By Laura Koran, CNN
Here's the Belief Blog’s morning rundown of the top faith-angle stories from around the United States and around the world. Click the headlines for the full stories.
From the Blog:
CNN: Billy Graham backs North Carolina amendment to ban gay marriage
The Rev. Billy Graham, the world's best-known evangelist, has endorsed a ballot initiative to constitutionally ban gay marriage in his home state of North Carolina, a rare move for a preacher who has typically avoided political fights. North Carolinians will vote on the state's Marriage Amendment Act before North Carolina voters next Tuesday.
Tweet of the Day:
[tweet https://twitter.com/#!/ReutersPolls/status/197343030410350594%5D
Enlightening Reads:
Religion News Service: Christians mark National Day of Prayer, atheists host National Day of Reason
Americans marked the National Day of Prayer Thursday (May 3), with Christians gathering on Capitol Hill to defend their right to pray as nonbelievers observed a “Day of Reason.”
The Christian Post: Methodists Strike Down Amendment to 'Agree to Disagree' on Homosexuality
The United Methodist Church's General Conference, the denomination's top legislative body, voted Thursday by a 61 percent majority against adopting an amendment that would have altered language declaring homosexuality as sinful in official church doctrine.
Catholic News Service: US al-Qaida official called Catholics 'fertile ground' for conversion
A U.S. al-Qaida official concluded that Catholics were "fertile ground" for conversion, "particularly after the rage expanding against the mother church (Vatican) as a result of its scandals and policies refused by many of its public."
The Guardian: Tunisian court fines TV station boss for airing animated film Persepolis
A Tunisian court has convicted the head of a private TV station for disrupting public order and violating moral values by airing an animated film that some religious leaders say insults Islam. The court in Tunis ordered Nabil Karoui to pay a 2,400 dinar (£964) fine because his station, Nessma TV, aired the animated film Persepolis in October.
Catholic News Agency: Pope warns doctors of relativism impacting medicine
Pope Benedict XVI used a May 3 address to doctors and medical students to warn that the spread of relativism is resulting in scientific advances having “unpredictable consequences.”
Religion News Service: Secularists turn to GOP lobbyist to help push their cause
Their issues are predominantly liberal and their constituency strongly leans Democratic, but a leading secularist group hopes a high-rolling Republican lobbyist is just who they need to open doors on Capitol Hill.
Quote of the Day:
On this National Day of Prayer, we are reminded of those who have sacrificed so much to give us the freedom to worship freely and to speak openly about our faith. As I travel across this country every day, I see God's grace and faithfulness in the lives of so many Americans who share their stories. And it is my prayer that as we strive to better America and to protect her from those who would do her harm, the Lord will keep us strong and free and we will remain one nation under God.
Statement from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Thursday, the 2012 National Day of Prayer.
Today’s Opinion:
CNN: My Take: Dear God: How to pray on National Day of Prayer?
Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World," asks: How should we pray on this National Day of Prayer?
Join the conversation…
CNN: North Carolina pastor retracts sermon remarks about punching gay kids
A Fayetteville, North Carolina, pastor has retracted controversial language used during a weekend sermon in which he instructed parents to hit children who exhibited behavior associated with homosexuality.
Prayer changes things*
*~Prayer doesn’t not; you are such a LIAR. You have NO proof it changes anything! A great example of prayer proven not to work is the Christians in jail because prayer didn't work and their children died. For example: Susan Grady, who relied on prayer to heal her son. Nine-year-old Aaron Grady died and Susan Grady was arrested.
An article in the Journal of Pediatrics examined the deaths of 172 children from families who relied upon faith healing from 1975 to 1995. They concluded that four out of five ill children, who died under the care of faith healers or being left to prayer only, would most likely have survived if they had received medical care.
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 changing things....i concur ! As well do I percieve an overabundance of authentic "gibberish" in some of these recent local comments...hmmm??..what the wack ever, and meanwhile back at reality ranch......
Thank you Lord Jesus for your sacrifice , thank you Almighty Father for your unlimited providence and love, Holy Spirit into your hands i commend myself, dirt and all.
Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things
"Prayer changes things"
~Prayer doesn’t not; you are such a LIAR. You have NO proof it changes anything! A great example of prayer proven not to work is the Christians in jail because prayer didn't work and their children died. For example: Susan Grady, who relied on prayer to heal her son. Nine-year-old Aaron Grady died and Susan Grady was arrested.
An article in the Journal of Pediatrics examined the deaths of 172 children from families who relied upon faith healing from 1975 to 1995. They concluded that four out of five ill children, who died under the care of faith healers or being left to prayer only, would most likely have survived if they had received medical care.
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
You're a proven liar. Prayer doesn’t not. You have NO proof it changes anything! A great example of prayer proven not to work is the Christians in jail because prayer didn't work and their children died. For example: Susan Grady, who relied on prayer to heal her son. Nine-year-old Aaron Grady died and Susan Grady was arrested.
An article in the Journal of Pediatrics examined the deaths of 172 children from families who relied upon faith healing from 1975 to 1995. They concluded that four out of five ill children, who died under the care of faith healers or being left to prayer only, would most likely have survived if they had received medical care.
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!.~
Meh. Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhh.
You guys are a bunch of fucking morons. I mean seriously, get a grip!
You too.
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee
That mordiously hath bitled out
Its earted jurtles
Into a rancid festering [drowned out by moaning and screaming]
Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles
Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts
And living glupules frart and slipulate
Like jowling meated liverslime
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon
See if I don't.
Soliloqy unbounded by necessitated rationalitiness hath beshattered the shackledness and arisin the malodoreous captivous captatedness of the confinedness of cubiclation.
U 2? If only the fidelities of commoners' urns could be but supplicants of immeasuralenesses' fidelities then in one swoop begrudge the gruntlings aberesses of their finite minds! What treasures does one trove towards in the written of one and alls' Word?
In words most ancient, "walls of physical reality inperhapsed could create confinity to the being corporeal, however the abstractness of the minds eye knoweth not the improsedness of the confinitory." Insomcuch exuberant joviation is the parted Red Sea to those that constructeth not pyramids but isometric prisons of woven confines.
Huebert wrote on Saturday, May 4, 2012 at 12:16 pm declaring,"Gaietyly weism is the forfrontedness of illuminatedly wisdom. For the porch light of worldlyness doth blindly shinings upon individualistic socialism. I like this game it's fun."
Waywardly recognoiterings will ever be played and yet from the insidiousness angles should no person arise from and towardedly tendered for in becoming such does the undulations' proper become the prioritized laments!
Wonderish are the verboseitudes founted by or resident somnambulist. For withith greatly earnestness doth this Dreamer proclaimish that his scripturals are for that magnanimously solemn meditations upon collectiveish individualisms and capitalistic socialismly.
Yourn writtenness wordives belieith one of Shakespearianisms and yet they are of but a frugal pleasentrist weightiness! To denote one such as me to be wity and not a wittless witness gives me a pleasuring sensation in my hearted valve! Nay I say yet with judgments preclusions are many allotments decidedly but assinined waywardists who know not the pleasentries of worded cripts! Such conversationalisms are favored and far away from the ever maddening of amalgums improper!
Avowedly, the intrinsically gargantuan value of the stylized communication with which I am currently engaging, is crystallizing with rapidly accelerating velocity. Persons of a certain disposition might placidly indicate that they have deduced that producing internet comments that are circuitous in the extremity is little more than an exercise in producing linguistic fecal excrement. Desperately such an individual might be perceived to have a dearth in their sense of mirth.
Up from the bellowing shallowness are most permeations of non-practicing participants! Keep therefore one's guises an aloofness among the straits their symmetries stainings! Also find pride of self to become you and your wanton style in reverances of the Word! Blacken not anothers' eye yet fill such eyes of displeaurements with token allibasters of justly treats!
May you bescu.mber your verbal melaena and lientery back into your own puckered perineum for the rest of us are not into your brand of coprophagia.
Hello And Welcome To "Imitate God's Only Dreamer" Day!!!!!!!!!
Yes, heareth youyourselfthou suchly correctus! Flumble wordy things pretensiouramously! Betitle thyself with verbals whose primus letters revealingly expose other wordythings!
Hours 24 of happy blabbling wondersomement! Everybody sing!
That's a bad day. Me and my rodenty minions are heading down to Squirrel Hooters for a day of nachos, mojitos, and praying to the god of porcelain (prayer works!). Better than some God Awful Dreamer day.
Rodents welcome. No humans.
Look, I don't just have that much psilocybin just lying around the house.. You gotta give me a few days to prepare for something like this.. But I'll give it a whirl:
Undulating precariously, infinitesimal quasi-particles of the mainframe uberconsciousness rematriculate vociferously and systemically as protoflagellum underpin the radical undermining without due diligence of infractory sub atomic nodules.
momoya,,,,,,,,,,,, ,
Practic perfects all mannerisms detailing works be they angular renditions of wordisms or of the spoken phenoms of libertarianalisms for both ideaologies of the Word is as truth to those who dwell and can't tell! The liberal stables of fanaticalisms attire in the direness straits and bellow do aimlessly in parthenoned calamities confuse many issues of lamentous transfigurations demarcations! Continuances are deemed worthy of the written in Worded ambiances measures!
Triggers of lay-wailing phenoms of justifiabilities revenge will air upon avenging principalities frought with thought!
Belay them of their narcistic tempers for suffurage renders inconsequentiality for he who emulsifies the ignoramus origins
Nay I doth say to thee and thine words for oneness to remain steadfastly upon commitalences variagrams shalt be oneness alone and alas of forlornments eyeing ways!
Then divineness of the dominatrix might rein it's pernicious godness upon ye who have faltered, predicating erroneous salvation for the malignant!
Yea I shall be not be arguementive in malignancies bitter fruitations towards amalgums proper yet one should hold their firmationalized angularistics in check but not mate!
Dreamer fop-flop wordflounders bowel effluence insights, bethinkels himselves amazingus and delightsome. Dreamy explosive diarrhettorical projectlie spatters the Great Fan of blunder blog.
Then our beatifications bear wassabi gems, finite in it's apologetics, yet firm in their cellulite?
Mourn now we the Joyous Mystery and its delicious incontinence
RAMEN
Is their an app for that?
No app, just meds.
Go placidly then within the fields of wastedness and forlornedness while always remembering the peace one gathers while attaining but a piece thereof and within!
Gaietyly weism is the forfrontedness of illuminatedly wisdom. For the porch light of worldlyness doth blindly shinings upon individualistic socialism.
I like this game it's fun.
In shadows the pole's univeritalities are my begruntalations bemoanaments refusals toward engendurings allurings and yet I am but a stained personage of filthiness weighed and weighted controversialisms decore! I shudder to weighin upon the world's animalisms regurgitated menstruisms due my fi9niteness regularisms! I pander to none while foremost do I celibate myself in earnest weightiness regards of ever growing celibacy to affirm my own individuality! I am one without the white flag being raised in measured compliancies!
The embiittered dens of maddening controversials foaments moments will ever fume in the lusts and fuel the hatred camps!
Forsooth their idlenesses shall beget them naught lest the lamentations of the illiterati afore them!
Heirs to changes will languish in the melancholy collectives hind ends never to again be rectified under the scoptics micro nominalisms!
Aswage not the Isles of Langahantz, for the improprities of disorder shriek for the vengance of colloquialisims
And mind you, as the normalisms rise up and upon the throwbackings undulations memmorialities common, the revolted ones of allnessed undulations are but beggards nothwithstanding clemencies and their bittrifried onslaughts!
Ingracious homengenization in the plentibus of the whermact leave but thistly anguishments resonating in the chamberpots of salacious weeping.
Poorness and pittifilled chambers are undeniably the flusterings pot fielded subdifusionalistic non-worth and in thoughtlessnes are justifiabled avante guards nevertheless and in of foreverthemors!
Malignancies growth rates of socialized disfigurementations are held fast and ever checked by religious convictions figurementive philosophies!
Brodetungum indeed Sir!
On a completely unrelated note
Happy Star Wars Day to all. May the fourth be with you. 🙂
And to you!
That one started when Maggie Thacher was running for PM, on the day before a critical vote, A newspaper had a headline "Maggie, may the Fourth Be With You"
Star Wars fans have used it ever since
Thanks, I didn't know the origin.
Atheists start your engines!!!! Nothing like a good ole belief article to get the "tolerent" atheists fuming out the ears.
Flamespeak
We no longer tolerate religious madness for the same reason we don't tolerate any other madness.
We have a cultural tendency to forgive the sins of those we consider mad, so we have looked away from the bigotry, the hatred and the egocentric cruelties of your faith for far too long.
We have reached the end of our tolerance because of YOUR actions.
Your fabrication of an imaginary God and your use of a nonexistent relation with that imaginary God as justification for your abominations has exceeded even the legendary patience of Atheists.
I cannot speak for all, but MANY of us intend to see the destruction of your cult by any and all means.
We have fought this battle before, in truth with EVERY God you have ever heard of, and OUR actions have relegated ALL of them to the social categorization of “fable”
It’s the last stop for Gods before they are forgotten and slip into history.
Joyously, Jesus is right on the brink of that cusp, and we intend to push him over it. His status as fable is spreading, just at the moment other Gods are seeking his throne.
Obviously this is not the first God we have killed, but I shall take great personal satisfaction in killing this one.
So if you see Jesus, put him on note. He is a marked imaginary God whose time is running out. He is well served to play the coward and stay in the imaginary place you claim he is, because if he returns, we Atheists will kill him again, just like all the other Gods we killed before him.
William Demuth has openly admitted to being a sociopath and having the FBI follow him. Everybody ignore him for he truly is psychotic no matter what he believes.
Stay Away
So predictable! Denial truly is more than just a river in Egypt!
Why would I care?. This is a marketplace of ideas; the only requirement is that the argument be as cogent as possible.. Frankly, I don't care if you're a brain in a jar with electrodes or a criminal–as long as your argumentation is sound.. Actually, boards like this one could be great therapy for some who are forced to struggle with malfunctioning brain chemistry and the like.
@Stay Away
So what if William is a sociopath he can still support his positions better than you can. This is a debate not an election, a persons character is immaterial to the soundness of their argument.
Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?
1John2:22
Robert Brown
The Hulk will SMASH puny human in tin suit!
Avengers #3, Chapter 2, cell #6
Now I lnow it's stupid to base your life on a comic book, but what I don't understand is why you haven't figured that out yourself?
Who beith a tw@t but he that doith nothing but quote the bible.
Huebert 1:1
spoken like a true slave, robert
I have never understood why Atheists (of which I am included) make such large shows out of their stance on religion. It is a trivial thing really, if you are truly an Atheist. Let people have their faith and their beliefs and let them live their lives, just as they should do with you.
Atheists are the garbage of the Earth.
@Flamespeak
It's because opinions like Mark's are common.. When believers claim that atheists are not true citizens and shouldn't have the same rights as believers, you're going to get a backlash like you see with so many atheists commenting on religious forums.. Some atheists are fired when their boss finds out about their lack of belief; some atheists are threatened with violence and material loss; some atheists have their cars vandalized and ruined; some have to move their residence from one city to another..
And all atheists deserve every negative thing that happens to them for denying God. Your problem, not mine.
Hey Mark, whatever happened to your Christ's greatest commandment .. to love thy neighbor? Or is it ok to love them ONLY if they are in YOUR church, and everyone else doesn't count? You are a prime example of Christian hypocrisy.
Based on all of the atheist hate around here, I really don't care what happens to them anymore. If they had nails and a hammer, they'd nail all of us to a cross with smiles on their faces. Atheists are truly a vile, hateful group of people. Thank GOD you people are a minority.
And look how easy it is for someone with NO MORAL CODE to throw morality in the faces of Christians. Atheists preach tolerance but they're the most spiteful of any group of people I have ever encountered.
@Mark
Well, you're a spiteful little fvckwit, aren't you?. Instead of seeing disagreement with your viewpoint as an opportunity to learn, you scorn the knowledge others offer you and drown yourself in self-pity and self-loathing that only causes you to withdraw a little more and build higher that wall you are constructing between yourself and others who will honestly confront you when you are wrong.. That pathway only leads to greater emotional illness.
If you actually paid attention and cared about the issues over your tender feelings and dumb agenda, you'd gain some valuable knowledge.. Neither christians nor god believers own "the moral code," and an atheist has just as much of a right to talk about morality as anybody else.. Scientists don't stop talking about love just because the understand it is a mental concept instead of an actual 'thing.'.
It doesn't matter who is "throwing morality in your face", what matters is that you abide by the moral code you claim to follow. Whether a Bible verse is quoted by a believer or a non-believer it is still a Bible verse.
@momoya: Good morning momoya, Before I go any further, I will agree that I think Mark's comments are obscene. I do not think that Jesus would make these kind of remarks.
I was unable to get back to you yesterday, this is my reply: How did you ever conclude that ho.mos3xuality is a body part: (You said, “It's a part of everyone’s biology.”) Do you really think that Ho.mos3xuality is a body part. To me it is a mind set.
For me to explain a prosthetic limb, or deformity to a child does not come close to explaining why 'Johnny has two daddies, but not a mommy, or why Jane has two mommies, but not a daddy, apparently you have never have never been confronted by a child with this question and all the”why's...' that follow it.
To explain death to a child is simple compared to the foregoing; like, I've had to explain death to my children.
Of course, because you do not recognize the Bible or God you do not take into account the punishment that God brought on people that practiced this sinful style life style by destroying them so completely that no trace of them can be found. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, (Genesis 19:1—29 and nearly destroyed the Benjamites for this sin (Judges 19—21).
If God would not condone this sin would you expect me to condone it? As I said before: It is not for me to chastise these people as Harris did, I think he was completely out of line.
@bo
I apologize for the confusion; I should have been more clear.. What I meant by "everybody has one" is that everybody has a s3xual organ..
I agree that homersecksuality is a mind set, but that doesn't mean that it's a chosen mindset..
Again, I fail to see your point about having to explain to children.. We have to explain disease and death–what's the big deal about explaining s3xuality?. You've got to confront the issue anyway.. It's not a hard thing to explain to a child that some people prefer the same s3x while most people prefer the opposite.. There's lots and lots of things about life we'd like to shield children from, but we can't because they're part of the human experience..
I don't expect you to CONDONE the "sin," but I DO expect you to fight for the equal rights of all.. Homersecksuals aren't wanting straight people to not marry, they just want the same right as you have–they want to marry whom they wish to marry..
momoya,
my dads wont tell me why i dont have a mother and i dont understand. i have 2 daddys but no mother and im confused. all my friends have 1 dad 1 mom. why am i different? i dont want to be different.
Get over it, Jack.. One day you'll die.. Nobody knows why we are here or what happens after we die.. Ask your fathers honest questions and listen to their explanations.. If that doesn't work, try asking your question on an on-line GLBTQ forum.. In this age of information knowledge is at your fingertips.. Go get it.
@"Jack"
Because you were adopted by two men who love each other, instead of a man and a woman who love each other.
That explanation would satisfy most 8 year old's.
Jack, your heteros3xual catholic mom was a ho who didn't belive in birth control. She either didn't love you or was too incompotent to take care of a child. And none of the other hetreos3xual couples wanted you.
"And all atheists deserve every negative thing that happens to them for denying God."
Actually my life is incredible and wonderful with very few negatives in it. You have to make up lies like this so you can feel better about yourself. You might want to seek help for your low self esteem issues.
@momoya: I don't know momoya, I believe that every one has a God given right to choose, but somehow to support their choice to do wrong seems to condone their choice.
I do not believe that man (and animal) was originally created with these abnormal desires, but it is the result of centuries of sin that pervades not just the mind, but now an inherited perversion of the body.
I also think, especially with males, to support their actions is to help spread a deadly disease [AIDS] that is not only dangerous to them, but any of those that they may come in contact with.
I also recognize that as American citizens we have the right to chose to live as we please, but does that right cross the line when we chose to make ourselves dangerous to others? We must stay that progress as long as possible.
An added burden to this is that, like heteros, they will also seek divorce and as you said heteros are loaded with troubles (also a result of centuries of sin, even so called Christians) that burden the courts, this will only complicate matters.
O' how much the rights of mankind have spread so much evil in the world!
To your favor, I believe your heart is in the right place.
If the same gays fought thier urges and married hetero the burden on the court would be the same. Why is burdening the court ever a problem. Legal matters will be legal matters. When a Christian sues thier employer for alleged discrimination is that not a burden to the court. The "burden" to the court is to uphold the law, not to be used as a scapegoat for a religious cause.
petty punks find comfort in a petty punk god. hence marky-mark, or keith
Prayer changes things
Is that bubble you live in not permeable in the slightest? Spewing the same crap every day does not make it true and it only stands to prove your mental capacity is limited.
Prayer doesn’t not; you are such a LIAR. You have NO proof it changes anything! A great example of prayer proven not to work is the Christians in jail because prayer didn't work and their children died. For example: Susan Grady, who relied on prayer to heal her son. Nine-year-old Aaron Grady died and Susan Grady was arrested.
An article in the Journal of Pediatrics examined the deaths of 172 children from families who relied upon faith healing from 1975 to 1995. They concluded that four out of five ill children, who died under the care of faith healers or being left to prayer only, would most likely have survived if they had received medical care.
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!