This is rich... I usually save my righteous scorn for "Western Christianity" but the Eastern folks have opened themselves up to some pretty righteous ridicule: nothing more "Christian" than resorting to brute violence at the site Christians consider the site of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Better still, how about beating the police called in to quell the violence with the palm fronds you're holding for Palm Sunday!?!
Orthodox Easter is this coming Sunday (they use a different liturgical calendar). Events at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem turned violent between Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christians yesterday:Fight erupts in Jerusalem church
Yeah... this is the LOVE Jesus was talking about, folks!
Last Sunday, my wife and I went to her parent’s house for an Easter lunch. I enjoy the company of my wife’s family very much, and consider my father-in-law (Fil) a good friend, mentor, and someone I respect and admire. Politics is always an interesting debate when it comes up, my mother-in-law (Mil) coming from a family of Democrats, while my father-in-law is a "I-vote-republican-because-I-believe-in-pulling-yourself-up-by-your-own- bootstraps" style independent. He tends to be quite knowledgeable about a lot of things (30 years in Intel- I wont say which agency), but both of them watch FOX news almost exclusively. Mil loves Oprah; she wants Hillary to be the prez. Point is, they are not political junkies and I therefore consider them a good barometer for middle-class, suburbanite, white baby-boomers. I’d like to share with you some of the things that were discussed after the fold...
How could you? I know you have an important and stressful job, and that you need some levity occasionally. But how could you appear with someone like this? Why did you stand next to a cartoonish buffoon that no one believes in, just a fraud dressed up in a suit?
"So let it be written... so let it be done."
"Where's your Moses now?"
"Bring this deliverer to me!"
"Egypt shall fall."
Like most Americans, I grew up watching Charleton Heston free the people of Israel from Pharaoh. Every Easter, like clockwork, buncha slaves freed.
Why is it we are all taught to love Moses when he curses the innocent first born children of Egypt to death, that his righteous vengeance is okie-dokie even if it means babies are going to bite it because his people are victims of slavery, but you don't hear so many admiring mentions, or see any De Mille extravaganza about Nat Turner? Didn't he say God was talking to him, too? Weren't his people in slavery, too?
Instead of a overblown film with Gentiles playing Jews, we can't even talk about that anger in our own churches. That's messed up.
The Mad Science Project of the Week returns, on Easter Sunday, with an Easter egg of potentially massively destructive power.
The trend in man-portable weapons systems has, in the past thousands of years, been taking us always toward increasing density of destructive power - whether that means taking x destructive power and squeezing it into y space, or taking a device of y size and giving it more power than x. There was a time when the best way to knock someone down at 30 paces was to throw a rock. Then someone invented bows. Then longbows (the first artillery!), then guns, then machine guns, then anti-tank rifles and hand-cannons, then serious missiles... Oh, and I forgot bombs, both the wearable kind, the throwable kind, and the put-it-down-and-walk-away kind.
Reading the Gospel of John on Easter provides a great insight into "Christian Leadership" and "Christian Citizenship." John expresses in clear, unequivocal language the call to service and self-sacrifice.
Well, I woke up today, went to my local grocery store to get groceries for the week. I got out of the car, walked up to the store and............the doors were locked. WTF?
Oh, it's Easter Sunday.
It hadn't even occurred to me. Not once had Easter entered my mind until I read the sign on the lock door of my grocer.
Hmph.
Well, back on my way home I began to ponder this strange holiday. Strange for me. Maybe not for you.
Follow me below to see why I believe in non-belief.
Here is a wonderful music video for you from the YouTubes..
Barack Obama-sistible!
Enjoy this video.
One thing about Barack Obama's candidacy that has been so delightful has been the never ending YouTube videos created by people who support him and who create wonderful expressions of support for his candidacy. This video is another such example.
I don't see many of these types of videos coming from supporters of McCain or Clinton. The one Clinton video was so cheesey it reminded people of that old 70's group..Up With America..John McCain doesn't seem to have any creative constituents who have the energy or desire to make a positive video about him.. Obama's video supporters are producing these videos from their hearts..and that is the difference..Obama is touching people when he speaks from his heart and he is abundantly repaid with videos such as this one..
Enjoy it. Pass it along to family and friends..Keep the faith .. and Happy Easter.
God has called us to be His representatives in our nation and in our world. Select candidates who represent your views and work for their election.
-- James Dobson
The church and this nation cry out for a revival of masculine Christianity, which is to say that we church leaders need to stop being such, for lack of a better word, sissies when it comes to social and political issues. We need to spend as much time confronting perpetrators as we do comforting victims. We need to do less fretting, and more fighting for righteousness. For every motherly, feminine ministry of the church such as a Crisis Pregnancy Center or ex-gay support group, we need a battle-hardened, take-it-to-the-enemy masculine ministry like Operation Rescue (questions of civil disobedience aside). For every God-hating radical in government, academia and media we need a bold, no-nonsense, truth-telling Christian counterpart: trained, equipped and endorsed by the local church.
–Scott Lively
Director of AFA California and Abiding Truth Ministries
OK, before the cute stories, fess up, when did you finish hiding the Easter stuff last night? Midnight? 2 AM? Claiming you were done by 9 p.m. and expect the rest of us to believe you? When did you make up the Easter baskets? Yesterday? Always have them a week early?
See poll to answer the When questions, and see the flip for more commentary and the chance to tell YOUR story of the cutest thing that happened with your kids. Or your sweet memory of times when your children were little. Or non-Easter cuteness.
My family has not been big on religion. We aren't atheists (well, I guess I can only speak for myself on this), but organized religion makes us skeptical. That and it seems like a bit of a commitment to get up on Sunday morning and put on a tie.
Yet that never stopped us from celebrating religious holidays with food, drink and televised sports. And to typify this, we don't harbor visions of religious symbols for the holidays. We are more Santa than manger. More Easter bunny than crucifiction.
Along that line back in the late 1980s, I was involved in an Easter mess that turned me away from the holiday in shame, but I have come through it a wiser man.
Years ago I used to go to church. I used to believe in the god idea. I don't anymore and almost certainly never will again.
I used to participate in the easter-egg and basket thing, even as an adult. I've helped to make an easter basket many times for my son when he was much younger, and have hidden eggs over at my friend's house for his daughters and their friends to run and find. I don't do those things any more.
I used to believe in freedom of religion. I still do. I very much believe in freedom of religion, for me, for you, for everyone. What freedom of religion means to you is your business. What follows is what it means to me.
I was inspired by this week's Sunday Talk pictures of chicks (hmmmm, chicks) and McCain. This diary is light in substance, fluffy in nature, and it tastes like chocolate chicken. Exactly how I like my Sunday mornings.
What I wrote below was a satirical speech I did for one of my Toastmasters project around last Christmas. I adapted it for today's holiday of course. Enjoy.
On this Easter Sunday, a reflection:
Consequentialism refers to those moral theories which hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right action is one that produces a good outcome, or consequence.
This is my first diary. I've been reading and commenting for a few weeks, and was moved by something this morning to try a diary.
Please be gentle with me! I've heard this is a "hate site!" (Well, at least that's what my father-in-law who has BillO talking points tattooed on his prefrontal cortex says, so, my first "snarky-snarkity-snark" to both of them!)
The priest in Easter mass this morning said this, as he pointed at the crucifix behind the altar: "Damnation does not come from the cross. Christ is the resurrection, not the damnation. Love and rebirth are your birthright in Christ."
Here are a few interesting and/or funny videos for those of us who are not religious (and for those who are religious but who have managed to maintain both an inquiring mind and a sense of humor).
