The “Four Spiritual Laws” are worthless

Campus Crusade for Christ made a pamplet decades ago titled “The Four Spiritual Laws” to teach people their particular brand of Christianity.  Here’s one version, in the form of a YouTube video:

And here is another version:

http://www.godlovestheworld.com/

And we then turn to the original source for its version, which we may presume is the most faithful form:

http://www.campuscrusade.com/fourlawseng.htm

What wrong with this approach? Well, let’s look at the quotations from the Bible given in the pamplet:

“God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NIV).

“I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

“Christ died for our sins… He was buried… He was raised on the third day,
according to the Scriptures… He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve.
After that He appeared to more than five hundred…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-6).

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to
the Father but through Me’” (John 14:6).

“As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children
of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).

“By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God; not as result of works that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8,9).

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock;
if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20).

All of these quotations come from the Gospel of John or the Book of Revelation (which even fundamentalists admit were written several decades after the time of Christ), or the writings attributed to the Apostle Paul, who wasn’t even an original disciple of Jesus. The quotations are all taken out of context and misapplied. There is no reason to assume that they are at all applicable to anyone living today.

For more information, see these previous blog entries:

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-chain-of-abrahamic-religions-is-too-rusty-and-weak/

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2007/10/14/the-ultimate-conflict-between-judaism-and-christianity/

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/the-bible-cannot-be-the-word-of-god/

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/debunking-the-liar-lunatic-or-lord-argument/

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/religious-fundamentalism-is-blasphemy/

Thus, it is a waste of time to put out such pamplets and use them to attract people to Christianity. Those who are attracted would be ignorant about the details of the theological and historical backgrounds of the Christian faith and the Jewish faith it sprang from, and thus would be blind followers, ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous leaders.

We need to do better than this.

CNN, fire Lou Dobbs!

I have decided to join in the efforts to have Lou Dobbs, the anti-immigrant and anti-Obama fanatic, fired from CNN for his irrational obsessions, which have  brought disgrace to the CNN channel. To learn more, go here:

A blunt point about America’s Military

I just read this blog entry by my friend Henric Jensen:

http://dovaryeh.net/2008/05/25/the-memorial-day-lie/

Nancy Pelosi, please RESIGN!

After all, if you think sending me stupid e-mails like this is in any way, shape, or form appropriate for a House Speaker to do, you don’t belong at that position at all.  We have two wars going on, our economy is a mess and you are doing THIS?!

Dear Dale,

You are among a special group of committed Democrats whose sacrifice and dedication made our victories last November possible. For all you’ve done to support the Democratic Party and to move America in a New Direction you have my deepest gratitude.

 

Now, I want to offer you and a guest a special invitation for a chance to join me at my table at our dinner with President Obama in Washington, DC on June 18th for the President’s Dinner.

 

Contribute $5, $10, or more and be automatically entered for a chance to win a free trip to Washington, D.C. to join President Obama and me on June 18th — and go home with a photograph with the President!Thank you again for everything you have done to support the Democratic Party and President Obama’s agenda for change. Whether you attend the President’s Dinner or not, your generous support will strengthen our Democratic majority in Congress as we move President Obama’s agenda forward. We cannot become complacent. We must keep working together for change. You have my commitment and I hope I have yours.

Sincerely,

Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the HouseP.S.  The deadline to enter to win to meet the President and have a photograph with him is in less than 48 hours! Act now.

 

Vote for Jake Towne for Congress!

If you live in Pennsylvania, please consider supporting Jake Towne, a libertarian, in his quest to get elected to Congress and defeat Republican Congressman Charlie Dent!

http://www.nolanchart.com/article6373.html

I want to see the libertarians become more influential, to the point that they completely overthrow the Republican Party, thus becoming the Democratic Party’s main opposition. Even if Jake does not win, Dent is likely to be defeated by a Democrat. Either way, I am determined to keep the Republicans from ever regaining the power they had under Bush Jr!

Life on Earth is doomed

Today, I was reading the following in a wikipedia entry about the planet Earth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth

The world is expected to continue supporting life for another 1.5 billion years, after which the rising luminosity of the Sun will eliminate the biosphere.^[17]

The future of the planet is closely tied to that of the Sun. As a result of the steady accumulation of helium ash at the Sun’s core, the star’s total luminosity will slowly increase. The luminosity of the Sun will grow by 10 percent over the next 1.1 Gyr (1.1 billion years) and by 40% over the next 3.5 Gyr.^[41] Climate models indicate that the rise in radiation reaching the Earth is likely to have dire consequences, including the possible loss of the planet’s oceans.^[42]

The Earth’s increasing surface temperature will accelerate the inorganic CO₂ cycle, reducing its concentration to the lethal levels for plants (10 ppm for C4 photosynthesis) in 900 million years. The lack of vegetation will result in the loss of oxygen in the atmosphere, so animal life will become extinct within several million more years.^[43] But even if the Sun were eternal and stable, the continued internal cooling of the Earth would have resulted in a loss of much of its atmosphere and oceans due to reduced volcanism.^[44] After another billion years all surface water will have disappeared^[17] and the mean global temperature will reach 70°C.^[43] The Earth is expected to be effectively habitable for about another 500 million years.^[45]

Now, there is indeed something interesting about this. We humans as individuals have always known that we are destined to die, and there has also been published speculation about the extinction of mankind as a species. We have even understood that the Sun will evolve into a red giant in about 5 billion years or so and then life on Earth will become impossible, for the Earth itself might be destroyed completely. But the realization that life on Earth will be wiped out much sooner is disturbing, much like a man, at age 30, being told that will be dead at about age 40 when he already knows that his life expectancy is about 70 years.

And it gets even worse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda-Milky_Way_collision

The Andromeda-Milky Way collision is a predicted galaxy collision that is due to take place in approximately 3 billion years’ time between the two largest galaxies in the Local Group – the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy.^[1][2]

Shocking! So even before the Sun dies, our own galaxy will be ripped to shreds.

We humans take pride in our intelligence and our ability to alter our environment to suit our needs. But there is no way we can stop these disasters which are to come billions of years from now. Thus we could simply throw up our hands in dispair and say, “We are doomed anyway, so why should we care about anything?” But that is a narrow vision. As science advances, we might find ways to escape the extinction of life on Earth by finding another planet to live on. And the collision between two galaxies would not kill anyone, unlike an auto or train wreck.

We greatly fear change even though we ourselves are a product of change. For example, the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs made it possible for mammals to take over the world and thus for us to evolve eventually. It is only logical and mature to live our lives in the here and now and not worry so much about what will happen a billion years from now. This is not to say that we should ignore the threat of global warming that we humans may indeed be causing. But that is a relatively minor issue within a much shorter time frame. We can handle that, and must. Just like a man who knows he will live only ten more years would be foolish to commit suicide the next day and thus deprive his loved ones of his presence.

Attack of an Obsessive Christian

Last night, I had an unpleasant experience on this blog. I sat down to check on it, like I do every day, and found no less than NINE comments on it awaiting moderation. And when I read the comments, I found several things noteworthy about them:

• They were all by the same user, named Michael.
• They were all on different entries, including some that were many months old
• They were all expressing Christian bias and attempting to engage me in debates rather than simply comment on what I had written.

Now, I don’t mind responding to one or two comments at a time. I don’t mind several people posting at my blog at the same time, for that means it is getting a lot of attention from the public. I also like answering questions from a Christian about my beliefs, or lack thereof, as an opportunity to explain myself. What enraged me was that this guy, by posting so many comments at once, came across as fixated on me to the point of cyberstalking, making me feel threatened. Plus, most of his comments came across as nonsense. He had no respect for my positions at all.

So I approved two of the comments and rejected all the others, and then disemvoweled one of those I had approved, a technique I had learned from biologist and blogger extraordinaire P Z Myers, and finally banned the pest outright from making further comments. I did this because I knew it would be futile to engage the bigot in battle, based on many previous experiences with people of his type, and did not intend to waste my energy in another endurance contest. Especially not on Halloween.

What did this guy do next? Rather than take the hint, he proceeded to locate my MySpace account and sent me a message there. I read his message, replied to him, and finally blocked him there too.

Still not understanding how deeply he had offended me, Micheal continued to send me comments, which were automatically listed as spam. At one point, he even agreed to leave me alone, but then broke his word the next morning by spamming me some more.

I have no interest in having a “dialogue” with someone who thinks he is so superior to others because of his faith that he claims a RIGHT to post comment after comment after comment on my blog, even before I have responded to any of them. I was disgusted by Michael’s antics, especially since a more productive thing to do would have been to create an entry on HIS blog about me and my positions, and invite me to see them with just ONE comment that I would have read, responded to by making one comment on his blog in return, and then both of us could have gone about our business. Instead, he tried to be a cyberbully. He denies that was his intention, but I don’t believe his denials. When you have absolute faith in something, you can justify almost anything, however despicable, to promote that faith. I’m not about to excuse such rudeness from anyone, whether Christian or atheist. Michael should have known better! He has NO IDEA what a productive dialogue is!

Bailout the PEOPLE, not the banks!

Did Bush Jr really think he’d get away with demanding a $700 billion bailout to the banks of America, the same institutions that have been screwing with the American people for decades?! Well, he didn’t! The bill FAILED in Congress and now I can only hope that simular such bailouts never are allowed to be even considered.

Can someone explain to me why we should not give that $700 billion to the American people instead? I have calculated that every man, woman and child would get about $2,300. The last time we got money back from the federal government it was about $600 for every taxpayer. So this begs the obvious question, how could Bush Jr be more generous to the banks that get so much money in interest from credit card debts? How could they still be failing, then???

Let’s not forget that Bush Jr scammed us once before with his false claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Are we going to let us be scammed again, especially with Bush’s last term almost up?

We must REFORM America’s democracy!

And here’s how I would do it:

1. Abolish the Electoral College. Presidential candidates should be elected only by direct popular vote.
2. Abolish primaries. Let all candidates of all parties go directly to the general election.
3. Eliminate the Senate and thus make the U.S. Congress a unicameral body. The term length in the U. S. Congress should be four years, rather than two. The membership of Congress should be 1000.
4. Allow voters to cast a vote for as many candidates as they wish in the general election at all levels and positions, instead of being forced to choose only one.
5. Require that the Presidential candidate that gets the second most votes become Vice-President.
6. Make Presidental terms six years long.

I am a Warrior

I am a warrior

I fight for my causes

I fight for my rights

I fight for my honor

I am a warrior

I fight for my friends

I fight for my family

I fight for my country

I am a warrior

I fight for my dignity

I fight for my health

I fight for my reputation

I am a warrior

I fight for the truth

I fight for the environment

I fight for science

I am a warrior

I fight for tolerance

I fight for enlightenment

I fight for unity

I am wounded.

I am broken

I shed no blood yet

I feel such pain

I fall to the ground

I go into hiding

I shed tears

I can barely breath

I am disappointed

I am dying

I am a warrior

No more.