help? :P Didn't really ask how the numbers worked and it didn't seem important to know since I wouldn't be reading it but once (borrowed book) and not having that good of a memory.

Eh, if it said "and thou salt be saved" then I would lol as it is a error that is still a sentance.

If it was an "error", it still turns out to be at least "correct" by several translations of the Bible. What burns me is a trend that I've been noticing the last several years: professional printers, newspapers, etc, have been sending out product with obvious spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors. Myself, I don't want to pay for something that not only makes the company I chose look bad, it will also make me look stupid if it's something like a sign advertising my work. Quality is something a business should always be serious about, or they lose their customers. If a printer had printed something for me with an error on it, I'd be sending it back...

*chuckles and hugs you*

Yeah, the numbers convention that the Bible uses isn't something a person would know if they hadn't had Catechism classes ... The first number is the chapter of the named book it's in, the number after the colon is the verse. That way, if you need to look up something in the book, you just look at the "code" and you can find the verse you need. It was something created in the times before indices (the index) were commonly used in large volumes like encyclopedias.

"thou salt be saved"---- Awesome! yeah, perfectly correct... as a sentence. *grins* I wonder how many of those kinds of goof-ups are actually in the Bible?

Signs are professional? :0

Eh, I had limited time. Skiped things that would save a second or 2. Though I said I read the book, didn't nessarily mean I read the "whole" book. : D

Yup, they're supposed to be, if it's printing for a business. The zealot signs were "professional", as in they had someone print them for them on heavy card-stock, or in this case, some kind of plasticized canvas. It's pretty common, actually- a lot of the evangelical church groups will raise money for a project like that, and have these preacher signs printed up for a march or some such.

The bible was of course, written in English.

I'm not one of those idiots that believes everything in the Bible is true! It just bugs me when an apparent typo turns out to be a strange translation (I found a number of different Bible versions- some with "believe in..." and some with "believe on..." for the same passage).. It amused me, is all. It just looks broken.

Yes it does, and yes some of the fundie lingo and culture can get a bit weird. I do find it hilarious that some people can actually believe that but there you go. Oh and as for mis-translations, in Aramaic there are the characters V and U, in Greek only V, the difference between the words Year and Month in Aramaic is that one uses the V, one uses the U. The bible was first translated from Aramaic to Greek. Now, how many MONTHS did Mesuthelah live? Try giving that RATIONAL explanation to a fundamentalist.

*head-desks* Gods, people can be so dumb... *chuckle*

Sadly, I got exposed up close and pretty f-ng personal when my own mother fell for fundi stupidity. I guess she was looking for security and decided that giving up any real responsibility for her life was the way to get that: anything bad that happened was because of the Devil and anything good was due to God. Sad...

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. Humans, I fear them with good reason.

“It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
- Mark Twain

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
- Voltaire

Mark Twain was such a sensible old curmudgeon, wasn't he? I really like the Voltaire quote, gonna have to remember that one.

And I try not to underestimate the stupidity of people, it just makes me shake my head that we just don't seem to effing learn.

Also, most famous typo in all of Christendom... It's celebrate people! (think about it)

I've heard of that one- dunno if it's true, or what providence it has, but it would be hilariously sad if it really were "celebrate"...

It could be relating to "rely on".

Then again it was written thousands of years ago. Maybe the versions say it differently because back then it was a more widely accepted grammatical usage. :|

Whether it's an archaism or not- and it may well be- my weird-ass humour took it and ran with it. A picture had to be taken, and thus it was so. *chuckles* The wording was only relevant to the extant that it looked broken to my eye.

Makes one wonder how the writters of those several versions of the bible seem to have had access fo a qwerty keyboard ('i' being next to 'o' and all)

Nope, just an archaism that does show up in several versions of the Bible, but by modern usage, doesn't make as much sense as it once did, because the language has changed since then. After some of the first comments on this page, I did some digging around to find the quote from different versions, just to see if it did show up at all as being "correct". It does, but my first exposure to the fellow with his sign didn't include that info, so my humour button got pressed and I had to take a pic of it.

Hmm well I sure do want to be saved...
Wait
From what

Yeah, no kidding! If we need to be saved from anything at all, it's most likely our simple self-serving, short-sightedness and greed. We need to learn how to include others in our plans and take into consideration how our actions could potentially affect them. For me, that includes the environment, as well as humans.

Exactly!
Sometimes we really need to get more down-to-earth :x

"Get with Earth!" instead of "get with God!" We only have one planet, with small hope of ever getting off of it- wasting it seems counter-intuitive.

Exactly ~!
Hahah I'd love to join in that mantra :3

*giggles* I'm gonna be marrying one of those particular "believers"... I'd rather rant "Get with Earth" than spew any religion's particular dogma- though some would argue that environmentalism is a kind of religion, the way some folks are so zealous about it. To me, though, it makes far more sense not to encourage the senseless wasting of resources, while the Xtians will go on about their "dominion over the Earth" stuff. Well, if you have dominion, then it follows that you also have stewardship, meaning you gotta take care of that domain, if you wanna keep it viable... I get pretty steamed at fundies, some days.

GaSp
I know exactly how you feel @-@ I can understand how, back when Judaism was first born, humans could have been that way- I mean, tribes were so far and few between, and people actually fought to survive just like any other species- but these days? D:

We still must "fight" to survive, actually- it's just that we've created the dangerous "environment" we have learn to survive in because we may be too late to "fix" the damage we've done.

Truth.
D: Sad, sad truth.

Yeah. And I believe we may be derailing the page a bit! *chuckles*

X3 Oopsies D:
:pushes it back over:

*chuckle* I don't mind, actually.

Haha well good things then ! x3

That is exactly what it is...being "saved" from our sin. Being saved from things like our self-serving attitude, short-sightedness, and greed.

Taking other people into consideration and trying to affect them is exactly what those people carrying those signs are trying to do. Now, I agree with you; that waving around a sign probably isn't a good way to go about it... But, they were just trying to help you. Kind of like saying "hey, life giving you trouble? Try reading this book, it really helped me."

You don't even have to believe in God to know that Jesus' gave some great life advice.



Anyway, it is unfortunate that some people get over-zealous about it. Trust me, I've had plenty of people push at me pretty hard with their specific denomination or whatever. Some people get really out of hand, and make the rest of the world hate Christians.

I don't actually hate anybody, except abusive people, and those I just damage whenever I run into them... I'm not a Christian, but I have no issues with the things Yeshua Ben Yusuf was trying to teach people. I respect Siddhartha, too (the Buddha), for his teachings. It's the nits who think that they have to shove their beliefs in my maw, all the while judging me as less because I don't follow their religion. To me, standing on a street-corner trying to sell your "wares" makes you either a small business, or a whore, and "prostituting" one's faith is no way to get followers, in my opinion.

I know the kinds of folks who wave signs and preach at me: they don't want to help me at all, they just want people to do as they say because they can't stand the thought of someone thinking, believing or living differently than they do.

"they don't want to help me at all, they just want people to do as they say because they can't stand the thought of someone thinking, believing or living differently than they do"

Yeah, that is unfortunate... and I see it from a lot of people, religious or not.

Selling christian "wares" could be some kind of business scam, under the guise of religion. Yet, most of the time when I see people like that selling things, the money is going toward a church or something like that.

Look at any of the television evangelists, like Falwell- rooksters, all of 'em. They aren't helping anyone except themselves, filling their already bulging pockets with money sent by lonely, desperate and mostly impoverished people. It's disgusting, the way they prey on these poor folks. These fat creeps do prostitue their religion, and it repulses me in the extreme.

A passing monk or nun, I'll bow to in full respect, whether they're Christian, Buddhist or Shaolin- they've earned that respect by their choice to give their lives for their faith. They don't force it on anyone, either, but live quiet lives of beautiful example...

Someone who has a strong belief in their god is worth respecting. Those who go out to help others with actual work, not sign-waving, will get my repsect. People who, by the sweat of their own brow, build houses for the poor, or work to save an endangered species, they have my respect.

Sign-wavers and sad little twerps who pass out poorly-written religious tracts, who think that pushing their singular belief in my face will "save" me from anything, will only be mocked or ignored.

Had another thought: what if I don't happen to believe in sin? On person's "sin" is another person's simple pleasure (as long as it harms no one, that is). I don't need a religion to tell me that being selfish and self-centred is wrong! Things like that should be self-evident, if one has even an ounce of sympathy for the creatures on the journey with them. One can be ethical without throwing religion into the mix.

You would be surprised how many of those "simple pleasures" can hurt others, as well as yourself.

Murra, the thing is... you are smart, and kind, and caring. You can see that being self-centered or selfish is wrong. A lot of people can't; especially from my generation, it seems. They have no sympathy, or morals, or values. Their life philosophy is "Do whatever you want, because it doesn't matter".

Anyway, I don't want to argue... I mainly posted in the first place to answer the question "Saved from what?", because it seems a lot of people don't know.

Actually, almost anyone can tell you what Yeshua was trying to "save" us from, but you won't be getting that info from the fundimental zealots. As for "simple pleasurse" hurting folks, I have trouble imagining something like being gay hurting anyone, and that's one thing idiots like these like to claim is a sin... It's things like that I'm referring to, hon. The simple right to love who you will is too often seen as a sin by these morons. My own mother thinks her best friend is going to Hell, just because he's GAY.

Yes, I'd like to think that I'm smart and caring, but I've always been that way- I didn't need some book to tell that hitting people was wrong, or stealing, or what have you. It's the seeming assumption of our mindlessness and stupidity that gets to me. It's assumed we're as stupid as they are, and that offends the heck out of me. When folks ask the question, "saved from what?" they aren't admitting ignorance, they're laughing at the idea that they need saving!

Beilieve on, is an old english form of believe in.

So I understand, but you might've wanted to read the above many comments where it gets mentioned that I went looking for the phrasing in other verisons of the Bible (and finding that it can be "on") before being pedantic on my page. *chuckles* That's my job. I make errors, but I admit to them, as can be shown above. It's been a very long time since I'd read the Bible, and the quote on the fellow's sign just looked broken (as far as the modern usage of English is concerned)- it made me laugh so I took a picture of it. It still looks funny to me...

I know you admited to your mistake, and that's good. My father can never do that.

You'd be surprised: most folks can't at all... I'm a pedant by nature. I also like to be right- and I usually am (on some topics, anyway), but I'm wrong often enough to hopefully keep me humble. My errors usually concern things I know little of (understandable), subjects I should know, but forgot (frustrating), or moments of oversight where I neglected to notice something that should have informed me (danged-near unforgivable).

Cheers!

Well, good to hear. Do you dislike Cristains?

Actually, no. I dislike fanatics, of any stripe. It's impossible to argue with a fanatic, even when you have facts on your side. It's just that, where I'm from, I mostly run into the Christian variety. The fact that my mother went that way may be a factor in some of my sneering about them, too.

It seems to be a thing with religious zealots that they have a very poor grasp of spelling and grammar.

Some certainly do. A few, who try to write books, just buy an editor... *shudders at the thought of Tex Marrs getting another volume of his "teachings" printed... chuckles* This fellow, however, was evidently using a translation of the Bible I was unfamiliar with- "believe on..." actually occurs in some of them.

If God was a person playing SimLife (much like SimCity but more complicated); Would we wonder what he was smoking the next morning looking at the results of letting the game run with out him over night?

It truly is sad what people have done in the name of God, that was really nothing more then greed or hate.

The pattern that miffs me the most is also the most common: the "exclusivity" clause. Too many so-called major religions seem to harp on the idea that they are the Chosen, thus excluding anyone outside their particular little tribe. It's something that just invites abuse, bigotry and later, violence. What a waste, when those same religions are trying to teach people how to be better beings. O___O