ROME, Italy (CNN) – Scientific tests prove bones housed in the Basilica of St. Paul in Rome are those of the apostle St. Paul himself, according to Pope Benedict XVI.
“Tiny fragments of bone” in the sarcophagus were subjected to carbon dating, showing they “belong to someone who lived in the first or second century,” the pope said in a homily carried on Italian television.
“This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains of the Apostle St. Paul,” Benedict said in Sunday’s announcement.
Pope Benedict has openly spoken about the harmony of science and the Bible. This absolutely baffles me. How can a flawed book of ancient myths be compatible with science? Here are Pope Benedict’s thoughts on the first biblical man, Adam:
“Christ stresses that the gift received in him far surpasses Adam’s sin and its consequent effects on humanity”
–Pope Benedict, Paul VI Audience Hall, December 2008
Many apologetics explain that the creation story in Genesis is an allegory or metaphor to illustrate the fall of man to sin. But Genesis presents Adam and Eve as actual persons and narrates important events in their lives and their children’s lives. Even Jesus referred to Adam & Eve as the first literal “male and female,” making their physical union the basis of marriage (Matthew 19:4-6).
Adam and Eve were considered literal, historical people until science proved the creation story to be preposterous. Denoting every impossible story in the Bible as an allegory does not make the book more credible. I’ll stick with carbon dating rather than fictional stories that date the earth to be 6,000 years old.
The genealogy of Jesus was very important to prove Jesus was the Messiah and descendant of David. Yet there are two very different genealogies given in the Bible. Many Christians argue that one of the genealogies is actually of Mary. But the texts are very specific that both are the bloodline of Joseph. This brings up another huge issue that Joseph wasn’t even the “blood” father of this “begotten” child. Since God impregnated Mary, the two conflicting bloodlines prove nothing.
But for now, I’ll stick with the flawed genealogy of Joseph. The part I find most baffling is the two authors have different names for Joseph’s father. They didn’t even get the first generation right.
A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
… and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Matthew 1:1-16
Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat.
Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion is helping to launch Britain’s first summer retreat for non-believers. Children will have lessons in evolution and sing along to John Lennon’s Imagine.
The five-day “Camp Quest” in Somerset (motto: “It’s beyond belief”) is for children aged eight to 17. Children will be given lessons to arm themselves in the ways of rational skepticism. There will be sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology.
Dawkins, who is subsidizing the camp, said it was designed to “encourage children to think for themselves, skeptically and rationally”.
I can only “imagine” how much this must anger Christians. How dare someone teach children to question theology and doctrine from thousands of years ago? I personally have fond memories of my church experience as a child. But that is only because my parents weren’t crazy “Fundies” that sent me to Jesus Camp.
For those of you who haven’t seen the horrors of Jesus Camp:
Now let me ask you … and be honest … would you rather send your child to Camp Quest or Jesus Camp?
Anything that is logical and reasonable is the Devil’s evil whore. Drown and rub dung in the face of common sense.
“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom … Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism… She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.”
–Martin Luther,Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148
What did Jesus do after being baptized by John the Baptist?
He immediately went into the wilderness for 40 days.
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. … Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him.
Mark 1:9-13
He spent the next three days choosing disciples and turning water into wine.
Day 1: The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
John 1:35
Day 2: The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
John 1:43
Day 3: On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there … and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine.
The majority of Christians in America are biblically illiterate. This is kind of a big deal considering the Bible is the foundation and basis for their belief system and reason for living. Does anyone else find it odd that so many Christians are willfully illiterate to something so pivotal in their lives?
Here are a few statistics:
93% of Americans have a Bible.1
Only half of Americans can even name one of the Gospels.1
The majority of Americans don’t know that Genesis is the first book of the Bible.1
60% of evangelicals think Jesus was born in Jerusalem rather than Bethlehem.1
22% of high school students think Moses was one of Jesus’ disciples.1
Half of High School seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple.1
1 in 10 Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.1
60% of Americans can’t name 5 of the ten commandments.1
Given thirteen basic teachings from the Bible, only 1% of adult believers embraced all thirteen as being biblical perspectives.2
One-third of college attending Christians could not put the following in order: Abraham, the Old Testament prophets, the death of Christ, and Pentecost.3
One-third could also not identify Matthew as an apostle from a list of New Testament names.3
Many Americans continue to believe that a Jewish man from 2,000 years ago was God’s son … simply because someone told them so when they were a child. This is the equivalent to believing in Santa Claus as an adult. If you choose to worship Jesus every Sunday, at least take the time to read the book about him. Otherwise you’re nothing more than a lemming.
“When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life.”
– Sigmund Freud
“It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be.”
– Sigmund Freud,The Future of an Illusion, 1927
“The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life. It is still more humiliating to discover how a large number of people living today, who cannot but see that this religion is not tenable, nevertheless try to defend it piece by piece in a series of pitiful rearguard actions.”
“The different religions have never overlooked the part played by the sense of guilt in civilization. What is more, they come forward with a claim…to save mankind from this sense of guilt, which they call sin.”
– Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, 1930
“Our knowledge of the historical worth of certain religious doctrines increases our respect for them, but does not invalidate our proposal that they should cease to be put forward as the reasons for the precepts of civilization. On the contrary! Those historical residues have helped us to view religious teachings, as it were, as neurotic relics, and we may now argue that the time has probably come, as it does in an analytic treatment, for replacing the effects of repression by the results of the rational operation of the intellect.”
– Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, 1927
“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man’s evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.”
The majority of Christians in America are biblically illiterate. This is kind of a big deal considering the Bible is the foundation and basis for their belief system and reason for living. Does anyone else find it odd that so many Christians are willfully illiterate to something so pivotal in their lives?
