Religious News/Quotes of the Day

[Dardedar]

On Knees For Jesus

Showing Christ's Love



"This blog is dedicated to showing Christ's love by looking at his followers."

Hardcore.

[Dardedar]

Bill O'Really's even dumber than you thought. At two minutes in he challenges an atheist to believe in God because of the tides. "They go in, they go out, you can't explain that."

http://www.skepticmoney.com/dave-silver ... t-scam-ad/

[Savonarola]

Bill O'Really's even dumber than you thought. At two minutes in he challenges an atheist to believe in God because of the tides. "They go in, they go out, you can't explain that."

Although it's true that it doesn't matter whether we can explain them or not, I was terribly disappointed that he didn't passingly mention that we can explain this, and very well.

[Doug]

See here.
A Catholic organization produced an Easter-themed, fundraiser calendar with muscular young men wearing tiny underwear--or nothing at all.

I wonder how many priests will have it hanging in the rectory..?

[Dardedar]

This looks really good:

Gawd Bless America, trailer.

[Dardedar]

Let's not forget this very useful site:

Liars for Jesus

[Dardedar]

YWCA Drops the word Christian

[Dardedar]

Dying bird mystery solved:

Jacobs: Birds Are Dying Because of DADT Repeal

Over the weekend, Cindy Jacobs of Generals International posted a new video prompted by the fact that, as a prophet, people have been asking her about the meaning behind the recent rash of bird deaths ... to which she replied that it might be due to the fact that America is violating God's prohibition on homosexuality with support for gay marriage and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

Video and text here.

[Doug]

CHICAGO — An Illinois law requiring a daily moment of silence in public schools is back in effect after a two-year hiatus.

Federal Judge Robert Gettleman lifted an injunction on the law's enforcement and the State Board of Education notified districts Friday, a day later.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled in October that the law approved in 2007 is constitutional, because it doesn't specify prayer. The decision reversed a 2009 ruling by Gettleman calling the law unconstitutional.

...Parent Rob Sherman, an atheist who filed a challenge to the law, says he plans to fight it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

From here.

[Savonarola]

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled in October that the law approved in 2007 is constitutional, because it doesn't specify prayer. The decision reversed a 2009 ruling by Gettleman calling the law unconstitutional.

Isn't there already other precedent that such moments of silence are unconstitutional?

[Dardedar]

"I was elected as a Republican candidate," he said. "But once I became governor ... I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind."

"There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit," Bentley continued. "But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister."

"Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother," he added.

--Alabama Republican Governor Robert Bentley, sworn in Monday, wasting no time in making an ass of himself.

[L.Wood]

.

Benny Hinn's wife gets "rivved up" and promotes a Holy Ghost Enema

.

[Dardedar]

Thanks to Phil at Skeptic Money for this:

Churches Find End Is Nigh

The Number of Religious Facilities Unable to Pay Their Mortgage Is Surging

Since 2008, nearly 200 religious facilities have been foreclosed on by banks, up from eight during the previous two years and virtually none in the decade before that, according to real-estate services firm CoStar Group, Inc. Analysts and bankers say hundreds of additional churches face financial struggles so severe they could face foreclosure or bankruptcy in the near future.

Religious denominations of all kinds have suffered in recent years as donations have declined, with many Catholic parishes closing and synagogues merging their congregations. But the property-financing problems have been concentrated among independent churches…

Wall Street Journal

[Betsy]

200 churches in 3 years is not very many, really, especially compared to the thousands and thousands of people who have lost their homes.

But it does remind me that a couple of years ago, UBC in Fayetteville was undergoing such severe financial cut backs that they had to let go their landscaping service and get their members to sign up for yard work days. At that time, the end seemed inevitable, but I don't know what's happened since.

[Dardedar]

200 churches in 3 years is not very many, really,...

DAR
You're right, but remember that's just foreclosures. Many more would have closed or gone out of business under different circumstances. In the next month or two we may be getting a special speaker in to talk about the changing (and declining) demographics of Christianity in America. Two hundred churches is I am sure a misleadingly low number.

Here are 50 closed Catholic churches just in Cleveland:

50th parish closing in Cleveland Catholic church downsizing blamed on money, attendance woes

Here are some more stats on this:

A new study finds that only 1 percent of U.S. religious congregations go out of existence each year, “which is among the lowest mortality rates ever observed for any type of organization,” according to an article to be published in the June issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Dave Olson’s research shows that in the 1990s about 3,200 churches closed each year–or 1.1 percent of U.S. Christian congregations. And, Olson added, “In the 2000s, it has been 3,700 a year.”

American church statistics have reported [via Goodmanson]:

In America, 3500 – 4000 churches close their doors each year
Half of all churches last year did not add one new member through conversion growth
Churches lose an estimated 2,765,000 people each year to nominalism and secularism
The 3,500-4,000 U.S. churches annual closure count is also cited by Ed Stetzer in “Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age.”

Excerpted from The Condition of the Church in America, complied by Andy McAdams:

1,400 pastors in America leave the ministry monthly.
Only 15% of churches in the United States are growing and just 2.2% of those are growing by conversion growth.
10,000 churches in America disappeared in a five-year period.

LINK

[Dardedar]

Bill O’Reilly admits a scientific answer for the tides but the moon (and a few other things) remain a mystery. He says it takes less faith to just say God did it…

One minute video clip at Skeptic Money

We have very good, very plausible, non extraordinary, naturalistic theories explaining how the “moon got there” and answering all of Bill O’Really’s other questions. But he prefers the God o’ the Gaps. If there is a gap in our knowledge (and none of his references rise to that level) then he thinks it takes “less faith” to say a ghost did it by magic.

So his theory for how the moon got there is, God said “moon” and *POOF* there was a moon. Same for bunnies and froggies and all the rest. See? Easy. Easy answers to a complex universe. That’s what children like, and Bill O’, is, first and foremost, a child.

[Dardedar]

As seen on skepticmoney.com:



And another one:



Sav, I would almost like to put this one on our main page under our big picture. What do you think?

[Dardedar]

"One of the most amazing and perplexing features of mainstream Christianity is that seminarians who learn the historical-critical method in their Bible classes appear to forget all about it when it comes time for them to be pastors. They are taught critical approaches to Scripture, they learn about the discrepancies and contradictions, they discover all sorts of historical errors and mistakes, they come to realize that it is difficult to know whether Moses existed or what Jesus actually said and did, they find that there are other books that were at one time considered canonical but that ultimately did not become part of Scripture (for example, other Gospels and Apocalypses), they come to recognize that a good number of the books of the Bible are pseudonymous (for example, written in the name of an apostle by someone else), that in fact we don't have the original copies of any of the biblical books but only copies made centuries later, all of which have been altered. They learn all of this, and yet when they enter church ministry they appear to put it back on the shelf. For reasons I will explore in the conclusion, pastors are, as a rule, reluctant to teach what they learned about the Bible in seminary."
— Bart D. Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them)

[Dardedar]

U.S. Rep. Pete Stark Sponsors National Darwin Day Resolution

"WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) announced today the introduction of H. Res. 81, calling for the designation of Feb. 12, 2011, as Darwin Day in order to recognize the work of Charles Darwin and the importance of science in the advancement of humanity.
Rep. Stark, the American Humanist Association’s 2008 Humanist of the Year, collaborated with the AHA, a Secular Coalition member organization, to produce the resolution.
“Darwin’s birthday is a good time for us to reflect on the important role of science in our society,” Stark said. “It is also a time to redouble our efforts to ensure that children are being taught scientific facts, not religious dogma, and to fight back against those who seek to undermine the science of climate change for political ends.”
The resolution recognizes the importance of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by the mechanism of natural selection, which is further supported by the modern understanding of genetics."

As seen on Skeptic Money

[Dardedar]

Hypocrite of the Day:

Man Tattoos Leviticus 18:22 That Forbids Homosexuality On His Arm,
But Leviticus 19:28 Forbids Tattoos