10 Mistakes of the Indoctrinated.

The following is by a guest writer, Lawrence Tomas, who originally posted this to the Freethinkers United Facebook page.

THE BIGGEST MISTAKE THAT ALL CHRISTIANS MAKE

Almost all Christians (followers of Christianity) make one tragic mistake in the very beginning when they first accept the religion and yes…it is a whopper!

Becoming a Christian at the tender age of 12 years old, I never knew of course that I was making this mistake.

But now that I see the mistake, it’s impossible to keep quiet about it! I can’t keep quiet... nor should I keep quiet. I have to share this…so listen close!

HERE IS WHAT HAPPENS…

It usually begins at a young age when someone (parent, friend or family member) approaches you and they ask you the famous question…

“If you died right now, do you know for sure you would go to Heaven?”

They then proceed to tell you the Gospel story how that 2,000 years ago, God loved you and sent his son Jesus to die on a cross to save you from your sins and save you from going to Hell.

Well, if the timing is right, this particular confrontation is too overwhelming and as it tugs on your heart strings, you somehow feel obligated to repent and ask Jesus to save you.

If you ask any questions, they are quickly shut down and we are told…

“We don’t go by factual evidence or proof, we accept it by “faith”. Jesus said to “only believe”. He also said that the devil will lie to us and try to deceive us into disbelieving. Trust me…it is all true…I promise you!”

So we do what we are told and accept it by faith without seeing any evidence what soever to back any of it up…none…zero.

SO WHAT IS THE BIG MISTAKE!

THE BIG MISTAKE IS….We never check any of it out…

1. We never do any research to see if Jesus actually existed.

2. We never do any research to see if the apostles actually existed.

3. We never do any research to see who actually wrote the Roman New Testament…the hows, whys, whens and wheres…we never check any of that out.

4. We never do any research to see who actually started this religion and why?

5. We never do any research to see if the Apostle Paul who allegedly wrote over half of the New Testament actually existed or started any churches.

6. We never do any research to see if the Hebrew/Roman Bible is historically, scientifically and archaeologically accurate & correct. We never do any research to see if what the ancient Hebrews were telling us… was factually sound and 100% true.

7. We never do any research to see if any of the so called “Church Fathers” were legit and actually telling us the truth.

8. We never do any research to see if any of the Old Testament Bible characters were legit and actually existed.

9. We never do any research into the ancient Romans to understand the religious culture & political climate which existed in Rome during the 1st Century CE. We never do any research into the ancient Judean Hebrews to understand the religious culture & political climate which existed in Palestine during the 1st Century CE.

10. We never do any research to see that Imperial Rome had their dirty hands upon this new Christian religion from the very beginning and that the entire Gospel Story is nothing more than a fabricated Roman lie.

NO…we never checked anything out for authenticity…we just went with it. We accepted the entire story upon the basis of “faith” and never spent ONE MINUTE of our time to see if any of it was ever true.

Then we start going to church where we are told if we question anything it displeases God and we are to accept & believe everything on “Faith Alone”. This brainwashing usually continues until we die unless we have an “epiphany” and somehow come to our senses which most people never do.

Yup…Christians have been taught to believe that the church was born 2,000 years ago and that’s the big mistake. They naively assume that everyone has been telling them the 100% absolute truth from the ancient Romans down to the modern day Christian ministers.

We believe and accept it without doing any research whatsoever…we just go with it because someone told us to. We buy into and believe the greatest hoax that mankind has ever seen. What we thought was true (the Bible), turns out to be 66 separate books which are nothing than mythical fabricated fairytales.

And it’s a whopper of a mistake because it controls & colors every single aspect of our thinking and being. We become a Christian, develop an imaginary friend, and spend the rest of our lives thinking we are immortal and that we are going to live forever in a paradise. This false beliefism will control us and our family for the remainder of our natural lives.

QUESTION: Then who is to blame for making this monumental mistake?

ANSWER: YOU and YOU alone. Because you never took the time to do any personal investigation or research. You just believed the lies and for doing that you payed or are still paying a great price…

WAKE UP!

Why Bernie Sanders can Save the GOP

The history of political parties in the US is a sordid one.  In George Washington's farewell address, he warned against political parties which had begun under his Presidency.  By the time John Adams became President, two prominent parties had formed: the Federalists and the Republican-Democrats. Eventually, the Federalists went by the way-side, and the Republican-Democrats dropped the Republican part.  A later party, formed in 1854, claimed the Republican moniker, and 6 years later elected their first Presidential Candidate, Abraham Lincoln.

It was the Radical Republicans that called for full equalization of rights and protections under the law for blacks before the Civil War, and during Reconstruction.  While the GOP has always had business interests in mind, there was still a progressive side that wanted to curtail rampant and destructive business practices.  After all, the "Great Trust Buster", Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican.  That goes to show that, historically, the Republican party was a dynamic party, one that covered a spectrum of political ideas.

Today, however, the GOP has been hijacked; first it was the Moral Majority, and lately the Tea Party. Today, the "radical" Republicans are the Libertarians, or at least those who buy into their objectivist ideology.  The GOP has gotten so extreme in it's platforms that the most liberal of Republicans are heavily conservative by the standards of just 40 years ago.  This is spelling the undoing of the Republican Party.  And it must not happen. Crack a history book to see the effects of a one party system.

Enter Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont. Sanders (his supporters just call him Bernie), has a large Republican following in Vermont, and there is even a Facebook page for his GOP supporters. While Sanders is often criticized for being a socialist (he's actually a Democratic Socialist which is still a capitalist), his policy ideas are middle ground for most of the advanced nations of the world. American politics have gotten so far to the right, thanks to the 1% and the religious fanatics hijacking of the GOP, that the middle ground is considered "extremist."  Sanders is not of the 1%, in fact he's their political nemesis, and he's not all that religious.  He's a progressive throwback and one that Republicans of when the party was truly Grand, would embrace.

The fact that someone like Sanders is able to gain such support despite not taking any Super PAC money, shows that the people are behind him.  Some of those people are Republicans.  This is important because the bulk of America is tired of Republican party shenanigans, and the corporate shills they choose for candidates. As an American, and fully aware that our political system is watched around the world, I was embarrassed after watching the first Republican debate. Trump turned the debate into a circus, and he's the GOP front runner. What scared me is that Trump is not really a product of the GOP as he is a reflection of current Republican Party.  He's misogynistic, racist, and cares more about his own wealth than the well-being of his fellow Americans.

No, not all Republicans are that way.  In fact most are not, at least most of the one's I know.  I understand that that was an anecdotal statement on my part, but I live in the Bible Belt, I live in GOP territory, I am surrounded by members of the Republican party.  One of the primary virtues of Republicans is loyalty.  That is why the sane, and good people I know that are Republican are not misogynistic or racist, or pro-1%.  They identify as Republican, mostly because their parent's did, and they are loyal to their party; to attack the party is to attack them.  But loyalty goes both ways.  If not, then it is not loyalty but servitude.  With the exception of the most radical of modern Republicans, the religious extremists, and Tea Partiers, many Republicans are waking up and realizing that the Party they are loyal too, is not loyal to them.

If Clinton gets elected... well, she is a Democrat in Name Only. If this was the 1960s, she would have been a Centrist Republican, not a Democrat. Never mind that she is flip-flopping on nearly everything now and mimicking Sanders, with the exception of her most fanatical supporters, even Democrats take for granted that she is only flip-flopping until after she would take office; she is only changing her views to get elected. Even if she gets protest votes over Trump, nothing would change.  It would be party politics as usual.

If Sander's wins, however, it is a game changer.  Part of his appeal is that he is not just a political leader, he is the leader of a movement.  A grassroots movement of the young and old alike.  The GOP is a repulsive force to to the Millennial Generation.  Even Millennial Republicans can see the writing on the wall if the GOP keeps to the path it is on.  That is IF you can find a Millennial Republican, most pay no attention to the GOP what so ever. In a more diverse-sensitive America, surviving parties must embrace the diversity of our nation. So far Republicans mostly alienate it.

If Sanders takes office, the GOP party leaders will have to wake up or lose their party.  To keep GOP obstructionists from stonewalling the White HOuse and Congressional Dems, GOP candidates will have to be more moderate, more willing to compromise, and more in touch with the needs of their constituents.  Too long have the 1% run politics to the chagrin of voters.  When Sanders takes office in 2017, it will show the 1%, and more importantly the American voter, that money is done.  Politics belong to all of us, not just the 1%.  The GOP will have to listen to their more moderate voters and politicians, and balance will return to American Politics. It is time for the GOP to return to its Lincoln roots, to regain its true fiscal responsibility like what Teddy Roosevelt exhibited, to work for the American People like Ike Eisenhower and not Big Business.

CNN the New Faux (Fox) News.

If you do a Google search, as of today, on who won the first Democratic debate of the 2016 Presidential election, you will know that Hillary Clinton won.  Except she didn't.  You see, CNN, who hosted the debate, is spreading a bold faced lie.  It's not surprising, CNN is owned by Time Warner who is one of Clinton's (or as a good friend of mine refer's to her, $hillary) biggest financiers.  Not only that, but bloggers and news affiliates that follow CNN's lead all report that Clinton won the debate.
Here's a few examples:
The Atlantic
The New York Times
CNBC
Well, that is unless you are one of the more than thousands people who voted on CNN's poll last night before they deleted it.

Here is the "report" from CNN/Facebook Democratic debate winners and losers by Jeremy Diamond, CNN (Updated 8:06 AM ET, Wed October 14, 2015):

Washington (CNN)The field of Democratic presidential hopefuls faced off in their first debate, hosted by CNN and Facebook, on Tuesday night.
For more than two hours, the candidates tried to make their best impressions before a national audience discovering many of them for the first time.
Here's how they did:

Winner
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton proved without a doubt Tuesday night why she is the Democratic Party's presidential front-runner.
Clinton remained unflappable throughout the debate, showcasing her political experience and her command of the issues -- all the while deftly handling criticism of her flip-flops and displaying a humor that put a more human face to her oft-criticized candidacy.
From the outset, Clinton was pressed to defend her changing stances on various issues -- from the Pacific Rim trade deal to same-sex marriage -- and came out from the tough questioning with a strong one-liner that very much fits the frame of her campaign: "I'm a progressive. But I'm a progressive who likes to get things done."
David Axelrod, CNN senior political commentator and the chief strategist for the Obama campaign that trounced Clinton in 2008, said she did "very well" and that her campaign was likely "thrilled with the performance."

Now, mid you this was a Facebook poll. but apparent from the title of the page, they were trying to use social media (Facebook and Twitter) to determine popular opinion on who won.  Apparently the people didn't vote they was we are supposed to.

Out of curiosity, I looked for other polls.  I found several, and below are a sample the polls.  In every poll, Sanders is leading by a huge margin.  I am not going to go into the various gaffes, blunders, zingers and one liners that pundits count when they form their opinion.  Theirs doesn't really matter.  Your opinion matters.

However, mainstream media is on it's way out.  With the internet, transparency in information is becoming the norm.  Big Media no longer has the sway it once had.  As the baby boomers are becoming more tech savvy or dying off, those who still clutch to their TVs and newspapers as their primary source of information are diminishing. Big Media is dying, and this serves as a great case in point.

The revolution will not be televised, it will be tweeted.

Now, here are some screen shots of various polls that agree with the CNN twitter poll above:

Fox 5 News in San Diego,

Sanders: 78%
Clinton: 15%
O'Malley: 2%
Web: 3%
Chaffee: <1%

Slate.com

Sanders: 70%
Clinton: 16%
O'Malley: 2%
Web: 11%
Chaffee: 1%

nj.com of New Jersey

Sanders: 75%
Clinton: 15%
O'Malley: 1%
Web: 3%
Chaffee: <1%

Even patriot.com (a Right Wing news blog) weighed in

Sanders: 53%
Clinton: 5%
O'Malley: 3%
Web: 6%
Chaffee: 0%


Keep in mind, the Patriot is a Republican friendly site, and even if they could choose "the Republicans" or "I don't care", Sanders wins by a large margin.





One last photo, sent to me from a concerned voter.  Here is a screenshot of the television right after the debate.  And CNN is still plugging Hillary.  It's time for Big Media to #FeelTheBern!