What would Jesus Christ tell our churches today?

Semi-fictional arguments given by today’s churches…

“We need a larger church building.  To do that, we need to take on debt…”

“God wants us to grow, grow, grow…”

“We can serve God better by being a larger church…”

“With more members, we can offer more programs…”

“It’s an unfortunate reality of today’s times that to grow, we need to take out a mortgage…”

“We can’t meet the needs of the community unless we grow…”

“More members, means more income so we can offer better opportunities…”

“People won’t come to church unless it looks like a church…”

What would Jesus Christ tell the leaders of our modern church?

Would He look at the large buildings and the debt and say, “Well done!”

OR, more likely, would He be aghast that we spend money [that isn't ours!] on things that will pass away??

IF God wants your church to grow, DON’T YOU THINK that He will provide the means for it???

How often does the Bible teach about going into debt?!   Would Jesus say it is “ok” to go into debt because you are serving Me?

OR, would He instruct us in the feeding of the hungry, and the clothing of the poor and disadvantaged.

You decide.

Something profound from Pharyngula

There’s something interesting on Pharyngula today.  Well, to be fair, there’s always something interesting over there aside from the religion bashing and name calling.

Dr. PZ Myers has reviewed a book entitled “Don’t Be Such a Scientist:  Talking Substance in an Age of Style.”

In his review, he writes:

There are lessons worth learning throughout the book; one of them is one I’ve known for a long time, that science is at odds with popular culture because it is largely an exercise in constant criticism, and people hate being criticized. We encourage a culture of negativity, because it works for us…which means, of course, that I can’t simply let the book slide by with a happy two thumbs up. I must be such a scientist. One of the things Randy seems to be oblivious to is the fact that character and personality are an essential part of the style element he is endorsing, and scientists can capitalize on their particular, peculiar, aggravating set of common characteristics. He tells his story of being the scientific dufus in the company of artists; the guy who takes things too literally, who has strange stories, who can obsess over odd stuff that no one else cares about, and who has enough character that his friends can talk about “being a Randy” and everyone knows exactly what they’re talking about. He writes as if this was a problem, and I can sympathize with some of his embarrassing moments…but it was a strength. He sounds like he was one of the interesting people in his group.

So I end up feeling a bit torn. He’s telling us “Don’t be such a scientist”, and it’s true that there are many occasions when the scientific attitude can generate unnecessary obstacles to accomplishing our goals. At the same time, though, I want to say “Do [emphasis his] be such a scientist”, because it’s part of our identity and it makes us stand out as unusual and, like Randy, interesting, even if it sometimes does make us a bit abrasive. But, you know, some of us revel in our abrasiveness; it’s fun.”

I find these thoughts very profound and insightful, though perhaps not for the reasons they were intended.

Read on and I’ll explain….

Egads…the new WORDPRESS.COM home page is TERRIBLE!!

What’s up with the new WordPress.Com homepage.  Horrible design, horrible idea.

I didn’t care much for the previous design either, but this is way worse.

I actually liked the design BEFORE the previous design (3 designs ago…)

Sigh.

Do we as humans ALWAYS have to demonize other people groups?

Are we genetically predetermined to demonize other people groups, who believe differently than we do?

Are we somehow hard wired to “hate” others?  To mock them?  To ridicule them?

WE are the human race – WE are in this together.  Blacks, Whites, Asians, Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Intelligent and Ignorant.  WE are no better than our neighbor.  WE are no worse than our neighbor.

One man kills another.  One man rapes a woman.  A woman murders another and cuts out her fetus.   A man robs a store and kills 3 people – motive unknown.  A man shoots up a fitness club – motive loneliness.

If circumstances had been different, if things had gone a different way, perhaps we might have been that person.  Many small things add up to the whole of who we become.

People demonize people of religion.  Religious people demonize non-religious people.  IT SUCKS.

All the while, the “demon-izers” claim to be “better” than the “demons”.

That man who shot up the fitness club in PA made a diary entry and in this diary entry he talked about God.

The intellectual heavy weights (specifically *some of* the commentators) over at Pharyngula (who espouse scientific method as one of the highest principles of living) choose to make a case of this as “religion is bad”.  GIVE ME A BREAK.

Pharyngula: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/08/another_mass_murder.php

NOW, to be fair, many Christians are just as bad.  Two sides of the same freaking coin and they don’t even know it.

Well, I was going to post a link to a Christian blog abusing Atheists, but they seem to be harder to find. (I know they exist, but they don’t seem to be as prolific as the anti-Christian/anti-Religion blogs – if you would like to submit one, I’ll update this post with the appropriate entry). ** UPDATE: What I really need is a Christian blog post where the commenters (?) / commentators are bashing atheism/atheists as ignorant, evil, despicable people as PZ’s blog post itself doesn’t do that – that is found in the comments.

Here some purported Christian blogs that would be representative of the “bad side” of Christianity (the other side of the coin) (DISCLAIMER: I have my doubts these are truly Christian bloggers and may be pretenders much like “Angry Xtian” was but to be fair, I’ll include them)

Atheistwatch
Atheist-Fools

I SINCERELY HOPE that neither group is truly representative of their groups as a whole.  God helps us if they are.

Chris

(I’ve made some corrections to this post as it was pointed out to me that my post lumped all of the people at Pharyngula into the same “boat” so to speak)