I gave it ten years a year or two ago,
so 2020 ish.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 17:51, archived)

so yeah, this Rapture business, looking forward to it?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 17:54, archived)

Well now I'm admittedly a little unorthodox with my non-belief in Hell,
but the Rapture most certainly isn't in the book. The faithful are going to have to put up with the tribulations along with everybody else, blessed be he who endures to the end. That idea doesn't go down too well with the evangelicals, they'd rather have Jesus come and carry them off in his arms like little kittens. The pansies.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 17:58, archived)

so can I just ask, what made you choose the christian god as opposed to one of the older more established ones?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:00, archived)

there isn't one much more established than the God of Abraham who is still worshipped by anybody living.
Sometimes people cite the Vedas or Zoroastrians as predating the Old Testament but frankly they're talking bollocks.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:03, archived)

I read that as "my parents told me to"

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:05, archived)

oh no my Dad's an atheist who thinks that religion is the cause of all violence
and that ancient mythology is really about space aliens. My mum semi-consciously believes in a lot of new-age folk superstition and homeopathy and thinks every dog she gets is the reincarnation of the previous one.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:08, archived)

so ... when you're in heaven and they're not, will you be happy?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:09, archived)

It's not my place to decide who goes to heaven,
although I'm not expecting to, personally.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:13, archived)

well, theoretically, if you get in and they're stuck at the turnstile with no ticket, would you be laughing your tits off?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:14, archived)

can I ask an easy question instead then?
why does an omnipotent god need me to "worship" him/her?

I mean, what does he/she get out of it? other than a big old ego massage?
(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:20, archived)

Ever told somebody you loved them?

( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:24, archived)

only after I'd been in her knickers

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:27, archived)

hang on, so there are older gods than big G, it's just that no one worships them any more?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:11, archived)

doesn't the Epic of Gilgamesh predate the old testiclement?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:16, archived)

what with it being the oldest story ever written down and that

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:17, archived)

Unfortunately we don't have the Sumerian original in full, only the Babylonian version,
which dates to 1700 ish I think. We have bits of it. Probably.

In any case it wasn't a religious text, just a good story.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:22, archived)

I think the bible's a pretty good story
right up there wiuth Harry Potter
(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:28, archived)

I never read Harry Potter.
I saw one of the films once and it made no sense.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:35, archived)

I recommend you don't watch it
you might start believing it
(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:35, archived)

Well.
There are older religions than Judaism. There are Egyptian cults that go back to 3000 B.C. and Sumerian ones that go back even further.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:19, archived)

so there ya go, more established gods than the christian one, sounds like a compelling argument to me

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:20, archived)

are we just going to say all those people were wrong and their gods didn't exist?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:21, archived)

The development of these things is very complex,
but "didn't exist" would be an oversimplification. You might say that lightning isn't really a god, but you would hardly say it didn't exist. Or the sun or the wind or whatever. They were usually real things, concrete or abstract.

The difference with the God of Abraham is that He's not a "specialist", as it were. He's the Universal God of Everything. Not that this was a new idea even in Abraham's day. It's generally the layman who didn't get it and would rather worship animals and statues and whatnot.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:30, archived)

so he's like Allah then?
no wait, are we saying there's only one god and he's Allah and old beardy skywizard rolled into one?

or are we saying that the ancient Greek, Sumerian and Egyptian lot were equally valid choices? I'm confused here
(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:31, archived)

Allah and Yahweh are quite explicitly the same God.
Muslims even have a place for Jesus in their eschatology.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:33, archived)

k, and how about those other god guys, Ra and Imhotep and all those dudes with dog heads and wings and shit?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:35, archived)

Imhotep was the architect to the Pharaoh who designed the pyramids
Ra was the sun.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:38, archived)

well that's even better, he's a god AND you get to see him move across the sky every day
can't ask for more than that
(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:40, archived)

he was very popular,
Ptah is more my kind of deity though.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:41, archived)

hang on, so you're a muslim?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:40, archived)

well I might be, I guess,
so far you seem to have assumed that believing in God equals American Evangelicalism.

I'm not, except in the literal meaning of the word, "one at peace with God". Or something like that. Same root as Shalom.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:44, archived)

yes but which god?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:52, archived)

the one with the capital G

( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 19:19, archived)

So I can eat meat on a Friday without fear?
Nice one.
( Neptune A dole queue dosser and foul mouthed chav., Wed 23 May 2012, 18:01, archived)

are you usually frightened of meat?

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:02, archived)

Another Catholic tradition that they made up.

( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:04, archived)

I thought catholicism was proper christianity and protestantism was just some pissed off german cunt taking out the bits he didn't agree with and forming a new cult

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:07, archived)

well you got protestantism pretty much nailed, anyway.
although it's Calvin who gets my goat. Despite Luther's annoyance at church corruption and hypocrisy, he was still very much Catholic in his outlook. It's because of Calvin that we ended up with capitalism and a work ethic. The bastard.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:10, archived)

so what if I grew up on an island and never met another person and never found out about god, seems a little unfair to deny me entry to heaven just because no fucker told me about it

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:13, archived)

I don't know why you'd want to go to heaven.

( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:23, archived)

well it's not my decision is it, what if some deity decides I'm going there and my family are staying outside?
I'd be well pissed off about that
(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:26, archived)

oh well,
maybe you could chill with that guy from the island, and his pet monkey.
( Moon Girl Technologies don't take my word for anything, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:31, archived)

that sounds like my kind of afterlife

(Cabbages. Knickers. It's not got a beak, Wed 23 May 2012, 18:41, archived)