"Part-time Christian? Backslider? There's a special hell 4 U."
Other side:

"The bottom line Jesus loves you"

Church of the Nazarene (Albion, MI)

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Consider that the odds to die in a car crash are astronomically higher. Additionally, how much does a passenger plane cost? Or class action lawsuits?

Don't get me wrong I don't believe it's a conspiracy, just that I don't think it's in the government or airline industries best interest to increase security solely to save lives. And also something the media would loathe to address.

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...shouldn't it still be a right?

Like the right to choose to bear arms? The right of an adult to choose to smoke or drink? The right of free speech? The right to choose to picket funerals to further a homophobic agenda? The right to choose your religion? Or non-religion? The right to choose between Samsung and Sony? The right to choose gasoline, hybrid or electric? The right to choose blue jeans or slacks? The right to choose Democrat, Republican or other? The right to send your kids to public or private schools?

Either way. It shouldn't matter whether homosexuality were a choice, environmental or genetic.

I suppose some of the above rights I've rattled off come with certain caveats. As pertaining to the right of free speech whereby it does not apply to the shouting of "fire" in a crowded theater. That the right to bear arms doesn't necessarily apply to concealed weapons.

Alas, homosexuality is not a choice. If it were, there shouldn't be any caveats like: you can be gay, but don't tell anybody; you can be with your partner but not in the same way that heterosexuals legally are; or as pertains to adoption, hospitalization or insurance benefits.

If we take religion out of the equation, what do we have? A non-issue! A big fat non-issue! Almost all the arguments against homosexuality and homosexual relationships hinge almost exclusively on religious scripture. Granted there are other reasons why someone may oppose homosexuality but I haven't explored that rationale and, besides, such opposition is probably so remote and minimal as to be a non-issue in itself.

This, I believe, is why many atheists have allied themselves with gay rights' causes and sentiment. It's discrimination based on a religious viewpoint.

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"If your god has to make peace with me on my final secs when he has my whole lifetime to prove his existence to me.......
Do you think I should bother?"

- Beast

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larro,

"FOR THE SON OF MAN SHALL COME IN THE GLORY OF HIS FATHER WITH HIS ANGELS; AND THEN SHALL HE REWARD EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS WORKS." Matt. 16:27

Prayers are designed for humans on Earth to ask for riches, fortunes, and rewards above. These riches can come in the form of money, better paying jobs, better health, and happier relationships.

According to a recent study, the main reason why some Christians have not achieved their financial goals is simply because they have never asked.

Anybody heard of such a "study"? I'd like to see it.

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larro,

Sometimes in our lives, it seems like the Devil is paying attention to us but God isn't. You must not blame God, but instead show your faith to Him, so that he may come to your rescue.

If you pray, pray more. If you haven't posted an urgent prayer request to the Christian Prayer Center yet, now is the time.

Ask for God's protection right now so that he may be the enemy to your enemies.

 Okay, why in the hell would I want a neglectful god to rescue me? And sorry, it doesn't "seem like the Devil is paying attention" either. I don't believe in God or the Devil.

 I want God to be somebodies enemy? What if my enemy is under God's protection already? Besides, who's to say I have enemies anyway? If I did have enemies what is God going to do to them? Send a hurricane to devastate their city? Or an earthquake?

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I was listening to NPR today (on my drive to work in the morning) and there was a segment on Morning Edition concerning US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan.

What struck me was their ideas about war. Now, I absolutely can not speak from experience, but needless to say there was a gong-ho attitude regarding what war is about.

I must say, needlessly as well, that the United States is not officially at war at the moment (with the exception of North Korea) that has been declared by Congress.

Aside from some of the rhetoric in the piece on NPR, what got me thinking about the "Romantization of War" was how there is a dichotomy, or disconnect, involving our perception of what it means to "serve" our country in times of "war".

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Primarily I'm thinking of the teaching of the Theory of Evolution. What other side is there? Sure there are evolutionary biologists that differ in their opinions about the exactitudes of the Theory and have formed their own hypotheses (that they most often believe would build upon Darwin's Theory).

Now, there is the "other side" which pawns itself off as Creation "science". The proponents of which would very much like to see taught in public school systems. Creation "science" hinges on the premise that there is a Creator deity. A designer. That's fine and dandy if people want to believe that, but this type of "science" can not be taught in a secular public school system. Why? Because of it's religious bent. So, what exactly is this Creator? Who is he/she/it that created everything? These are philosophical questions best left out of science classes because with the teaching of Creation "science" will invariably lead to these questions and whoever is pushing a particular Creation "science" agenda would be displeased to learn that the Creator itself is being questioned (as should be) in a science classroom setting.

Yet, Creationists opine the secular godless "agenda" in the public school system. That there is a war on religion in the science classroom. Guess what Creationists (and especially those "patriots") we live in a secular society. Our Constitution prohibit the powers of the public sphere from endorsing any one religion over another.

The "agenda" lies not with the secular ideals that the United States was founded upon but with those who would seek to impose a narrow interpretation of our origins and our history. Does anybody truly think that if we lived in a Christian theocracy there would be any other alternative?

When I've watched videos and read blog posts from prominent Creation proponents I can take away nothing less than the fact that these people really want a Christian theocracy.

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larro,

With the world how it is, it's often hard to be grateful for what you have. You must look beyond your current situation, and reach for God's loving hand.

I want to help you, and that's why I set up the Christian Prayer Center. Please feel free to submit a prayer, and we will all pray for it to be answered.

http://www.christianprayercenter.com

God Bless,

Pastor John Carlson
Senior Pastor
info@christianprayercenter.com

 Okay, it really isn't all that hard to ascertain from this message that 1) it's pretty darn pessimistic to assume that everybody is on hard times, 2) everybody needs a helping hand and 3) that the answers/relief are found with a god.

How "is" the world anyway? It just IS!

And a "loving" God!? He must be one "tough loving" sonofabitch what with all the calamity and catastrophe in Haiti! Oh, but I forget, [one of] the very mouthpiece[s] of God (aka Pat Roberston) has revealed to us simpletons that the people of Haiti are devil-worshippers and must be deserving of their fate. Holy shit! God is one smiting motherfucker!

...just the guy I'd like to reach out for in my time of need!

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A few days ago I clicked on an ad out of complete curiosity (I think it was on Facebook). It was for a site called Christian Prayer Center. I wanted to see what people were praying for or, more accurately, what they were requesting prayer for. I think I had to join in order to view the "prayer requests" so I did. Needless to say, now I get email notifications about every other day such as the one below. I thought it was pretty hilarious.

larro,

Have you ever thought about how you can bring your Christian faith to the next level and have your prayers answered more effectively?

If you have ultimate faith in God, but would like to be closer to Him, I urge you to consider becoming an Ordained Christian Minister.

If you are willing to pledge your ultimate faith to God, I invite you to register to become an Ordained Minister, by clicking the link below:

http://www.christianprayercenter.com/ministers.html

By being an Ordained Minister, you will be able to guide others on the path of God, perform weddings, help friends and family with faith healing, financial blessing requests, relationship healing, and more.

God Bless You,

Pastor John Carlson
Senior Pastor
info@christianprayercenter.com

Simple as that!!!

Q: What are the requirements to becoming a Christian minister?

A: To be accepted as a Christian minister you must meet the following three requirements:
You must believe in God as the one true God.
You must accept Jesus Christ as our true and holy savior.
You must pray for the forgiveness of your past sins.
Q: I have lived a life of sin. Am I still eligible to become a minister?

A: Yes. We are all sinners and God knows that. However, before becoming a minister, you must pray for forgiveness of all your past sins.

Q: Can I start my own church once I become an official ordained Minister from the Christian Prayer Center?

A: Yes, there is nothing that would please God more. When a new disciple creates a house of God to worship and pray, God leads the way.

Q: Will I be able to collect offerings from my congregation?

A: God asks that all faithful Christians contribute to help his work. Whether you run a neighborhood Bible Study or a small town congregation, you will be encouraged to seek financial support from those you lead.

What's funny too, is that I created a profile and specifically stated that I was an atheist. Wonder how long before a) my account gets deleted or b) I get a flood of prayers in my email. LOL

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I want to start a website that gathers under one roof as many atheist, skeptic, agnostic, secular humanist and freethought blogs that I can possibly find. To bring the atheosphere to a nexus point.

I envision that this site will connect bloggers and help them to discover and aggregate information that circulates through the atheosphere. But this is not the ultimate goal I have in mind. I would also like to  create a massive database with statistics on all these blogs. Site traffic, post ranking, post frequency, comment frequency, etc.

I'd also have the site scour blog postings for external links to news articles for trending topics. The site would also have aggregation capability within specific (almost limitless) categories and topics. An "atheist blog search engine". Resources for bloggers on technical issues with their blogs; like notifying a blogger if their RSS/Atom feed is not parsing correctly.

Yes, I am aware of the multitude of other sites that do things similarly but not one I can think of that does them all. Sadly, I haven't the expertise in conducting such an endeavor. I've only just recently started reading up on PHP so I'm an absolute complete noob in this regard. But I want to build the site from scratch and I am completely lost except for conceptualization. Maybe it's time to go back to school.

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Sounds ridiculous right? Well, it is. It's a false headline.

However, this one isn't: Ohio Teacher In Hot Water For Burning Cross Into Skin of Students

Now, I've been aware of and been following this story for some time now. But it got me thinking...

I challenge, CHALLENGE anybody to dig up a story of a non-believing/atheist teacher doing something similar.

You see, it's stories like this that don't really help me to get away from beating up on straw men. People like this make it so easy to stereotype Christians as wackos and nutters. And then of course there's the True Scotsman argument that gets thrown around. The argument that I despise with my entire being..."Oh, but he's not a TRUE Christian!" Bullshit. This teacher reads the same bible as every other Christian on the planet.

More searching reveals that John Freshwater attends Trinity Assembly of God in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Which has "16 Fundamental Truths" of what they believe including speaking in tongues. Pentecostal. Why am I not surprised? *sigh*

I believe John Freshwater's teaching license should be revoked indefinitely.

And atheists are irrational!?

More...

• Science teacher can't recall Lego lesson

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This is sad actually. Gregarius, an opensource project that you can install on your own server, has been discontinued for some time now. However, there was/is so much potential for this application.

Gregarius is a feed reader much like Google Reader.

I've installed it here on my home server (this computer I'm typing at):

Atheist, Humanist & Freethinker's Blogs

I wish I knew how to code in PHP because I would love to write some scripts for it; like being able to post a given article to Twitter or Facebook like you can do on Collected. Gawd, that would be awesome. I like Gregarius though because I can categorize feeds and tags articles. It's just so potentially customizable it ain't funny.

So what do my readers think?

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Well, I guess this is my first post on Posterous about being vegan.

We as citizens are subject to the market influence of agri-business. Sure, I am too. I'm not saying I am immune to the clenched fist of this nefarious industry as it extends into every pore of our dietary lifestyles, yet I try to abstain from consuming any animal or animal by-product wherever I can. I even look at clothing labels to make sure nothing is leather or made from wool. Once in while I may flub something and assume that a product is "animal friendly" and continue on through the check-out and later find that I was an idiot and didn't read the label. In all actuality I am not a true vegan but I try my damnedest.

However, how can we really know something that we purchase is "animal friendly" unless we abstain from the whole consumer marketplace? By which we actually produce our own cotton and our own garden veggies? To be self-sustaining? I for one would, on one point, wholeheartedly endorse such endeavors. But we are inundated with an environment that espouses a lax consumerism by which people just don't care where their "stuff" comes from. I must emphasize "don't care", because we really don't care even on second thought. There really is a "third thought".

So, as a society, on the second point we can't possibly alienate agri-business. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that agri-business, as it stands now, is anywhere but ethical; but that market forces dictate that consumers "get what they want". Therefore we change things by voting with our wallets and pocketbooks.

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Okay, it wasn't exactly volunteering as I could have opted out.

Tonight, I and a fellow co-worker, volunteered our time after work hours (though we still got paid to do so) to drive a group of senior citizens around the city and a neighboring town to see the Christmas lights. I had a lot of fun (although I consider my job a lot of fun anyway). I got to meet some new clients which is a rare treat (I hope I get to have them again on a regular basis).

They had a blast as well. I was surprised to learn, though, that they had no idea that the trip entailed going to the neighboring town. My first thought was: "Uh, oh" because we had already hit the business loop and it was my understanding that they all knew what the scheduled route was. It wasn't a problem at all though, they were actually excited about this new prospect. Bonus! Because, our neighboring town really goes all out with the Christmas decorations.

I must add though that there is a nativity on public property which I don't agree with (but, hey, I'm not a citizen of that community). If one of their citizens has a gripe about it I'll leave it up to them to file a complaint. Not my problem.

After we made our pass down the main drag we stopped at a local home that really goes all out (in a tactful way) with their Christmas decorations. We then went on to the local McDonalds (senior citizens? McDonalds? NO! LOL). We were scheduled to stop someplace where the clients could get a bite to eat and this is where they chose to go.

It was a lot of fun for me and a lot of fun for them. Many senior citizens don't drive or choose not to drive and are voluntarily homebound most of the time because they don't want to be a bother to their relatives when they need a ride somewhere; much less to drive around just to look at Christmas lights. It makes me feel really good when I see those smiles and hear those heartfelt thank yous'.

Oh, and it didn't cost them a dime. I work for a real non-profit funded by the State and the county I live in.

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...yet who elects these morons? The people of this country.

As I was perusing the news in my feed reader I stumbled onto this gem: Christian Scientists seek prayer provision. At first I was laughing at how ludicrous a notion this is until...

Such a provision was passed by committees in both the House and the Senate this year, but was stripped from the House bill as well as the current version being debated in the Senate.

What!?! This was actually being considered!? It was actually on it's way into becoming the wording in a Health Care Reform Bill.

What are we going to do? Pay priests, preachers, pastors, imams and gurus for medical care? This would legitimize all kinds of unsavory and fraudulent practices. I mean: are we going to license prayer? How will we know they are accredited? I got it!!! The prayer practitioner will have to show a success rate. There we go!

"Well, Mrs. Smith. I think I'm going to have to refer you to a specialist. I know a very good one."

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