A brief Introduction:While studying to be a pastor in college I abandoned my faith. In fact, I abandoned everything I thought I believed and rebuilt.
To my own surprise at the time, I found that Christianity was much stronger than I had thought. As I rebuilt my belief system, I realized that there needed to be people out there responding to the questions people have. I had them myself. So, while not continuing on to be a pastor, I have focused on educating people about what Christianity is all about and responding to the various charges and accusations made against it.
There are some obvious challenges to being successful in that capacity, but a big part of it consists not in arguing with atheists and skeptics, but rather in providing Christians with accurate information in the first place to prevent them from leaving the faith in the first place.
Questioning is a very normal and natural part of growing up, and I am convinced that it is not wrong to ask questions of God at any age. God doesn't strike people down. On the other hand, if people are going to reject Christianity, it is my aim to at least make sure they reject the real Christianity and not a false view of it. Also, much heartache can be avoided by educating Christians properly to begin with. My experience has helped me... but it was unnecessary.
Paul said that some plant, some water, and others reap the increase. My job is to go out into the land and move rocks- or break them if necessary- till the land, and struggle through knee deep fertilizer... all in the effort to allow those who come later to plant, water, and reap the harvest. I look forward to the prospects of either serving you as someone who needs to haul rocks out of the field, or as someone who can look at the field, detect problems, and help farmers more effectively plant, water, and reap.
Here Begins my Blog
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Atheists do not have “more” say than religious people, we just don’t want government (public-owned) resources to be used to promote religion. Religious people already have tax-free churches; if you want statues and monuments, you can put them there. No one is demanding anyone “hide” their religious belongings – when you all put up those 10 commandments signs in your yards, did anyone complain? No, that’s your property. Put up whatever you want there. But government property is my property, so keep your backward magic superstition off my lawn. [Emphasis in the original newspaper]
This logic, very common among evangelical atheists of the Dan Barker/Freedom from Religion type, is flawed at so many levels, paragraphs could be devoted to refuting each phrase. For tonight, I’ll just settle on making the simple observation that government property, public land, is not only Kevin Hundt’s. It is also mine.
This Thursday, May 8th, the Holmen village council is expected to take up the issue of the Holmen ‘Cross.’ Perched on a bluff that can be seen from a great distance is a lighted star that during Easter is lighted as a cross instead, for just about a week. A relatively new resident decided that this offended him and it constituted an establishment of religion. The Holmen village decided to sell the small piece of property to the Lions Club which formerly was involved with the star and cross. This would effectively put the object on private land and dodge the church and state separation issue.
Oh, if only that would work.
A recent Holmen Courier article reports that several national atheistic organizations have taken an interest in the affair.
According to the article, the piece of property was appraised at $100.00 and the American Humanist Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation have both placed bids higher than a $1,000. The basic idea is to shame the village of Holmen if they consider offering the land to the Lions Club at its appraised value. Additionally, the Lions Club might be forced to decide the cost is too high in order to avoid that shame. But probably the real reason is legal. The article reports that “Both Ritter [AHA] and Gaylor [FFRF] said litigation is a possibility if the Lions Club wins possession of the land with a lower bid.”
Indeed.
The Holmen village council had hoped to avoid controversy and turmoil by following in the footsteps of La Crosse, who after a bitter legal process successfully defeated the FFRF and managed to sell of a 10 Commandment monument in a La Crosse park to a private entity. That was their hope, but it was misguided. In seeking to avoid a lawsuit they will probably still end up in a lawsuit. The only way to avoid a confrontation is to submit to the demands and remove the cross. With Eric Barnes bringing to bear two national anti-religious organizations it is clear to me that the town of Holmen had better move quick to produce some allies of their own.
I saw today that ‘war’ was declared on the Church of Scientology. The video is pretty clever:
The Youtube page has some interesting comments on it and so does this location of the file on Brietbart. Some interesting comments, including some interesting perspectives, like the one by ‘atheist1′ on the Brietbart page who said that belief in Scientology “is just as crazy as believing there is a man in the clouds judging us. Can we declare war on Pat Robertson too?” This goes to show you that whether with religion or without, atheist or theist, there are nuts out there. (The only difference between the atheist nuts and the religious nuts is that the atheists claim high reason and deny that atheists don’t actually say the things they say).
Comments of more substance had to do with whether or not this is a persecution of religion. I certainly wouldn’t want to get caught supporting the erection of a slippery slope that eventually harms my own right to free exercise. There is also a strong smell of vigilantism and I’m not a big fan of that. However, the Church of Scientology hasn’t been fighting fair for a long time. They’ve been taking advantage of various freedoms for religion that others have paid for in blood. A bloodless take down of the ‘Church’ of Scientology seems hard to oppose.
And maybe that’s the key point at this time. It is just a Youtube video that could have been posted by a 13 year old. It doesn’t even have to be a nerd. Youtube would allow even your run of the mill junior high school student to post the video, though I admit the vocabulary in the video argues for older. What do these people intend to do? How are they going to go about it? That something ought to be done certainly makes sense and it seems like little to this point has been done. I shall have to wait and see just what they have in mind, if anything.
As for the title of this post, of course I have to take the popcorn route. I’m not anonymous, unlike certain content parasites out there. That makes me an easy pick for the CoS.
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