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Gome

Certainly it's worth paying the extra $$$$.  Your are capable of crawling back up!!   Melody

posted by CunningLinguist on February 10, 2006 at 5:15 AM | link to this | reply

Melody "...dear ol’Gome, you are ten feet under" ??????

Do you really think they would pay the guys union gravedigger rates to dig my grave 4 feet deeper than the regulation 6 foot depth? I am indeed flattered. I've given up on the unattainable notion of "loving thy neighbour" and substituted it with an attempt at tolerance for those who reciprocate. I know, it seems that standards have been lowered but in fact they have not, success in the lower strata of virtues is success nonetheless.  The others not willing to reciprocate, or those who have the utter gaul to imply that they are of superior honour and integrity, get a figurative slap in the head.  And that's only because they are cyber people. If they were flesh and blood and in my presence, I'd konk them on the head with a board. Wood on wood so to speak.

posted by gomedome on February 9, 2006 at 10:09 PM | link to this | reply

CrimsonCarouse - yep, they are in the minority in this world

But they have all been told different, from one end of Christianity to the other, they like to manufacture "truths" and one truth to them is that they are much greater in numbers than they actually are.  You will hear some of the more brazen bible thumpers say that they are the dominent religion in some obscure foreign countries, then in the same breath condemn and dismiss half the Chritian denominations as being "not true Christians". I feel compelled to ask them,  which is it? Have these foreign countries had religious domination imposed on them by real Christians or  "not true Christians"? .....their answers usually crack me up.

posted by gomedome on February 9, 2006 at 9:56 PM | link to this | reply

Xeno-x - My numbers were from a chart that was much the same as yours.

Except it was date stamped 2001, as it too was old data. I also used a bit of methodolegy to my number extrapulations. I divided the Christian numbers into proportionate representations, then applied these proportions to the broader scope numbers. Then just to play fair I rounded up the numbers from 220 million to 300 million. Truth be known, this 200+ year old religious sect could have less than 200 million worldwide adherants. Though this segment of the Christian world represents the size and critical mass of a powerful nation, the bible thumpers are too busy squabbling amongst themselves to capitolize on this. We should be thankful for that. The subdivision of the Christian world is a good thing. They would represent a full third of this globe's populace if catholic aligned with protestant, then further aligned with all remaining christian sects. And like all Christians, they want to have it both ways. They are all Christians to them if one is bragging about the imaginary success of many christian missionary endevours. That is the propaganda that they are presented. We are 2.2 billion strong except we've been killing each other for years. ......the Lyin bastards. ....lyin for Jesus.   

posted by gomedome on February 9, 2006 at 8:29 PM | link to this | reply

Hey Gomedome

I know some nice and intelligent religious people in the real world and a few here on blogit . . . Ariala is one, Cunninglinguist is two. I can say I’ve encountered a few atheists here on blogit whose blogs contain ramblings and manifestation of their repressed anger. I agree with you that some bloggers here consider themselves holier than thou and experts in theologies, who like to stone the so called "sinner." Their religious maturity is certainly invalidated by their retorts and compulsive ram down your throat "my way or hell" theory. If we cannot get along here on blogit, how do we expect to get along in society. It's childish. Instead of mimicking a child's anger and irrational behavior, we should copy their laughter, the child play and stop taking ourselves so seriously. Life is a seesaw, one day up another down. You might be here today and tomorrow ...dear ol’Gome, you are ten feet under. Hey, I rather remember you as a snake wrestling, rabbit breeding, adventure seeking, website guru, muscle building guy rather than a disenchanted, purple blogit people eater.  I'm not a hippie and I'm not singing "what the world needs now is love sweet love" but...well, it's the only thing that there's just too little of.   I can't believe I am so mushy and gushy today! oh well... Regards, Melody

posted by CunningLinguist on February 9, 2006 at 6:30 PM | link to this | reply

wow, so christians

are a minority so to speak, who would've thought. Good job xeno!

posted by CrimsonCarouse on February 9, 2006 at 5:43 PM | link to this | reply

and of course the big question is

how many of these are going to heaven and how many are not

posted by Xeno-x on February 9, 2006 at 3:39 PM | link to this | reply

i do hope that these statistics help to clarify things

probably not though

posted by Xeno-x on February 9, 2006 at 3:37 PM | link to this | reply

the below is courtesy of adherents.com

posted by Xeno-x on February 9, 2006 at 3:33 PM | link to this | reply

a great deal of the Christians in Africa are Anglicans

thus haven't accepted Jesus as their savior, thus not eligible for Heaven according to some.

here -- here are statistics and this is a large thing

Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas, Mid-1995

                                                                              Latin        Northern                                                  Number of                                  Africa           Asia          Europe         America        America        Oceania           World            %      countries          Christians                  348,176,000      306,762,000    551,892,000    448,006,000    249,277,000    23,840,000     1,927,953,000       33.7        260    Roman Catholics            122,108,000       90,041,000    270,677,000    402,691,000     74,243,000     8,265,000       968,025,000       16.9        249    Protestants                109,726,000       42,836,000     80,000,000     31,684,000    123,257,000     8,364,000       395,867,000        6.9        236    Orthodox                    29,645,000       14,881,000    165,795,000        481,000      6,480,000       666,000       217,948,000        3.8        105    Anglicans                   25,362,000          707,000     30,625,000      1,153,000      6,819,000     5,864,000        70,530,000        1.2        158    Other Christians            61,335,000      158,297,000      4,795,000     11,997,000     38,478,000       681,000       275,583,000        4.8        118   Atheists                        427,000      174,174,000     40,085,000      2,977,000      1,670,000       592,000       219,925,000        3.8        139   Baha'is                       1,851,000        3,010,000         93,000        719,000        356,000        75,000         6,104,000        0.1        210   Buddhists                        36,000      320,691,000      1,478,000        569,000        920,000       200,000       323,894,000        5.7         92   Chinese folk religionists        12,000      224,828,000        116,000         66,000         98,000        17,000       225,137,000        3.9         60   Confucians                        1,000        5,220,000          4,000          2,000         26,000         1,000         5,254,000        0.1         12   Ethnic religionists          72,777,000       36,579,000      1,200,000      1,061,000         47,000       113,000       111,777,000        2.0        104   Hindus                        1,535,000      775,252,000      1,522,000        748,000      1,185,000       305,000       780,547,000       13.7         94   Jains                            58,000        4,804,000         15,000          4,000          4,000         1,000         4,886,000        0.1         11   Jews                            163,000        4,294,000      2,529,000      1,098,000      5,942,000        91,000        14,117,000        0.2        134   Mandeans                              0           44,000              0              0              0             0            44,000        0.0          2   Muslims                     300,317,000      760,181,000     31,975,000      1,329,000      5,450,000       382,000     1,099,634,000       19.2        184   New-Religionists                 19,000      118,591,000        808,000        913,000        956,000        10,000       121,297,000        2.1         27   Nonreligious                  2,573,000      701,175,000     94,330,000     15,551,000     25,050,000     2,870,000       841,549,000       14.7        226   Parsees                           1,000          184,000          1,000          1,000          1,000         1,000           189,000        0.0          3   Sikhs                            36,000       18,130,000        490,000          8,000        490,000         7,000        19,161,000        0.3         21   Shintoists                            0        2,840,000          1,000          1,000          1,000         1,000         2,844,000        0.0          4   Spiritists                        4,000        1,100,000         17,000      8,768,000        300,000         1,000        10,190,000        0.2         30   Other religionists               88,000           98,000        443,000        184,000      1,068,000        42,000         1,923,000        0.0        182   Non-Christians              379,898,000    3,151,195,000    175,107,000     33,999,000     43,564,000     4,709,000     3,788,472,000       66.3        262   Total population            728,074,000    3,457,957,000    726,999,000    482,005,000    292,841,000    28,549,000     5,716,425,000      100.0        262      Continents. These follow current UN demographic practice, which divides the world into the 6 major areas shown above and 21 regions (1994). See United                    Nations, World Population Prospects: The 1994 Revision (1995), with populations of all continents, regions, and countries covering the period 1950-2025.             The table above therefore combines its former columns "East Asia" and "South Asia" into one single continental area, "Asia," which also now includes      the former U.S.S.R. Central Asian republics. Note also that "Europe" now extends eastward to Vladivostok, the Sea of Japan, and the Bering Strait.   Countries. The last column enumerates sovereign and nonsovereign countries in which each religion or religious grouping has a numerically significant following.          Rows. The list of non-Christian religions is arranged in alphabetical order.          Adherents. As defined and enumerated for each of the world's countries in World Christian Encyclopedia (1982), projected to mid-1995, adjusted for recent data.                 Christians. Followers of Jesus Christ affiliated with churches (church members, including children: 1,791,227,000) plus persons professing in censuses or             polls though not so affiliated.   Other Christians. This term in the above table denotes Catholics (non-Roman), marginal Protestants, crypto-Christians, and adherents of African, Asian, black,             and Latin-American indigenous churches.   Atheists. Persons professing atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including antireligious (opposed to all religion).          Buddhists. 56% Mahayana, 38% Theravada (Hinayana), 6% Tantrayana (Lamaism).          Chinese folk religionists. Followers of the traditional Chinese religion (local deities, ancestor veneration, Confucian ethics, Taoism, universism, divination,             some Buddist elements).   Confucians. Non-Chinese followers of Confucius and Confucianism, mostly Koreans in Korea.          Hindus. 70% Vaishnavites, 25% Shaivites, 2% neo-Hindus and reform Hindus.          Jews. Adherents of Judaism. For detailed data on "core" Jewish population, see "World Jewish Populations" in the American Jewish Committee's American Jewish Year Book.                        Muslims. 83% Sunnites, 16% Shi'ites, 1% other schools. Up to 1990 the ethnic Muslims in the former U.S.S.R. who had embraced communism were not included as Muslims             in this table. After the collapse of communism in 1990-91, these ethnic Muslims were once again enumerated as Muslims in cases where they have returned      to Islamic profession and practice.   New-Religionists. Followers of Asian 20th-century New Religions, New Religious movements, radical new crisis religions, and non-Christian syncretistic             mass religions, all founded since 1800 and most since 1945.   Nonreligious. Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion.          Other religionists. Including 70 minor world religions and a large number of spiritist religions, New Age religions, quasi religions, pseudo religions,             parareligions, religious or mystic systems, religious and semireligious brotherhoods of numerous varieties.   Total population. UN medium variant figures for mid-1995, as given in World Population Prospects: The 1994 Revision (1995).                     statistics don't lie.

posted by Xeno-x on February 9, 2006 at 3:33 PM | link to this | reply

baptism was the usual

means of signifying intent

i think we now have to accept a baptism of a different manner.

the crossing of the Red Sea -- and then the Jordan River -- this was intent to leave behind the old and enter the new unknown.

baptism was a ritual of Jesus' time -- and the Jordan River baptisms (probably more than John was doing it) signified the intent to enter the "promised land" -- seek a new life with new rewards.

we don't know the nature of that baptism -- since the Jordan is very shallow -- maybe a ritual crossing from bank to bank?

could have been many types at the time.

i don't think the nature of the physical baptism matters -- even none is all  right -- it's the baptism of the mind -- the person perceiving a different way of existing and then intending to follow that way.

posted by Xeno-x on February 9, 2006 at 3:27 PM | link to this | reply

   Xeno-x,

   I read your comments with interest.  Your explanation of "born of the Spirit" is different and I will contemplate it before responding.  Could I ask you how you define "born of water"?

posted by calmthewaves on February 9, 2006 at 10:26 AM | link to this | reply

OFFBEATS -- the comment I can handle, the lack of courtesy I felt compelled

to mention. It is just common sense to most that when you block someone from commenting on your postings that you do not engage them in further dialogue.  

posted by gomedome on February 8, 2006 at 7:52 PM | link to this | reply

I don't really see where Justso said anything wrong..she was just giving her take on your post...

posted by Offy on February 8, 2006 at 7:39 PM | link to this | reply

CrimsonCarouse - thanx, and really how could just one path exist?

Not only that, how can just one definition of heaven exist? Being locked up for all eternity with some of the bible thumpers that we run into around here wouldn't be my version of heaven. I'd rather jab hot pokers in my eyes than spend a few minutes with some of them.

posted by gomedome on February 8, 2006 at 7:32 PM | link to this | reply

Xeno-x and calmthewaves -- it's always entertaining for me to watch

others give us their enterpretations of some of the passages in the bible. I really don't have much to add.  

posted by gomedome on February 8, 2006 at 7:28 PM | link to this | reply

Justsouno -- where do you get off commenting on the posts of bloggers that

you have blocked and routinely disparage?

Like what makes you so special that you are above common courtesy? Oh right, I forgot, you have imaginary friends.....but really I don't care if you comment on my posts. I will even address your comment. Some English lessons and not swallowing propaganda so readily, would help your contentions immensely. There are a number of caveates throughout this post, from conceding my numbers are merely illustrative, to using terms such as white European influence. Charging right past them to give us your partisan version of reality does nothing to address the points being made in this post.

posted by gomedome on February 8, 2006 at 7:24 PM | link to this | reply

Excellent post gome

I admire the research and thought you put into it. People would be foolish to believe there is only one way into heaven. Assuming there is indeed a heaven it would have to existed since the beginning of time and as you pointed out the born again philosophy didn't spring up until the 17th century. Yet another gap in time unaccounted for.

posted by CrimsonCarouse on February 8, 2006 at 5:03 PM | link to this | reply

One of your commenters applauded you on the research and logic

Logic has nothing to do with it. Your research is greatly flawed. Right now there are more Christians in China (the born again kind) than in England. Africa has a greater number than all of the white nations combined. The South Pacific Islands are not only becoming Christian but so are their governments. Your research appears a bit dated. There is much of the first also that is flawed but mostly this. Thank you for attempting to clarify for the fundies what we can not.

posted by Justi on February 8, 2006 at 3:45 PM | link to this | reply

paradise is a state of mind

this is what Jesus was talking abouit in John 3

that which is born of the spirit is spirit

of the pneuma, or the different mind.

posted by Xeno-x on February 8, 2006 at 2:35 PM | link to this | reply

oh yes,the Law

The Law is a function of religion.

right and wrong --

those who recognize the higher state of being really need no religion.

for religion is The Law.

it is "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"

posted by Xeno-x on February 8, 2006 at 1:55 PM | link to this | reply

the rebirth is in the way of thinking

born of the flesh -- that's the "beast" -- people instinctively actly in a beast0like manner

have you ever witniessed a person's repetitive destructive beharvior and wondered how that person can continually repeat the same mistakes and behavior time and time again?  That's acting according to the flesh.

ah, yes, spirit -- in John 3, in particular, the Greek word is "pneuma" -- and Jesus describes that quite well -- like the wind -- pneuma is air -- it refers to air and wind and all that -- and -- get this -- the mind -- thoughts -- beautiful

it is a person whose thought processes are turned toward what we could call a higher mode of living.  you will find that there is no reference to anything beyond the mundane here -- only John 3:16.

it is like mentally turning oneself around -- away from the "fleshly", or beastly.

posted by Xeno-x on February 8, 2006 at 1:53 PM | link to this | reply

Romans 2:11-16 reveals to us how God will judge those who have His Word (the law, as many Jews refer to it) and those who do not.

  The Old Testament consistently predicts the coming redeemer.  The first reference to this is Genesis 3:15.

   Jesus defined 'born again' as the following:

1. born of water

2. born of the Spirit

3.  the opposite of born of the flesh (3:6)

None of these refers to changed thinking.  The changed thinking should be in how we see ourselves after accepting Christ, as new creations.  This is where "born agains" seem to struggle as you accurately described.  Our thinking changes as we renew our minds with the reality of who we are now in Christ, which is what the New Testament is about.

posted by calmthewaves on February 8, 2006 at 12:24 PM | link to this | reply

Xeno-x -- I'm getting to the point where I rarely read the fundies anymore

They have their own little club, good for them. They have the one true path to salvation, again I say good for them. The interpretation you describe of being reborn makes a lot more sense than what we have seen and heard from these people around here. In the context you describe, it can also be applied to all religions, all endeavours and all peoples. Self improvement, self discipline and the overcomng of inherent human weaknesses works for me. 

posted by gomedome on February 8, 2006 at 11:08 AM | link to this | reply

they don't want to face the truth

of what you say here.
and they will continue to preach hell-fire and brimstone and the "born-again" line.
and they get it wrong anyway.
because Jesus'tatement in John 3 can refer to anyone whose way of thinking turns around completely, to pursue higher aspirations and turning one's back on the usual instcintive way of doing things.
it is being "born from above" -- or of a new spirit -- new way of looking at things.
anyone can have this experience -- you don't need an altar call or anything like that.

in fact, many "born-again" Christians are that only in altar call only -- they haven't left the lifestyles and way of acting toward others that mark the usual human condition.

and you can see that clearly in severl of the fundamentalist bloggers here -- you can see by their actions ("ye shall know them by their fruits") that they haven't caught the vison that Jesus is really talking about when he says "Ye must be born again".

posted by Xeno-x on February 8, 2006 at 10:46 AM | link to this | reply

Bud-Oracle -- this post is a rework of an older blog

In the past there have been a few responses but as you suggest, very few and none with any form of countering logic. I did have one person suggest that you do not forfeit your chances of getting to heaven if you have lived your entire life without hearing about Jesus Christ. This idea was further extrapulated to suggest that Jesus appeared to indigenous peoples all over the globe before and after his life/death but his appearance took on different forms. When I suggested that this individual was now supporting the notion of all forms of God being one and the same, they backed off of the contention. Then as expected banished me to hell for not being a believer. The simple truth is that all attemps to reconcile my little math lesson with a traditional definition of God can never work. All other constructs utilized as a means of explaining these inconsistancies only serve to illustrate how far people will bend probabilities to reconcile that which they have a strong desire to be true.     

posted by gomedome on February 8, 2006 at 9:11 AM | link to this | reply

Great post showing logic and research, therefore itwill not be responded to

Religion is a tool of empire builders generally. Wasn't it the same for the followers of the bearded one?

I mean the unification behind a standardized thought control system.

I've been recently helping a Chinese heritage person move and I postulated that the reason Chinese society is so durable, surviving all other societies by centuries, is that they have shunned monotheism. 

The Chines government might have something in its efforts to stamp out the Foulong gong show.

Does it not strike you as odd that those supporting them over here are devout monotheist, born again as sheep?

Now that I have finally given up my last addiction, I am thinking of going places. China might need my command of english and particular brand of enlightenment. I am not ruling them out. I admire their intelligence and realize that most of what I here from western media is propaganda, now.

The world is Bud's oyster, eh!

posted by Bud-Oracle on February 8, 2006 at 8:54 AM | link to this | reply