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March 10th, 2012
11:09 AM ET
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Imam dies in mosque arson attack in Belgian capital on Monday Evening 12 March.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17346927
Belgian coach crash in Swiss tunnel kills 28 on Tuesday Evening 13 March
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17362643
Strange how things work out and how it is when you make people suffer the suffering comes back to you... Heavenly Justice...
May GOD have mercy on all the deaths involved due to one sick mind..
Life is like a vapor.
You are not going to suffer forever. YOu can have all of eternity in joy and bliss.
For the pain and suffering of this world is incomparable to the glory to be revealed.
Your time is limited. Seventy or eighty years maximum, if you have strength.
You don't have all of the time you think you have to play with the sin and pleasures of this world. Live for Jesus now. For it is appointed for man or woman to die once, then afterwards comes judgement. Be heavenly minded and do not dwell on things of the earth that shall pass away.
Judgement is far from certain. Live as you feel is right and don't sweat the rest
Hitler felt it was right to slaughter millions. Some feel its right to ra_pe kids. Some feel that its right to publicly beh_ead "blasphemers." Truth is what matters. Not subjective feelings.
Christianity takes people away from actually working on real solutions to their problems.
Christian prayer has been shown to have no discernible effect towards what was prayed for.
Christianity prevents you from getting badly needed exercise.
Christianity makes you fat.
Christianity wears out your clothes prematurely.
Christianity contributes to global warming through excess CO2 emissions.
Christianity fucks up your knees and your neck and your back.
Christianity can cause heart attacks, especially among the elderly.
Christianity reveals how stupid you are to the world.
Christianity exposes your backside to pervert priests.
Christianity makes you think doilies are exciting.
Christianity makes you secretively flatulent and embarrassed about it.
Christianity makes your kids avoid spending time with you.
Christianity gives you knobbly knees.
Christianity makes you frothy like Rick Santorum. Just google him to find out.
Christianity dulls your senses.
Christianity makes you post really stupid shit.
Christianity makes you hoard cats.
Christianity makes you smell like shitty kitty litter and leads you on to harder drugs.
Christianity wastes time.
Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things. Need proof? See above.
Prayer does make you frothy like Rick Santorum. Just see http://santorum.com
Logic is our friend
"Prayer changes things"
The statistical studies from the nineteenth century and the three CCU studies on prayer are quite consistent with the fact that humanity is wasting a huge amount of time on a procedure that simply doesn’t work. Nonetheless, faith in prayer is so pervasive and deeply rooted, you can be sure believers will continue to devise future studies in a desperate effort to confirm their beliefs! .
By posting the Truth that "prayer changes things" the lie that follows is rendered ineffective. Praise God !
Mr. Driscoll could've replied to Mr. Morgan a bit more straight-forward, especially when Mr. Morgan stated that Mr. Driscoll had his fun before he was saved and now is trying to take the fun out of the youth who want to have their share of a pre-marital s-e-x life.
Mr. Driscoll could've firmly stated that it (that is illicit s-e-x) may appear and feel fun for those "few moments" of pleasure, but they have dire long-lasting consequences, not to mention it is in direct disobedience to God's word and standards (that is if you say you are a Christian).
"Mr. Driscoll could've firmly stated that it (that is illicit s-e-x) may appear and feel fun for those "few moments" of pleasure, but they have dire long-lasting consequences"
What are these "dire long-lasting consequences"?
Uhhh....look all around you!!! But if you still fail to see how the world is, let me type it here for you:
Teen pregnancy / S.T.Ds (at any age) / Fatherless children / Teen rebellion and delinquency / Abortion (at any age, but mostly teens) / Murdered children by their conscienceless single (and sometimes married) mothers and-or even stepfathers / a lack of compassion and loving-kindness ....need I write more?
I'm sure some of you will shoot back saying that not all illicit s-e-x brings about the above consequences, and you may be right to a certain degree, because illicit s-e-x is too broad of a practice to just limit it to the above list. But pre-marital and extra-marital s-e-x is a major contributor to the above mentioned consequences. And you would have to have the mind (and naivete) of a 2 year old child to not realize that.
georgie: 20% of the abortions are to teens. but, don't let facts deter you from frothing at the mouth
And teens being rebellious is nothing new. Were you young once, or were you born a codger?
The beauty of it all is that u were able to choose something to answer to. I have had too many such coincidences in my life to follow such simplistic notions. I do prefer not knowing cos knowing comes with responsibility. Hope u know too.
YHWH means either I am that I am (The Self Existent One), I am what I am (the Perfect One), I am what I will be( The Self Defined One) or I will be what I will be(The Undefined One) but never the God of War. The God of War comes from a ti.tle meaning the LORD OF HOSTS which may be added to YHWH.
Dear Heaven Sent: It never ceases to astound me that when you maintain that the Bible, et.al,. is just a myth, someone uses a quote from that myth to prove that it's not a myth. Yeah, we don't know everything, but we know a lot and we can now explain how things work without divine intervention. I have nothing against religion. You can believe in frogmen from the moon if you want to, but to quote the myth: "go to thy closet and pray." Keep it out of the public sector and especially politics.
Explain this away- When someone used the name God of Death, I mockingly responded I am a Set worshipper! Within 10 minutes I was involved in two minor accidents. The first car lost its back axle right after I wrote it and the second was smashed into from behind after I boarded it. Coincidence?
A blind man can swear there is nothing like light. He may also claim most truthfully that spectacles do not work. However since he is not alone we know that his truth is not the whole truth. The Bible answers why not how. Don't confuse the two!
"Coincidence?"
yes
Seems pretty c-o-c-k-s-u-r-e to claim that the bible is the complete truth
Using your intelligence no matter what your marital status is the key.
To wit: – only for the stupid people-
The Brutal Effects of Stupidity:
: The failures of the widely used birth "control" methods i.e. the Pill ( 8.7% failure rate) and male con-dom (17.4% failure rate) have led to the large rate of abortions and S-TDs in the USA. Men and women must either recognize their responsibilities by using the Pill or co-ndoms properly and/or use safer methods in order to reduce the epidemics of abortion and S-TDs.- Failure rate statistics provided by the Gut-tmacher Inst-itute. Doubling up i.e. using the Pill and a condom would be the intelligent thing to do.
Added information before making your next move:
from the CDC-2006
"Se-xually transmitted diseases (STDs) remain a major public health challenge in the United States. While substantial progress has been made in preventing, diagnosing, and treating certain S-TDs in recent years, CDC estimates that approximately 19 million new infections occur each year, almost half of them among young people ages 15 to 24.1 In addition to the physical and psy-ch-ological consequences of S-TDs, these diseases also exact a tremendous economic toll. Direct medical costs as-sociated with STDs in the United States are estimated at up to $14.7 billion annually in 2006 dollars."
And from:
Consumer Reports, January, 2012
"Yes, or-al se-x is se-x, and it can boost cancer risk-
Here's a crucial message for teens (and all se-xually active "post-teeners": Or-al se-x carries many of the same risks as va-ginal se-x, including human papilloma virus, or HPV. And HPV may now be overtaking tobacco as the leading cause of or-al cancers in America in people under age 50.
"Adolescents don’t think or-al se-x is something to worry about," said Bonnie Halpern-Felsher professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. "They view it as a way to have intimacy without having 's-ex.'" (It should be called the Bill Clinton Syndrome !!)
Obviously, political leaders in both parties, Planned Parenthood, parents, the "stupid part of the USA" and the educational system have failed miserably on many fronts.
Note: Some words hyphenated to defeat an obvious word filter.
Hi Really-O, thanks for the drink recipe, I'll try it and share it with my Dad too!
Btw, the earlier conversation was one i was havng with old "Father O'Blivion".
He's an Irish Catholic that fell away from the true Irish Whisky faith in order to become tainted with that evil single malt Scotch.
Actually, i must admit my part in this, as i too have a fondness for the peaty elixer.
Prayer changes things .
No, it doesn't.
Yes it does
~The statistical studies from the nineteenth century and the three CCU studies on prayer are quite consistent with the fact that humanity is wasting a huge amount of time on a procedure that simply doesn’t work. Nonetheless, faith in prayer is so pervasive and deeply rooted, you can be sure believers will continue to devise future studies in a desperate effort to confirm their beliefs!~~...
Prayer changes things
Proven .
"Prayer changes things
Proven ."
You've been proven a LIAR over and over again.
When you post the Truth first in response you negate the lie that follows it, thanks and God bless.
"When you post the Truth first in response you negate the lie that follows it, thanks and God bless."
More lies on top of more lies, you'll be burning in hell.
Prayer changes things .
So, how exactly does that work? If God knows all the future and past and has it all planned out, how can prayer change things? if it can that means humans have some power, however small, over God. if God can be compelled in some way by humans this creates a huge contradiction.
Prayer changes things. You will be travelling from London, England to San Francisco, California. You have 4500 years to get there. What route will you be taking and what will you see and do along the way? Will there be any opportunity for change?
I'll be using my jetpack.
You'll be riding a jackazz. Oh, wait. You ARE the jackazz.
Never mind.
Lonely lost loser, tom,tom.
5. Most contemporary NT exegetes do not believe in the Second Coming so apparently there is no concern about JC coming back on an asteroid or cloud of raptors/rapture.
I'm not sure about this point. I guess you may be correct (i haven't seen any surveys tabulating modern exegetes) but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true.
Btw, in Christian theology more than any other field i can think of, one should be wary of today's theological bandwagon. Western civilization is thick with ThDs teaching at high-end universities, who love to poo poo the 'outdated' notion of a real, personal God.
R. Bultmann
E. Kasemann
Earl Doherty
Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
Alvar Ellegård
G. A. Wells
Gregory Riley
Robert Eisenman
John Dominic Crossan
Robert Funk
Burton Mack
Stephen J. Patterson
Marcus Borg
Stevan Davies
Geza Vermes
Richard Horsley
Hyam Maccoby
Gerd Theissen
Bart Ehrman
Paula Fredriksen
Gerd Lüdemann
John P. Meier
E. P. Sanders
Robert H. Stein
Karen Armstrong
Albert Schweitzer (The Quest for the Historical Jesus)
Mahlon Smith
Elaine Pagels
@ reality:
aside from the fact that some on your list are dead (i.e., not contemporary), you are not accurately representing the AAR (American Academy of Religion). "Most contemporary exegetes" is a gross exaggeration.
Your tendency to cite Jesus Seminar advocates must also admit their minority position.
Of the over 10,000 scholars in the AAR, only about 150 are in the Jesus Seminar. Not even close to a majority.
Hey, Russ, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Or a pinhead? Either one will do.
Russ, good luck and God be with you, Reality has heard this time and time again. Hopefully this time his heart would be open.
The NT scholars so listed are those who dared to go outside the bible "bun-box". For example, some of their observations:
1. origin: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E1EFE35540C7A8CDDAA0894DA404482
“New Torah For Modern Minds
Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses. The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho. And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a fledgling nation.
Such startling propositions – the product of findings by archaeologists digging in Israel and its environs over the last 25 years – have gained wide acceptance among non-Orthodox rabbis. But there has been no attempt to disseminate these ideas or to discuss them with the laity – until now.
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents the 1.5 million Conservative Jews in the United States, has just issued a new Torah and commentary, the first for Conservatives in more than 60 years. Called "Etz Hayim" ("Tree of Life" in Hebrew), it offers an interpretation that incorporates the latest findings from archaeology, philology, anthropology and the study of ancient cultures. To the editors who worked on the book, it represents one of the boldest efforts ever to introduce into the religious mainstream a view of the Bible as a human rather than divine docu-ment. “
2. Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations (or “mythicizing” from P, M, M, L and J) and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a ma-mzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus).
An-alyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Ludemann, Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, ) via the NT and related doc-uments have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.
The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hitt-ites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.
earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html
For added "pizzazz", Catholic theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".
Current RCC problems:
Pedophiliac priests, an all-male, mostly white hierarchy, atonement theology and original sin!!!!
2 b., Luther, Calvin, Joe Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley, Roger Williams, the Great “Babs” et al, founders of Christian-based religions or combination religions also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immacu-late co-nceptions).
Current problems:
Adulterous preachers, pedophiliac clerics, "propheteering/ profiteering" evangelicals and atonement theology,
Only for those that are human:
1. origin: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/16/science/house-of-david-inscription-clues-to-a-dark-age.html
PHOTOGRAPHS and transcriptions of a stone fragment bearing the first known reference outside the Bible to the House of David, a ruling dynasty presumably founded by King David in the 10th century B.C., have been published in Israel.
Discovery of the inscription in the ruins of Tel Dan, in northern Israel, was reported last summer by Dr. Avraham Biran, an archaeologist at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Inst.itute of Religion in Jerusalem. Scholars said this could be an important contribution to understanding the ninth century B.C., a dark age in biblical history, and also is strong independent evidence for the existence and influence of the House of David.
But pictures were not released because the discoverers were still analyzing the writing. Dr. Biran and Dr. Joseph Naveh, a specialist in ancient Semitic languages at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, have now provided a full, illustrated report in The Israel Exploration Journal.
They said the complete stone monument, a local basalt, was probably three feet high. The preserved fragment is 12 1/2 inches high, with the words separated by dots. The language is Early Aramaic.
Since each line is missing letters and words, Dr. Biran said in an interview that the reconstruction of the text was tentative. From some of the words and their context it appears that the monument is celebrating a victory in battle, possibly by a king of Aram in Damascus over a king of Israel. The words "my king" in the sixth line seem to indicate that the writer of the inscription was a dependent of the victorious king.
The letters in the ninth line clearly spell out the phrase "House of David," and the "most logical reconstruction," Dr. Biran and Dr. Naveh said, is that the victorious king is claiming he slew troops belonging to the king of the House of David, who was thus a descendant of David ruling Judah in southern Israel.
One initial interpretation was that the king of Israel of the inscription may be Baasha, and the king of the House of David was Asa, an ally of Ben-Hadad, king of Aram. "The nature of the biblical sources on the one hand and the fragmentary state of the Dan inscription on the other, do not allow us to draw definite conclusions," Dr. Biran and Dr. Naveh wrote.
But other interpretations will likely be offered when Dr. Biran describes the results at meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Schools of Oriental Research this week in Washington.
=====
I emphasized one part because we know that Prof. Crossan loves independent attention
Mike,
Your disagreements should be taken up with the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis. You might want to get a copy of their new torah before the debate:
From amazon.com
"Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary (Hardcover) $58.00
~ David L. Lieber (Editor), Jules Harlow (Editor), United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (Corporate Author), The Rabbinical Assembly (Corporate Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
"The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) is the primary organization of synagogues practicing Conservative Judaism in North America. It closely works with the Rabbinical Assembly, the international body of Conservative rabbis, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies.[1]"
Btw, no time before the big bang is exactly what Christian theology has been stating from day one.
Inspector, a big problem re Langan's work in particular, and the whole cosmological argument in general, is that only a tiny fraction of the population (ie, those with lots of specialized training) can even follow along in these discussions.
But i do believe that, while not understanding all the nuances of his (and others') ideas, i do grasp his line of reasoning in that final section re ID.
Btw, i was fascinated by Greene's Edu-TV series based on his book, Elegant Universe, i think it's called. If string theory proves valid, then in one sense my alias "b4bigbang" might be considered to be in error. The reason is that if everything, including time, is made of 'strings' of energy (yes, he called them "energy", which i find strange), then there was no time before the big bang (assuming big bang is correct, big bang being 1st conceived by a Jesuit priest btw), that is, if there were no strings b4 the big bang. No strings = no time right?
But the reason i go by the alias 'b4bigbang' is because if we assume that the universe, aka the "creation" came into being at a certain point (ie, at some point there was no universe as we know it, then it stands to reason, at least within classical science and theological circles that there was a Supreme Intellect, Prime Mover or what have you that exists outside of time, and created it all – that is, strings, space-time, everything.
o Think infinity and recycling with the Big Bang expansion followed by the shrinking reversal called the Gib Gnab and recycling back to the Big Bang repeating the process on and on forever. Human life and Earth are simply a minute part of this cha-otic, sto-cha-stic, expanding, shrinking process disappearing in five billion years with the burn out of the Sun and maybe returning in another five billion years with different life forms but still subject to the va-ga-ries of its local star.
o "In the 1930s, theoretical physicists, most notably Albert Einstein, considered the possibility of a cyclic model for the universe as an (everlasting) alternative to the model of an expanding universe. However, work by Richard C. Tolman in 1934 showed that these early attempts failed because of the entropy problem: according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy can only increase.[1] This implies that successive cycles grow longer and larger. Extrapolating back in time, cycles before the present one become shorter and smaller culminating again in a Big Bang and thus not replacing it. This puzzling situation remained for many decades until the early 21st century when the recently discovered dark energy component provided new hope for a consistent cyclic cosmology.[2] In 2011, a five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies and spanning 7 billion years of cosmic time confirmed that "dark energy is driving our universe apart at accelerating speeds."[3][4]
One new cyclic model is a brane cosmology model of the creation of the universe, derived from the earlier ekpyrotic model. It was proposed in 2001 by Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University and Neil Turok of Cambridge University. The theory describes a universe exploding into existence not just once, but repeatedly over time.[5][6] The theory could potentially explain why a mysterious repulsive form of energy known as the "cosmological constant", and which is accelerating the expansion of the universe, is several orders of magnitude smaller than predicted by the standard Big Bang model."
A different cyclic model relying on the notion of phantom energy was proposed in 2007 by Lauris Baum and Paul Frampton of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[7]"
What we do know: (from the fields of astrophysics, nuclear physics, geology and the history of religion)
1. The Sun will burn out in 3-5 billion years so we have a time frame.
2. Asteroids continue to circle us in the nearby asteroid belt.
3. One wayward rock and it is all over in a blast of permanent winter.
4. There are enough nuclear weapons to do the same job.
5. Most contemporary NT exegetes do not believe in the Second Coming so apparently there is no concern about JC coming back on an asteroid or cloud of raptors/rapture.
6. All stars will eventually extinguish as there is a limit to the amount of hydrogen in the universe. When this happens (100 trillion years?), the universe will go dark. If it does not collapse and recycle, the universe will end.
7. Super, dormant volcanoes off the coast of Africa and under Yellowstone Park could explode catalytically at any time ending life on Earth.
Bottom line: our apocalypse will start between now and 3-5 billion CE. The universe apocalypse, 100 trillion years?
Inspector, i didn't know he believed in Yaweh, i thought he was more of a deist, esp after reading the wiki entry re his lack of religious affiliation (from what i gathered i thought he believed in *all* the religions, albeit not in the same way a traditional adherent would, of course).
But alas, i will admit that i *still* have not read the whole article – only the last section re Intelligent Design.
I must say that his logic in that section seems impeccable.
I also like the part (last section) where he accuses the scientific-materialists of believing in the same 'magic' that they accuse religious people of believing in 😉
Not sure he actually believes in "Yahweh", but a close enough version...he doesn't really explain, or go into it..which is a problem..a big one. He is so obviously is on the "outs" with his compatriots, which is tragic, I guess.
Well, i found it on the internet:
http://www.crownwineandspirits.com/p-323-dimple-pinch-15-year-blended-scotch-whisky.aspx
He is brilliant, but the problem, is he is SO obviously NOT schooled in theology, or even aspects of philosophy..He ignores the most obvious questions in Cosmology. Will have to talk later..he makes NO attempt to justify his belief in Yahweh, (the "god of the armies"). He is brilliant, but so obviously lacking in certain areas, especially theology. Flip through a few of his other things, it becomes more obvious. He IS brilliant, but seems his "independence" has left him "lacking" Too bad, as he IS "way smart".
http://www.megafoundation.org/CTMU/Articles/Which.html
http://www.superscholar.org/interviews/christopher-michael-langan/
My Dad's best friend used to drink a blended by the name of "Pinch". It came in a uniquely-shaped 'pinched' bottle, but i never got to taste it, and now i dont know any publick houses that sell it.
Ever heard of it?
@b4bigbang-
If you're just being funny, you got me. If not, this may be it –
2 oz. Rum
Several pieces seedless watermelon
One pinch of cayenne pepper
4 Sugar cubes
1 oz. Lime juice
1 oz. Club Soda
1 Pineapple slice
1 Strawberry slice
Dissolve sugar in club soda
Add watermelon and muddle
Add other ingredients
Serve chilled or over ice
Cheers!
@b4bigbang –
Whoa! Did I miss that one. You're looking for a bottled drink...sorry, no help; but, try the recipe I provided...sound quite pleasant.
Ah Glenfiddich, that's a good one, yes tis indeed!
hey father, what's your fave scotch?
Well the good father enjoys the Glenfiddich thanks to Hippy Poet. Prior to that I was a Black Label man. Bless ya
Wow, i just read the wikipedia entry on this guy Langan. He's billed as the "smartest man in America" and after reading the whole wiki entry, this apparently aint no hype!