Giuliani and Robertson…what a JOKE!

Here we go again.  Fanatic TV personality Pat Robertson has come out to announce his support for Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.   This blatent attempt to persuade the Christian right is just plain sickening.  Yes, we all know Giuliani is less than perfect (heck, if he is elected, he’ll be the first divorced man in the White House)  I laughed when I read the headline to this story…literally.  Here is the first paragraph from it:

Pat Robertson, the television evangelist and Christian Coalition founder, endorsed Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani for president when the two men appeared together at the National Press Club in Washington on Wednesday.

Robertson said he decided to endorse Giuliani because he was “a proven leader who is not afraid of what lies ahead and who will cast a hopeful vision for all Americans.”

If that is the only reason Robertson is supporting Giuliani, then that is enough reason to support about 70% of the candidates.  What sickens me is that Robertson didn’t just come out of the woodwork to support his “pal” Giuliani.  He was sought out, and brought to the front so all the world could see that a, GASP, fundamentalist Christian supports this man.

and heck, if Robertson supports him…he MUST be good right?  HA!

Sadly, all the “Robertsonites” will blindly follow their leader’s word.  I mean, this makes sense after contributing thousands of dollars to his ministry wealth.

As I have said, religion and politics are arguably impossible to separate.  Especially when politicians seek campaign help from attention seeking millionaire “preachers”.

The Forgotten Art

Tolerance seems to override modern evangelism in today’s society. Many people wonder what it means to “evangelize” to a person or crowd. No, evangelism does not mean threatening others with a horrible afterlife. Let’s face it; this is hardly the “good news” that Paul and the first ‘Christians’ emphasized during their ministry. Unfortunately, many fundamentalist Christian sects will preach fire and brimstone as oppose to the true Good News. But what is the true good news?

The true Good News is that Jesus has risen from the dead and saved everyone from the pain and guilt of sin and death!

We can’t forget the roots of which we Christians have come. Consider the wise words of Paul:

“For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.” (Romans 5:12-20, NIV)

The Good News goes beyond the silly tracts and saying contemporary Christians have developed over the years. The Good News is Freedom. We need to start evangelizing Freedom instead of guilt. What good does a guilty conscience do for humanity? God does not want “fearful” converts. God wants a sincere heart that is eager to seek His love. Evangelism entails freeing the heart and soul of the individual – this is what the early Christians in antiquity preached. There was no “hell” talk, only rhetoric regarding the grace, truth, love, and freedom of Christ our Lord. There was only preaching about His eternal sacrifice (out of Love) for humanity. It is time we look beyond the man-made institutions of “worthiness”, and focus instead on Godlike forgiveness.

Is Pulling the Plug Murder?

I was in a conversation the other day about how hard of a decision it must be to tell the hospital to pull the plug on a loved one. I can’t even imagine how tough that must be emotionally. But are their immoral ethics behind pulling the plug for, say, Christians?

The Coward Commenter of Politics and Religion

As many of you know, the reason I have made this blog is to talk about the major topics within politics and religion in a civilized manner. These are two topics which are very important in society (see my free report for deeper inquiry on this), and it is a shame that people will shy away from them as if they are the black plague.

So, I created a haven to talk about these important issues. Some posts have been better than others; some posts received a lot of attention while others go unnoticed. And my favorite, Sometimes people will comment.

I think that comments are the power behind the blog. I actually started the blog because of the opportunity to not only talk about what I love, but to talk with others about what I love. Which brings me to one of the downfalls with blogs… the “coward commenter”.

Spirit or Soul (which one is it?)

Today I want to pose a question to anyone who visits this blog. I would like to get your honest thoughts on this concept. Often times we hear of religious leaders and people from every walk of life talk about the “soul”. People will claim to be in contact/be one with their soul. Some even claim that Jesus has spoken to their soul.

On the other hand, we have Paul and Jesus speaking about the spirit. The spirit is a very Jewish concept, derived from the Old Testament – the concept of the soul has been labeled a Greek invention.

So which is it? A Soul or a Spirit? Are they the same thing? Are they different? Why or why not?  I want to hear your beliefs.

Soul? Spirit? Both? Lay it on me.

Intellectual Honesty or Jesus?

It seems today that when it comes to religion, many people confront an unfortunate dichotomy. The choice is between intellectual honesty and Jesus. Many believe there is no way to reconcile the two.

The purpose of me writing this post is not for me to say why my interpretation is superior, but instead to present an alternate view that often goes unnoticed… too often different views can be silenced by the surprisingly large fundie presence online (i.e. the blog-o-sphere).

If you were in a room of 100 Christians, and asked, “how many of you knew someone that grew up in a religious environment and then walked away from their faith upon leaving for college?” then you would see 100 hands raised in the air.

Let me suggest why I believe this happens.

Analyzing Jesus: Was he really the Jewish Messiah?

Analyzing Jesus
Part Two: Was he really the Jewish Messiah?

In Part One of this series, we analyzed Jesus as a historical figure in history. The second part of this series is to address if Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, but in order to do that, we need to understand what Messianic Prophecies are. Scholars (Jewish and Christian) believe that the Bible (Old Testament) contains over 300 predictions about the Jewish Messiah. These predictions do not come from one source, but are from multiple authors in a variety of books ranging about 1,000 years. In other words, what we have here is an enormous “library” of statements made about the Jewish Messiah (what he will be like, what he will do, and so on).

Analyzing Jesus: The Historical Figure

Analyzing Jesus
Part One: The Historical Figure 

It’s about that time again. Time for me to start up a new series regarding religion/faith/Christianity. I can already tell that this series will be a long one, so get ready for the long haul. I will address Jesus on a variety of different fronts, trying my best to be objective (like a lawyer). Granted, I cannot completely rid myself of my preconceived biases, but I hope that you can, at the very least, respect my investigative reasoning.

a Letter to Atheists

The internet has opened a whole slew of avenues to obtain information, meet new people, and read up on different ideas. Until recently though (roughly about the time I started this blog) I had never had constant contact with individuals from the atheist community. Wow have things changed. Today I read (daily) atheist commentaries and I even contribute on a very popular atheist blog (as the Christian Contributor of course).

a Christian on the Sidelines

Below is a post that I did for an atheist website I contribute for… enjoy.
_________________________________________________

Christian Commentary 

Well I have a bit of a confession to make to this website…I have been struggling as of late as to what to contribute (especially since traffic has exploded the past couple weeks). During my time on the sidelines, I have enjoyed reading the various posts and people’s reactions to them. I admit that I have not jumped in as frequently as I once did due to an upcoming move I am preparing for.

It was during my time on the outskirts of this forum that I began to ponder the (for lack of a more sensitive term) “point” of atheist websites such as de-conversion. Now this is not meant to be an insult, but maybe more of a sociological question and hypothesis. To do a comprehensive study on the posts of this blog would take a substantial amount of time. However, in my informal examination, I came a few conclusions.

Agnostic and Atheist contributors/commentors usually come from one of two backgrounds (I apologize for the dichotomy, but the simpler the better). In one camp, there are the individuals who lost their faith because of resentment towards Church establishments. These individuals could not deal with the hypocrisy of their particular religious institution and began to turn away from their faith – and who could blame them? The unfortunate corruption of scripture (through the travesty of strict literalism) has put a big black spot on “religion”. Not too long ago, a post was done on this blog that criticized people for saying they were “spiritual”, not “religious”. I think that this distinction has to made given the nature of “religion” today (particularly by the 20th century Christian fundamentalist movement.) In the effort to avoid digressing too far, I will just say that separating spirituality from religion coincides with Jesus’ irreligion purpose:

“…How terrible it will be for you experts of religious law! For you crush people beneath impossible religious demands and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.” (Luke 11:46)

“How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law – justice, mercy and faith…” (Matthew 23:23)

It is clear that many Agnostic/Atheists walked away from Christianity (or whatever religion) because they were tainted by the hypocrites, and were burdened with “impossible religious demands” (perhaps aA falls into this category as I recall him once saying how free and clear his conscience felt once he renounced his faith). Sadly, religious fundamentalists tend to avoid the “important things of the law- justice, mercy, and faith”. Agnostic/Atheists in this group are often angry, and their writing/comments reflect their displeasure with corruption.

The second camp of agnostic/atheists are usually individuals who feel that it does not make sense logically, scientifically, etc. for the events that are recorded in say, the Bible, to have occurred. Posts by these contributors tend to create interesting “online debates” in the comments section. Naturally though, there is a distinct flaw within having such “debates” because, in most cases, definitions are improperly defined and there are too many assumptions made on both sides. In other words, the paradigms of the individuals are holding back any real progress in regards to Atheists and Theists. The Agnostic/Atheist is attempting to explain religion through empirical methods while Theists attempt the same by using theology. The mixing of these concepts into the other field is a clear injustice to both disciplines.

If you can recall, the purpose of this post was to try to figure out the point of such forums like this one… it is quite apparent that the main goal is to provide a haven for like-minded (and sometimes “unlike”-minded) individuals to have a community to fall back on…hm, kind of sounds like a Church . In other words, everyone wants to know others who believe the same. Yet what is it that Atheists and Agnostics believe? If the “De-Conversion Wager” on the side menu bar is an indicator of anything, then it appears that perhaps Atheists and Theists are not that different. Beyond the corruption, close-mindedness, and ignorance of both the religious and a-religious camps lies a similar desire. Boiled down, it looks as if the only difference that remains is determining where that “desire” comes from…and frankly, it doesn’t matter, because Atheists and Theists alike still have not fully embraced the concepts of love, mercy, compassion, and tolerance.