How much is lying a part of Christianity?

Started by Jagella, March 08, 2020, 05:01:50 PM

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Blackleaf

Quote from: Jagella on March 09, 2020, 05:15:25 PM
I'm well aware that many Christians are just sharing an opinion or might be making honest mistakes. However, much of what they say that is wrong does not appear to be an honest mistake or an opinion but a lie.

Faith healing, I believe, is a good example of a Christian deception. Peter Popoff, for example, has been exposed as a "fake healer" duping desperate people out of their money as he falsely claims to be able to heal them. So here we have a liar (Popoff) and those lied to (the Christians he fleeces).



Only thing I don't like about this video is that it's from a Christian source trying to point fingers at the "fake Christian" for leading people from the "truth." They end it with a Bible verse.

"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

They apparently don't see the irony in this passage... The verse puts the blame on the victims for putting the "teachers" on a pedestal. But in reality, it is the atmosphere created by the religion that makes people receptive to Popoff's message. The victims were taught by their religion that believing what you're told without question is a virtue, and skepticism is of the devil.

As for turning away from the truth for a myth? Yeah, sure. They accepted the myth that a modern faith healer is actually healing people, as opposed to the "truth" of an ancient faith healer raising himself from the dead and no one writing about it until half a century later...
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Jagella

Quote from: Unbeliever on March 08, 2020, 06:11:12 PM
And besides, even their "savior", Jesus, lied. He lied about not going to a feast, and then he went in secret.

John 7:8
And he also lied at his "trial," when he told Pilot that he had only ever taught in the open, in the synagogue. He taught in parables so people wouldn't understand what he was talking about. And, obviously, he taught places other than the synagogue, like the sermon on the mount (or was it a plain?).



Matthew 13:10-15

I've often tried to inform Christians that the Christ of the gospel story was no paragon of virtue, yet they insist he was the greatest! In addition to lying, he insulted his enemies calling them fools and falsely accused them of murder, he split up families, he had a reputation as a drunkard, and he knowingly led his followers into life-threatening situations.

Isn't it amazing what years of indoctrination can do to people's views about a person they are told to believe?

Unbeliever

Most Christians have never read the Bible all the way through, either the OT or the NT. So they don't know what they're talking about.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Jagella on March 10, 2020, 04:55:06 PM
I've often tried to inform Christians that the Christ of the gospel story was no paragon of virtue, yet they insist he was the greatest! In addition to lying, he insulted his enemies calling them fools and falsely accused them of murder, he split up families, he had a reputation as a drunkard, and he knowingly led his followers into life-threatening situations.

Isn't it amazing what years of indoctrination can do to people's views about a person they are told to believe?

Yep.  Not an upstanding Republican American at all ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Jagella

Quote from: Blackleaf on March 10, 2020, 02:13:56 PM
Only thing I don't like about this video is that it's from a Christian source trying to point fingers at the "fake Christian" for leading people from the "truth." They end it with a Bible verse.

"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

They apparently don't see the irony in this passage... The verse puts the blame on the victims for putting the "teachers" on a pedestal. But in reality, it is the atmosphere created by the religion that makes people receptive to Popoff's message. The victims were taught by their religion that believing what you're told without question is a virtue, and skepticism is of the devil.

As for turning away from the truth for a myth? Yeah, sure. They accepted the myth that a modern faith healer is actually healing people, as opposed to the "truth" of an ancient faith healer raising himself from the dead and no one writing about it until half a century later...

Great observations!

Yes, it's really low to indoctrinate people, and then blame those people when they get hurt believing what you said. Christian apologists just won't accept responsibility for what they do to people. I just hope people wake up to this nonsense.


Baruch

Well, I don't like the televangelist association.  I don't know the medicine on micro-colloidal silver, except that the drug companies wouldn't support it.  I am eating lots of Vit-C gummies, if it was good enough to kill Linus Pauling (2x Nobelist) it is good enough to kill me ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Jagella

Quote from: GSOgymrat on March 12, 2020, 01:49:02 PM
Speaking of lying...

Quack, quack, quack...

https://youtu.be/qWS-Tifde7c

I'll never forget the TV-evangelist scandals of the mid 1980s. Coincidentally, the trouble started soon after I lost my Christian faith. The scandals with the Bakkers, Oral Roberts, and later Jimmy Swaggart really served to underscore my new-found knowledge that Christianity is a lie that thrives on lies.

As this video demonstrates, lies just never go obsolete.

Jagella

Quote from: Baruch on March 12, 2020, 01:52:41 PM
Well, I don't like the televangelist association.  I don't know the medicine on micro-colloidal silver, except that the drug companies wouldn't support it.  I am eating lots of Vit-C gummies, if it was good enough to kill Linus Pauling (2x Nobelist) it is good enough to kill me ;-)

At least Pauling wasn't conned into dying as an act of faith in Jesus. Many people, desperate to get over an illness or injury, are taken in by Christian hucksters who claim that Jesus can heal the sick. I just wish Jesus could cure the illness that causes people to believe he's living in the sky.


Baruch

Placebo etc is iffy, given that it is unclear what effect "positive thinking" (of the patient) of any kind, has on illness/injury recovery.  I am pretty sure that "negative thinking" (of the patient) of any kind, delays illness/injury recovery.  This is why the attitude of the doctor/nurse toward the patient is so important.  Certainly isn't a substitute for regular medicine, if you can get that.  In olden times, there were no doctors available, so placebo etc was the only thing you could use ;-(

Again,  what the drug industry suggests (and doctors have to rely on what they say) ... is capitalist motivated.  Most regular drugs have negative side effects, which can be particularly bad on some patients.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Jagella

Quote from: Baruch on March 13, 2020, 12:49:24 AM
Placebo etc is iffy, given that it is unclear what effect "positive thinking" (of the patient) of any kind, has on illness/injury recovery.  I am pretty sure that "negative thinking" (of the patient) of any kind, delays illness/injury recovery.  This is why the attitude of the doctor/nurse toward the patient is so important.  Certainly isn't a substitute for regular medicine, if you can get that.  In olden times, there were no doctors available, so placebo etc was the only thing you could use ;-(

Again,  what the drug industry suggests (and doctors have to rely on what they say) ... is capitalist motivated.  Most regular drugs have negative side effects, which can be particularly bad on some patients.

Thanks for the observations on the pitfalls of prescription drug usage, but how does that tie in with Christian scammers? Are you saying that there are non Christian scams that are as bad as Christian faith healing?

Unbeliever

Quote from: Jagella on March 12, 2020, 09:48:41 PM


Well, they do say that Jesus will be coming in the clouds - and there he is!


If it weren't for pareidolia, we'd have no dolia at all!


LOL
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Unbeliever

Quote from: Jagella on March 13, 2020, 11:50:54 AM
Thanks for the observations on the pitfalls of prescription drug usage, but how does that tie in with Christian scammers? Are you saying that there are non Christian scams that are as bad as Christian faith healing?

There's homeopathy, which is a major scam. But even that's still not as bad as "faith healing."
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Jagella on March 13, 2020, 11:50:54 AM
Thanks for the observations on the pitfalls of prescription drug usage, but how does that tie in with Christian scammers? Are you saying that there are non Christian scams that are as bad as Christian faith healing?

No.  Don't draw wild conclusions because you can read my mind ;-)

Colloidal silver may or may not be good for you.  That is what I responded to, not faith healing.  Others made that connection.  I had a separate response on faith healing vs placebo of the patient vs doctor relationship.  Again, not the same as faith healing.

"BIG PHARMA PREPARES TO PROFIT FROM THE CORONAVIRUS" ... fits here.  Caveat emptor.  A lot of medical science is like tobacco institute science.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Jagella

Quote from: Unbeliever on March 13, 2020, 01:39:31 PM
There's homeopathy, which is a major scam. But even that's still not as bad as "faith healing."

I brought up the subject of the faith-healing scam in a Christian forum. None of the Christians there responded.