You know what I don't understand? People in America (mainly those who are Christian) are always bashing places like Iran and such for being a theocracy and, yet, we insist on being a 'Christian' nation...

does anyone see any parallels here or am i just crazy?

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Originally posted by nathan2142:
While the principles are there, it is NOT in any official document.

hmm... i didn't know that.
Well, it damn well should be!!

Man people are REALLY into this whole 666 thing. As I understand it, 7 was a number symbolizing perfection and 6 is one short of it. Seeing as the forces are organized in trios (father/son/holy ghost and devil/beast/whore) it would make sense that imperfection would be shown by one short of perfection. End of story, now I'm sure John would want everyone to focus on the other parts of the book.

Also this is kinda a pet peeve of mine but no where is separation of church and state written into the constitution. It is a quote from Thomas Jefferson's letter to a baptist friend assuring him that the northern Catholics (who outnumbered the protestants) would not take over and outlaw any religion, as had happened in Britain.
While the principles are there, it is NOT in any official document.

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i love you brehon.

I'm actually blushing. Thanks!

Onto more serious business:

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May I bring to your attention that nero was crazy. It wouldnt have crossed his mind till to late.

Whilst this might be the case, and I am perfectly willing to accept that Nero was mad - viz. setting fire to Rome etc - I'm just not willing to take the the accompanying points about him branding the entire citizenry of the Roman empire except the Jews (presumably the Roman citizenry would have had something to say about this...) or that Revelations records this phenomenon.

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Anyway if your talking about this country using religion as a method of maintaining order then It wouldnt be probable since the separation of church and state would have people enraged at the thought.

This was just my point, in essence. If real Christians commit fewer crimes than those of other religions or than atheists/agnostics, the framers of the American Constitution would presumably have noticed. It is therefore interesting to ask just why the separation of Church and State were written into the Constitution; just why did these incredibly intelligent, Christian men, insist on a separation of the Church and the State?

Perhaps the best explanation for this is that there is no correlation between being a Christian and not-being a criminal.

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i do know some of the smaller countries use this method due to a lack of political structure.

I'm not quite sure that this is why some countries (like clpo's example of Iran) are governed by religious means. It seems a little unlikely that they have a religious government and are constantly seeking political structure but just haven't managed to find any lying around. To a certain extent, theocracies use the same kind of techniques as democratic countries - just with a homogenised-majority belief system which determines the outcome of every decision. Some more cynical observers in the UK pointed this out when George Bush came to the presidency - inaccurate in the fine point (tripped up by those damned checks and balances!) but more apposite in the broader spirit.

Ill take your word for it since i dont know whats going on over there.

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Anyway if your talking about this country using religion as a method of maintaining order then It wouldnt be probable since the separation of church and state would have people enraged at the thought.

Iran is a perfect example of a large theocracy.

May I bring to your attention that nero was crazy. It wouldnt have crossed his mind till to late.

Revelations talks about what happened after jesus died i cant remember the date exactly but ill find it later. Anyway if your talking about this country using religion as a method of maintaining order then It wouldnt be probable since the separation of church and state would have people enraged at the thought. As for the rest of the world im not so sure i do know some of the smaller countries use this method due to a lack of political structure.

i love you brehon.

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Im saying that christians can be criminals but its more unlikely.

Do you have any statistical reason (or, for that matter, any evidence at all) for believing that this is true? Or do you just consider that given the ethical teachings, and provided that all Christians follow those ethical teachings, they are less likely to be criminals? This seems, if you don't mind me saying so, to be a rather partisan and biased claim - much like atheists saying that because rationality is the foundation for their moral principles that there are no atheistic criminals. Also, if there was such a clear correlation between self-confessed religious practise and law-breaking, that governments round the world might have taken to using religion as a method of maintaining order? As this isn't the case, I am forced to consider the reverse to be more probable.

And I believe, from what I remember of my Classical Civilisation classes, that Nero came to power in 57 AD, some years after Jesus' death, and which doesn't fit very well with Revelations - believed to have been written by John of Patmos in or around 95-6 AD, at the end of the reign of the Emperor Domitian. Having said this, if we are allowed to interpret revelations as a metaphor, then the Roman Empire does seem like the most likely candidate - though of course, the symbolism of the beast of Revelations has at times been any one of Protestantism, Catholicism and the devil.

Further, if you wanted to find the members of an entire race, it is presumably more cost effective to brand all the Jews - or indeed, simply to kill them without all the branding business. Also the 666 numerology is not exclusively Biblical, and would have had quite different significations when it was written in Roman numerals as opposed to the Arabic influenced system of numbers we currently use. 666 looks like an easy number to brand someone with, but VI VI VI, or indeed DCLXVI.

Im saying that christians can be criminals but its more unlikely. and the romans were under the comand of Emperor Nero who was crazy and marked everyone but the jews with a brand which just happened to be 666 so that he could find the jews and kill them. 666 the mark of the beast is also mentioned in Revelations which leads us to believe that That beast/Dragon referred to in revelations is the roman empire.

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well lets see how many christian devots are in jail or have committed crimes slim to none while non believers are in there by the thousands.

I'm not entirely sure that there is any good statistical evidence to believe this is true. Unless you are denying that Christians can be criminal, which might appear to be a clever argument at first, but then becomes a bit of a paradox when we consider the Romans.

well lets see how many christian devots are in jail or have committed crimes slim to none while non believers are in there by the thousands.
im being as tolerable as i possibly can especially with you.

i find it sad that people have such weak moral fiber they have to refer to a book in order to live.

seriously stop being intolerant

Im not saying that all people who dont look at religion or the bible are like that just that most of them are.

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Originally posted by Romashu:
Oh If I may how can you live life without order, morals, or a sense of humility and generosity?

You don't NEED to be Christian and follow the Bible to the letter to have morals. That's a pretty retarded way to look at the world: If you are not religious you cannot be humble, and generous and you have no morals.

Is that what you are trying to say?

Im happy as long as I prove hypocrites and all other challengers of the bible wrong even if they wont accept it or admit it. Oh If I may how can you live life without order, morals, or a sense of humility and generosity?

how can you live your life the way you do? how are you happy?

If you say that christians dont care about you then ur wrong. some sub denominations are misguided and dont always teach the right stuff like careing for your breatheren but caring for the rest of the world more.

For the publisher of the page if your refering to what happened in revelations your taking it the wrong way.

Yes god/jesus wanted us to obey his commandments
but that is only to create order in the world.
If there wasnt so many millions of people who belive in god/jesus then we would be living in a world of therrorism and criminals.

Then why has the Christian religion killed more than any other all in the name of Jesus Christ "the saviour."


I don't care about christians as long as they don't care about me.

If they're going to be douche bags and try to tell me how to live I'm going to do the same to them.

Also, there is a lot of discrimination in the Bible, so much for "love"

In my opinon, the christian religion has become a sham.

Um, the Bible says that God IS love. Love is the heart of Christianity. The reason Christ died for us is because he loved us. He died for us so we could live for him. It's not about obeying rules...we obey his commands because we love him.

The Bible says that God is love. The most important command is, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strenght." The second most commnand is, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus said those things. It's all about love.

The Old Testament is about obeying the law, but that was before Jesus died. He died on the cross because he loves us so much that he wanted to set us free from sin and free from the law. We are free because of Christ's love.