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Jesus is AWESOME! 2007-09-16 10:14:04 By Brother JeffJESUS is just so AWESOME! I have been thinking a lot about God lately, and after the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sinfulness, I turned my life over to Christ! Again! This time it's for real and it's for good! I'll never turn my back on Him again! As for me and my cat wife Tasha, we will serve the LORD! I am so grateful to God for the way He has been helping me at school. When I don't know something, I pray about it, and Jesus gives me a revelation! And sometimes He is right! Glory! And I know that when He is wrong it's my fault for not hearing Him correctly, or it's Satan's fault for interfering with the spiritual transmission. Man, God is so awesome! If you're not God's friend, then you are His enemy and you are going to burn in HELL forever! Jesus loves you!Shit! F**k that shit. It's hard for me to write like that anymore even joking about it. I can understand a belief in a deistic sort of god who created it all given the beauty of our world and the univers ...

CHRISTIAN, DO YOU REALLY HAVE ETERNAL LIFE? 2007-09-16 10:09:51 (I DARE YOU TO TAKE THIS BIBLICAL CHALLENGE)By Brian WorleyDon’t you wish that the literalist Christian who believes in eternal flames of damnation for those who don’t believe in Christ are wrong? (I know Christianity is divided on this issue and many Christians don’t believe it this way. My purpose isn’t to define someone but to introduce a subject and ask you to think for yourself. (Remember this point as you progress through this article.)Any other answer to the opening question other than YES, I HOPE THAT NO ONE EVER BURNS IN ETERNAL FLAMES, should embarrass you as a human being. If you said no, I hope that they get what is coming to them then you are a warped, twisted individual (I purposely avoided calling you a human being). What kind of person wishes or feels that whomever doesn’t accept Christ (for whatever reason) should suffer this harsh of a punishment? Say an unbeliever lives for 17 years and dies. Is that teenager to suffer an infinite number of years (say 1,000 ...

God: a figment of the imagination 2007-09-15 06:35:24 Sent in by Ziggy BlacktailI grew up in a secular home (my parents are lapsed Catholics but that's beside the point) so the religion was never pushed on me. I remember back in the fourth grade when someone told me about the truth about Santa Claus, I didn't cry (yes, I believed in Santa Claus until I was 10. I mature slower than most people). I remember thinking it made perfect sense. I applied the same concept with God and felt the same.I started to doubt Atheism during the last two years of college and decided to give Christianity a chance. A couple of factors caused my doubts and pushed me into Christianity. First, I had a girlfriend at the time who was Catholic. She surprised me when I first learned this because she seemed normal...normal in a sense that her opinions weren't limited to the confines of a certain book and she wasn't fanatical about her beliefs (do bear in mind, I never knew anyone personally who believed in this religion growing up). This led me to asking questio ...

The opium of the atheists 2007-09-14 05:02:15 The following is from the Turkish Daily News. The author, an Islamic believer, maintains that a person needs a lot of faith to believe in the non-existence of Allah. He calls atheism a religion. And interestingly, he parrots many fallacious Christian arguments, even quoting Christian apologists to make his point. He suggests that atheistic regimes of the last century far exceeded the purported cruelty of the entire Middle Ages, and... Well, read for yourself. And feel free to comment. -- WM By Mustafa AKYOLKrynica-ZdrOj – this little Polish town not only has a name hard to pronounce, but it is also quite difficult to reach. In order to arrive at this nice spa resort, you need to first fly to Warsaw, then take another plane to Krakow, and then drive for more than 200 kilometers. Yet this long and winding – and nowadays heavily raining – road apparently does not prevent thousands of people to meet here every September for what they call “the Davos of Central-Eastern Europe:” Th ...

Pastor arrested on child molestation charges 2007-09-14 04:40:37 FRESNO, Calif. -— The Reverend John Bonine is accused of molesting two girls. John Bonine's public defender says the Pastor of Sierra Heights Baptist Church could be facing life in prison if convicted because there are two children involved.Bonine faces more than 100 criminal charges of child molestation. John Bonine looked nervous as he made his first court room appearance Thursday afternoon and pleaded not guilty.Jim Lambe, defense attorney, says, "What is important is that there are two alleged victims, so there for the case would carry a life sentence." It's been four years since Bonine started his job as Senior Pastor at Sierra Heights Baptist Church.Mansel Trimble, youth pastor, says, "We're hurt and this is a very unsettling time. At the same time, we're looking towards healing." Mansel Trimble is the youth pastor and speaks on behalf of the 200 members. He and investigators say the molestations are not connected to the church.Trimble continues to support Bonine. Trimble s ...

Drink, Drank, Drunk 2007-09-13 19:50:57 By Stronger NowI find myself thinking of all the questions I had when I was a Xtian about the stuff I read in the Bible. One that always stuck out with me was weather or not wine was a bad thing or a good thing. It was explained to me that anything that is done in excess is bad. It was also explained that the alcohol in the wine was toxic and that made it bad. I was told that wine at small doses was okay, but one should never drink to excess. I was told a great many things but never how a Christian can even get drunk.Stupid question right? Read on.Now, as any good health professional and scientist knows, ethanol is a toxic substance. It is a CNS depressant that can cause decreased motor function and, in high quantities, coma and death. This seems to be the Xtian viewpoint as well as the added "spiritual toxicity" that is also present.Most people that consume alcohol do so at levels well under the lethal level. It is a bone of contention between some Xtian denominations weather or n ...

Two C’s for Clarity and Communication 2007-09-13 19:39:15 By LiniasmaxPlease someone, lend me an earAnd I’ll tell you what I hear.It seems that we get misunderstood because many people are formulating what they’re going to say before they even hear what’s being said, or just out-right denying it. It’s like “peas porridge micro-waved won’t grow mold.” I believe that we got some minds under erasure, to borrow from the postmodern folks that aren’t so post anymore. I like Truth with a capital T, but it can’t be found in the books. But no one listens to me. I’ll try and explain…I say (Me): I was a believer washed in the blood of the Lamb for 33 years and for 12 of them I was devout, with what I felt was a uniquely spiritual/intellectual foundation: solid baby…impermeable.Christian response (C-dude): No you weren’t.Me: In college, I got baptized in a lake and then got baptized in the Spirit. I prayed in tongues. Why once, I jumped up in church, spoke as the spirit led – and 10 people ran to the altar under conv ...

DisneyWorld is an eye-opener 2007-09-12 20:07:29 By LiniasmaxMy family and I just returned from DisneyWorld. Oh Boy - what a place! My girls loved it and my wife and I bought too much... on credit!!! Oh well, you only live ONCE. And the cool thing is that nothing bad happened to us on the trip!!! Wait a minute - I'm no longer a believer... and I just went to Paganopolis... and dragged my home-schooled children and doubting, yet devout wife along. We should have broken down.... I drove over the speed limit the whole way, so we should have gotten six tickets... but, wait there was one thing: We were unfortunate enough to see a dead body lying on the side of the road with two state troopers occupied with covering it and figuring out what to do. And to think, in my old Christian state, just a year ago, I may have seen that as God taking the attention of the officers, so I wouldn't get a ticket... oh dear, I was ill back then!!! Christianity made me feel delusionally important in the grand scheme of things.But DisneyWorld made m ...

Miracles and morals 2007-09-12 05:52:08 A short video by Pat Condell, which asks the question, "What do miracles and morality have to do with each other?" Some people have had trouble getting this video to load. If it happens to you, try it at:http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dca_11...orhttp://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseac...You can download an audio version of this video at http://patcondell.libsyn.com/To monitor comments posted to this topic, use . ...

Church supports pastor charged with battery 2007-09-10 20:22:39 JEROME IDAHO - Sunday morning, the Rev. Ron Matheney led the First Presbyterian Church in Jerome as he always does. The choir sang, the congregation prayed and Matheney delivered a sermon on Christian identity, compassion and forgiveness.The congregation seemed to take the sermon to heart in the wake of charges filed Aug. 28 against Matheney for allegedly beating his now-estranged wife, Darlene.Matheney was charged with one count of felony domestic battery, one count of felony attempted strangulation and one misdemeanor charge of removing the phone to prevent Darlene from calling the police.None of this seemed to matter to congregants Sunday. Matheney greeted the parishioners after church and many warmly hugged him in return.Although his charges have become public, Matheney chose not to directly address them in front of the congregation. He alluded to having had "a bad week," but said nothing more about his legal problems in his sermon.Instead, Matheney spoke of his time at a rehabilit ...

Church supports preacher charged with battery 2007-09-10 20:20:59 JEROME IDAHO - Sunday morning, the Rev. Ron Matheney led the First Presbyterian Church in Jerome as he always does. The choir sang, the congregation prayed and Matheney delivered a sermon on Christian identity, compassion and forgiveness.The congregation seemed to take the sermon to heart in the wake of charges filed Aug. 28 against Matheney for allegedly beating his now-estranged wife, Darlene.Matheney was charged with one count of felony domestic battery, one count of felony attempted strangulation and one misdemeanor charge of removing the phone to prevent Darlene from calling the police.None of this seemed to matter to congregants Sunday. Matheney greeted the parishioners after church and many warmly hugged him in return.Although his charges have become public, Matheney chose not to directly address them in front of the congregation. He alluded to having had "a bad week," but said nothing more about his legal problems in his sermon.Instead, Matheney spoke of his time at a rehabilit ...

Church defends pastor charged with child porn 2007-09-10 05:12:50 WACO TX -- Members of a local church whose former part-time pastor has been arrested on child pornography charges don’t think he meant to do anything wrong, the church’s full-time preacher says.Henry Edgington, 63, stepped down from his leadership position at Elm Mott Church of Christ before his arrest Thursday, says Sam Armstrong, the church’s main pastor. Although Edgington maintains — and some church members believe — that he had the graphic images because he was doing research to try and get child pornography sites off the Internet, he decided to quit his post the past week or so because he feared he might be charged with a crime, Armstrong said.Those fears played out this week when Edgington was arrested on seven counts of possessing child pornography. According to affidavits supporting his arrest, he had multiple illegal pictures of children in a padlocked box at his home. They were found and brought to police by the fiancée of Edgington’s son. She found the box in h ...

I realized that God does not exist 2007-09-09 08:25:18 Sent in by KyleHi. My name is Kyle, I live in Austin, and I am a former devout Christian.I grew up in a semi devout family. By semi, I mean that my grandparents on both sides were extremely religious, but my parents were not too religious. I did the whole CCE Church deal on Wednesdays as a child, and went to Church on Christmas, but that was about all.However, once I became about 15, I started to study more about religion. This was my Confirmation year for the Catholic Church, so I started wondering a bit more about why I was Christian. And, I ended up becoming extremely devout. Every week I would now go to Church with my grandparents on my mom's side, and I became extremely religious. My grandpa on my dad's side is a Protestant Pastor for the Church of Christ, and so I talked with him all the time, about theology, the Bible, and anything Christian!So, to sum it up... My parents were not really religious, but when I became a teen I became extremely religious. My grandparents were rel ...

I really need answers 2007-09-09 07:35:00 A letter from Nisa:Hello my name is nisa, a 34 year old single mother of two. I TOO AM AT A CROSSROAD IN LIFE. i can truly identify with webmaster's testimony from beginning to the end. I was brought up in the pentacostal church, even as i type i am still confused of God's existence. See, i rebelled at the age of 13-14 and fell into the life of herion, prositution, sadomasocisim and exotic dancing... we all know how that story goes; however, the only thing that keeps me believing in a supernatural prescence is that I have experienced undoubtly, supernatural experiences. Like, the night i was going to commit suicide and as i was about to jump i felt as if someone was "holding me back" which make me rethink the whole situation or the numerous times when i sincerely bowed my knee and felt undoubtly great sense of contement in peace. Does our minds have the ability to create this?? Was this all in my head or can there be something greater existing beyond ourselves?? I could go on ...

Don't listen to your head. Listen to your heart 2007-09-08 04:46:17 Sent in by Colin E I was raised in a home where my parents called themselves Christian: we were members of a protestant church, but I do not think that any of us took religion too seriously. Us children were sent to Sunday School every week to get proper religious instruction, but my parents never tried to encourage me or my sister to dedicate our "lives to the Lord". Moreover, being a white South African child in the heyday of Apartheid, with the church I attended openly supporting the Apartheid government, my parents did tell me to take whatever that church teaches with a pinch of salt: they certainly were not supporters of that regime, but all white South Africans in the '70s had to keep up appearances, or face at best ostracism, or at worst criminal prosecution.This all changed when I turned 15: my sister was invited to a charismatic/fundamentalist church service, and I tagged along, mostly because I was promised that it was a good place to meet girls - and I was not disappointed ...