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Agreed!
What else can you say?
Right up there with intelligence and common sense
The other side of the coin is that faith is the enemy of free will, science, and the search for understanding the universe.
HOAX!
Looks like a sign generator to me…where is this church?
#5 Look closely. Some of the letters are slightly out of alignment. It may be real. Or a better Photoshop job than usual. It’s more fun when you can fiddle with the message on one of these types of signs in person anyway.
#6. Yes, one of my favorite adolescent tricks, morning paper route, 4:00 am changing signs like this.
I like the idea of self-honesty of this sort.
Luring believers who have the means to pay tithes regularly can be difficult, and churches do what they have to do in this competitive religious environment.
#5 – That sign should read “Don’t believe anything you read…”
blame the pastor!!
gosh durn it these people are just unreasonable!!!
Baptists once believed that certainty was the enemy of true faith, which is tempered with doubt. Read some of the works of the church founders if you don’t believe me. But now that the church has fallen, and the nutters are in charge, so many don’t know the difference between certainty and faith, and so they are, with endless certitude, walking blindly into a pit.
I can’t even make out what the point is SUPPOSED to be.
I’m a Christian, and not even I think that reason is the enemy of faith. It was Wesley who once said:
“Let us unite these two that have been so long divided: learning and vital piety.”
If the sign is an actual picture and not a photoshopped construct, shame on that church’s pastor!
Now if the churchgoers could only READ the freakin’ sign!
Too bad it is clearly fake. The letters don’t align on top of their backing plastic at all.
#16: A woman after my own heart!
No Christian with a brain believes in ignorance as a good thing…if anything, it is the most debilitating disease.
Keep right on chipping at the Democrat base.
Or, “What do Black Democrats do one Sunday?”
It is the beginning of a quote from Martin Luther:
“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but – more frequently than not – struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God”
#21 – prophet,
Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten the source. Yes. Martin Luther was honest enough with himself to see that reason opposes faith and that he was therefore against reason.
Perhaps, one day we can hope for a day of reason. Wouldn’t that be nice? Then I woke up in the dark ages … screaming.
Sign generator for sure.
Expanding on what Gary said, I think churches by necessity have to do a lot of “preaching to the choir” and “telling followers what they want to believe” to keep attendance up and the bills getting paid.
Maybe it’s not too different than politicians and the occasional head of state doing different sorts of baiting to keep/maintain/consolidate power and/or their existence, etc.
Like what Nifong did with the Duke lacrosse team to get re-elected, like Chavez does every 2 or 3 months, etc.
Perhaps the perceived negatives of religion are more a social and/or structural problem than anything else.
#21. Yes, nice catch.
#23 HMeyers, YES! And that same drive to “keep attendance up and the bills getting paid” is what I believe has led to so many of the reforms and modernizations to Christian church doctrine over the years.
If the church had remained static and strict in their interpretations of things like moral code and the allowable roles for women in society, their attendance and relevance would be abysmal in Western society, where they have greatly reduced power of coercion.
Church leaders seem to get enough theological epiphanies in time to stay a few steps ahead of obsolescence.
I was hoping that the church sign I made for my earlier comment might appeal to a higher class of tithe-payer 😉
Definitely interest stuff, Gary.
I hadn’t given it too much thought in the past, and found your post very intriguing.
Very plausible explanations that give insight into how the world really works or what is really going on seem to make the world make a heck of a lot more sense!
#5 Great site. BTW: How did you attach a picture to your post?…I was going to attach a “churchsign” that says YOU ARE RIGHT, but couldn’t figure out how to do it?
[The software only allows editors to post photos. Post a link to the photo and an editor will insert the photo for you if he sees it. – ed.]
#27, SJP
If you want to attach a picture, try the Scotch brand Invisible Tape. It holds well and doesn’t dry out. It is easy to remove later if warranted.
Why thank you, Mister Catshit. Is your name french by chance? That is, are the t’s silent so it’s actually pronounced Mister Cashay?
It’s possible to attach a pic using an <IMG tag but we do not encourage it since people will seldom use the “width = ” delimiter to keep the pic from blowing up the place. So my approach is that, if you can figure out how to do it..then you probably know to do it right. Thus we do not explain the process.
It is a lot easier at the CageMatch
Geez, all this time I thought image embedding was blocked to ordinary user comments except by special dispensation from the gods 😉
Testing, testing, 1…2…3…4…