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Archive for the ‘Faith’ Category

“Few things are cuter than an evangelical atheist.”

What is an evangelical atheist?  An atheist is a person who declares and/or believes that there is no god. An evangelical atheist is a person who dedicates themselves to preaching the “good news” that there is no god.  It is an amusing phenomenon indeed.  If there is no god, what does it matter if anyone believes that there is a god or not? And that is why they are so “cute”. Their own doctrine declares that “there is no purpose to life”, after all, there is no god, we are just accidents of nature, the result of endless eons of mindless mutations and when we die then that’s “all she wrote”, there’s nothing left.  So what does it matter what they believe, or what anyone believes?  Why should they care?  But many of them do.  They make it a point to try and persuade folks to their belief – which is in nothing.  Weird.  They are as fanatical in their belief as any ayatollah from Iran, and as bereft of logic.  It matters not what scientific proof of anything one can show them, such things are either ignored or interpreted by their mantra – “We’ll follow our investigation in any direction that it leads – as long as it does not lead toward God.”  It is my belief that since they can’t live within the framework of their own invented world that they have to create a reason to live.  And that reason to live seems to be simple – in order to tell others that there is no reason to live.

[Soapbox mode:  Off]

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into 50 pounds of flour until it spread through all of it.”  Matthew 13:33

One of the oft overlooked parables about the Kingdom of Heaven is the one comparing the Kingdom of Heaven to yeast. Yeast has long fascinated me.  I recall waaay back in time when we were at the “Morbach” school.  The older kids were having science classes and we got to look through the microscope as well. They took some yeast that had been activated and placed it on the slide.  It did not look like much, but as we looked through the microscope we saw the yeast cells busy multiplying themselves. What was not obvious from the microscope slide was the byproduct of their growth, the generation of gas which when combined with the elasticity of the gluten in the flour resulted in the rising of the dough. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a movement afoot in which folks declare “We can’t know anything for certain except that we should ‘love’ everyone.” The comments are well meant, after all, folks want to “do what Jesus would do”.  The intention is to convince everyone to walk around “loving on everyone” and creating “one big happy family” out of human kind by ignoring any notion of right or wrong.

On the other hand, there are others who condemn anyone and everyone who disagree with them. They tend to have a legalistic outlook on life and see anyone who disagrees with their particular brand of theology as “obviously headed for hell in a hand-basket”. Their attitude seems to be “my way is better even that God’s way” and “Real love smacks people upside the head for not toeing MY line.”

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Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40 – NIV)

Fathering, intransitive verb : to care for or look after someone as a father might.  It is, after all, a simple word, but not so simple to define.  To some, the word “fathering” is merely the act of inseminating a woman, as in “he fathered her child and then left for greener pastures.”  But to beget a child, to my way of thinking, is not truly fathering the child.  Any male can beget offspring, a true man fathers a child.  When I use the term I mean that a true man invests in the long term life of the child by providing for the child’s needs.  Not just providing “three squares and a roof” but rather providing a framework within which the child can grow and mature and gain their independence in a healthy way. Read the rest of this entry »

It was almost time for bed and I was getting ready to shutdown my computer for the night when the news started to pop up on Facebook™ as various friends posted in various ways the latest news flash – “Osama bin Laden has been killed.”   I walked in to where my wife was watching the news and asked her to put on one of the international channels.  They were reporting what little they knew on the subject and droned on and on ad infinitum ad nauseum as they awaited the pleasure of the president of the United States to make his official statement.  Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I had a discussion online with someone regarding a picture I’d posted that “rubbed them wrong”.  (the actual words were “Where is the ‘Dislike’ button?”)  The objection came from different interpretations of the command to not take the Lord God’s name in vain.  In the course of the discussion the idea of trusting God came up.  I mentioned that to me God is my all in all.  He is my Doctor, Mechanic, Gunsmith, Watchman and more .  I trust Him to care for me in all areas of my life.  The other person replied, essentially, “You don’t really trust in God as you carry a gun.” Since the conversation had carried on long enough (more than long enough probably) I let that go unanswered at the time – but the idea keeps bouncing around in my head.  What does it mean to trust God? Read the rest of this entry »

When someone falls, you can kick them while they’re down or you can give them a hand to get back on their feet. Some folks will try to drag you down to their level, some will ignore your offered assistance, others will let you help them back up. You won’t know who’s who until you try.

“16 Dead Bodies Confirmed Resurrected from the Dead”- thus ran the headlines that blazed like wildfire through the Facebook religious community. Perhaps it’s my scottish blood, perhaps it’s my (Show Me State) land of birth, but somehow I tend to be sceptical of claims without good credentials.  Just because someone says it’s true because they heard it repeated by  someone they  know who heard someone speak about someone who knew someone related to the person who heard from the person who was there does not make it true. It is interesting that the Gospel accounts give names and places.  The Marys went to the tomb to anoint the body.  Peter and John ran to the tomb. All the apostles but Thomas were there.  500 people witnessed the bodily presence of Jesus the Christ – many of whom were still living at the time of the writing about this event.  There were plenty of first hand witnesses who were named and who could be interviewed at the time of the writing of the accounts.

In the matter above, however, there were flags in the account I read that waved “Warning!” from the beginning.  Read the rest of this entry »

Born to live, born to die, born to be crucified.
The babe from Bethlehem grew to be The Man.
From Mary’s womb the Creator came,
From that point on history was not the same.

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