Except guilty pleasures in a form of a geek-core rapper I do not care much for hip hop. Worst  is the sorry state of Christian music, ether we have lame knockoffs of a current   pop star or trend or narcissistic pulp mantra.
While I was listening to my favorite show, Fighting for the Faith, I was introduced to Jovan MacKenzy a former member of a word of faith church and christian rapper who walked away his church and record label when he started examining the scripture and realize the preaching did not line up with scripture.
Recently Mr. MacKenzy released a new album; The Narrow Road: Famine. The best of all he giving it away for free, still there is a button for donation. One unique song is Triune God, Here he is able defend the doctrine of the trinity with sound biblical doctrine while in rime.

Yes it going to challenge some of you but in a good way.
One can doelpad teh album at:
  http://midwestnoise.com/jovan/

Recently, a conversation in an online woodworking forum I subscribe to caught my eye.  It started off with a very simple post:

Romans 3:23 
For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. 

I am not ashamed of this. 
We are all guilty before the eyes of the Lord. 


I stumbled in halfway into the thread and put in my two cents:

This here speaks to some of my issues with the faith. 

I have always HATED being "judged", whether that judge was a parent, teacher, boss, another human being, or a mystical creator. 

I especially hate being judged for things I didn't do, held responsible for actions I never committed (stain of original sin). If a court of law did that, it would be considered unlawful arrest and incarceration. 

I also hate busting my arse only to be told I'm not good enough, and will never be good enough, no matter how hard I try. If a parent did that to their kid, or a husband to their wife ("You're unlovable, but only I can love you anyway. Cross me and you're toast"), it would be psychological abuse. 

This is where I am coming from. I do not see love here, I see despotic control. How is it that you guys and I (and millions like me) can come up with two completely different interpretations of the same philosophy?

To which I received this response:

Perhaps, rather than comparing your experiences with your parents you should consider your experience with the pieces of furniture you create. Granted, we are no longer dealing with animate beings which can respond to you, but is there not within yourself an affinity for the works of your own hands?

Having made an item, will you not always have a certain feeling toward that item? And would it not break your heart to see it abused and misused? Would you not want to repair it and restore it to its former glory?

Consider if your skills were unlimited. Consider if your work was not limited by the bounds of time or materials. Imagine the masterpieces you could create. Then imagine how much you would want to repair them if someone left them out in the weather or if a child scratched them up with their toys. Would you not have an intrinsic desire to repair that damage? Keep in mind, we are talking masterpiece work here. Would you not even want to buy it back so that you could restore?

I do not claim to fathom the mind of my own creator, but I do know I was made in His image. I believe my own desire to create is part of that image, and my own desire to rescue even pieces which I did not create simply because I can see that value and potential within them is also some form of reflection of His image.

It is not a matter of what you do or do not do that makes Him love you. It is simply a matter of the fact that He does love you. All you have to do is accept Him for who He is and let Him work on repairing the relationship which is broken. Keep in mind, man is the height of His creation here on earth--his masterpiece of the planet. The one piece which He granted free will. The only animate element which is not ruled by instinct. Do you imagine that the Creator would not want to see you reach your true potential?

It is His grace which freely reaches out to redeem you. 

I must confess, these are the proverbial "magic words" I have been seeking to help me understand a concept that has eluded me all my life.  I have an understanding now that I never had before, and figured it worth sharing here.

Hello furs and friends,

I recently became an admin on FFC, which is now on the domain name FursForChrist.com. FFC has a very long legacy by internet standards, and forum software becomes obsolete and vulnerable to security exploits. The previous iteration was irreparably outdated, so we shifted to a beta phase we are posting in now. However, the current forum we inherited is rather buggy and we are moving onto faster, cleaner and more stable software for our next and hopefully final phase of the beta.

One of our admins who was responsible for the move is very busy with other things going on in his life right now so we are asking for someone who is knowledgeable of databases to help us with the move; right now it looks like we will be using the Vanilla system, and ideally we'd like to keep the user and post databases intact.

If you can help, please send me a message and I will get you some more information. If you can't, we'd really appreciate your prayers in getting everything moved and running smoothly.

Thanks,
Ian the Gecko

"An atheist activist who dropped threats to protest an Athens, Texas, nativity scene after his health declined is now receiving aid from fellow atheists and the very group of Christians he opposed, according to reports on the Friendly Atheist blog."

Full story
http://blog.chron.com/believeitornot/2012/03/texas-christians-raise-money-for-ailing-atheist-critic

Also, a recently new co-worker of mine had something to say about people who use damn as God's last name. He says he doesn't describe himself as a religious person. But it bothers him when people do that. His view of it is that they're insulting a power they don't even believe in and it shows disrespect for people who do believe in God.

Was searching from something else when I found this page listing several Jesus Metal videos from the 1980's. I especially like the videos by Barren Cross, Stryper and the theatrical performance of Bloodgood's Crucify

http://www.squidoo.com/heavensmetal?utm_source=google&utm_medium=imgres&utm_campaign=framebuster

I just found out about this new webcomic by Indigo Angel Cat and thought it would be of interest here

"For those of you who know me, you may know that I have been wanting to work on a comic book for years called Bible Tails. This is An anthropomorphic comic book based of stories from the Bible filled with adventure, comedy, romance, and faith. Enjoyable for all ages! Well, I have finally started to wheels turning on this! I already have my website http://www.Bibletails.org and now I have quite a number of social sites dedicated to this book! All you need to do is go to the sites and search for either "Bible Tails" or "Bible Tails Comic"

More details here
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3221673

Today one of my Facebook friends posted this article that, to me, gives a very interesting perspective of how we should be studying the Bible. It also gave me some insight as to why some people (including a pawful of my friends) have so much trouble accepting the Bible as truth.

I'll let you decide for yourself if there's any worthwhile wisdom in the article, but FWIW, this section stood out to me:

The goal of our scholarship should be to know God more fully. Sometimes our motive lies elsewhere... Some of us do not study the Scriptures for the purpose of knowing God. We study them for the purpose of knowing more. We harbor a degree of superiority and pride in the fact that we are more knowledgeable than most. We seek to correct the interpretations of others, not to help them see God, but to establish our own authority. And if this is our motive, we are not likely to ever find God. For Jesus said: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40, NIV).

It seems instead that God reveals Himself to the humble. Because Jesus also said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children” (Matthew 11:25, NIV).

I wonder if this is perhaps why there are so many interpretations of the Bible that sometimes lead to very heated discussions. The problem, it appears, isn't that people aren't reading, but that they're not reading with the right motive.

BTW, check out some of the comments on the article, along with the author's responses. Some of them discuss some thoughts that I can see this community also raising.

A previous entry posted a video that has gone viral on YouTube. While that video is well produced and tickles the ears of many listeners, the content contains a number of errors.

The above video was produced by a pastor and does a far better job of presenting the Gospel and why we love Jesus, because He first loved us. Compare the content. Compare who is truly the center of the presentation - is it you or is it Jesus?

One of my Facebook friends posted this and I thought I'd share. Bottom line: it isn't, and is NEVER, about us... it's all about Jesus.

Even though I haven't hitchhiked for 5 years now, I call this prayer the "Hitchhiker's prayer" as it was a prayer I first said when I first hitchhiked 9 years ago. I share this prayer as tomorrow I will be leaving home again to travel for a living and I say this prayer every time I start a carnival season or new traveling job. This prayer, I came up with myself.

Lord, please help me to get where I need to go,
please help me to do whatever I have to do.
Jesus, please continue to guide me,
and Lord, please bless those who help me along my journey.
Amen.

Admittedly I'm a bit shy about posting here.  As a non-Christian (I'm agnostic...ish), I always find it awkward entering into Christian online communities.  It's the whole "not one of you" sort of deal.  Also despite liking to talk about spirituality, it's still a tough subject to talk about.  Plus it's difficult to have fair conversations about religion/spirituality with agnostics or atheists.  Agnostics mostly don't care.  They think their worldview is right in the sense that you can't know if God is real or not.  Atheists (in my experience...aside from one friend), can be very rude and pushy about how there is no God and if you believe you must be deluded and/or crazy.  I don't like those extremes.  And in communities that claim to be very open to all spiritual beliefs, the one that everyone rags on/hates the most is Christianity.  And because most of my friends and family are Christian, I'm usually very insulted when people assume that just because you're Christian that means you're out to shove religion down everyone's throat.

Anyways, I am genuinely interested in learning more about Christianity and that's why I'm here.  Honestly, as much as I prefer "wishy-washy" Christian beliefs (as I tend to agree with them more as many non-Christians do), I respect people more when they really do attempt to fully follow their religion's teachings whether or not I agree with what's being taught.  Shows they really do believe and really are placing their faith in God.

I dunno.  I could go into detail on why I'm agnostic and such if you want.  For now, I'm just here to learn and talk.

Is there such a thing as originality?
If God created our minds, wouldn't everything we think of be unoriginal?
When we have ideas that we think are original, but then someone else we don't know makes a profit off the same idea, is that God taking away your idea and giving it to someone else?
Why would God do that? Is it to push you into doing something else with your life? To show you that he's taking you out of the arts field so you can pursue something else?

Honolulu City Lights is an annual event put on by the City and County of Honolulu marked by lighting the city's Christmas tree and Christmas/holiday decorations and lights throughout the city.

As part of the opening ceremonies to light the city's Christmas tree, Pastor Wayne Cordeiro, the senior pastor at my church, offered an opening prayer. But just as he started praying, a heckler in the audience kept objecting, saying the prayer was a clear violation of the Constitution:



At the risk of opening a can of worms, I was listening to a morning radio show the following Monday (the event was on a Friday night) when someone called into the station supporting the heckler, saying that the prayer violated the Constitution's Establishment Clause (separation of church and state). The radio DJs said that there is NO provision in the Constitution that states this, to which the caller vehemently disagreed, and both the DJs and the caller told each other to read the Constitution, which they both said they did.

So who was right?

After doing some research, I found out that the Bill of Rights doesn't explicitly state "separation of church and state." Instead, it says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Bill of Rights prohibits the establishment of a national religion, or endorsement of one religion over the other. And that's where it gets sticky.

This article describes the debate fairly well. One of the things it says is:

On one extreme are those who insist that "separation of church and state" isn't in the First Amendment. On the other extreme are those who interpret "separation" to mean eliminating religion from the public square entirely. The truth falls somewhere in between.

So who was right? Good question... though I do give Pastor Wayne props for ignoring the heckler and pressing on with his prayer.

I prefer Merry Christmas because that's what I've always done. I am not offended if someone says Happy Holidays to me. Or even if I were to hear Happy Chanukah, Happy Solstice or Happy whatever Muslim festival is celebrated at this time of year, I would not be offended. It makes me happy when people say things like that to me because it's the intent is what counts.

I don't like it when people calling themselves Christians pitch a fit about saying anything other than Merry Christmas. Like it or not, fact is, not everyone celebrates Christmas and this time of year is special to a lot of people who are not Christians.

When someone calling themselves a Christian gets upset about people saying anything besides Merry Christmas, from the point of view of those who are not Christians, it's like we're saying "We don't care that this time of year is special to other faiths besides out own, we want to keep it all to ourselves."

This spoof of the Progressive Insurance commercial gives some warning signs that you may need to switch churches...