from Europe and Elsewhere and A Pen Warmed Up In Hell by Mark Twain Religion had its share in the changes of civilization and national character, of course. What share? The lion's. In the history of the human race this has always been the case, will always be the case, to the end of time, no doubt; or at least until man by the slow processes of evolution shall develop into something really fine and high -- some billions of years hence, say. The Christian Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same; but the medical practice changes. For eighteen hundred years these changes were slight -- scarcely noticeable. The practice was allopathic -- allopathic in its rudest and crudest form. The dull and ignorant physician day and night, and all the days and all the nights, drenched his patient with vast and hideous doses of the most repulsive drugs to be found in the store's stock; he bled him, cupped him, purged him, puked him, salivated him, never gave his system a cha...

by Mark Twain from Fables of Man How often we are moved to admit the intelligence exhibited in both the designing and the execution of some of His works. Take the fly, for instance. The planning of the fly was an application of pure intelligence, morals not being concerned. Not one of us could have planned the fly, not one of us could have constructed him; and no one would have considered it wise to try, except under an assumed name. It is believed by some that the fly was introduced to meet a long-felt want. In the course of ages, for some reason or other, there have been millions of these persons, but out of this vast multitude there has not been one who has been willing to explain what the want was. At least satisfactorily. A few have explained that there was need of a creature to remove disease-breeding garbage; but these being then asked to explain what long-felt want the disease-breeding garbage was introduced to supply, they have not been willing to undertake the contract....

by Mark Twain The Ten Commandments were made for man alone. We should think it strange if they had been made for all the animals. We should say "Thou shalt not kill" is too general, too sweeping. It includes the field mouse and the butterfly. They can't kill. And it includes the tiger, which can't help it. It is a case of Temperament and Circumstance again. You can arrange no circumstances that can move the field mouse and the butterfly to kill; their temperaments will ill keep them unaffected by temptations to kill, they can avoid that crime without an effort. But it isn't so with the tiger. Throw a lamb in his way when he is hungry, and his temperament will compel him to kill it. Butterflies and field mice are common among men; they can't kill, their temperaments make it impossible. There are tigers among men, also. Their temperaments move them to violence, and when Circumstance furnishes the opportunity and the powerful motive, they kill. Th...

by Mark Twain It was a time of great exulting and excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest depths of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in ou...

WATERBURY, Conn. -- A Waterbury woman believes that someone divine has come knocking on her door. When she came home from church on Monday, Matilda Munoz said she found markings on her door that looked like Jesus. She said she immediately got chills. The door has been drawing dozens of visitors from across the city to the woman's Wall Street home. But the Catholic Church isn't weighing in just yet. The church has a long process for determining if something is a true apparition, said pastor Kevin Gray of Sacred Heart, who visited Munoz Tuesday morning. link

The Truth About Christmas - A Christian View Should Christians Celebrate Christmas - A Christian View After looking over these articles, leave a comment or two.

Excerpted from "The History of Christmas" Celebration of birthdays -- even including that of Christ -- was rejected as a pagan tradition by most Christians during the first three hundred years of Christianity, but the matter became increasingly controversial. The third century Christian writer Tertullian supported observance of Christ's birthday, but condemned the inclusion of Saturnalia customs such as exchanging of gifts and decorating homes with evergreens. Chapter 10 of the Book of Jeremiah begins by condemning the heathen practice of cutting a tree from the forest to "deck it with silver and gold". Christmas as celebrated by Catholics and early Protestants a few hundred years ago was not the secular holiday we recognize today. It was a "Christes Maesee" (Old English for Christ's Mass) or Nativity service plus a large family dinner. The English Puritans felt that there was "no biblical sanction" for Christmas -- regardin...

The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Dresden Memorial Edition (XII, 369-375) My family and I regard Christmas as a holiday -- that is to say, a day of rest and pleasure -- a day to get acquainted with each other, a day to recall old memories, and for the cultivation of social amenities. The festival now called Christmas is far older than Christianity. It was known and celebrated for thousands of years before the establishment of what is known as our religion. It is a relic of sun-worship. It is the day on which the sun triumphs over the hosts of darkness, and thousands of years before the New Testament was written, thousands of years before the republic of Rome existed, before one stone of Athens was laid, before the Pharaohs ruled in Egypt, before the religion of Brahma, before Sanskrit was spoken, men and women crawled out of their caves, pushed the matted hair from their eyes, and greeted the triumph of the sun over the powers of the night. There are many relics of this worship...

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=609&id=1438612004 by RUSSELL JACKSON WITH only faint shades of religious significance, the image of Christ has revealed itself on the toasted crumpet of a Leicestershire carpenter. But Shaun Garrod, who witnessed the Second Coming on his snack, is an atheist who initially believed his early Christmas present was more a gift from the rock gods - thinking the apparition was the Bee Gees frontman Barry Gibb. Mr Garrod, 31, from Ashby de la Zouch, said: "I was just toasting some crumpets and when I pulled them out to check they were okay, my brother Elliott said: ‘That looks like Jesus’. "I thought he was messing me about but I had a glance and thought it looked like one of the Bee Gees, the one with the hair. Later in the day I had another look and I thought it did look like Jesus." The timber recycling specialist was eating breakfast at the weekend when he made the discovery. He said: "I took it ...

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sent in by Sharon Loving greetings to all Christians and all others. I offer a challenge to all Christians. This is not a new concept, it is in fact commanded in the Bible. Yet so few self proclaimed Christians ever do it that this fact tells a glaringly simple story all of it's own. Show your love for your God and your maker. READ THE BIBLE! Yes, I hear you saying "I read my Bible every day!" I mean read the WHOLE Bible. Cover to cover. I used to find it amazing that every self proclaimed Christian that I have ever known claims that he/she loves God, even that he/she KNOWS God and hasnt bothered even to read the entire body of what He supposedly gave to us his beloved children as his word in the Holy Bible. Even on a human scale we are well aware that if we received a letter from the one person we love most in the world we would want to read the whole thing. Every last word! That we would be blatantly hipocritical if we read only portions of it and...

Enjoy a 'Flaming Jesus' this holiday! Ingredients: Scale ingredients to servings 1 1/2 oz Absolut Vodka 1 splash Lime Juice 1 splash Grenadine Bacardi 151 Proof Rum Directions: Pour vodka, lime juice, and grenadine into shot glass. Then layer 151 proof rum on top from the back of a spoon. Light the 151 and shoot it while lit if you dare. If you are worried about shooting a lit drink, just blow out the flame and then shoot the drink. Talk about your tongues of fire... Have a great day!

"As a dedicated believer in the word of God, I fully expected the other members of my church to be as dedicated as I was, but I quickly learned that few individuals were... I came to understand that the Bible had little power to change the inner nature of man, and none of its promises were coming to any kind of fruition." If I didn't know better, I might be tempted to suspect Scott Stahlecker had tapped into my own mind to find his inspiration for: "How To Escape Religion Guilt Free." Of course Stahlecker is telling his own story in this book, and the quote above is his, but without a doubt his experiences parallel what many true believers begin to suspect during the course of their "walk with god." And as a personal testimony of a loss of faith, this book is a very good read. However, he goes considerably beyond the personal, deftly documenting much of Christianity's logical inconsistencies, its lack of verifiable evidence, its contradicto...

Fundamental Dysfunctions Please see my website about my crazy Christian family: http://www.geocities.com/fundamental_dysfunctions/ Thanks, Kemila

- Compiled by Donald Morgan mirrored from HERE These lists are meant to identify possible problems in the Bible, especially problems which are inherent in a literalist or fundamentalist interpretation. Some of the selections may be resolvable on certain interpretations--after all, almost any problem can be eliminated with suitable rationalizations--but it is the reader's obligation to test this possibility and to decide whether it really makes appropriate sense to do this. To help readers in this task, these lists are aimed at presenting examples where problems may exist given certain allowable (but not always obligatory) assumptions.  GE 1:3-5 On the first day, God created light, then separated light and darkness. GE 1:14-19 The sun (which separates night and day) wasn't created until the fourth day. GE 1:11-12 , 26-27 Trees were created before man was created. GE 2:4-9 Man was created ...