“religion is something we can perhaps do without”.. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama,
in his book “Ethics for the New Millennium”.
Christ a superstition and a “fable”—Pope Leo X,
At a lavish Good Friday banquet in the Vatican in 1514.
Raising a chalice of wine into the air, Pope Leo toasted:
“How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us and our predecessors.”
The pope’s pronouncement is recorded in the diaries and records of both Pietro Cardinal Bembo (Letters and Comments on Pope Leo X, 1842 reprint) and Paolo Cardinal Giovio (De Vita Leonis Decimi, , op. cit.), two associates who were witnesses to it.
From: http://www.nairaland.com/372231/pope-leo-x-most-infamous
Later, Pope Paul III, expressed similar sentiments, saying that there was no valid document to demonstrate the existence of Christ. He confessed that “Jesus never existed”, adding that he was “no other than the sun, adored in its Mithraic sect…”
Court of Justice, Viterbo, Italy : no 45/b
http://www.luigicascioli.eu/traduzioni/en_proceso4.htm (See last paragraph)
David Jenkins, a former Anglican Bishop of Durham and university professor, has stated that
“There is absolutely no certainty in the New Testament about anything of importance.” http://www.church.org.uk/resources/csdetail.asp?csdate=01/04/2007
Retired Episcopal Bishop says Hell is an invention of the church to control people with fear.
He also said God doesn’t want you to grow up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMfuZqjFDT8
17 year advisor to the Pope exposes Bible Fraud and Forgery
http://beyondallreligion.net/2011/08/28/advisor-to-the-pope-exposes-bible-fraud-and-forgery/
SHORT REVIEW OF “JESUS, INTERRUPTED”, by
Samuel Butler 7/10/2010
Bart D. Ehrman, the author of “Jesus Interrupted,
Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and
Why We Don’t Know About Them”) (HarperCollins, 2009)
was a fundamentalist evangelical Christian, who was
certain that every word in the Bible had been inspired by
God when he entered Princeton Theological Seminary,
intending to become a Professor of the Bible.
49
As a seeker of truth, things did not turn out as he planned.
He found in historical-critical bible study classes things
that biblical scholars have unearthed in the last two
hundred years that graduates that even go on to become
pastors don’t and won’t mention in their sermons:
That the authors of the New Testament have diverging
views about who Jesus was and how salvation works.
That it contains books that were forged in the name of the
apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later.
Established Christian doctrines-such as the suffering
messiah, the divinity of Jesus, and the trinity were
inventions of still later theologians.
The idea that Jesus was divine was a later Christian
invention found only in John, the last gospel, written some
60 years after the events described, and written by an
unknown author. The raising of Lazurus from the dead,
and the divinity of Jesus are not found in any of the other
3 gospels.
The belief that Jesus was God or divine was not the belief
of Jesus’s earliest followers, nor of Jesus himself.
Bart D. Ehrman now describes himself as “an agnostic
scholar of the New Testament.”
You want details of the Crucifixions before Christ. Here are details of 16. Six would suffice to make the point that it was common for a “GOD” to be crucified :http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/kersey_graves/16/chap16.html
“These things are clearer than the light to all men; and the Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all Churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even antichrist, if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness.”
Letter of Martin Luther to Pope Leo X (Wittenberg, 6th September, 1520)
http://www.bartleby.com/36/6/1.html
Mormon Whistleblower:
Post by Kathleen Waters about a Mormon Whistleblower on Huffington Post:
“Helen Radkey is the Mormon Karen Silkwood (Whistleblower on a nuclear plant exposing workers to radioactive plutonian -movie made staring Meryl Streep called “Silkwood”. -Author)…… Radkey has been publicizing their baptisms for the dead and the marrying of men to their mistresses in polygamy FOR YEARS. Mormons did not care until she stepped into a media spotlight and let the public know what they were up to. It is a violation of a standard of American culture to disrespect the wishes of the dead. Regular Americans do not desecrate graves or baptize people against their wishes (based on their lives we can know that). ….. This is an example. Another example of disrespect for the dead is the fact that Mormons took the remains from the Mountain Meadows Massacre to BYU for study. (Mormons massacred 120 men, women and children in an emigrant wagon train that they tricked into disarming on September 11, 1857 in Southern Utah –Author Samuel Butler-see his YouTube “Beyond All Religion”). That’s like Nazis taking the bodies of holocaust victims ‘for research.’ Where was the outrage there? I suspect it was paid to go away. The Mormons own the land upon which they committed mass murder and they control what is said about the massacre. There isn’t even a sign on the highway directing tourists to the site, should they care to pay their respects” ….
“Anagrammy
(under my real name Kathleen Waters)”
“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
― Bishop Desmond Tutu
The Treaty is much discussed in the 21st century because of the text of article 11, as ratified by the Senate:
