Other Religions †<

""Either god should have written a book to fit my brain, or he should have made my brain to fit his book." - Robert G. Ingersoll

The Koran

The Koran is the revelation of the prophet Mohammed and continues on from the Jewish and Christian tradition. I will not spend much time on the Koran, except to point out its many contradictions. I spend so little time on it for three reasons; Firstly because in the current climate to focus on the Korans faults in too much detail, could result in insult being taken and my freedom of speech being removed by the state. Secondly the majority of my audience are Christian so it would be a waste of time. And lastly to not spend anytime on the Koran, could result in insult being taken and my freedom of speech being removed by the state. So quickly; The Koran contradicts itself.

Note what the Koran says about contradictions:

"Will they not ponder on the Koran? If it had not come from Allah, they could have surely found in it many contradictions."  

They’re not kidding:

Heavens/Earth came together at creation. (Surah 41:11)
Heavens/Earth were ripped apart at creation. (Surah 21:30)

Creation took six days. (Surah 7:54, 10:3, 11:7, 25:59)
Creation took eight days. (Surah 41:9-12)

Earth created first. (Surah 2:29)
Heavens created first. (Surah 70:27-30)

All angels obey Allah. (Surah 16:49-50)
Not all angels obey Allah. (Surah 2:34)

Pharaoh drowned. (Surah 17:103, 28:40, 43:55)
Pharaoh did not drown. (Surah 10:92)

All of Noah's sons were aboard the ark. (Surah 21:76-77)
Not all of Noah's sons were aboard the ark. (Surah 11)

One angel spoke to Mary. (Surah 19:17-21)
Several angels spoke to Mary. (Surah 3:42-45)

Paradise has one garden. (Surah 39:73, 41:30, 57:21, 79:41)
Paradise has many gardens. (Surah 18:31, 22:23, 35:33, 78:32)

Allah can have a son. (Surah 39:4)
Allah can't have a son. (Surah 6:101)

Face Mecca while praying. (Surah 2:115, 144)
Face Jerusalem while praying. (Surah 2:115, 144)

 

What the Koran teaches of Christians, Jews and non believers

"Do not take the Jews and Christians for friends"
(Surah 5:51)

"fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness"
(Surah 9:123)

"fight those who do not believe in Allah"
(Surah 9:29)

"and fight them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah"
(Surah 8:39)

"Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace"
(Surah 9:14)

"Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them"
(Surah 9:30)

"I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"
(Surah 8:12)

 

And lastly the following much like the bibles teachings are unlikely to say the least:

 

Heaven is a place of sex and wine. (Surah 2:25, 4:57, 11:23, 47:15)

Mary (Jesus' mother) was Moses sister. (Surah 19:28)

Jesus taught people even in his "old age". (Surah 5:110)

Moses lived at the same time as Noah. (Surah )

According to Surah 18:86, the sun literally sets into a muddy spring here on Earth and Surah 18:90 mentions a specific place on Earth where the sun rises.
 
I don’t feel it is necessary to go any further as the above should be enough, for those from a Muslim background examine their faith, as should we all.

But new religion is not always based on reason either, the following religions are examples of why a philosophy based on open free reason and personal exploration is badly needed in modern society. They are called Scientology and Mormonism.

 

Scientology

"The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a person only tells them with all his might." Mark Twain.

I would not unless necessary broach the subject of scientology as I believe it is more a cult rather than a religion however with it’s support growing alarmingly, due in no small part to its celebrity supporters.  I also wish to briefly mention it because it tells its supporters they can buy happiness. I feel it is prudent to tell those considering signing up it core beliefs which for reasons which will very rapidly become apparent are kept out of the public domain. 

“If the people Scientology tries to recruit knew this story, I don't think they would ever get involved. This story is told to Scientologists when they reach a higher level. If the people in Scientology at the lower levels knew about this story, I don't think they would stay on the Scientology ladder. It is a road to total something, but freedom? 75 million years ago, there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu who was in charge of 76 planets in our part of the galaxy, including our own planet Earth, whose name at that time was Teegeeack. All of the planets Xenu controlled were over-populated by, on average, 178 billion people. Social problems dictated that Xenu rid his sector of the galaxy of this overpopulation problem, so he developed a plan. Xenu sent out Tax Audit demands to all these billions of people. As each one entered the audit centres for the income tax inspections, the people were seized, held down and injected with a mixture of alcohol and glycol, and frozen. Then, all 1.4 trillion of these frozen people were put into spaceships that looked exactly like DC8 airplanes, except that the spaceships had rocket engines instead of propellers. Xenu's entire fleet of DC8-like spaceships then flew to planet Earth, where the frozen people were dumped in and around volcanoes in the Canary Islands and the Hawaiian Islands. When Xenu's Air Force had finished dumping the bodies into the volcanoes, hydrogen bombs were dropped into the volcanoes and the frozen space aliens were destroyed.
 
However, Xenu's plan involved setting up electronic traps in Teegeack's atmosphere, which were designed to trap the souls or spirits of the dead space aliens. When the 1.4 trillion spirits were being blown around on the nuclear winds, the electronic traps worked like a charm and captured all the souls in the electronic, sticky flypaper like traps. The spirits of the aliens were then taken to huge multi-plex cinemas that Xenu had previously instructed his forces to build on Teegeack. In these movie theatres the spirits had to spend many days watching special 3D movies, the purpose of which was twofold: 1) to implant into these spirits a false reality; and, 2) to control these spirits for all eternity so that they could never cause trouble for Xenu in this sector of the Galaxy. During these films, many false pictures were implanted into these spirits, which resulted in the spirits believing in all the things that control mankind on Earth today, including religion. The concept of religion, including God, Christ, Mohammed, Moses etc., were all an implanted false reality that to this very minute is used to control those on earth.

When the films ended and the souls left the cinema, they started to stick together in clusters of a few thousand and remained that way until mankind began to inhabit the earth. Today on earth all the spirits of these aliens have attached themselves to our bodies and are the root cause of the false reality that all but Scientology's OT 8's on earth experience. It is the job of all Scientologists to remove this false reality from the world by auditing each and every space alien spirit and human on earth to CLEAR not only this planet but the universe. For those who oppose Scientology and stand in their way like the LMT and all Scientology critics, Scientology promises to do away with them "quietly and without sorrow". I have calculated that on average, each person on planet earth has 2,314 of these Body Thetans (BT's for short), Hubbard's term for the alien spirits, causing you and all mankind to be constrained by Xenu's false reality. The average cost for Scientology to OT 8 is a mere USD 360,000, meaning that each BT only costs USD 155.57 to clear. Now that is a bargain if there ever was one.

Hubbard never said the overall cost to the planet would be cheap, but let's examine it.

The planetary cost equation is as follows: 1.4 trillion spirits times USD 155.57 equals a mere USD 2,104,550,960,000. Just think about it - USD 2.2 quadrillion.

As for Xenu, the Loyal Officers of the Marcab Confederation finally discovered how evil he was and overthrew him. He is now locked away in a mountain on one of the planets and kept in by a force field powered by an eternal battery.”

OK you can stop laughing now!

Mormonism (The Church of Latter Day Saints)

"Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do."
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher.

Mormonism as founded by a Man called Joseph Smith, born 1805 in Sharon, Vermont in the USA. According to the official story of the Latter Day Saints Church, in 1820 Smith was visited by God the Father and God the Son, after praying about which church he should join. Jesus told him, they were "all wrong" and all the Christian church's doctrines "were an abomination" (Joseph Smith - History 19, Pearl of Great Price). His First Vision was followed by several further visits from an angel named Moroni who, in 1827, directed Smith to retrieve a set of Golden Plates, which had been buried in a hill near Smith's home in Palmyra, New York (conveniently just around the corner). He set out alone and 'found' them. Once found, only he could translate them with the aid of a mystical device only he was in possession of. Smith allowed no one else to see the plates and 'translated' them in secret from behind a screen. Now Smith was a known trickster and fraudster and was charged by the police on more than one occasion for various offences. And you may say that the whole thing was an obvious fraud devised by Smith to set himself up as the leader of a new church. However Mormonism is a growing religion that has a massive following.

Between 1827-1830, Smith, with the help of friends, translated the Golden Plates into the Book of Mormon. Published in 1830, this was to become the first of many scriptures for the Mormon Church. I feel that he would simply have been discredited at the time but the name of Jesus carries a lot of weight in those parts.

“Black people are black because of their misdeeds in the pre-existence (Three Degrees of Glory, Latter Day Saints DS Apostle Melvin J. Ballard, p. 21).”

 

- Duncan Rossiter