Why does it seem the SL population hates Christians?

I think religion is a vestige of ancient mentalities (due to reading this and other books, as well as through introspection and thought about the passing on of knowledge in general, and related topics.) And I realize that if I'd taken a different path and hadn't cared to investigate consciousness and such things, I might have very easily become a religious person.

So, while I fail to accept religious ideas, I do not blame others for holding them. I believe society should move beyond such things into a more rational mode of thought, and I believe that this non-religious mentality is eminently logical and that it will, entirely on its own merits and without any of us having to be pushy about it, slowly become the default - just as the idea that the Earth does in fact revolve around the Sun, and that humans did in fact evolve from lower primates.

My point here is that there will be a day when this very question - whether anyone hates anyone else for being Christian - is as relevant as the question of whether anyone hates anyone else for believing in the gods of Mount Olympus. Until then, it is kinder to respect those who follow the old system of beliefs, even as we expect it to die off someday, and not use it as an excuse to create divisions where none need exist.

I just had a thought. Would it still be possible to get my hands on a copy of the ORIGINAL BIBLE's writtings? Not anything translated but the actual original that was written by the guys who lived through it? I want to see how badly its been changed. And what is the truth. My mother tells me its written in hebrew though. Possibly just a computer scanned version of the pages? Or sent into computer text?

Far ANcient Hebrew.. I think there's only a handful of people who can actually read that. Plus the original manuscripts are lost. Some believe the Dead Sea Scrolls are them, but it's not proven.

And then there are the conspiracy theorists that sayt he vatican is sitting on them, but that's Tinfoil Hat territory.

Not just that, but any text written not that long ago can have significantly changed meaning since it was written because the meaning attached to the words has changed. For instance, take LOTR, the Elves were referred to as "gay", in a sense that had absolutely nothing to do with sexuality. The word means something completely different today, and only 50 years passed!

The amount of change in meaning of the words over time would make finding the intended meaning really hard even if you had the ability to read ancient hebrew.

That sounds like paranoid schizophrenia (really)

Now why did you have to dash the hopes of all those Legolas fanbois so callously?

Much of the original Bible is written in Greek.

Original, direct copies are availible though. And trust me, big difference.

God: Weedy, welcome to heaven.
Weedy: Wow, God himself welcomes me to heaven!
God: Had lunch yet?
Weedy: Actually, I am kinda hungry, now that you mention it.
God: Here is a bowl of tuna.
Weedy: I'm in heaven, and you feed me canned fish?
God: No point in cooking for just the two of us.

My best guess about the purpose of religion is that it fills uncomfortable voids in human knowledge. For instance, take Zeus and Thor, and why people believed in them before, but don't anymore.

Long ago, lightning was fearsome, something that nobody knew what is was, and that sometimes would set things fire and fall upon somebody's unlucky head. It didn't help that people didn't have any idea of how to protect against it (don't stand under a tree), so I suppose getting hit by it was something relatively frequent.

So, you see that your son/familiar/friend is suddenly hit by lightning and gets fried. I imagine people would feel a need to explain why such things happen, as bizarre things like that happening for no reason at all are very unnerving. So they come up with Zeus, who sits in the sky and hurls bolts when he's annoyed with something.

These days, however, we know what is lightning, how it happens, and I don't think that many people today would claim that lighning rods somehow go against God's will to smite somebody.

As science progressively fills the gaps in our knowledge, the domain of religion shrinks more and more. I'd say that it's quickly losing relevancy, and might even eventually vanish completely.

I pretty much broke most of the 10 commandments in Second Life. Does that count? If so Is there a hell in SL?

The Cornfield

God isn't found in a book.

God is found through personal experience.

Club ThongoXXXDanceoramaSexxorHairstyleprimitarmall - Now with floppy prims and lighting!

There never was such a document as it was assembled by various editors over centuries from various sources and there were all sorts of editorialization, mis-translations, intentional modifications and so forth.

The "Books of Moses" - the first five books of the bible - probably have the cleanest line of descent as they were copied from an "original" periodically (dare I say religiously?). I say "an original" as it isn't even historically clear if there was single authorship there; personally as it has a excruciatingly detailed historical accounts far ante-dating Moses either he got most of it from oral history (doubtful for that level of detail) or more likely collected it from other sources.

Biblical scholars spend their lives trying to piece together the history of that book and have alternate stretches of text that seem as if they are to occupy the same place but differ in content.

I expect the origins of that text are likely inaccessible barring time travel or sumptin. Furthermore, as they are but words, and words are pale shadows of the events they describe, having the "definitive" work - if such existed - wouldn't really get you much.

Stanislaw Lem had an interesting take on the matter of historical writing in One Human Minute.

Yeah, it's pretty evident she was mentally ill.

I meant to use that an example, sometimes people say something so weird that there's no point in trying to have a discussion about it, as nothing useful comes out of a talk with somebody whose thoughts aren't grounded in reality. I'm pretty sure a geiger counter wouldn't have convinced her in the slightest.

I see nothing wrong with this... Try to answer the question... Not dodge it.

Everyone knows it was written by the Deuteronomists as a vaccination for the Asherah virus....

Sorry, what question?

This question

Ty, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that line. From what you have said here you are one of those (however many or few they may be) that actually believes in and practices what Christianity is supposed to be about, or at least as close to it as you can get. Just keep on doing what you have been doing and let the rest fall where it may.

I wrote something a few years ago in response to being attacked for my beliefs by some who claimed to be Christian. It was not meant as an attack on Christianity or to offend, so please do not view it as such. I am "reprinting" it here in the hope that you can use at least part of it in any replies you may make to those who attack you for your beliefs.


This is what I wrote:

I am who I am and what I am. I walk my own path and I walk it alone. No one can walk it for me. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations nor are you in this world to live up to mine. I am at peace with our Grandfather, the Creator. You say you have the truth and the only way. Your truths are not the same as mine. Your path is not my path. You say that I will never know the love of God and will always suffer from separation from God. I say the Creator loves us all and He has always been with me. You say what you believe is not man made but of the one true God. I say the Creator made all things and all things are of the one true God. I am who I am and what I am. I walk my own path and I walk it alone. No one can walk it for me.

And Heaven is a private sim shutoff from the world.

Very well said, Selene.

Maybe it is because you flaunt your Christianity in public. Why is it that Christians feel the need to flaunt their religion in front of everybody?

LOL, a single line in someone's profile is NOT flaunting!