This made me smile, which is saying alot today.

At Least Hitchens Gets It

Atheist Christopher Hitchens has a grasp of the central truth of Christianity.  Unfortunately, the same can't be said for some who claim the name Christian.  From a recentdiscussion in Portland, OR, with a Unitarian minister:

Maryiln Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and [sic] distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Christopher Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Apparently the answer is, yes, he does make a distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion.  Amen

STR's blog.

I wonder how I would do.

A Tale of Four Men

It was eighty against one.  Not good odds, but when I role-play an atheist with the typical Christian students, I like my chances.  But these weren’t students.  They were adults..

Read full blog here.

Hank on Pat R's Haiti comments

"I can’t help it when I hear these Christian leaders pontificate in startling fashion of the words of Jesus Christ, who had a completely different take on things. For example, when speaking about those who perished when the tower of Siloam crashed down on them, Jesus said, “Do you think that they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you no.” I would much rather heed the words of Jesus Christ than the words of Pat Robertson. And this is a warning to all Christians. Don’t simply believe what the leaders are telling you. Test what they say in light of Scripture, and hold fast to that which is good."

Thanks Hank.
Read the full article here

This weeks Stand to Reason podcast.

@ 17:56
"Jesus is not the bridge over troubled waters, but he will pull you through the troubled waters if you can withstand the tow."

@ 23:42 Caller on the dualism of man.
"If humans can reason then they're free and because they can reason then they are free but no purely physical object is free therefor humans are not entirely physical or purely physical.

Check out the podcast here

Barna's definition of a Christian World view.

I got this from George Barna's site. Link is at the bottom. I was curious about this after session 2 of the TTP (The Truth Project). After reading this,  I would have to agree with the definition and am saddened that only 19% of Christians believe this way.

"a “biblical worldview” was defined as believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today. In the research, anyone who held all of those beliefs was said to have a biblical worldview."

full article.

Creed

Creed
by Steve Turner

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin

We believe everything is OK

as long as you don't hurt anyone

to the best of your definition of hurt,

and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and

after marriage.

We believe in the therapy of sin.

We believe that adultery is fun.

We believe that sodomy’s OK.

We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything's getting better

despite evidence to the contrary.

The evidence must be investigated

And you can prove anything with evidence.