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Prosperity gospel called to judgement 2007-11-07 14:59:34 The gospel message that links God with dollars has been called to judgment before a powerful U.S. senator.Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters requesting detailed financial documents to two metro Atlanta preachers and four other ministries nationwide whose leaders are known for opulent, or as the ministers would say, blessed, lifestyles.Grassley is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and has developed a reputation for demanding financial transparency from non-profits.He wants to know how much Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia and the Rev. Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International in College Park make, how their church-issued credit cards are managed and how many cars, planes and foreign bank accounts they own. He has asked for information on the ministries' boards, business relationships and associated organizations."I'm following up on complaints from the public and news coverage regarding certain practice ...

Dan Barker Debates in D/FW 2007-11-06 15:58:49 Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, will be coming to the Dallas/Fort Worth area next Monday to speak to the Freethinkers of UTA (a member of the Secular Student Alliance), and will also be debating a local Christian apologist, Kevin Harris. Kevin is a regular participant in the Apologia discussion, and is the co-host of the Reasonable Faith podcast with Dr. William Lane Craig.If you're local to D/FW, you really should come and see the debate- and that goes for both theists and atheists. I'd love to see a good mix of people there on Monday. Official information about the event can be found at the Freethinkers of UTA homepage. Date: Monday, November 12, 2007Time: 7:00 PMPlace: University of Texas at Arlington, University Center, Red River/Concho RoomsParticipants: Dan Barker (Atheist), Kevin Harris (Christian)Click here for Google Map goodness to help find directions. ...

Q: What do you call a pastor who impregnates his brother's wife? A: Earl 2007-11-06 15:01:00 Sent in by Jan from deep within the buckle of the Bible BeltI'm a member of your ex-christians group and this is a newslink to my old church that is in the news here in Atlanta again. I was a member of Earl Paulk's Cathedral of the Holy Spirit for over 13 years. I left there in 1992 after Earl's Brother Don had an affair with one of my roommates and dear friends. The whole time I had been there I had heard rumors about the Paulks being sexually depraved, but I never believed the rumors... I mean, after all, they were my pastors, right? Good people... They'd never hurt me. Uh-huh.In 2005 I started an online support group for people who have left CHHC and we work constantly to keep the stories of Earl Paulk, Donnie Earl Paulk, Don Paulk, and the whole hillbilly gang in the public eye, both here in Georgia and everywhere else.This most recent scandal is outlined here on pt. 1 and pt. 2 of this FOX-5 I-Team report. The paulks are being sued by a bunch of different folks, and some of th ...

If you logically look at Christianity, it just doesn’t add up 2007-11-06 06:23:50 Sent in by Anya When I contemplate my journey through Christianity, I’m reminded of that old Rod Steward song that goes, “If I listened long enough to you, I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true.” More than anything in the world, I wish I could sincerely believe in Jesus or God, but at this point in time, intellectually and logically, there is no reason to believe.I grew up in a household of lapsed Catholics. They taught me how to pray and we went to church occasionally, but my parents warned that the Bible wasn’t meant to be taken literally. My mom also used to dabble in astrology and even consulted psychics on occasion. Even though I lacked solid religious structure, I always wanted God to be a close part of my life. Before tests and competitions I would pray to the Almighty to help me win. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. There were times when I experienced such amazing coincidences that I was sure I was getting signs from the Almighty.In high school I ...

Whoremonging pastor gets stung 2007-11-05 20:56:51 West Palm Beach Police said one of their police officers was posing as a prostitute on South Dixie near the Economy Inn on Friday. During the sting they arrested 13 people. One of them is a pastor of a church. Ronald McCaskill, known as "Pastor Ron" by his congregation, is one of 13 men police arrested during a prostitution solicitation sting on Friday. McCaskill was arrested at about 2:00 in the afternoon. By 11:00 P.M. he'd posted $250 dollar bond and been released.“Every Sunday is a celebration,” Jose Gablus, a member of the McCaskill’s congregation said.He said this Sunday was no different. Congregation members said McCaskill was back on the pulpit at the New Life Christian Centre in Port Saint Lucie.“Pastor Ron himself will preach that on the pulpit, that everyone is human and everyone makes mistakes including himself,” Patricia McKelvy, a member of New Life Christian Centre said.Word of his arrest didn't seem to shake many congregation members, who stood firm wi ...

Let's be positive about religion 2007-11-04 20:22:36 From Wikipedia:Pat Condell is an English stand up comedian and writer. He has caused controversy with outspoken monologues on YouTube denouncing religion and promoting the cause of atheism.His 2006 stand up show ‘Faith Hope and Sanity’, subtitled ‘A Few Jokes About Religion Before It Kills Us All’, was a platform for his comedy and atheist beliefs. He said of the show "It seems to me that fundamentalist Christians, jihadist Muslims and settlement-building Jews are causing more than their share of trouble in the world. World events are being driven by people with apocalyptic delusions, while here in Britain a paralyzing liberal guilt allows religious bigots to use intimidation and violence to stamp out free speech. If you can’t get laughs out of all that, you can’t get them out of anything."An audio version of this video is available at http://patcondell.libsyn.com/ ...

Eugenie Scott vs. Stephen Meyer on intelligent design 2007-11-04 16:54:54 This video features Eugenie Scott vs. Stephen Meyer (of the Discovery Institute) on intelligent design. This appeared on MSNBC in 2005.Scott's organization:http://www.natcenscied.org/Richard Sternberg, who served as editor for the science journal that published Meyer's article, by-passed his editorial board and skipped the peer-review process. Funny enough, that is the only article Meyer can cite! His own article, which was NOT peer-reviewed and did NOT mention intelligent design.Read the journal's statement on the article:http://www.biolsocwash.org/id_stateme...To see a creationist/intelligent design clip posted by someone who took a segment of this out of context:http://youtube.com/watch?v=z7-YVVf8fvkRead more about Sternberg's creationist interests and the Sternberg-Meyer controversy:http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2... ... Design

Make mine a DOUBLE... 2007-11-04 16:40:40 Sent in by BillybeeI was born (I'm 54) into a family where both my mom and dad were alcoholics. My parents' generation was highly tolerant of heavy drinking and dysfunction. Because they were so poorly equipped to raise well adjusted children, they sent their kids to parochial school in the hope that the fear tactics of Catholic nuns would offset their lack of control over our behavior. The result was the same as throwing a wool blanket over a burning tire. The flames of my bad behavior appeared to be in check, but in reality, something dark and stinky was smoldering under the cover. I followed my folks' footsteps into a lifestyle of hard drinking and yet maintaining a reasonably respectable social facade'. The religion was never pressed past the point of it's practical usefulness, but the seed of its terror was fermenting just below my boozed out consciousness. Two identities; NO WAITING! Beer chuggin' , coke snortin', acid droppin', pot smokin', screwing mac ...

Ken Miller on Intelligent Design 2007-11-04 15:04:53 Kenneth R. Miller (born 1948) is a biology professor at Brown University. Miller, who is Roman Catholic, is particularly known for his opposition to creationism, including the intelligent design movement. He has written a book on the subject entitled Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution, in which he furthers the argument that a belief in God and evolution are not mutually exclusive.A video of Ken Miller's 2-hour talk on Intelligent Design at Case Western University was posted to YouTube nearly two years ago. In the video, Miller basically rips Intelligent Design apart and exposes tactics that creationists employ to get creationism shoehorned into the American school system.Evolution resources from Miller's website: LINK ... Design

What's with all the Whining about Truth? 2007-11-03 07:52:04 By Valerie TaricoMy book, The Dark Side, has an in-your-face subtitle: “How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth.” It’s in your face and so, not surprisingly it triggers push-back. One of the questions I get is a wearisome post-modern “What is truth, anyways? What is all this whining about Christian dogmas violating truth like you have some higher standard? (Implied: As if any perspective could lay any more valid claim to truth than any other.)”Whenever this question comes up, I have to fight the urge to say: Go put your left ankle on a train track and come ask me again after a long freighter goes by.Why do I have this urge? Because at one level, it’s a dumb dope-smoking question. People who are being tortured or dying of cancer or, I would assume, getting their feet crushed by locomotives don’t spend a whole lot of time speculating about whether the experience is real.Why do I resist? Because at another level the question is valid. And so I try to answer it –fo ...

Christianity: the ultimate free-card 2007-11-02 13:41:16 Sent in by StephanieOne of the prevalent themes in Christianity is forgiveness; forgiveness of sins against one another, forgiveness of yourself and God’s forgiveness of us all. In my brief stint and attempt at being a Christian I have learned one thing about this theme: it is the ultimate free card and not only allows you to do anything you want but it even removes all personal responsibility from your actions.Christians; they seem like a nice group. They are always talking about loving one another and living their lives for others and not for themselves. It sounds as though if you are living in a Christian home you would be surrounded with so much love and support that it would be almost impossible for you to feel insecure, scared and unloved. I certainly bought into that ideal and after growing up without stability and reassurance I thought there had to be something better than what I knew already. Then I met someone who convinced me that there was. It was called the “Chri ...

Westboro Baptists ordered to pay $11 million to family of Marine 2007-11-01 05:42:23 Also see Hate on Trial.A Baltimore federal jury awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday to the father of a Marine killed in Iraq, deciding that the family's privacy had been invaded by a Kansas church whose members waved anti-gay signs at the funeral.It was the first-ever verdict against Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian group based in Topeka that has protested military funerals across the country with placards bearing shock-value messages such as "Thank God for dead soldiers."They contend that the deaths are punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality and of gays in the military.Relatives of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder wept and hugged at the jury's announcement, which came a day after closing arguments in the civil trial in federal district court."Now I know it's going to be harder for them to do it to anyone else," said Albert Snyder, who mourned at his son's funeral in March 2006 while seven Westboro members waved signs nearby.The compensatory damage award ...

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 2007-10-31 18:23:19 I asked a Christian poster to this site if he kept the Sabbath holy or if he profaned the Sabbath by going shopping, or perhaps eating at McDonalds after church, etc.Here’s what he said:First and fourth commandments say the same thing. The NT doesn't mention the fourth Commandment to keep because Jesus is that Commandment. He mentions to keep the other nine but that one was replaced by the New Covenant in Christ.You are missing out on some very important teachings that is wonderful let me explain a bit. Lets take the Sabbath in Genesis 2:2-3 "And God had finished on the seventh day his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it, because that on it he rested from all his work which God had created in making it."He rested, not because he was tired but that the work was complete. Now we have a completion in Jesus and we are in His rest.Hebrews 4:1 "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise ...

God, Lies and Faith 2007-10-30 22:44:35 By DagoodSDoes God lie? Interesting question to demonstrate our inability to verify claims made about God. I occasionally have the following conversation:Christian: God does not Lie!Me: How do you know?Christian: Because He says He tells the truth!Me: But if he could lie…couldn’t he be lying when he says he always tells the truth? How can you tell the difference between a lying God saying, ‘I always tell the truth’ and a truthful God saying, ‘I always tell the truth’?I leave it to the theists to wrestle among themselves as to whether God can lie. The follow-up question is: Regardless of whether or not God could; WOULD God lie? Think of all the reasons humans lie. Primarily because we think our position is better served to lie instead of telling the truth.As children we lie to avoid the consequences the truth would bring us. Better to blame the broken television on a sibling than take the punishment ourselves. As adults, we lie to avoid a fight with our spouse. ...

Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman 2007-10-30 07:43:04 Dr. Bart D. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar, textual critic, an expert on early Christianity, a professor and the chairman of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why." Ehrman attempts to discern, as near as possible, the original wording of the gospels, epistles, and other ancient texts. He champions the thesis that early Christians, as they developed a single, orthodox doctrine, altered the Biblical texts in order to make them more uniform and in line with changing beliefs. Ehrman was an evangelical Christian as a teenager, and was very interested in what he thought was God's true message. However, Dr. Ehrman's subsequent close analysis of the Bible and research into the field of textual criticism destroyed his faith in the Bible.Ehrman is now an agnostic, and is a prime example of someone who has looked at Christianity deeply but found it to be faulty as a religion.Thi ...