William Eade wrote:
My relationship with "Revealed" religion was a small part of my life -
I was expelled from Sunday school for asking questions that could not
be answered simply - like why does Easter fall on a different day each
year? Doesn't anyone know when Jesus arose from the dead? The answer
quite simply is NO. After all Ussher and Lightfoot came up with an
exact date and time of the creation of the Earth, and of the expulsion
of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden - even though there were no
witnesses to the events. The stock answer was that I had to take it on
faith - I HAD TO BELIEVE. Why is there no exact time and date of the
resurrection when there were supposedly so many witnesses? the REAL
answer of course is so Easter does not fall on a Pagan holiday.
There is evidence that Christ was _pronounced dead_ on a Wednesday and
the tomb found empty after the following Sabbath. And Easter actually
does fall on the date set for the Pagan -- meaning rustic or
non-city-dweller -- holiday, rejecting its association with Passover.
James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All
Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in Dublin was highly
regarded in his day as a churchman and as a scholar. John Lightfoot
(1602-1675), Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University was a
contemporary of Ussher. Lightfoot published his calculations in 1644,
before Ussher's were completed.
One of the things that turned me off from Christianity is that the
believers cannot accept the fact that many people do not believe as
they do. They cannot conceive of any concept other than theirs being
valid. Morality is not reciting the "ten Commandments" - which ten are
they talking about? There are at least three different versions in the
King James Bible alone. Read the book! The first few of those being
touted as "the real ones" admonish the followers to believe in one
particular God to the exclusion of all others. Their argument is that
if the non-believers would read the Bible they would become Believers.
WRONG! Many of the non-believers like myself HAVE read the Bible
-cover to cover - not just the parts taught by the ministers. That is
exactly why we are NOT believers.
They also cannot accept that there are people who don't give a damn
about their beliefs, one way or the other, as being meaningless and useless.
James (but the brother of nobody)
--
James E. Henderson / WordJames / Am0 / Am Ouil
http://www.Am0.us
--
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