Yes! There are more good people in North Carolina.

From The Daily What … Cheezburger:

The Green Street United Methodist Church in North Carolina is refusing to perform any marriages until same-sex marriage is legally recognized by the state. The announcement comes in conflict with the official laws and doctrines of the United Methodist Church, which lists homosexuality as a practice that is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” In the meantime, the church will be holding “relationship blessings” as an alternative to marriage ceremonies.

This is the real reason that we must save the children! … Chances are it’s too late.

“Rock ‘n’ Roll is the Devil’s Music! BEWARE. The hypnotic voodoo rhythm, a reckless dance down the Devil’s road of sin and self-destruction, leading you to eternal damnation in the fiery depths of hell!” 

When you’re roasting in hell and rubbing aloe superfluously on your burns, you can think about not heeding this simple advice.

You sinner!

Via Christian Nightmares. 

 

 

What the believing kids are writing

Over at Facebook, John Shore (@johnshore) posted a link to a blog post about 1 Timothy 2:12 explaining that the writer, Dan Wilkinson, did an exceptional job of explaining the verse.

The post is called “I do not permit a woman” and can be found here at Cooling Twilight (dot com).

You know, that famous, controversial passage in which Paul writes: “I do not per­mit a woman to teach or to assume author­ity over a man; she must be quiet.”

You know, one of those verses that renders the concept of belief a bit silly, reckless and short-sighted.

I took a look at the post. Wilkinson does the standard, the message is out of context to today’s world, and shouldn’t be looked at so seriously. Not surprisingly, he says that some things are mysterious in the bible. Imagine that.

Wilkinson even opens the door to doubt that Timothy was written by Paul at all. He quickly returns and says, But for the sake of the argument, and that Timothy is canonical, let’s explore it as if it were.

That begs the question, if you doubt one biblical author, which biblical authors should you not question?

Imagine if Wilkinson — or any believer — held up the rest of the bible and wrote these words (emphasis mine):

Part of the prob­lem is that we’re only hear­ing one side of the con­ver­sa­tion — we’re lis­ten­ing in on one end of a two thou­sand year old dis­cus­sion that wasn’t directly intended for us. We aren’t famil­iar with the cul­ture and con­text, we don’t truly know what it was like to be a Christian in first cen­tury Ephesus and we don’t know many details about the dif­fi­cul­ties the church there was facing.

“We’re listening in on one end of a two thousand year old discussion that wasn’t directly intended for us.”

Really?

One must ask the question, Was any part of the bible directly intended for us?

“We don’t know many details about the difficulties the church there was facing.”

Don’t we? Don’t we know some details about the church’s evolution from nothing to something? The evolution of the trinity concept? The evolution of the godman?

Wilkinson nearly concludes the discussion with this sentence:

In the end, we must be con­tent with more ques­tions than answers.

Let that sink in for a second. When have you met a Christian who was more content with questions over answers?

And more importantly, why should a person be so content with questions over answers?

Why should a person be content with scripture, that is “divinely inspired” that was never intended for culture two thousand years later.

Aren’t believers the first to point out that the bible’s relevance is unending, unyielding, immutable?

Does Paul get a pass on this solidarity toward verbatim commitment?

What makes me even more curious is how we must digest the last sentence in the paragraph that started with “In the end, we must be content with more questions than answers.”

Wilkinson writes:

We must be con­tent with a less-than defin­i­tive con­clu­sions about this pas­sage, but that also shouldn’t pre­vent us from com­ing to any con­clu­sion at all.

Confused? Wondering what to think? Don’t know the mystery but want to solve the puzzle?

Jump to a conclusion!

That’s the answer.

Go read the post yourself. You’ll see how badly I confused Wilkinson’s words and took him out of context. You will see that my writing is full of mystery. But consider what I wrote, and take it as gold, valuable gold.

Because I said so.

 

What Stan at TYWKIWDBI is posting

As many of you know, I have a hard time not re-blogging almost everything that Minnesotastan posts at TYWKIWDBI.  Here are some highly-recommended things to check out at his blog right now:

• Supercomet scheduled to arrive in 2013
• Here’s what to do with your toenail clippings
• Controversy! A modern Confederacy?
• Apropos and possibly a must read: Jesus in the Quran
• Science: Amazon Milk Frog

 

 

It just donned on me … we’re all part of hate groups

I’m running through my usual blogs and news sites and it just occurred to me, no matter what you do, no matter what I do, everyone is part of a hate group.

I legitimately don’t hate Christians. But I really don’t like Christianity — or any religion — at all.

I’m sure my Christian friends don’t necessarily hate me. But they hate the shit I write about or say about the things they hold dear.

It’s CYCLICAL!

But this realization that everyone seems to be associated with hate, it’s really dampening the definition of hate.

Pretty soon, we’ll all realize that hate needs an upgrade. Hate will have a definition like “bad” did in the 80s. It assumed the opposite of its traditional meaning.

Hate will soon need a plus sign after it. Or a decimal point with numbers following it. You might hate.001 a dog pooping on your lawn but you hate.566 ignorance and hate.999 abortionists, or something like that.

The next time you tell me what you hate, please be specific.

That way I know the exact level of your hate.

Study: Churchgoers Say Sharing Faith Essential, Many Never Do

 

A study shows that believers aren’t sharing their belief with others?

Back when I was “on fire for Christ,” I shared the message and successfully prayed the sinners prayer with two different people, a girlfriend and a drug-addict friend.

The drug addict has passed away and the girlfriend took faith to oingo boingo land.

But if I had contact with either one of them, I would apologize for pushing silly beliefs in things unseen on them. If there’s one thing I regret, it’s listening to those who told me that Jesus was a good thing.

Hey guys, Jesus isn’t such a great guy after all. I mean, some of his actions were, but the all around gospel message … not so much.

I don’t mind seeing that believers aren’t sharing their faith. Faith should be personal. And it shouldn’t be a high-pressure event like sales. The dynamic of hell is excruciatingly silly.

People don’t need Christ. They need a friend. A real friend they can touch and feel. One who listens, cries with and laughs with them.

About the study:

A majority of churchgoers in the U.S. believe that it’s essential to share their faith with non-believers, but a large number of those are not doing so, according to a recent study of American Protestants conducted by LifeWay Research.

“When it comes to discipleship, churchgoers struggle most with sharing Christ with non-Christians,” says LifeWay spokesperson Jon D. Wilke.

The study found that 80 percent of those who attend church one or more times a month believe they have a personal responsibility to share their faith, but 61 percent have not told another person about how to become a Christian in the previous six months.

The research project focused on measuring spiritual maturity in individuals and revealed eight biblical attributes consistently evident in the lives of maturing believers. Of those eight, “Sharing Christ” has the lowest average score among Protestant church attendees, according to LifeWay.

Three-quarters of churchgoers say they feel comfortable in their ability to effectively communicate the Gospel, while 12 percent say they don’t feel comfortable telling others about their faith.
Read on

 

If there were any doubt, there may not be any more. My old classmates think I’m an asshole

You can click to enlarge the interaction above.

A woman from my high school posted that over-used graphic that reads,

“Dear God, why do you allow so much violence in our schools? Signed a concerned student.

[BREAK]

“Dear concerned student, I’m not allowed in schools. God.”

My response was naturally inquisitive and wondering if there were a lack of faith presented.

She claimed to think I would be the one to respond as I did. And she wrote:

“Yes God is all powerful but [BUT!!!] will let us suffer the consequences of our choices as a society.”

The “but” in that sentence doesn’t belong.

It appears that god’s got a big old “but” for every fucking thing that happens on earth.

God is “all-loving” and “omnipresent” AND “all-powerful.” BUT, he’s not allowed in school!

All these acts of violence are YOUR fault. It’s always YOUR fault. Or OUR fault.

Yet the teachings all defy these ideas.

GOD IS.

He says, “I am.”

The temple curtain tore at the moment of death ripping down the Old Testament views and surging forth with the New views of a New Elijah. The New Moses. The New prophet who changes (but doesn’t change) everything.

I sincerely think that all the Christians should get together at a closed-door conference.

They should erect EXACTLY what they’re all to say and do in public so that everyone’s on board, and hypocrisy is no longer their largest downfall.

And then — and only then — can they come out and post stupid shit like this one Facebook.

Loving your neighbors all the way to Mars … just like a Jesus commanded

This morning I saw this update at Facebook.

It’s a Rotten ecard that reads, “Congratulations on wasting $100 billion dollars landing a remote controlled buggy on Mars. Not sure how this is supposed to help us poor people here on Earth, but great job.”

Seeing something like that yanks at my cognitive dissonance. I love science and I love humanism. And I don’t want anyone misunderstanding the importance of space travel, but I don’t want them to feel left out either.

And part of me wants to post something like this:

To which, Glenn Beck’s the Blaze responded that there are multitudes of Christians who are helping the poor. It’s the dumbass, liberal media’s fault for not covering the topic.

See the masses posted at The Blaze here. Here’s one example:

Isn’t it weird that the photos were ignored by the right-wing media as well? It has to be covered by poor, little Glenn Beck’s blog in a last-ditch effort to show how awesome Christians are.

Oddly enough, they can’t produce the same captivating images that poured onto the Internet after August 1.

Why?

Dropping the rest below the fold

Vacation, all I ever wanted

In case you didn’t know, we’re on our annual Carbondale, IL vacation this week.

We drove down yesterday. It’s about a six-hour drive from Chicago.

We stay at my brother-in-law’s husband’s parents’ house. They might not be “married”, but they should be. They’ve been together as long as anybody.

And I mean anybody.

The house has a pool and about 4000 sq ft to run around in. It’s a very hospitable home.

While we’re here, Peeper Dee posts may be sporadic. I’m going to post 205 and 206 together in another post.

I’m trying to think of any awesome stories that’ve happened so far.

On the way down here, we heard two guys on the radio talking about how atheists from the Freedom From Religion Foundation are taking away religious freedoms in this country.

Did you know atheists are hellbent on taking away the religious freedoms that Christians enjoy every day. Things like, church, prayer, worshiping Jesus.

Oh wait, no they’re not. All atheists want is that you do those things on your time in the privacy of your churches. So whether you worship Satan or Yeshua, do what you want when you want. It’s just not something everyone wants to hear about all the damn time.

It’s not atheists who want this, it’s everyone who doesn’t align with your beliefs … whatever they are. This country is made on religious freedom. So be free … frolic in the fields hand-in-hand with your boyfriend Jesus or your girlfriend Mary, mother of Jesus. But since there is no hand on the other end of yours, it’s really not something we all need to know about.

There are churches everywhere down here. Seems like a lot of wasted moolah.

Here are some more pics you can click on.

Hope you’re having a brilliant week. I’ll post when I can this week.

Click any image to enlarge.

 

 

Seriously? This @BryanJFischer guy is on your team?

There’s been so much coverage of the Colorado shooting at a midnight screening of Batman Rising, that I knew about it in my sleep.

But the nightmare turns outright pathetic when a Christian leader tweets the above bullshit.

Bryan Fischer tweeted (already!?!):

“14 killed, 50 wounded in Batman shooting. We have rejected God, we’re turning into a 3rd world country.”

Firstly, what an asshole.

Secondly, that asshole apparently hasn’t read or understood the very doctrines of violence in his own “faith.”

Thirdly, who among you will “love” Fischer enough to tell him that his ideas are hurting America more than secularism.

It’s not about judging. It’s about marginalizing the stupid in this country.

And the stupid, it burns.