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Mega-church music minister arrested for incest 2007-12-29 06:12:05 The music minister at the Heritage Christian Center was arrested Thursday after a 15-year-old relative accused him of sexually assaulting her, the Arapahoe County sheriff said.James Howard Brown, 38, was arrested for investigation of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, displaying a pattern of sexual assault on a child and aggravated incest.He was being held under $50,000 bail. It was not immediately known if he had an attorney.Sheriff J. Grayson Robinson said there was a disturbance at Brown’s home Thursday morning after the girl told relatives Brown had assaulted her, prompting Brown’s wife to call authorities."It doesn’t appear that there are other victims at this time, though we are still investigating," Robinson said.Garret Leonard, executive pastor at Heritage Christian Center (and second son of the church's pastor, Bishop Dennis Leonard), said Brown has been relieved of his duties.“We will assess the situation as more details become available. W ...

Physics for fundies 2007-12-28 12:55:23 By PatrickI was thinking back to my university days and specifically to the difficulties I had with physics. I chose a scientific discipline as my course of study and this required one to have a good foundation in mathematics, especially algebra and calculus. Not having ever been an "A" student in either, this made the mandatory courses in physics rather difficult. I began to wonder what physics would have been like at a fundie Evangelical university (Nazarene University in Syracuse, Oral Roberts etc) and I began to laugh. I designed a few questions for Introductory Fundie Physics. I would have achieved an A+ in this course in my Xtian days.1. Bubba casts a 0.2 kg stone at the skull of a non believer. Bubba is 8 metres from the non believer and the stone is cast from Bubba' s hand at a distance of 1.71 metres above the ground, at a velocity of 16 m/s and at an angle of 51 degrees from the horizontal. At what velocity and with how much force does the stone contact the non believer's s ...

Pastor arrested on gun charges 2007-12-28 06:09:57 A pastor at a Cold Spring church was arrested on two counts of carrying a concealed weapon on Christmas Eve.According to the Cold Spring Police Department, Johnny R. Coleman (Randy), 1069 Parkside Drive, Alexandria, the pastor of Christ Baptist Church in Cold Spring, was arrested after police found him at 12:30 p.m. with a loaded Glock 9mm handgun and a loaded .25 caliber handgun, in a briefcase at the Mr. Spotless Car Wash in Cold Spring.Cold Spring Police Chief Ed Burk III confirmed Coleman is a pastor at the church.According to the police report, Coleman told an officer he was in line for a car wash when he was cut off by another person. According the report, "Mr. Coleman stated he told the victim someone could get shot over this."The person who allegedly cut Coleman off told police he believed he saw Coleman loading the hand gun, according to the police reportColeman was arrested and taken to the Campbell County Detention Center and released the same day on his own recognizance.Col ...

Priests brawl at Jesus' birthplace 2007-12-27 16:18:50 Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests attacked each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning on Thursday. The basilica, built over the grotto in Bethlehem where Christians believe Jesus was born, is administered jointly by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic authorities. Any perceived encroachment on one group's turf can touch off vicious feuds. On Thursday, dozens of priests and cleaners were scrubbing the church ahead of the Armenian and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated in early January. Thousands of tourists visited the church this week for Christmas celebrations. But the clean-up turned ugly after some of the Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church's section, touching off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians. For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who ...

The End Is Near! 2007-12-26 05:36:35 By GabeI remember several years back when news got out that a technology company was in the process of developing a tracking microchip to be implanted in animals. Not long after many preachers were claiming this new microchip would one day become "The Mark of the Beast." Such speculation is common in Christianity today. When the World Trade Towers fell, many were claiming that the battle of Armageddon was approaching. And now we have preachers who watch the news in the Middle East and then go to church Sunday morning and tell their congregations, "This was prophesied in the bible!" There are even websites you can visit that supposedly tell you the link between modern terror and the battle of Armageddon. If there's a change in weather patterns, a few hurricanes hitting the U.S in the same year, or a couple of severe earthquakes striking in the same time frame, you can expect someone to claim these events are signs of the end of the world.Just an example of how outrageous this stuff can ...

I ruined my parent's Christmas Day and I feel very guilty 2007-12-26 05:26:24 Sent in by JosephYou remember Cypher? The traitor from the movie called The Matrix? There was a moment in the film when Cypher tells Neo..."Who oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill". Neo laughs at first...and then he becomes quiet...because he was silently wishing the same thing" Remember that moment in the film? Well, I had my Cypher "I wish I took the blue pill" moment today...of all days Christmas.I ruined my parent's Christmas Day and I feel very guilty. I've been harboring doubts about the existence of God for a very long time and today...I felt I had to express my feelings. I had to let them know what I felt...and now I feel guilty.I love my parents very much...but too much faith in religion and all belief involved and I had it. I had to tell them what I thought was the truth. The truth is, from my perspective...God does NOT exist. I feel guilty because I told them this on Christmas Day. Am I wrong for saying this to them? Especially on a day like Christmas Day? I don't know.I ...

Pastor accused of hitting on minor child... again 2007-12-26 05:05:04 JACKSONVILLE, FL -- It's a sensitive situation over at Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church. Some members are standing by their pastor regardless of the allegations brought forth. Others want to know the facts and say they want all the answers before making a decision.Broadcast live on television and the internet, Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church Pastor Darrell Gilyard has a large following. After recent allegations of sexual assault against a minor, church members want light shed on whatever the truth may be."I was shocked. I was shocked because he is someone that I really respect," says a church member.This member did not want their identity shown but says the news is startling."He is this person people really respect in the church and we just really want to know what's going on, the truth. Everybody is really supporting him," says the church member.Allegations surfaced in a police report after the mother of a minor came forward saying her daughter received explicit text messages t ...

HELL IS FREEZING OVER 2007-12-25 19:41:40 By Gabe I have a serious question concerning the Bible's teaching on the doctrine of hell. Actually I have several serious questions concerning this teaching, but I'll focus on just one point for the sake of time. I'm sure almost all of us at some point in our lives have been to church and heard a preacher giving a sermon on the topic of hell. During my years when I was very religious, I had a favorite sermon entitled, "Hell, Fire, and Damnation." Actually it wasn't a sermon, but rather a five part sermon series. It was preached by my favorite pastor, Dr. Roy Hargrave, who is the senior pastor of Riverbend Community Church, a very large Southern Baptist church located in Ormond Beach, Florida. A friend of mine sat through one of the sermons during a Sunday morning service, and the sermon was so intense and terrifying that he caught a glance of a young college-age girl sitting in the same row literally trembling in her seat, while listening to the pastor describe in vivid detail the ...

An atheist’s Christmas wish 2007-12-25 13:48:51 Michael is a recently lapsed Jehovah’s Witness living in my block of flats at the end of the corridor. Since he split from his wife of five years, he’s been dabbling in Anglicanism which, from his description, sounds less like a faith than a hobby. He tried Catholicism first, but found the hymns grim and the sermons hard on his knees.Now, as before, Michael is an affable guy, though he is still affable a little too frequently.So, there’s the knock at my door on a Saturday afternoon. Luckily, Anglicanism isn’t the only new thing Michael is trying; he has, in each hand, a cold beer. The kind of cold that sticks to the palms of your hands. If only he’d thought of this technique when he was trying to covertly slip Watchtower magazines on to my coffee table.In fold-out chairs, our feet up on the balcony rail, I feel the deep, dull satisfaction of heterosexual male bonding. Tedious, yes. But comforting too.Somehow we land on that old conversation about the commercialisation of Chri ...

Cutting the tie that binds 2007-12-25 13:35:04 Sent in by GabeI broke free from Christian fundamentalism in April 2006. I was a third year student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. This seminary is considered by many to be the intellectual hub of evangelical seminaries. The president of the seminary, Dr. Albert Mohler, has been called "the leading intellectual voice for evangelicals in America." He has been a frequent guest on Larry King Live, debating controversial topics such as gay marriage, abortion, religious tolerance, etc. Dr. William Dembski also teaches at the seminary, who is widely considered the world's leading proponent of Intelligent Design. Dr. Dembski was my professor in the fall semester of 2005.But with one year left to complete a Masters of Divinity in Theology, I could no longer ignore the questions that were piling up in my mind. My questions and doubts troubled me to the point that I simply could no longer preach and teach something that I wasn't sure if believed any longer. I ...

Happy Xmas 2007-12-23 11:54:27 ...

The atheist experience -- the Christmas edition 2007-12-22 11:57:52 The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin. The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals. ...

Thank you Jim Bob Duggar! 2007-12-22 06:47:48 Sent in by AmyFor those of you that may not know, Jim Bob Duggar is the Arkansas man whose primary claim to fame is that he has managed to father 17 children, at last count (or the last time I cared about counting…). He has also served in politics at a local level and his platform is primarily built on the total abolition of abortion. (How fitting!) Anyway, I like to credit Jim Bob and his lifestyle, broadcast for the entire world to see on the Discovery Health Channel, for my leaving religion altogether. His lifestyle is of course dictated by his fundamentalist view of the Bible, from which he and his wife have extrapolated that it is their duty to fill the world with mini-Duggars, dressed in a weird combination of fashions from the early to mid 1980’s and Little House on the Prairie. But enough about them. How did Jim Bob facilitate my complete and total apostasy from Christianity?First let me share that I was raised by nice and well-meaning parents. Their conversion to ev ...

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Intelligent Design 2007-12-20 07:34:13 Yes, it's the name of a real book that purports to explain intelligent design.Apparently, the book is for idiots who don't quite understand intelligent design, but who after reading the book, are fully equipped to become idiots who promote intelligent design. Available on Amazon.com ... Design

Christianity Outlawed! 2007-12-20 07:12:03 From the hilarious site, Ridiculopathy.com: WASHINGTON, D.C.- In a difficult 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled on Monday that judges can no longer display religious artifacts such as the Ten Commandments in their courtrooms. By manipulating a loophole in the Constitution, lawyers managed to convince the court to invalidate centuries of federal sponsorship for the nation's most popular religion. The end result is that Christianity as we have known it has been effectively outlawed in America. The same Court later approved of the limited outdoor display of the stone law books but this door prize was too weak and narrow in scope to be of any consolation. "For my faith to be fully realized, I need to be free to foist it on other people," said life-long Christian Holly Rohler. "Without the ability to make people feel excluded, what's the point of being a Christian? Hey, if Indians get to smoke peyote on religious grounds, it's only fair that I get to righteously condem ...