Lets break it down a bit.

You spoil the [teaching]s of the Church, you tear up the articles of the Faith, you destroy the churches, you break and burn the statues which were set up as memorials, you [attack] Christians because they preserve the true Faith. What is this fury? Or what rage or madness consumes you?

You're always wrecking our stuff... What the hell, man!?

This faith, which God Almighty, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have revealed, established, elevated to power, and glorified a thousand ways through miracles -

We have a fable which we believe was founded by an invisible, imperceptible magic geenie and he made that fable awesome. Aparently, there was a lot of magic invovled, though you wouldn't have heard of it...

Very localized miracles. Some call it magic, some call it miracles, others call it coincidence, slight of hand, or lying.

you persecute this Faith, you desire to overthrow and destroy it.

You are pissing on our parade.

You are blind, but not because you lack eyes or understanding.

You're blind. But not literally. It's like, kinda a magic blind..? Like, you've heard all about our awesome fable, but still you don't believe it. Clearly, you must be blind or something. It has nothing to do with the merit of our fable.

Do you believe that you will remain unpunished for it?

OOOOOOOH!! Here comes DA HELLFIRE!!!

Or are you unaware that God opposes your efforts and will not permit you to remain in darkness and error?

Aparetly god is against you. Yet you can still do whatever the hell you want and get away with it. But just you WAIT until you're dead! GOD WILL GET YOU THEN! OOGAH BOOGAH!!!

So that the more you indulge yourselves in ...sacrilege, the more He will prepare great punishments and anguish for you. "

I know you are not at all convinced by our fable, but anybody who doesn't believe our fable, watch out...God is going to give you SUCH a wedgie!

Joan of Arc Letter to the Hussites (March 23, 1430)[slightly edited]

Renouned idiot of some esteem, Joan of Arc.

johnson1010's breakdown actually only accounts for one point. The other point is more subtle but I have some confidence that it can be discerned.

We all wait with anticipation, as always, for your revelatory input.

stahrwe wrote:The other point is more subtle but I have some confidence that it can be discerned.

We know where all your rabbit holes end up and there's nothing at all subtle about them.

geo wrote:

stahrwe wrote:The other point is more subtle but I have some confidence that it can be discerned.

We know where all your rabbit holes end up and there's nothing at all subtle about them.

so what's the second point?

People everywhere do seem to be pre-disposed to thinking up magical explanations to the things which confuse them.

Using Joan of Arc and her sword in the field for an example.

Why would the notion of a heaven sent sword come anywhere near the answer for her? It's a real, metal sword. Probably bearing the standard markings indicating who made it, or which army it may have originated with, so obviously, like all swords a product of human labor.

A thing of regular material which was dinged and damaged with use... Yet it must be magical!

What is this compulsion? Is it a need to feel special? "Sword in the field = god thinks i am the most special'.

It seems lame, but that is actually the foundations of our belief systems, as far as i can tell. We like to think that we are too special to die, and so we made up this fantasy land (and thousands others) where we continue to live after we die.

It's tragic.

Who could fail to see the human face in this cloud?

What would you make of this, if you had no understanding of nature? Of statistics? Of perspective?

http://www.wimp.com/stormcloud/

Without some basic understanding of what you are looking at it would be exceedingly easy to claim that you witnessed a miricle of god. What god? You can assert it is any god you want. What does god want? What was god saying to us? You can asser it is anything you want.

Knowledge is power. It's comfort. It's control. Knowing that that cloud formation would look like nothing but a blob of clouds when viewed from another angle lets you realize that it's an accident of perspective and human propensity for finding faces in the things we see.

http://icanhascheezburger.com/tag/happy-chair-is-happy/










Knowing that turns an inexplicable message from a mysterious god into

"hm. looks like rain."

His last sentence is the key of that whole story. Magic is not what people see, it's what they WANT to see.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... near-death

A tunnel of light, a dis-embodied sensation, confusion... at the cusp of death, why choose magic?

Vsauce takes us through our inner conspiracy junkies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHCHEykUxP4#t=426