thought of the day

"Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."

~ Barack Obama

From the GOSPEL OF THOMAS
“Jesus at five years clears pools of water. On the Sabbath makes 12 clay sparrows. Jesus claps his hands and the sparrows fly away. Annas's son disturbs the pool and Jesus causes him to wither up. A child bumps into Jesus--angers him---and drops dead. The complaining parents are blinded. First day at school Jesus knows his letters from Alpha to Omega. Teacher asks Joseph to take Jesus away--saying: I sought a disciple and found a master. " Jesus curses associates and then heals them, Playing with children on housetop) one falls off and dies. Jesus makes him come alive. Young man cuts foot with axe. Jesus restores foot. Sows grain and at once reaps one hundred measures. Father cuts a beam too short. Jesus lengthens it. Another takes him to school he preaches a sermon. James is gathering twigs--viper bites him. Jesus breathes on wound--James is cured--the viper bursts. Raises dead workman. Story of teaching in the temple at twelve. Flee with Jesus to Egypt. Ate grain from a field--which perpetually yielded miraculous harvest. Lived one year with a widow. Cast dead fish in water--they became alive. They return to Palestine---Jesus was seven. Puts many garments in black dye. Pulls out each a different color. Changes children into pigs. Children enter a furnace---come out goats--Jesus changes them back into children. Jesus slides on a sunbeam. Hangs a pitcher on a sunbeam. Makes a lion bring back a boy. Cures man who swallowed a viper.”

Isn’t the Apocrypha clear evidence (to Protestants and unbelievers anyway) how easy it was to deceive people with utter nonsense?

thought of the day.464

"The list of things about which we strictly have to be agnostic doesn't stop at tooth fairies and celestial teapots. It is infinite. If you want to believe in a particular one of them -- teapots, unicorns, or tooth fairies, Thor or Yahweh -- the onus is on you to say why you believe in it. The onus is not on the rest of us to say why we do not. We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't have to bother saying so."

~ Richard Dawkins