Religious News/Quotes of the Day

[Dardedar]

Warriors for Christ: Is Promise Keepers Making a Comeback?

Whatever happened to Promise Keepers? PK was one of the most visible and controversial religious movements of the 1990s. It burst onto the scene in the early years of that decade, determined to change men’s hearts and transform them into “warriors for Christ.” ...

Well, Coach Mac is back! He’s repackaged his message of racial reconciliation and revamped PK’s heady brew of muscular Christianity, personal transformation, and evangelical nationalism for a post-9/11 world. On Friday and Saturday of last week, Coach Bill McCartney, who founded Promise Keepers nearly twenty years ago, brought thousands of guys back to Folsom Field at the University of Colorado in Boulder, site of the first stadium rally in 1992. ...

“This is going to relaunch Promise Keepers, and go across this nation like nothing before,” a revved-up Washington had promised in a promo video distributed months in advance of the weekend rally. “It is for America!” he added.

The organizers had hoped to fill the stadium with 50,000 men (and women) as in the glory days, but fell far short of the mark... At times, the enormous stadium looked almost empty, especially on Friday night. But those who did turn up at Folsom Field paid $49 each ($45 for active military) to push past the turnstiles and get a taste of reconciliation and unity—between rich and poor, men and women, and Jews and Gentiles—the necessary prerequisites for the “spiritual warfare” on the road ahead."

LINK

[Doug]

See here.

This is an image you can get on a t-shirt.



From the website:
"After two millennia, a visibly angry Jesus announced today that he has finally thrown in the towel on science."


We have some science teachers on this board. Which of you is going to buy one of these t-shirts and wear it to class?

[Savonarola]

We have some science teachers on this board. Which of you is going to buy one of these t-shirts and wear it to class?

Policy prevents me from wearing a shirt with the word "shitty" on it.

If there wasn't such a policy, my principal and assistant superintendent would see to it that I'd be fired before the end of the day because of the less than 150% enthusiastic endorsement of Jeebuzz.

But while I'm dreaming, here are more goodies:

[Doug]

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests.

The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn't successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise.

...The religiosity information came from a sample of nearly 36,000 participants who were part of the U.S. Religious Landscapes Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted in 2007, while the teen birth and abortion statistics came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For religiosity, the researchers averaged the percentage of respondents who agreed with conservative responses to eight statements, including: ''There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion," and ''Scripture should be taken literally, word for word."

They found a strong correlation between statewide conservative religiousness and statewide teen birth rate even when they accounted for income and abortion rates.

For instance, the results showed more abortions among teenagers in the less religious states, which would skew the findings since fewer teens in these states would have births. But even after accounting for the abortions, the study team still found a state's level of religiosity could predict their teen birth rate. The higher the religiosity, the higher was the teen birth rate on average.


See here.

[Dardedar]

"A report published last week stated that God could not create a rock so big that he himself could not lift it. The Onion has since learned that, clearly, since God is omnipotent, he can lift any rock, and there's no way he can make a rock big enough that --oh wait. Whoa."
--Correction in The Onion, August 6, 2009

[Doug]

Insurer Will Pay $74,000 Settlement for Discriminating Against Atheists & Agnostics
(Courthouse News Service) - An insurance company will pay $74,000 to settle a claim that it discriminated against agnostics and atheists. Des Moines-based GuideOne Mutual Insurance offered homebuyers, owners and renters in 19 states special benefits and discounts if they were churchgoers. The United States' lawsuit against GuideOne and two of its offices stemmed from complaints filed by an atheist, an agnostic, and the Lexington, Ky., Fair Housing Council, in Louisville Federal Court.
The defendants agreed to pay a total of $29,500 to three plaintiffs and a $45,000 civil penalty.
GuideOne also must remove from its policy applications a space for the applicant's religious denomination; develop new, nondiscriminatory insurance offerings; train its employees and agents on the Fair Housing Act; and provide periodic reports to the Justice Department.

See the rest here.

[Doug]

When the Catholic Church took action on the pedophile priest scandal, it was to deny gay men entry into seminaries and, from there, into its priestly ranks--a move criticized by those who pointed out that pedophiles are not homosexuals.

Often, pedophiles are heterosexuals, even though they may molest children of either gender.

However, one Vatican official, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, who serves as the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the Office of the United Nations, has made the claim that the clerical abuses that rocked the Catholic church and stunned the faithful the world over were not committed by pedophiles, but rather by "ephebophiles"--men attracted to adolescent boys.

In terms of the crude smearing of gays with the deeds of abusive priest, this may be a distinction without a meaningful difference.

Tomasi’s claim was reported in an article posted Sept. 29 at Catholic Culture.org.

...Tommasi also suggested that because other faiths also have problems with pedophiles in positions of authority, the church’s own pedophile scandal is not as serious as the media has made it out to be.

A Sept. 28 Guardian article reported that Tommasi read a statement after the UN human rights council had met in Geneva, noting that only a tiny minority of Catholic priests--around 1.5%--had been involved in abuses.

See here.

[Doug]

(WAUSAU, Wis.) — A central Wisconsin couple who prayed rather than seek medical care for their 11-year-old dying daughter were sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail and 10 years probation in the girl's death.

Dale and Leilani Neumann could have received up to 25 years in prison for the March 2008 death of Madeline Neumann, who died of an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes. They were convicted of second-degree reckless homicide in separate trials earlier this year.

See here.

[Doug]

Ken Pulliam got his Ph.D. in Theology from Bob Jones University (1986) and taught at International Baptist College in Tempe, AZ for 9 years. He started having doubts about Christianity. In 1996, the evidence against his worldview was too much. He lost his faith under the weight of the evidence. He is now the CEO of a software sales company, and he started up a new a blog to help others kick the "habit" too.

http://formerfundy.blogspot.com

[kwlyon]

So....parents can be held legally liable for not seeking medical treatment for their child however medical care is not a right....I am confused.....

(WAUSAU, Wis.) — A central Wisconsin couple who prayed rather than seek medical care for their 11-year-old dying daughter were sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail and 10 years probation in the girl's death.

Dale and Leilani Neumann could have received up to 25 years in prison for the March 2008 death of Madeline Neumann, who died of an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes. They were convicted of second-degree reckless homicide in separate trials earlier this year.

See here.

[Savonarola]

So....parents can be held legally liable for not seeking medical treatment for their child however medical care is not a right....I am confused.....

Stop thinking like a Republican, and the world will make sense again.

No, wait, that's not right. Let me try again:

Stop not thinking -- as Republicans do -- and the world will make sense again.

[Dardedar]

Halloween book burning:

***
Memo to Amazing Grace Baptist Church: YOU ARE SO DUMB, YOU'RE ALMOST CUTE.

There are all kinds of stupid. There's some stupid that really sticks in my fucking craw,... And then there's the kind of dumb that's just funny. The kind of dumb that's trying too hard. The kind of dumb that thinks it's breaking a huge cultural taboo, but in reality just makes no sense.

And so it is with the Amazing Grace Baptist Church, nestled away in Canton, North Carolina, and their hilarious decision to hold a Halloween book burning."

Read the rest here...

[Doug]

On Sunday's 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' Larry David was taking a "new pill" that caused him to urinate with excessive force. This caused a lot of splash back, some of which ended up on a Jesus painting hanging on the bathroom wall of his pious assistant, who later sees Jesus "crying" and assumes a miracle has taken place.

Catholics are not amused. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said in a statement:

Mention Larry David in a word association game and "Seinfeld" rolls off the lips. That show, which David created, wrote and produced, was brilliant. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is not. Indeed, last night's episode demonstrates that David's best years are behind him. He ought to quit while he's ahead.

See a clip here.

[Betsy]

This isn't really the point, but I have to agree that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" SUCKS. I don't get why anybody thinks it's funny. It's Larry David trying VERY HARD to be Jerry Seinfeld and he can't pull it off. It's all forced and not funny.

[Doug]

This isn't really the point, but I have to agree that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" SUCKS. I don't get why anybody thinks it's funny. It's Larry David trying VERY HARD to be Jerry Seinfeld and he can't pull it off. It's all forced and not funny.

DOUG
I don't watch the series either. But, then again, I never watched Seinfeld. In fact, I don't watch any TV series these days. If only they would bring back Star Trek...

[Dardedar]

Mr. Deity gag reel. Watch out takes as these guys struggle to get through the script which just lays out the trinity and some basic Christianity:

Must see 4 minute video Clip

[Doug]

From our friend Ralph Nielsen in Moscow, Idaho.

Read about it here.

[Doug]

Here is the first atheist billboard in Moscow, Idaho.




A year later they ran a second one, which is in the previous post.

The third one:

It was defaced by Christians.


It was fixed, and defaced again:

[Doug]

The latest one in Moscow, Idaho, from Nov. 12th:

[Dardedar]

Bart Ehrman is a world renowned Bible scholar and quite liberal/skeptical of evangelical apologetics. Some of his upcoming lectures are fairly close to us:

http://www.bartdehrman.com/engagements.htm