Lighting the Fuse
“You know, all religions are man-made.”
There was no discussion on the topic, just that simple statement, but it stuck with him, nagging at his thinking. Approximately two years later, he rejected religion and became an atheist.
Labels: deconversion, j. m. green
Labels: hell, j. m. green, Jesus Behaving Badly
Labels: j. m. green, Mark Driscoll
Labels: Christmas, j. m. green, prophecy
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”Matthew 2:1-6 (ESV)
Labels: Christmas, j. m. green, prophecy
Thus says the Lord: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.Jeremiah 10:2-4 (ESV)
Labels: Christmas, j. m. green, prophecy.
For religious people, the standard setting for the giving of thanks is entirely incidental to the meaning of the occasion. The family around the table, the turkey or ham, the football game — all of these are just props and ritual. None is essential to thanking God.
What for a religious person, though, is just the setting of Thanksgiving is for the atheist the entire celebration itself. Family and fun, and marking the change of the seasons, is its only meaning and significance.
I suppose that to a religious person an atheist Thanksgiving must appear a thin thing, lacking reverence and grandeur. But then, again, a person who reveres a grand God must feel diminished in her own eyes. Giving thanks to God must engender in the religious the sense that they are powerless supplicants to a higher reality. Another thing we atheists are happy about, then, is that nothing at all depends on the will of a spirit in the sky.
Labels: j. m. green, Mark Mercer, Thanksgiving
Labels: j. m. green
"If you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in man-made global warming. You must be agnostic or atheistic to believe that man controls something he can't create. It’s always been one of the reasons for my anti man-made global warming stance."
Labels: j. m. green, Rush Limbaugh, what's the harm
Labels: free will, j. m. green
Labels: Devil, Halloween, j. m. green, Satan
im•mor•alBefore I tell you why, let’s set the scene. Christianity teaches humanity is doomed to go to Hell where the god Yahweh will do Very Bad Things to them, forever. Why is humanity doomed? Well, apparently, Yahweh did a product launch - Humans 1.0 - without doing adequate beta-testing (perhaps he runs Microsoft also). His product didn’t function quite like he wanted it to. A skeptical talking snake proved more persuasive than an all-powerful deity, and so the prototypical couple snacked their way into the bad graces of their Sky Daddy. Rather than acknowledging his own incompetence, the Loving Creator instead cursed humans with painful childbirth, male domination of women, and a difficult life, ending in death. No second chance and no appeal process. One strike, you’re out. It’s all there in Genesis 3, if you need more details.
adjective
1. Violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics
Dictionary.com
Labels: j. m. green, salvation
Labels: j. m. green, politics, Ted Cruz
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" Matthew 6:25-30 (ESV)Really Jesus? Paris Hilton could have come up with something more sensible than that steaming pile! I mean, maybe you were doing that whole new-age guru, Deepak Chopra on Ecstacy thing… Pretty, birdies and flowers… bliss out baby! Sorry to harsh your buzz, but your words ring hollow in countries where sad-eyed children with arms like sticks, are starving to death. Try spouting your platitudes to a desperate mother who doesn’t have enough nutrition in her emaciated body to breast-feed her starving infant. “Life is more than food…”? Uh, no. If you go very long without food, life goes away. It’s called being dead. And clothes? Well, fashion isn’t important in the overall scheme of things, but a warm jacket can be helpful in not freezing to death in the winter.
Labels: j. m. green, Silly Sayings of Jesus
Labels: j. m. green
“This is not about the photography, this is about God.”Uhhh, no Reverend Douchebag. This is about the couple getting married, and their happiness. They hired the photographers that you are trying to run off, to capture memories of what should have been one of the happiest moments of their lives.
Labels: j. m. green
“…whether we can explain the violent portraits of God in the OT or not, it would be unfaithful for us to ever allow anything we find in the OT to compromise what we learn about God in him. “This of course, is a very convenient hermeneutic tool which allows Christians to distance themselves from, and override, distasteful content in the Old Testament. The writers of the New Testament shamelessly used their ‘new revelation’ to recycle, reinterpret and supersede the Jewish scriptures - as the occasion requires.
Labels: Greg Boyd, j. m. green
And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3Well Jesus, this was silly because you revealed too much (kind of like a magician telling how he does his tricks). A childlike mentality, and childhood conversions are the fuel on which Christianity runs.
Labels: j. m. green, Silly Sayings of Jesus
Labels: j. m. green, Ken Ham
Labels: j. m. green, Jesus, prayer