John, if you met an adult who believed in Santa Claus would you not snear at his foolishness?

110% agree with you.n

No william, I wouldn’t

John, how about Mermaids?

What does snearing do for you William ?? Does it give you a sense of being better than the person you are snearing ??? Snear away and enjoy your laugh……. however hollow it may be

So John you wouldn’t snear at an adult who believed in Mermaids or Santa Claus? How would you treat such a person? Would you “respect” his opinion that Mermaids might exist? Would you think he was a rational and intelligent adult or a fool?

What ever I’d think, I wouldn’t want to snear or insult him. I would respect him as a human living being…… so what if I don’t see things as he does

Ridiculous beliefs, whether religious or not, do not deserve respect and should be ridiculed, that does not mean that the “people” who hold those beliefs shouldn’t be respected.

Emma.
A little humour.
Please don’t be waiting to be offended.

Such a shame the money spent erecting it wasn’t used to materially better the lives of those living nearby in the slums.

Free Speech and all that.

There’s a ‘Report This Comment’ button on the right hand side if anything ruffles your feathers / bible.

I am also a Christian and while some of the comments are small minded, there’s no point in getting upset over it. Trolls gonna troll. At the end of the day, we have our faith and no one’s comments will change that.

Which comments exactly do you find disrespectful? And what makes you think that religion is above criticism?

From a photography standpoint, it’s a very good photo. Other than that, I’ve no opinion. But jesus – you just know some Christians just came on here looking for comments that would offend them. Get over it.

Sean, I came to look at the photo knowing well there would be comments like these. Any mention of Christ on the Journal brings out comments from both sides. But one of the core teachings of Christianity is not to judge others. Some of the comments about Jesus’ miracles are a little offensive. Also saying He didn’t exist is just plain silly. I can see easily how this is offensive to some, my point was to explain people will say these things just to irritate and upset others. My faith is very strong, so they may say what they want, it won’t effect me. Reminding other Christians of that is helpful, in my opinion.

@Sean, You think that’s why a christian would come on to this page????
I’d say if a farmer seen a picture of a cow he’d click on that page……. same if a christian seen an image of Jesus they’re probably going to click on it.
I think you got it in reverse……some people comment simply to upset other people.
Why are they not allowed register your displeasure with people “mocking” their belief’s.
If you can’t see the mocking in certain comments above………… as they say there are none so blind as those who do not want to see.
Now I suggest you get over yourself :)

Helena, how many hundreds of thousands of examples do you want of religious people not agreeing to Live and Let Live?

William, you are generalising. Believe it or not, all the Christians I have been blessed to meet are incredibly loving. A true follower of Jesus does not judge, which as a human being, can be very difficult indeed. Unfortunately the small minority have given the rest of us a bad name.

It’s impossible to prove that something dosen’t or didn’t exist. In order to prove something dosen’t exist you would have to know everything that does exist make a list then tick everything off and see is there something missing. So if someone says something exists but have no proof you cannot argue with them. They just know!

“Also saying He didn’t exist is just plain silly. I can see easily how this is offensive to some”

If someone is offended by someone stating that Jesus did not exist, they need to grow thicker skin. That’s not grounds for being offended. Jesus may or may not have existed. It’s up for debate. The Gospels are not eye-witness accounts of his life. They were written decades after the death of Jesus. I’ll accept that there is a strong possibility that a figure called Jesus existed, but that’s as far as it goes.

“But one of the core teachings of Christianity is not to judge others.”

And yet – that’s all Christians worldwide seem to do, judge people. The gay community, people who have abortions, atheists, non-christians, and then some! I was brought up Christian, and that’s why I have no time for it today. All it teaches is hatred and intolerance and tries to interfere in the lives of others.

Emmie, are you for real? 250,000 people killed by Christians for witchcraft and crimes such as claiming the Earth went around the Sun. The laws here reflected Christian beliefs until very recently.

Goodness, I didn’t want to get into this debate purely because those who are not open minded will find a reason to retort to everything. There is historical evidence Jesus existed. Documents dating around the time of Christ from different parts of the world written about him.

If you don’t believe in Him, I completely respect that. But please, respect the beliefs of others.

Again, please remember there are a small minority of Christians who give us a bad name. Christianity teaches us to love one another and never to judge. God cannot be held responsible for the actions of men.

Anyways, I’ve put my opinion out here, knowing full well the responses I’d get. I’ve been tolerant of people’s comments, all I ask is others be respectful of our beliefs.

I’m always happy to talk to others about my beliefs and answer questions where I can. :)

Who cares if you see ‘offensive’ comments? Religion is not above being mocked, and you can’t silence people just because you’re ‘offended’. As an atheist I find some aspects of religion and the way it is shoved in our faces offensive, but as a supporter of free speech I realise it doesn’t give me the right to silence those who have a different opinion. Enough of this taboo around religion.

“If you don’t believe in Him, I completely respect that. But please, respect the beliefs of others.”

I never said that I didn’t believe he existed. But there is zero evidence to suggest that he was the son of God, or that a God even exists. And don’t tell me to respect the beliefs of others! How dare you. Respect is earned, not given. I will respect beliefs that I believe deserve respect. You can’t tell people to respect certain beliefs because they are ‘religious’.

Mark, you’re not getting my point. I was merely reassuring other Christians about not judging others. People will say what they want and I respect that. But individuals have blatantly come on here with the sole purpose of upsetting others.
I am sorry you feel religion has been shoved in your face, believe me it is not something the majority of Christians aim for! I am not a fan either!

A side note: a really am saddened to see how Christianity has been taught here. When Irish people hear Christian, I guess they think Catholic. By that association, I can certainly see why people would be upset by it. Btw, we’re not all Catholic. Nor are all Catholics involved in the corruption that is eroding the church.

Evidence?? What evidence? Links please…

Emmie, my beef was really with the original comment. But now that you mention it, I don’t make a distinction between Christianity and Catholicism, or Islam/Buddhism or any other religion for that matter. I think they’re all inherently poisonous and should be treated with equal disdain.

Offence is taken not given. You have a choice to be offended or not. You don’t have to be offended by anything anyone else says. If you don’t like religion or Christianity being mocked then fine but you are the one responsible for being offended – the person speaking their mind is not responsible for your being offended.

I know I just repeated the same point over with different words but I find usually with theists that it’s like arguing with a 6 year old.

I could easily get offended by Christians constantly telling me I’m going to hell or that my young son is going to go to hell but I don’t get offended. I laugh at the preposterous notion that a goat-legged fork-bearded trident-holding talking snake is going to make me suffer for all eternity just because I find the concept of religion in this age of science to be retarded.

@Mark, Free speech does not equal disrespect on any issue. Intolerance is not only found in religons, I see no reason why people can’t share their views without being disrespectful of others.
What right have you to mock any religon…..or any person…..or any belief….. except to inflate your own ego maybe….

@John – now you’re getting personal. In any case, it seems most people disagree with you, so I take some solace from that.
To answer your question though, I have a right to mock whatever I like because I live in a country which upholds the right to freedom of speech.

Mark let me get my head around your logic. I ask you a question and you say I’m getting personal and in the same breath you say you have the right to mock who or what ever you choose………..so it’s one rule for you and a different one for others. As for green thumbs or red thumbs, i’m secure enough in what I say I mean, if people agree great, if they don’t thats their choice.
I remember a clever man once saying, “opinions are like as*holes, we all have one”

John I said I have a right to; that’s not to say that I choose to – it’s a matter of judgement. You made an assumption about my character, I didn’t do the same to you.

Ok Mark, just to clear up something though, you said I was getting personal, I didn’t intend it that way, I simply believe all are entitled to respect……..thats my belief…….life can be hard enough for people without getting lashed by others over their beliefs or non beliefs as the case maybe :)

@Mark, it sounds like you choose to when you make comments like
“Who cares if you see ‘offensive’ comments?”

@Sean, I can understand christans coming onto a thread with an image of christ, little harder to understand an atheist’s motives. By the way if this was a thread on atheism and christians were on it shoving their beliefs I would find it equally irritating

Muhammad probably would be crashing planes into buildings. After all, he did attempt to conquer the middle east in order to spread his religion.

Also consider that nearly everything known about Jesus has been selected and edited by the Catholic Church over he last two millennia.

Barry, I’m not an expert on it but I think it was tribal and not an attempt to conquer anything the size of the middle east.
Your earlier point that offence is taken and not given is in “Fact” incorrect.
I completely understand the point you are attempting to make, but if what you were saying was factual then it would be impossible to behave in an offensive manner…… Some judges would disagree with you also I’d say

Jeez, my point proven. Arguing with a theist is like arguing with a 6 year old. You choose to be offended just like you can choose to not be offended. It’s actually quite easy to do.

Barry if you proved a point i’m afraid it was only to yourself…… also you are making assumptions when you put me in a box as a theist

Also one more point on your taking offence argument. someone who operates solely out of their intellect may believe they or others can choose to remain unaffected by someones words, however you are not taking the persons emotional state into consideration, or is the persons emotional state not valid in your opinion ???

Well Barry are you saying people should ignore their emotions ? when you say people have a choice to be offended or not

You will have to ask his dad :)

A strong Christian.
What can you snatch or bench press?

I don’t quite understand your point Sean? My faith is very strong. Does that help?

I’m only responding to your comments. You didn’t ask for mutual respect, you commanded that we respect everyone’s beliefs! Those are two different things. On what grounds should anyone have automatic respect for someone’s beliefs?

You’re insulting people on here by trying to dictate what they can or cannot say, or what beliefs they can or cannot criticise. That’s not how freedom of speech works.

There is absolutely no historical evidence that Jesus existed, the Romans, who catalogued every thing that went on around them do not mention him at all, the only reference to Jesus by the Romans was found to be a fake addition inserted centuries later. However the Romans mentioned John the baptist several times.

Emmie there is no point asking for what some people simply haven’t got to give

Still waiting for all this world wide evidence you were talking about!?

Good man James, lovely to meet someone with all the answers

Who said you are wise. Your comment suggest otherwise.

to you James but to me he sounds wise

Really Tom!! Read it again. I think you’ll find he is indoctrinated since childhood as that is the main recruitment method used by all religions bar none.

True but I’m just glad we as a people are being more enlightened :) Darwin was seen as a monster by those who believed in the bible for just speaking the truth.

Still live and let live if an adult wants to believe in religion let then if they want to believe in Santa let then. Free nation after all

Classic. I’m a strong Christian but I still see the humour in this. Father Ted, a legend.

certainly understandable that it would leave you bitter

Forgot to say that I held my 8 day old grandson in my arms last evening and wondered how the RC church could possibly call him a sinner. Bollocks! How’s that for respect?

There is no doubt they have some crazy ideas

Not bitter, just a healthy disrespect for all things religious.

Fictional character?
Whatever you may believe about his divinity – he was a real historic figure.

Actually if you want to see him move, stare at the picture in close for 30 seconds, then look at the ceiling or a wall, You will notice him moving.

Yes I know i’ve too much time on my hands

Yeah, and he turned water into wine, walked on water, made the blind see and rose from the dead on the 3rd day,

No fiction there then!

James. You remind me of the Benny Hill graffiti sketch.
God is dead. James.

James is dead. God…

Amazingly as enlightened as we are in 2012 there are still a lot of people who believe this man, who probably did exsist, was walking around 2000 years ago doing magic tricks (real magic,not illiusions mind ye) and quite impressive ones at that. Recomposing decomposing corpses, multipling quantities of food,ect ect.

Ferg. There isn’t a shred of evidence he existed.

William. There are Christian settlements all over the Roman Empire by AD 50-60, the places Paul writes to. Ephesus, Corinith, Rome etc All over the place So eithernn1) Paul invented the whole thing and made up Jesus( but this doesn’t explain how he writes to pre existing Christians)n2) Jesus existed n3) a few lads made up Jesus for giggles and fooled Paul and everybody else whilst keeping themselves out of history. nnAll are possible, no 3) has a realistic probability of 0%. nnAnd no I don’t believe he was divine.

Guys, fix the newline bug. It ruins posts.

Eoin, because there were settlements of a particular religious cult that itsself was an offshoot of the Jewish religion which was an offshoot of pagan religions does not offer the slightest evidence that a particular individual existed. In fact Messiahs were two a penny in those days. We’ve even had Messiahs in recent time. The Republician nomineee for the presidency of the US beleives in one from the 19th century. It’s probably likely that some bunch, of perhaps politically motivated individuals, changed some of their Jewish beliefs into what became proto-christianity and as part of the myths they had to have a Messiah, as “predicted” by their original religion, the Jewish religion, because it had “predicted” a Messiah. It’s obvious that to claim their leader was the son of god they needed Jesus to exist. So they just made him up. There is no historical evidence of any description and those original letters and stories were written down many years after the events they claimed to report. The Dead Sea Scrolls contradict much of the timeline of early Christianity.

@Imran If we said that about Pakistan or your religion you would probably look to have us executed, isn’t that what they do to people from your cultural background?

Generalise much based on someone’s name or skin colour, Michael? Pretty sure I’ve seen Imran say here on the journal a few times that he’s atheist. Either way, from the views of your religion he’s not a believer in Jesus so he’s going to burn in hell, eh? (see what I did there??)

James, William. There is as much evidence for the existence of Jesus as there is for most events in antiquity. The fact that you feel the need to deny even his human existence, in opposition to most of the world’s historians, shows that your particular brand of atheism is more concerned with arguing on the Internet than it is with genuine secular concerns.

Kevin, evidence please not waffle. There is no evidence in any records Jesus existed. None in Roman or Jewish records.

To the James’, Eoin and Imran; I think it’s bad form of atheists mocking people’s faith after seeing a photo of the Christ the Redeemer statue. It’s like you want to drag people down. Many people in the world live with the hope they’ll move onto heaven, something I don’t accept personally, but I still respect those who believe this. Live and let live. Don’t tear into believers just because they have a little bit of hope they’ll move on to another life after this. It won’t matter when we’re dead anyway : )

Outstanding photo by the way.

Of course Jesus existed William. You should read up on Tacitus before you make ludicrous statements about Jesus not existing.

William, the gospels are accepted by historians as reliable sources whether you accept them or not . The fact that they were not written at the exact time does not mean that they are unreliable and completely discounts what scholars know about how oral histories are handed down. There are also the writings of Paul which pre-date the gospels. There are the writings of non-Christian, Romano-Jewish historians such as Tacitus and Josephus and accounts in rabbinical texts. Added to that there is the fact that 12 fishermen were moved by someone to travel far from their home and die in most cases horrible deaths for their belief in this ‘mythical’ figure

@M Hegarty…

If you had any clue about what you were on about you’d know Christ is also sacred in Islam.

And I’d be more offended if you insulted Cork to be honest

Thanks Barry

@Imran I actually do know a bit about Islam, and I fully respect it and would never sarcastically remark against any of Islamic sacred persons, unlike what I feel you did in your post. My comment basically remarked about the reaction caused if Christians doubt or mock your cultural faith (of which David tells me you no longer are part of). Secondly, Jesus is an accepted prophet within the Islamic faith, but not regarded as sacred, but I’m open to correction on that one. @ David I didn’t judge Imran based on his skin colour, I’m actually aware of his Pakistani roots, but thank you for letting me know he’s atheist, even though it has no baring on my comment. My comment merely implied if it would be okay for a Christian to say Allah was fiction in Pakistan? and question if execution would be possible for saying such? You know the answer to that yourself!

What part of my initial comment did you have a problem with, while not singling out any others as inappropriate?

“@Imran If we said that about Pakistan or your religion you would probably look to have us executed, isn’t that what they do to people from your cultural background?”

Disgraceful off the cuff comment with absolutely no justification and potentially deeply hurtful if I happened to be someone who gives a sh1t, perhaps you should have good look in the mirror there Michael.

Kieran, “read up” on Tacitus yourself. One micky mouse hearsay reference decades after the man was supposed to have existed amounts to nothing. It’s not accepted by non biased historians that there is evidence that a character called Jesus existed.

Tacitus was born 25 years after the death of Christ. I think most people would accept that as a reasonable source in terms of ancient history, But if it’s not then Josephus was born in 37AD. He was a Pharisee and a Jewish military leader in Galilee and refers to the execution of Jesus in his writing

Kevin, the gospels are certainly NOT accepted as reliable, no more than the Book of Mormon (BOM) or the Quran or any other holy book. The gospels contradict one another! Do you really believe someone that we are debating was a man actually walked on water? The Quran claimed Mohammad went to heaven on a magic carpet. Do you believe that too? The BOM according to their prophet translated their holy book by sticking his head in a bucket!
Tacticus is reporting third party rumour that Christianity was started by someone called “Christ”. Kind of obvious comment to make, but is it accurate? No.

Kevin, the gospels are certainly NOT accepted as reliable, no more than the Book of Mormon (BOM) or the Quran or any other holy book. The gospels contradict one another! Do you really believe someone that we are debating was a man actually walked on wate or turned water into wine or raised the deadr? The Quran claimed Mohammad went to heaven on a magic carpet. Do you believe that too? The BOM according to their prophet translated their holy book by sticking his head in a bucket!

Tacticus is reporting third party rumour that Christianity was started by someone called “Christ”. Kind of obvious comment to make, but is it accurate? No.

Tacitus was referring to something that he supposed happened decades before he wrote his comments which are not supported by any other evidence. He was from Rome 1,000 miles away before any form of modern communication. If Jesus had existed and had been as important as you think he was is it not bizarre that no solid evidence exists of his life other than a holy book full of miracles and contradictions? Any document that is inherently contradictory has to be useless as a reliable source.

@Imran it was the sarcasm in your “He walked on water….no fiction there then!” I believe that that is hurtful to Christians, and I, as a Christian find it offensive that you as a Muslim or Atheist or Whatever would mock the core beliefs of another religion. I have never, would never publicly be sarcastic towards Allah, Buda or any other sacred figure as it is too personal to people. Rightfully, if I did question Allah or his teachings Muslims here in Ireland would be freaking out. So, I feel you have a nerve to be sarcastic about Jesus when your ethnic background friends would find it offensive if I did so about Allah. Fair enough?

Michael, I don’t care what you are or what fantasies you want to believe in. I have every right to pass a sarcastic comment on whatever I want to on this free and open forum, and what happens in Pakistan to blasphemers has no bearing on me whatsoever, that has very little to do with me. And this might also come as a shock to you, but I was actually raised catholic…. Not that I was ever really into it. As I already stated, I was born in cork to an Irish mother…. Seems to me you have a problem seeing past my name.

Now, I never said Christ didn’t exist…. I merely pointed out the fictional tales that surround him.

If a bit of sarcasm gets you all upset, I suggest you stop reading comments on online forums.

And I’ll email on my communion pictures if you want….

PS, Christ was full of it

William. Differences in the gospel stories can be attributed to the way in which oral histories were passed down in this time period. You’ll find where differences occur in particular stories they are not central to the lesson of the particular story which always remains the same. Mark was probably written in the 70s and Matthew and Luke in the 80s. Presumably a large proportion of the population from the time of Jesus was still still alive. Yet despite the rapid spread of his teachings, no pagans or Jews at the time questioned his existence, Neither Jewish leaders nor Roman leaders, both of whom are threatened by the rise of Christianity, never question the historical existence of Jesus? But you do? To quote Voltaire, those who deny the existence of Jesus show themselves more “ingenious than learned”.

Have to disagree, I believe this picture was taken in the early hours of the morning. You know since we are being picky and what not.

Probably taken early morning local time. Living in Argentina at the moment and it was still fairly dark out when I was leaving for work at 7 this morning. Feckin freezing too!