Books I might Puchase

If you have time, check out my Amazon wishlist of books, which is being changed on an almost daily basis. You may find something on there that you would buy yourself:




If you've already read any of these books, please let me know what you think about them.

Obama and Star Wars

One of the best youtube videos I've seen all week:



But you'll want to go ahead and skip the part after the star wars video as it is kind of dry and a waste of time.

Why Believe in God?

There's a new ad campaign out for the Christmas Holidays geared at making Humanists and Atheists feel less "alone" during a time of one of the largest worldwide yearly religious celebrations. An ad in the Washington, D.C. area will be run that says "why believe in God? Be good for goodness sake?". Read more about the article here

The ad itself is just like most postmodern thought: self-defeating. It says to be "good" but how is one to gauge what is "good" without some sort of objective moral standard? Codes of morality are drawn in every culture from some sort of religious convictions, not exclusive to Christianity of course.

At the creation of the world, God said that His work was "good" and set the standard that only He can name what is good, and what He creates is good. After the fall of man, only Christ was able to be "good" as a human and has since given us the ability to be "good" because of His goodness. If you don't believe any of that, you may follow a different religion, but if you follow no religion and claim to be Atheist, a question arises of how to determine what is "good".

Whenever man does "what is right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25) there is a departure from what is truly good - just look at the Garden of Eden. So to attempt to just be "good" based on one's own understanding of the world and speculation drawn from emotions evoked by one's worldview is to do exactly "what is right in one's own eyes".

Why do Atheists have problems with holidays? Because deep in their heart they know that there is something outside of them that holds answers unknown to all of mankind (Rom 1:18-21), and Holidays are a loud reminder of the truth they attempt to supress.

Freedom is slipping away...

Some people say that homosexuality, if it is genetic, should "die out" naturally. After all, it would be difficult for homosexual people to pass on the gene, as it takes male and female to reproduce. Regardless of whether it will die out in the long run (which of course we know it won't - it's been around since the earliest history), we can see that public schools (your tax dollars at work) are encouraging children to "embrace gayness" in a whole new way.

Here are two examples:
1. The well-known "David Parker" story - a man is imprisoned and his child is beaten at school because of his stand against homosexuality.
2. Schools are making KINDERGARTEN students sign a "gay acceptance" commitment!

It is very good to teach children not to respond hatefully or violently to ANY person they encounter, as everyone should learn to respond to others in love. However, there is a major problem with what is happening in the public schools now.

The school is infringing upon the parents' rights to decide what and when to teach their children, as well as denying religious freedom to disagree with a lifestyle based on personal faith values. By deciding that a four to five year old child has to sign a document committing to not using "anti-homosexual" language says that this child is not allowed the FREEDOM OF SPEECH to express his opposition to homosexuality, should he hold such a view. Furthermore, a child that young has no view about homosexuality and shouldn't be taught such things.

This is child molestation, to teach a young and innocent 4 year old mind about sexual intercourse. He or she at that age is still grasping some vague concepts about life and food and words, and to plunge the young mind into the depths of sexuality is mental abuse. Even a child living with a homosexual couple is probably not seeing what takes place in the bedroom, and has no need to. Should the parents of these children decide to begin discussing matters of sex with their children is up to the parents, but absolutely is beyond the rights of the public school system.

This is a case where the tax payers' dollars are going to work against the tax payers' freedom. It's a shame that it would come to this, but to see a man imprisoned because he does not believe homosexuality is right is a sad picture of the communist direction our country is heading. To see a child beaten by his peers because his father does not condone homosexuality is no different than the days when a person was beaten for being homosexual. The news would actually cover the story if the child was beaten because his father was homosexual, and the case would not rest until there was retribution.

The Queer Bible Commentary (actual name)

A friend of mine brought to my attention this Bible commentary, called the "Queer Bible Commentary" (official title). Amazon.com's description of the book includes the following:

Contributors draw on feminist, queer, deconstructionist, utopian theories, the social sciences and historical-critical discourses. The focus is both how reading from lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender perspectives affect the reading and interpretation of biblical texts

One thing worth noting - how one reads or interprets something does not directly affect the truthfulness of the sentences that are included therein. For example, if on a bright, sunny Wednesday, one reads the sentence "today it is raining" from a weather report written on a rainy Tuesday, he or she may think "hey this is wrong! It's not raining today!" But it does not mean that it did not rain Tuesday. The individual's worldview-influenced evaluation of the weather report does not affect the factual nature of the report itself, and the same should be applied to other readings. It does not matter what side of the issue you stand on - the fact is that the Bible has an intended meaning, it's not just a story book with some fun stuff and whacky, vague theories - it actually has an intended truth in each part. No one should approach it with the mentality that one reading is right for one person, but another completely opposing reading is right for the other. In other words, someone is right, and someone is wrong, and in order to receive a more accurate reading, it should always be read in context.

On a side note, the commentary is apparently from a day before the term "queer" was used most often in a derogatory sense, which is why a book that is very "PC" is also ironically very non-PC in its language.

NOT the AntiChrist

This video, as well as the "messiah" one, has stirred a lot of controversy:


It's getting to be a really popular thing to call Obama the AntiChrist. Is he? It's doubtful for many reasons that he is actually the Antichrist. Just because Farrakhan called Obama the "Messiah" doesn't mean that THE Antichrist has come. Too many Christians just love to give each other chills talking about how 'he's HEEEEeerrrre" like a Poltergeist of some sort, because it brings attention to them and extremists always get followers because they speak as though they are so sure of what they are saying.

While many are certain that he is the Antichrist, there are several sites where one can go and find qualifications, based on REVELATION, to determine if this is true of Obama, and the result is that though he matches most of them, he does not match ALL of them (i.e. Dan 11:37 - "he does not regard the desire of women" - Obama is married to a woman). Let us remember that Jesus Christ fulfilled every single prophecy made in the Old Testament regarding His coming.

One statement I recently saw, made by a Christian and regarding Obama, said "already the spirit of the false one is here." Sounds ominous, right? But this statement is quite ignorant when considering that the "false one" has been here since the beginning of creation.

Now let us look at 1 John.
1:18 - As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.
5:19 - we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one

Obama's arrival is not the arrival of evil into the world. Obama may be AN antichrist (lowercase a), but is most likely not THE Antichrist, as he does not fit every qualification.

Remember, Christians have been for centuries pointing at people and screaming "Antichrist" (consider Nero, Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, among many others) and have always been wrong.

All's Fair In WAR

Mercer University News is at it again. This time, a poll was performed, analyzing the views on "white evangelical southerners" regarding whether torture of captured prisoners for information should be performed. See the Pole Here

The "Golden Rule" was used to incite a slanted response. The findings are that apparently, when reminded of the golden rule, white evangelical southerners are more likely to change their mind if they are in favor of use of torture.

The poll results in a complete waste of time, as determining whether the golden rule could sway opinions on the matter of torture in warfare is simply a gauge of the ignorance of the one being polled. Jesus quoted a rule that was around before His own incarnation, and was referring to our everyday interaction with each other as humans.

The poll overextended the realm of this rule's application by invoking people's opinions about warfare practices based on the golden rule. Consider the logic - if you would do to others as you'd like for them to do to you, then when you capture a prisoner, you should let them go immediately. After all, isn't that what you'd want them to do for you? Therefore, if we are going to follow the golden rule in warfare, when we capture prisoners, we should let them go. For that matter, when we get into a skirmish with a small faction of terrorists on a battle front, we should just let them kill us without shooting back and risking the lives of the terrorists - after all, isn't that what we'd want them to do for us?

Shawshank

In the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, we see a character named "Red" who becomes institutionalized, meaning he is so used to being in prison that he doesn't know how to function outside of it. Sadly, this is a reality that many people face after being imprisoned. It's much like the way a bird may become so familiar with its cage, that the cage becomes a "Safe haven" and therefore the bird, when let go, comes back to the cage. After being let out of prison, people often will find ways to get themselves back in, because it's their safe haven and place where they have adapted to functioning.

I thought prisons, and perhaps hospitals or mental institutions were the limit to the occurence of institutionalization. However, a new locale has appeared on the news front as a place of institutionalization: the Courtroom. Lest we overlook this phenomenon, consider this news title:

"Jury in O.J. Trial to Hear Defense"
(see the real article if you actually care)

This is a news topic I have heard more than I can remember in my life. It began when I was in elementary school. Now, I'm about half the age I"ll be when I retire, and I'm still hearing about this. As soon as O.J.'s trial was completed, he found a way to get himself back into the courtroom. Clearly he is suffering from institutionalization.

Plus USC football (OJ's Team) is always overranked. They lost to unranked 1-2 Oregon State and are still in the top 10?!

Imagine if the Republicans did this...

PART I.
Could you imagine the outcry that would come from the democratic party if the upcoming VP debate moderator had written a book entitled, "A Legacy of Security: Politics and POWs in the Age of McCain". Man that sounds like a great book. But if this legendary book had been written and the author was going to be the debate moderator... well, it's a moot point because the fact is that the debate commission NEVER would let such a person be the debate moderator, having a clear Republican slant.

However, we see this happening in reverse, and of course the debate commission turns their shoulder and looks the other way, as though it's no issue of concern that the moderator has a strong democratic slant. Gwen Ifill, the moderator, has written a book entitled "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama" to be released on INAUGURATION DAY.

See the news article

What the country needs is an accurate depiction of both candidates, democrat and republican, and in order to ensure that this takes place, an impartial moderator should be instated for the debate, not a fan of Obama who has written a book about him and the struggles of his race in politics.

This is also a clear publicity stunt for her book.

PART II.
Now imagine if the Republicans waited until next week and pulled John McCain for "health reasons" and replaced him conveniently with someone who is incredibly popular, like say... Rudy Giuliani. Obviously he's not popular enough to win the Republican vote, but he'd pull in some Dems. Hypothetically, though, say there WAS someone like that. The Democrats would be spitting and raging over the fact that the Republicans had a huge conspiracy to boost their votes since they were desparate.

Yet, my bet is that Biden will back out of the race due to "health issues" and Hillary will come in as a replacement, because the Democrats need some sort of a boost and though the media is working hard for them, it's still looking too close for comfort to someone who's been considered a "rock star" for the past year now.

Read more on this theory at snopes.

PART III.

Finally, could you imagine the news coverage if the Republicans put in a candidate that was not legally a citizen of the United States?! By now, everyone has heard about the possibility that Obama is not even a citizen, as the blog world exploded with discussion about this topic a while back. Yet, it's not mentioned very often in the media, and there is not a lot of news updating the status of this court case. Even a search for information on this topic yields little helpful results. The media would be all over this if it were McCain's citizenship in question, though.

Gay Boltz

Not making fun of his "sound" - Ray Boltz actually came out of the closet and is now an admitted homosexual. Gay Ray. Gay Boltz. I'm sure the nicknames will continue for (g)a(y)ges.

Many of you remember Ray Boltz. In the late 80's/early 90's, he became really famous for a couple of hit "Christian" songs, "Thank You" and "Watch the Lamb". These were big songs and I remember, growing up in a Southern Baptist setting, hearing these played all over the place. I even saw a video where Boltz - mustache, mullet and all - was at a home group meeting with a bunch of elderly women and singing the words "Thank you, for giving to the Lord - I am a life that was changed". As he sang these words, tears dripped down from the old and gray eyes of the women listening. I thought to myself "HOW CHEESY!" (remember the word Cheesy got big in the 90s) - all Ray was doing was making of bunch of old Christian ladies cry by playing on their religious emotions. I've become a lot more understanding over the years, that many people are touched by that song, because in ministry, you never hear "Thank you" as much as you hear complaints and whining.

Now, years later, in a liberal, post-modern, and post-Christian culture; in a world where just about nothing is shocking any more, I found myself saddened and slightly even shocked by yet another famous Christian singer stepping outside the bounds of his self-proclaimed faith and defying what it stands for. No Christian is perfect, and we are all sinners who have been restored undeservedly by God's grace. However, while Christians often feel repentent, and try to be "better" when they are selfish, angry, violent, alcoholics, or addicts (among many other biblically defined "sinful" lifestyles), "Christians" such as Ray Boltz embrace homosexuality and advocate it loudly.

For a moment, let's look around the homosexuality issue. Consider the fact that Ray divorced his wife of over 30 years. Now ask yourself, if he did this for another woman, or a beastiality issue, or a sexual affair with a minor, what would become of his ministry? He would be publicly shamed and the media would show how yet another "Christian" is no different than the disgusting world around us. However, instead churches are applauding him for his openness about his sinful lifestyle. Sadly, he even flaunts it on the front of his website, talking about how he would not be "accepted" in many churches. Instead of being accepted into a Christ-loving church and coming to Christ just as he is and finding freedom to change and be who God made him to be, he goes to a church that pats him on the back for being "just as he is" and tells him to never change.

In his coming-out interview, Boltz mentioned "we all suffer with our humanity". Sadly, rather than "putting to death the flesh" as the Bible says, or being "crucified with Christ, and yet I live, not I but Christ who lives within me", Boltz has decided to embrace and remain shackled to the fallen flesh of humanity rather than transcend it through freedom in Christ. (the picture to the right is Ray Boltz, not Ricky Gervais)

Now I turn this back on the true Christian church: because of our shaming people for their sinfulness instead of embracing them and working with them to overcome it, we see churches sending homosexuals, unwed pregnant teens, and adulterous couples away, and where do they go? To churches that help them get abortions, divorces, and become proud of their homosexuality.