“Malaysian man gets 10 years in prison for insulting Islam on Facebook”

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/09/asia/malaysia-man-prison-insulting-islam-intl/index.html

I was told Malaysia was more tolerant than the Middle East!

How to summon demons?

Q:I didn’t know Atheists could summon demons. I want me some some succubus action.

A: Demons should be easy, since Christians think any mass-produced spooky trinket can summon Satan, even an Ouija board. The easiest way is probably to throw together your leftover decorations from Halloween and pray to Satan. But if you want to decorate your house in a way that will ward off the missionaries, Christmas carolers, charity seekers, and Ned Flanders, you need to do some shopping to turn your room into this:

Shinto Absurdities

1. You are Izanami, the Japanese creator goddess. You died giving birth to the fire god, and your husband has come to the underworld to save you. You ask him not to look at you, while you talk to the gods of the underworld, but he accidentally does and sees your flesh has rotted. You want to come back to the land of the living, so how will you react?

A. Keep your cool. Finish talking to the gods of the underworld as you promised, and return to the land of the living with the man who loves you. Create lots of babies and islands, and have stories to tell with gods and humans. Shinto is all true, so there are definitely plenty of magical objects that can improve your looks or health.

B. Chase your husband through the underworld trying to murder him for peeping on you when you were vulnerable. Promise when he escapes to kill a thousand Japanese every day. Force your husband to cover Hades with a rock, permanently sealing you off from the land of the living. Make your husband into a widow and become his arch-enemy, and the enemy of everything you tried to create.

If you choose B, Shinto will make perfect sense to you.

Looking for heroes after god

 Looking for heroes after god

(or “On Real Sacrifice”)

I think if people treated Gods as fictional heroes, (it’s easier with Christ than Yahweh), religion wouldn’t be so dangerous. “What would jesus/superman do?” could be a good model for living a life free from compromise.

When there was a reason to die, someone who knew about heroes could draw strength from his predecessors, even if they didn’t exist. (The part about Christ sacrificing himself is of course nonsense, because we all know dying but then coming back to life carries no finality, and isn’t a real sacrifice.)

The man who knowingly sacrifices his life to save another could tell himself that, “At least I am about to become proof that heroes exist in the real world. For the rest of my life I will become like superman, and live free of compromise.” Imagine what a relief it would be to live only for ideals and without regard for your own safety; it would make it easier to die with a smile of contentment.

We probably do need to believe heroes and saviors exist, to cope with the injustice and corruption in the world. But in the real world heroes only exist temporarily, because no one can live for long unless he makes compromises, avoids violence, and subverts his own values most of the time.

We praise the person who charges into a burning building to save a kid, but that’s just for a moment. A real hero cannot survive, but a fictional hero is free to live forever. Unlike in real life, in comic books the universe itself conspires so that superman never stays dead, and batman lives to protect us forever.

Christians That Pose As Former Atheists (Appeal to Authority) – Thread

(A.k.a. When Catholics that shovel a mountain of books on someone’s desk and say, “Read this before you criticize my faith.)

>I wasn’t raised in the faith so my worldview remains largely atheistic in the feel.

I hate contradicting people on personal details they didn’t introduce in a thread, but I have to make a lengthy correction for clarity (you can revise it.) I thought you said on the Christian forum that you were raised Catholic, “turned Atheist” as an adolescent, and then converted back to Christianity around the age of 18 or so? At least two others there claim to have been Atheists. They also claim to having formerly led degenerate ruinous lives until they found Christ. I’m not buying it when they talk like my eternally fundamentalist relatives.

It’s impossible to take seriously, when you find out they were raised in a Christian household, or a Christian environment. Sure you can have some doubts as a teenager, but that doesn’t make someone an Atheist or apostate. Neither does deciding at 14 you would rather sleep in than go to church and sing Christian worship for an hour.

Teenagers aren’t well read like adults and tend to devour anything you put in front of them before they’ve developed critical thinking…