Misc things that sprout in my mind
This a continuing pictorial post on our visit to New York City recently. One of the things that got my attention was the number of vendors on the streets selling almost everything. Here are some pictures. Click on any picture to bring up a larger gallery view. Continue reading NYC…. The Vendors…
I will admit here that I got a first time comment today that I immediately sent to the trash because I don’t have the energy to deal with it on a serious level right now. It goes like this. “I will ignore the needs of the 99 in order to prevent the 100th one from getting something he doesn’t deserve”. This comment also declared that social justice as he sees it is nothing but communism. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard comments like this. But the truly sad thing is that it frequently comes from someone … Continue reading Whose Fault???
What About The Bible… ? (Chapter 6) This is the final post on my series about the Bible. It has been an enlightening time for me. This final post is about the history of Christianity and how it seems to stop with the establishment of the biblical text. But before I get into that I must mention that I have found that to really understand the Gospel text you must also understand the basic history of that region of the world during that period of time. To do that means seeking out historical records of the Roman Empire particularly in … Continue reading The History Of Christianity???
I’m not sure who brought up the concept but it is about how churches are actually more like clubhouses than anything else. They are buildings that are built almost exclusively for their members comfort. Yes that comfort does bring in some to hear the message but that seems to be very secondary at best. I had a recent round of comments on this topic over at one of my other blogs at RJsCorner and it stirred up some heated comments. It seems that calling a church a country club strikes the nerve of many Christians. I think the ounce of … Continue reading Everyone Needs A Clubhouse….
What About The Bible… ? (Chapter 5) I used to mourn the fact that there are almost 40,000 different versions of Christianity around today. But, in reality maybe I should celebrate that statistic. At least it shows that we are all trying to find the heart of God. But the problem with this is that we end up picking the type of God we want. I don’t think that is really how God wants it to be but it seems that is the way it is for most of us. Some choose to try to discover God on our own. … Continue reading Religious Diversity…
Everyone from the day after Jesus ascended into the clouds has been seeking the essence of Christ. One of the first ones was probably Paul of Tarsus. Except for that brief encounter with the spirit of Jesus on road to Damascus a few years after he physically left us, he had no personal contact. Today there are 40,000+ different organized version of this essence and probably thousands of personal versions inside each of those. It seems that each one of these 40k groups are convinced that their version is the only real one. We all want to know what the … Continue reading The Essence Of God…
What About The Bible… ? Chapter 4 When we treat the Bible as a history book we come to more thoroughly understand the varied opinions put forth. But I very much understand that a significant portion of those who call themselves Christians believe that every word, every punctuation mark came directly from God and therefore is literally true and without the possibility of any error. It seems to me that this group of Christians actually put the Bible itself above Jesus’ messages and therefore have made it into an idol to be worshiped in and for its own sake. The … Continue reading The Bible — History Book Or Idol???
MIDDLESBORO, Ky. (AP) — A snake-handling pastor who appeared on the National Geographic television reality show “Snake Salvation” has died after being bitten by a snake during a weekend church service in Kentucky. SOURCE: Snake-handling Ky. pastor dies from snake bite – Yahoo News. While this is maybe of the extreme part of the spectrum it is still a typical example of how we pick and choose what we want to be the image of God. It takes one verse out of the tens of thousands found in the Bible and uses it for the main focus of spirituality. Examples … Continue reading Our Own Version….
According to a 2013 study by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institute, 23 percent of 18- to 33-year-olds are religious progressives, 17 percent are religious conservatives, and 22 percent are non-religious. By contrast, only 12 percent of 66- to 88-year-olds are religious progressives, while about half are religious conservatives. Second, the conversation about income inequality in the U.S. and abroad — the driving force behind the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement — is gaining momentum. Taking up the cause of the poor is a central tenet of religious liberalism. Both Jews and Christians point to the Bible, … Continue reading Religious Conservatism On The Wane….
For all you Baby Boomers out there be sure to tune into the next episode of American Experience entitled 1964. See a You-Tube preview here. It airs on January 14 on most PBS stations. Continue reading For All You Baby Boomers….
Since the First Century, if not before, the choice of people of faith has been between empire approved institutions or the individual or tiny group quest for peace, justice and personal, if not cultural, transformation. Could any of us even begin to imagine how different European (and world) history would have been if, instead of massive armed hordes of Crusaders, Christianity had been represented on the world’s stage by a dozen or so St. Francises? SOURCE: Morf Morford | Christianity, Empire, and a USS Mother Teresa? | Red Letter Christians. Continue reading Christianity, Empire, and a USS Mother Teresa?
Roughly 4.7 million Americans went online Tuesday to browse the Obamacare health insurance exchanges prompting HealthCare.gov administrators to increase the site’s server capacity and create a new “wait page” to hold a person’s place in line until the site can load properly. On top of the Web traffic, 190,000 Americans used federal health insurance exchange call centers and another 104,000 requested live chats. “Now that quality, affordable coverage is within reach, we’re seeing that pent up demand break through, underscoring once again how important it was to fix our broken health care system,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokesman … Continue reading Heavy Traffic Clogs – and Delights – Obamacare Insurance Sites
….I’m also not so sure that, as my friend said, it (gun violence) is the way the “world” is. The more I travel the world I am convinced it’s not the way the world is… it’s the way the USA is. I’ve seen a lot of the world, with travels taking me to about a dozen countries a year and this is what I’ve seen: In one year, guns murdered: 27 in Australia, 59 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 190 in Canada… and 10,177 in the US. Recently I was in a kid’s room looking at all the … Continue reading Bringing America Back to Life….
RJ's Corner - Having My Say 