So You Think Homosexuality Is Sinful?

I believe this tells it all. No need to add to this.

A Few "Just Because" And "What If's"

 I chose to use the "Just because" & "What if" phrases to highlight some of those questions that have been eating at me lately. Of course some of them are silly but to me they are legitimate concerns.

Just because I try to look at life differently than you, doesn't mean we cannot get along.
Just because I like to use reason doesn't make my opinions not count.
Just because I try to use my brain doesn't mean I am wrong for doing so.
Just because I do not believe in God, doesn't make me a bad person.
Just because I do not agree with your idea of morality doesn't mean I have none.
Just because I am skeptical of the Bible, doesn't mean I am against it.
Just because I question your beliefs doesn't mean I do not understand them.
Just because I think evolution answers the question about the origins of life doesn't make me against Chritianity.
Just because I do not agree with your faith doesn't make me demon possessed. 
Just because we have our differences doesn't keep us from celebrating our agreements.
Just because the Bible says it doesn't make it true.
Just because Jesus was a real person doesn't make him the savior of the world.
Just because because you can quote scripture doesn't mean you actually read the bible.
Just because you heard it on Fox, doesn't make it a true statement.
Just because you can pretend that God exists doesn't mean he does.
Just because you go to church, doesn't make you holier than me.

What if you actually read the Bible with an open mind?
What if you lived your life the way the Bible wants you too, and you found out in the end you were wrong?
What if Evolution was right and you wasted your life believing in a fantasy?
What if Baal was the correct God and you chose differently?
What if you found out you had cancer, who would you blame?
What if your conspiracy theory was wrong and the world was really being run by Aliens?
What if we wasted our life on religion when we should've spent it advancing human knowledge for our future children?
What if Rush Limbaugh was really a closet homosexual?
What if Global warming is true and we were blinded by our religion so much that we help cause the problem?
What if that the Republican party was actually destroying our country?
What if the constitution was just meant for the 13 original colonies?
What if they banned guns, would you buy a pitch fork & a torch?
What if this was meant for you, would you even know it?


Please feel free to comment or add some of your own. My list will probably increase on a weekly basis. Stop by or follow this blog for future postings

Pascal's Wager....WTF? Baal? oops wrong god!

  Living in a super conservative area in northern Indiana does have it's complications, especially if you are a skeptic when it comes to Christianity. Most, if not all, of my friends are what they would call "Christian" but that is a pretty broad statement even for a Catholic. Most of them try to attend church and live a "biblical" life. Or at least an appearance one. Their quest for religion and meaning remind me of Pascal's Wager,

1. If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain.
2. If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever: thus an infinite loss.
3. If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus a finite loss.
4. If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus a finite gain. 

 or Secular Web puts it this way,

 "If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).  - Keith Augustine

 I am sure that most of them have no clue to Pascal's wager but they live pretty much by this rule. This seems to be the norm. A few of my friends & some relatives go well beyond the norm but I will not get into that Hocus Pocus. As tempted as I am, I will only focus on my perceptions.

 I guess my biggest concern is what if they believe everything that they are being taught? Is that really faith or is it just following blindly? Even if you believe in God, how do you know it's the right one? What if you were faithful all of your life and died to find out that Baal was the correct God? Oops, that would be a real problem. According to the Bible in 1 Corinthians 8:6 NIV,

"6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."
  
 
After experiencing this in my personal life for years, I have decided that it is better to be skeptical and learn than to be a sheeple and be led down a path of fear and guilt. After all, we only have one life and we need to make sure we get the best out of it. Who knows, we may all be wrong.

Do Christians Really Read Their Bibles? Really?

Drawing by The Naked Pastor

"By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out."
Richard Dawkins

I recently read the book "Why I Believed:Reflections of a Former Missionary" by Kenneth W. Daniels and was taken back by the authors reasoning for his deconversion from Christianity. The reason for his deconversion was not just one thing but years of questioning through observation. As he says in his book;

    "My own journey away from Christianity began within as I reflected on the contradictory elements in the Bible, and on the conflict between fundamentalist Christianity and my observations of the real world. It was only after my doubts began that I undertook to read materials written from a skeptical perspective, and I quickly became struck by the magnitude of the evidence corroborating my initial doubts. Doubt cannot be imposed from the outside; it must begin from within."

 Wow! Contradictory elements? Conflicts? How can this be true? My pastors all told me that the Bible was inerrant and flawless. Why would a Christian missionary come to such conclusions? As I read on, I was amazed at how he came to such conclusions. Those conclusions led me down a path of questioning my long held notion of the Bible. Of course my Christian friends would find that damning or yet worse, blasphemy. But for me it was a personal course I needed to take. I figured that at worse there would be a few misunderstood passages or even some small translation problems. What I come to find out is there are many problems in both the Old & New Testaments.

Kenneth goes on to say;

    "Those who cannot allow their views to be subject to revision by data or arguments they may not have yet considered live in a separate world from mine."

  I have often wondered why I did not receive more teachings on the history or the authors of the books of the Bible. I was told that they were not important and there was no need to worry.  Over the years as a Christian, I was taught that the Bible was the Word of God and everything in it was truth. No questions asked.

 My questions are important so why not ask those questions? After all, it is my life at stake & my future is on the line. If my eternity lies in the understanding of this book, I would need to make sure that what it said was irrefutable fact. In order for me to understand the, I would need to read books written by some critical scholars by Agnostic, Deists and Atheists. To understand the arguments against the inerrancy Bible, I needed to do this a little at a time so I could understand the reasoning and proof. Books that have helped me look at this subject more closely have been the following;

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins
"The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture" by Darrel Ray
"Did Jesus Exist?; Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth" by Bart Ehrman

 I was amazed at my Christian friends reaction to my questioning. You would have thought I was out to convince everyone that the Bible was a lie and that we were all going to hell. Why is it that if you believe that the Bible is not errant, you are required to prove it yet if you believe it is inerrant, no proof is necessary? Shouldn't this be the other way around? Shouldn't we all be skeptical and not easily swayed to believe? Why should I be judged on my skepticism? We ask more questions when buying a house or a new car than we do of the Bible. Know wonder we are so divided in our "beliefs".

 My question to you is this, why do you believe the Bible is inerrant? For me, I am still skeptical.

"Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen." - Maimonides

My Disclaimer

If you are offended by my opinion(s), you should hear the ones I keep to myself. Feel free to challenge me, disagree with me, or tell me I’m completely nuts in the comments section of each entry. I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever (abusive, profane, rude, stupid or anonymous comments) – so keep it polite, please. Any disclaimer issued by me is subject to change without notice. Any opinions expressed are my own, and are generally unpopular with others. I reserve the right to be an equal opportunity offender.

Evolution vs Creationism's Claims

My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted. - Steven Wright

I found this great resource, An Index To Creationists Claims. It's about Evolution and their answers to Creationist claims. I do not claim to have all the answers but there are people out there that have the credentials to add some intelligent answers to those questions. So I believe that this is well worth the read.

 Please give it a read and let me know your opinions.

Jesus - Our Misconception

If you want to understand Jesus, you have to study the whole Bible. Christian duty is not defined solely by the words in red.  - Randall Terry

 "Most televangelists, popular Christian preacher icons, and heads of those corporations that we call megachurches share an unreflective modern view of Jesus—that he translates easily and almost automatically into a modern idiom. The fact is, however, that Jesus was not a person of the twenty-first century who spoke the language of contemporary Christian America (or England or Germany or anywhere else). Jesus was inescapably and ineluctably a Jew living in first-century Palestine. He was not like us, and if we make him like us we transform the historical Jesus into a creature that we have invented for ourselves and for our own purposes.
  Jesus would not recognize himself in the preaching of most of his followers today. He knew nothing of our world. He was not a capitalist. He did not believe in free enterprise. He did not support the acquisition of wealth or the good things in life. He did not believe in massive education. He had never heard of democracy. He had nothing to do with going to church on Sunday. He knew nothing of social security, food stamps, welfare, American exceptionalism, unemployment numbers, or immigration. He had no views on tax reform, health care (apart from wanting to heal leprosy), or the welfare state. So far as we know, he expressed no opinion on the ethical issues that plague us today: abortion and reproductive rights, gay marriage, euthanasia, or bombing Iraq. His world was not ours, his concerns were not ours, and—most striking of all—his beliefs were not ours.
  Jesus was a first-century Jew, and when we try to make him into a twenty-first-century American we distort everything he was and everything he stood for. Jesus himself was a complete supernaturalist. He believed in the Devil and demons and the forces of evil at work in this world. He knew little—possibly almost nothing—about the workings of the Roman Empire. But what little he knew, he considered evil. He may have considered all government evil unless it was a (future) theocracy to be run by God himself through his messiah. He certainly was no proponent of our political views, whatever our views happen to be.
  These forces of evil were asserting their control over the world with increasing vehemence. But Jesus thought that God would soon intervene and destroy them all to bring in his good kingdom on earth. This would not come from human effort—expanding democracy, building up national defense, improving the educational system, winning the war on drugs, and so on. Human effort counted for nothing. It would come from God, when he sent a cosmic judge to destroy the present order and to establish God’s kingdom here on earth. This was no metaphor for Jesus. He believed it was going to happen. And happen soon. Within a few years.
  Jesus was mistaken about that. He was mistaken about a lot of things. People don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. Jesus was a man of his own time. And just as all men and women of their own time are wrong about so many things, so too was Jesus. And so too are we.
  The problem then with Jesus is that he cannot be removed from his time and transplanted into our own without simply creating him anew. When we create him anew we no longer have the Jesus of history but the Jesus of our own imagination, a monstrous invention created to serve our own purposes. But Jesus is not so easily moved and changed. He is powerfully resistant. He remains always in his own time. As Jesus fads come and go, as new Jesuses come to be invented and then pass away, as newer Jesuses come to take the place of the old, the real, historical Jesus continues to exist, back there in the past, the apocalyptic prophet who expected that a cataclysmic break would occur within his generation when God would destroy the forces of evil, bring in his kingdom, and install Jesus himself on the throne. This is the historical Jesus. And he is obviously far too historical for modern tastes. That is why so many Christians today try to reform him."

 Ehrman, Bart D. (2012-03-20). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (pp. 334-336). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.



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