SYMPTOMS OF RELIGIOUS ADDICTION

• Inability to think, doubt, or question religious information and/or authority
• Black-and-white, good/bad, either/or simplistic thinking: one way or the other
• Shame-based belief that you aren't good enough or you aren't doing it right
• Magical thinking that God will fix you/ do it all, without serious work on your part
• Scrupulosity: rigid obsessive adherence to rules, codes of ethics, or guidelines
• Uncompromising judgmental attitudes: readiness to find fault or evil out there
• Compulsive or obsessive praying, going to church or crusades, quoting scripture
• Unrealistic financial contributions
• Believing that sex is dirty; believing our bodies or physical pleasures are evil
• Compulsive overeating and/or excessive fasting
• Conflict and argumentation with science, medicine, and education
• Progressive detachment from the real work, isolation and breakdown of relationships
• Psychosomatic illness: back pains, sleeplessness, headaches, hypertension
• Manipulating scripture or texts, feeling specially chosen, claiming to receive special messages from God
• Maintaining a religious "high", trance-like state, keeping a happy face (or the belief that one should...)
• Attitude of righteousness or superiority: "we versus the world," including the denial of one's human-ness.
• Confusion, great doubts, mental, physical or emotional breakdown, cries for help

The ultimate temptation of the believer is to assume that his or her way to God is the best or only way for others. The particular Way to God becomes what is adored, not the ineffable and incomprehensible Mystery to which we give the name of God.

In essence we have become addicted to the certainty, sureness or sense of security that our faith provides. It is no longer a living by faith, with hope and growing in unconditional love.

Top 10 reasons to belive logic over religion.

The argument that because complex life exists, it must have been “created” is ridiculous, and it’s time someone said it. Yay, we have lots of chromosomes, we can see in color and keep erections for 4+ hours (commercials say see a doctor, I’d rather see a sorority house), but explaining away the unexplainable with magical explanations is as real as the emails I get from the prime minister of Nigeria who wants to send me $4 million dollars via a cashiers check.

1. “Earth is the perfect environment, it had to have been made for us”

Nai-eve. Get real. I point you to Arachaea, aka Archaebacteria and Extremophiles. These miraculous organisms live in ridiculously extreme climates. Climates much like that of, I don’t know, other planets perhaps? The point is, different kinds of life require different things. Ours needs water, oxygen and beer. Anyway, as far as we know, in the 9 planets (fuck you, Pluto still counts) we have in our Solar System, we’re the only ones with real sentient life, so I guess that means we’re the only ones right? Oh wait, I forgot about the BILLIONS+ of other planets and solar systems in other galaxies and what not that we haven’t been to or seen up close. So we’re here, great, that’s awesome, but if it were so damn perfect, Canada would be part of the United States, it wouldn’t be so damn cold here in the winter, and Yellow Stone would shoot up Budweiser. Hey, a guy can dream right?

2. Free Will - Contradicting a Contradiction

God “gives” us “Free Will” so that we can choose which path to follow. He knows what we’re going to do, but he’s “giving” us the choice to, uhm, choose what he already knows we’re going to do? To put it simply, if God can know 100% without a doubt you’re going to do it, it’s set in stone, you can’t change it, you’re just fulfilling destiny or a “plan” laid out by someone else. Either he gives us free will to do what we want (in which case there are many different paths and there is no way to KNOW which one we’ll do), or it’s all an illusion and you’ve got a puppet string coming out of your ass.

3. Hillary Clinton is leading the polls

If there is a God, and he does love us, then this would never have happened. Every time I realize my calendar doesn’t say April, I wonder if there is a God and he has a sick sense of humor, but then it would have to be a really, really sick sense of humor.

4. Evolution

I don’t actually think that evolution disproves creationism, actually if there was an “intelligent designer” this would have been an “intelligent design” to build in. It’s nature’s undo button once you figure out that giving tigers the ability to fly just wasn’t the best idea out on the market. But since the church feels that evolution cannot co-exist with creationism, point me.

5. Intelligent Designs lack of a designer

Aren’t we smart, we are truly awesome. Don’t misunderstand me, I love walking on two legs and peeing standing up, but telling me that we have to be created by a magical being just because we exist, begs questioning.

Logic dictates that if (a) we are here so we must have come from somewhere, i.e. a “designer” who is more complex and intelligent than us, then (b) a complex and intelligent designer, would also have to have come from somewhere i.e. a “designer” who is even more complex and intelligent.

If the reasoning for a God is we’re here, then where did he come from? My favorite famous lines are “he always was” and “no one knows”. Shave the wool off your back and follow the herd if you believe that. If someone HAD to have created us, they would have HAD to have been created. If our creator could have ALWAYS been or just magically appeared, then so could we have.

We can’t just assert that God is mightier and he just magically came to be, if that’s the logic, I say someone still had to find him in the bottom of a cereal box, it’s a paradox.

6. Ron Paul is behind in the polls

“Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital.” He’s advocating for FREEDOM, come on, how can you not love freedom. He wants to legalize pot and I’ve seen him kiss at least 6 babies in the past week. He wants to get rid of the IRS, imagine a world without angry letters from those bastards! If God existed, Ron Paul wouldn’t be just President, he would have been made Co-God back in the 60s.

7. Pot is illegal but Alcohol is A-Okay

Alcohol, the leading cause of drunk driving, and as such the leading cause of alcohol-related deaths, is totally cool for me to drive down to the liquor store to pick up and binge drink on. On the flip side, lighting up a joint and scarfing down a large pizza or two will get you boned hard. If God was around, he’d rather I eat a bag of Doritos and pass out than get drunk, beat my wife and piss on the couch. The worst that can happen with pot is smoking yourself stupid and passing out, but alcohol makes people angry. Hulk mad. If only there were a God… and then Ron Paul would set the record straight.

8. Bad things happen to good people, great things happen to bad people

For a society that constantly gets the short end of the stick when it comes to miracles, I’ve never fully understood how people can whipe away such an obvious shortcoming with one or two hail marys. If we’re God’s children, how come Bin Laden hasn’t been bent over his knee and beat with a wooden spoon yet? Why the hell are people stopping to help stalled motorists and getting raped murdered, and why is it that every time a girl scout makes it to my door she’s out of thin mints? I’m sick of it. Shortbread cookies suck, they do. There, I said it. Aside from such atrocities, every single day bad people get rewarded, while good people are getting creamed on the side of the road by drunk drivers. Give credit where credit is due, if you’re an asshole, you should have karma spitting in your face, and if you’re a good-looking, stand-up guy who wants some damn thin mints, you should get some damn thin mints.

9. Blind Faith

If we’re supposed to believe in a God, and he wants us to believe in him, and the only way for eternal salvation is to believe, then why can’t he take 30 seconds to hop off his throne made of golden baby carcasses and pop in and have coffee with me tomorrow? Starbucks, 10:30, I’ll buy. If it’s such a big deal to believe, why is it not such a big deal to give a reason to believe in?

10. The proof is in dying

Ever notice how religions promise us stuff that cannot be instantly proven? One of the biggest promises is heaven after we die or in Islam they promise 72 virgins. That has got to be the lowest thing.. promising pussy in the after life for accepting their religion.

The biggest logical fallacy is that a religion can offer us millions and millions of years of heaven for accepting their beliefs for just 100 years max? What is the ratio there there, how can accepting something for 100 years or so get you something for millions of years (or eternity) to come. When something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

St. Bartholomew’s Church by Maxim Velcovsky

Working with designer Jakub Berdych under the Qubus Studio banner, the interior of St. Bartholomew's Church features Verner Panton chairs customised with a punched crucifix, Persian rugs and chandeliers of rough-cut crystal.

I am completely mesmerized by these pictures and really want to visit this church and see it with my own eyes. An absolutely stunning combination of old and new: St. Bartholomew's Church by Maxim Velcovsky

Graves Heroes Films

Graves Heroes Films

Historical Church in Czech Republic (Church on The Bones)

Historical Church in Czech Republic (Church on The Bones)

Church on the bones and bones.
This is an unusual church in the Czech Republic, on the outskirts of a small town
Kutna Hora, and the Church is called to the bones (ossuary). And it is history ...

As in 1278 Jindrich abbot returned from a diplomatic mission from Jerusalem, falling to a monastery cemetery for the Holy Land with a pinch of Golgotha. The cemetery quickly became popular because, like all the rest in the holy land, and not in what looked, and as a result much grown.

In central Europe in 1318 laid plague, began after the Hussite wars. The people wraith in terrible numbers. A European cemeteries are not rubber, so there was the practice of secondary, tertiary and subsequent burials. Dead, or rather what he left them, dig, bones dumped in the chapel with a deep cellar, the so-called "kostnitsy", and whom nemeryano existed in Europe. Earth cemetery at the monastery Sedletskogo pereprodavalis 6 times, as a result of this monastery kostnitse accumulated remains of about 40000 people.

And in a monk in 1511, the name of which has not survived, it is known only that he was poluslep and had a natural immunity against the plague, and therefore worked at the funeral team began regular cleaning of the cemetery. Only he has not dropped a bone in kostnitsu, as has been done before, but zateyal something sublime and dissident. On otbelil bone in the chlor-alkali solutions and resigned in pyramids 6 - 4 in the corners kostnitsy and 2 in the center.

Above the angular pyramid of stone carved huge crown. So he died in the chapel. Monks, supposedly, in a few days found him podvaleazapisku number, in which he wrote that, despite its smallness and towns, was a creator of the soul (the magnificent carved crown confirm this fully!), And wants the memory of him and the deceased was still alive long year. Monks did not destroy his creation, but also continue to use this chapel is not steel, locked her eyes from outsiders. Due to this, this kostnitsa and survived to the present day.

Over the centuries the Church attitude to death has changed valyayuschiesya as hit, bones become regarded as blasphemies, and kostnitsy simply been burned. Even now UNESCO is struggling with the Vatican for this place, the truth is no longer required to burn, but close - yes! After the death of the monk kostnitsa prostoyala closed more than 350 years when, in 1870, bought the place Sedlets Prince Schwarzenberg.

The new owners do not like the layout or kostnitsy or piles of bones, valyavshihsya everywhere, and they asked Frantz Rinta, a local master of woodcarving, muddy anything beautiful. Reent with the same bleach cleared stockpiled bones from the flesh and balances has been made that you can see in photos ...

Terracotta Army - The Infinite Power of Emperor

The Terracotta Warriors and Horses are the most significant archeological excavations of the 20th century. Located approximately 30 km outside of the present-day capital, X'ian (called Chang'an in ancient times), of the Shensi province of modern China, the tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi remains a symbol of the infinite power and ego of China's first Emperor.


The Terracotta Army was buried with the Emperor of Qin (Qin Shi Huangdi) in 210-209 BC (his reign over Qin was from 247 BC to 221 BC and unified China from 221 BC to the end of his life in 210 BC). Their purpose was to help rule another empire with Shi Huangdi in the afterlife. Consequently, they are also sometimes referred to as "Qin's Armies".


Qin Shi Huangdi (259 BC - 210 BC), the first emperor of China, ascended the throne at the age of 13, and immediately began construction of his extraordinary mausoleum. On completion of his many conquests, he ordered 720,000 laborers to hurry up on building his royal tomb. It was finished just-in-time in 210 BC for his use, 36 years after the work commenced. His son, second Qin Emperor, saw to his entombment.



The Terracotta Army was discovered in March 1974 by local farmers drilling a water well to the east of Mount Lishan. Mount Lishan is also where the material to make the terracotta warriors originated. In addition to the warriors, an entire man-made necropolis for the emperor has been excavated.



Archaeologists were uncertain when the excavations began of the great magnitude of this site. The although the tomb itself is, according to legend, very elaborate and beautiful, the center piece of Shi Huangdi's mausoleum is the terra-cotta army of approximately 8,000 life-sized men and horses.

Individually sculpted of 3 inch thick terracotta clay, each soldier and horse is unique, each with its own style of dress (the mineral paints used to cover the figures in bright, gay colors have since dissolved), weaponry, and facial expressions. Grouped into a specific military formation with crouching crossbowmen and bowmen at the point, archers at the flanks, large groups of infantry, chariots and cavalry, and a final guard of heavily armored infantry pulling up the rear, all are arranged according to the proper military procedures of the day.







All 8,000 troops are housed in three separate chambers for each section of the army: active duty troops in the largest chamber, reserves in another smaller chamber, and a small group of 68 commanders and elite officers in the third.
The three chambers are themselves part of a much larger burial complex.



According to the Grand Historian Sima Qian (145 BC-90 BC), the First Emperor was buried alongside great amounts of treasure and objects of craftsmanship, as well as a scale replica of the universe complete with gemmed ceilings representing the cosmos, and flowing mercury representing the great earthly bodies of water. Pearls were also placed on the ceilings in the tomb to represent the stars, planets, etc. Recent scientific work at the site has shown high levels of mercury in the soil of Mount Lishan, tentatively indicating an accurate description of the site’s contents by historian Sima Qian.The tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi is near an earthen pyramid 76 meters tall and nearly 350 square meters. The tomb presently remains unopened.





Qin Shi Huangdi’s necropolis complex was constructed to serve as an imperial compound or palace. It comprises several offices, halls and other structures and is surrounded by a wall with gateway entrances. The remains of the craftsmen working in the tomb may also be found within its confines, as it is believed they were sealed inside alive to keep them from divulging any secrets about its riches or entrance. It was only fitting, therefore, to have this compound protected by the massive terracotta army interred nearby. In July 2007 it was determined, using remote sensing technology, that the mausoleum contains a 90-foot tall building built above the tomb, with four stepped walls, each having nine steps. Researchers theorized it was built "for the soul of the emperor to depart."

Great Pyramid - the Only Remaining Ancient Wonder

The Great Pyramids at Giza, which date from the Old Kingdom (2700-2300 B. C. ), are the oldest and most famous of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The Pyramids of Egypt are three pyramids at Giza, outside modern Cairo.The 3 main pyramids were built as tombs for 3 Egyptian Pharaohs who were considered to be gods on earth. The first and largest pyramid, known as the Great Pyramid was a tomb for Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks), who ruled the 4th dynasty around 2575 BC,had an original estimated height of 482 ft (now approximately 450 ft). The base has sides 755 ft long. It contains 2,300,000 blocks; the average weight of each is 2.5 tons. Estimated date of completion is 2680 BC.




The question of who built the pyramids, and how, has long been debated by Egyptologists and historians and there is really no completely satisfactory answer. According to the earliest known historian of the Egyptian Pyramid Age, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th cent. BC), the Great Pyramid took 20 years to construct and demanded the labor of 100,000 men, yet it is hard to believe that any of these enormous monuments could have been built in one pharaoh's lifetime. Even the ancient Herodotus was still 2200 years after the actual building of the pyramids.


Few texts concerning Egyptian engineering methods have survived the centuries, and in recent years experimental archaeology has been the main means for discovering the methods used for building the structure. Despite this, there are still many questions concerning the quarrying, dressing and transportation of the stone building blocks, let alone the methods by which they were placed meticulously in position.How these stones were cut is great mystery. Even with today's technology the cutting of these stones is an awesome task.Now there are all types of theories about the construction of the Great pyramid but there are further questions still about how the gigantic edifice was erected on a totally horizontal base, and aligned precisely with the stars.


It is clear that the Egyptians were using their knowledge of the stars to assist them in their architectural projects They were very particular about the direction the pyramid would be facing. The Egyptian astonomers had incredible skill lining up the sides of the pyramids on a particular star which causes the sides to face almost exactly North, South, East, and West.They usually achieved this with an error of less than half a degree.
The Great Pyramid is built on a perfectlu level ground. Its level is so exact that it varies less that 1/2 inches over the 13 acres. This is an amazing feat for the ancient surveyors and would have been difficult, if not almost impossible to match, even today with our advanced technology.



The Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, Egypt, demonstrates the remarkable character of its placement on the face of the Earth.
The Pyramid lies in the center of gravity of the continents. It also lies in the exact center of all the land area of the world, dividing the earth's land mass into approximately equal quarters.
The north-south axis (31 degrees east of Greenwich) is the longest land meridian, and the east-west axis (30 degrees north) is the longest land parallel on the globe. There is obviously only one place that these longest land-lines of the terrestrial earth can cross, and it is at the Great Pyramid!

One very unusual feature of the Great Pyramid is a concavity of the core that makes the monument an eight-sided figure, rather than four-sided like every other Egyptian pyramid. That is to say, that its four sides are hollowed in or indented along their central lines, from base to peak. This concavity divides each of the apparent four sides in half, creating a very special and unusual eight-sided pyramid; and it is executed to such an extraordinary degree of precision as to enter the realm of the uncanny. For, viewed from any ground position or distance, this concavity is quite invisible to the naked eye. The hollowing-in can be noticed only from the air, and only at certain times of the day. This explains why virtually every available photograph of the Great Pyramid does not show the hollowing-in phenomenon, and why the concavity was never discovered until the age of aviation.
It was discovered quite by accident in 1940, when a British Air Force pilot, P. Groves, was flying over the pyramid. He happened to notice the concavity and captured it in the now-famous photograph.

Aerial photo by Groves, 1940

Ikonos satelliteAerial photo by Groves


Although Classical Egyptologist's maintain that there is no significance to the way the pyramids are laid out, be it the terrain of the plateau or just an accident, recent studies has raised another possibility, were the pyramids built in a specific manner or more importantly, were they built in a specific position?
Below are two pictures one an aerial view of The Great Pyramids and the other a picture of The Belts Of Orion:

From the dimensions of the Great Pyramid, one can clearly see that the knowledge displayed there is more advanced than the Egyptians or any human civilization had at that time.
This pyramid is an architectural feat that cannot be duplicated with our modern technology and advanced knowledge.
So, there's still a lot of questions regarding WHO, HOW and WHY was the Great Pyramid built.


The Pyramids are shared world culture and heritage site and as the only remaining of the 7 Ancient Wonders are designated as the Honorary New7Wonders Candidate.

When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, his pride was expressed through his famous quote:"Soldiers! From the top of these Pyramids, 40 centuries are looking at us".
There are two centuries more, loking at us now and there will be much more looking at our future.

Aurora Borealis - Gift From The Sun

Long ago,some Asians thought the lights were dragons battling in the sky. Russians thought that it meant the spirits were lighting the way for a new birth of a child. To some Scandinavians, the auroras indicated a change of luck, good to bad, bad to good. American Indians thought that the red auroras were fires of enemies ready to battle and white auroras the torches of spirits fishing at night. New Zealand Natives considered auroras as campfires of lost souls. Other stories said that auroral displays were for reminding them of their creator or to announce the end of the world. Fifty years ago people believed that auroras were nothing but reflecting light from the sun or moon on the ice or from crystals in the atmosphere. In 1619, Galileo named the glow in the sky "Aurora" after the Roman goddess of the dawn. He mistakenly believed the glow was a reflection of the dawn. He was wrong, but the name stuck.

So, what are Auroras?

Aurora Borealis is celestial phenomenon of bands, curtains or streamers of coloured light that appear in the sky predominantly in the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the earth.
The lights by the North Pole are now called the Aurora Borealis - Northern lights. The South Pole lights are called the Aurora Austrealis - Southern lights. Not many people can see the Southern lights. It wasn't until 1773 when James Cook reported he saw them on a voyage in the South Seas, and it became known that the South Pole had auroras. Usually the North and South Poles auroras happen at the same time, and when they do, they have the same exact patterns, only reversed, like a mirror. Now that, you have to admit, is pretty cool!

Auroras are gift from the sun.
The sun gives off high-energy charged particles (also called ions) that travel out into space at speeds of 300 to 1200 kilometres per second. A cloud of such particles is called a plasma. The stream of plasma coming from the sun is known as the solar wind. As the solar wind interacts with the edge of the earth's magnetic field, some of the particles are trapped by it and they follow the lines of magnetic force down into the ionosphere, the section of the earth's atmosphere that extends from about 60 to 600 kilometres above the earth's surface. When the particles collide with the gases in the ionosphere they start to glow, producing the spectacle that we know as the auroras. The array of colours consists of red, green, blue and violet.

The Northern Lights are constantly in motion because of the changing interaction between the solar wind and the earth's magnetic field. The solar wind commonly generates up to 1000,000 megawatts of electricity in an auroral display and this can cause interference with power lines, radio and television broadcasts and satellite communications

Big Bang - The Beginning?

The big bang theory of cosmology says that the universe came into existence in a single event some ten or twenty billion years ago from a single, infinitely dense and hot pointlike ball of light, smaller than the smallest atom. In a fraction of a second, it expanded trillions of times creating all of the space, matter and energy that now makes up the galaxies and stars. The universe has been expanding and cooling since that initial event.


The Big Bang is often thought as the start of everything, including time, making any questions about what happened during it or beforehand nonsensical. Recently scientists have instead suggested the Big Bang might have just been the explosive beginning of the current era of the universe, hinting at a mysterious past.



One of the biggest mysteries in cosmology could be explained by a controversial theory in which the universe explodes into existence not just once, but repeatedly in endless cycles of death and rebirth.

Called the cyclic universe theory, it could potentially explain why a mysterious repulsive form of energy known as the "cosmological constant" and which is accelerating the expansion of the universe is several orders of magnitude smaller than predicted by the standard Big Bang model.
The constant was once much larger, but that its value decayed with each incarnation of the universe.
Because there can be endless cycles, the universe would be far older than the 14.7 billion years that scientists currently estimate.


A new theory for the origin of the Universe is intriguing astronomers with the idea that a "Big Splat" preceded the Big Bang.
It proposes that there may be an unseen parallel universe to ours.
The idea, which is still at the development stage, may provide hints about what happened before our Universe exploded into existence some 15 billion years ago.
M-theory looks at events before the Big Bang, proposing that the Universe has 11 dimensions, six of them rolled up into microscopic filaments that can, for all intents, be ignored.
M-theory brings the idea of more than one universe embedded in higher-dimensional space.
The action of the Universe takes place in five-dimensional space. Before the Big Bang occurred the Universe consisted of two perfectly flat four-dimensional surfaces.

One of these sheets is our Universe; the other, a "hidden" parallel universe.



The question is : Will we ever find out the truth?