Rush Limbaugh: "Put Yourself First."

There is a common idea among conservatives and capitalists and thus the idea has crept into American Christianity as well. This is a purely capitalist idea, and it says that greed is good because it allows people to make money and by making money the world is made right and we get all sorts of good stuff from it. They say that without greed we wouldn't have all the wonderful things we have today because no one would have had the impetus to go out there and do something. Thus we have all such things as cars and medicine and farms and other helpful and moneymaking enterprises.

So Limbaugh goes on this big rant where he says that you must put yourself first. If not, how would you have any money to give to charities and such (which he calls bloodsuckers by the way.) Greed is good, self interest is good, if you don't put yourself first, you cant help anyone else.

This is profoundly wrong and un-Jesus-like. This is why I am still out here telling Christians that they need to get away from conservatives. I'm not going to tell Christians to get away from liberals because it doesn't seem to be that big of a problem. But it is a problem on the conservative side. If Christians keep being lured in by the conservatives, they will indoctrinate them with this purely capitalist nonsense. I hear Christians I know already going this way. See the post below about taxes.

You see, Jesus was all about putting others first. Washing the disciples feet was the biggest example because he put himself in the place of a slave, the lowest there was. There is no rule that says that greed drives charity, it is the opposite in fact. The evidence of that is that this very day, lower income people give a greater percentage of their money to charity than upper income people. Look at Paul in the Bible, his main concern was preaching the Gospel, and he did that partly by working, making tents, but his occupation barely receives a mention. Why? Because his focus was spreading the Gospel, putting the work of Jesus and others before himself. Mother Theresa is another excellent example. She lived in poverty and by putting others ahead of herself, drew all sorts of money and aid and expanded her work far beyond what it would have been had she gotten rich and started a charity.

Greed is not good. Putting yourself first in order to help others is a ridiculous unchristian notion. It's pure nonsense, just like lowering taxes on the rich to create more jobs and more tax revenue. The world just doesn't work that way, and Christians must stop listening to people who lead them away from Jesus by pandering to their baser instincts. Greed is a sin, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Jesus and Paul said to put others before yourself, to act as though others were better than you. Be filled with humility and peace.

The facts show that the more you have, the more stingy you will be with it. I'm not telling you that you can't be rich or that you shouldn't try to gain wealth. If you have the opportunity, work hard at every thing you do and make a bunch of money. But the first fruits belong to God. His work is paramount. If you are a follower of Jesus, your goal in life should be to do his work. Or just as good, fund his work. If your goal is to get rich or die tryin', then you're not a follower of Jesus because to follow Jesus, you go where he went and that's not where he went.

Please, don't be a conservative, don't be a capitalist, don't be a republican, be a Christian. Be a follower of Jesus. Do like Jesus did, the pharisees essentially asked, "are you with Hillel (liberal) or Shammai (conservative)?" Jesus said neither, it was all about his father in heaven.

WiredForStereo

Movie Review: Star Trek

I don't know how to describe this movie other than by saying it has all the awesomeness of Star Trek without all the campy corniness of Star Trek.

It is packed full of action and drama, but still includes the history and characters we all know and love from the original series through Star Trek 7. There are some interesting new takes on the characters and it is an exploration of what the Star Trek universe we know would be like had something been changed, in this case, Kirk without his father.

The technology has seen a reboot as well. Gone are the panels full of analog switches that we saw in TOS and more realistic technologies like touch screens are here. I also liked the internals of the Enterprise much more than in the past. I don't know where the scenes were filmed, but the inside of the ship was filled with structural components and plumbing like you'd expect to seen in a huge space going vessel. One disappointment though was in the climactic battle scene, Scotty was running around frantically trying to fix things in what I guess was supposed to be Engineering and there really wasn't much there. Bad location or set dressing or something.

Overall a very enjoyable movie. No nudity, a bit of violence (fighting,) little swearing and a lot of good special effects. Casting was good, especially with the inclusion of Leonard Nimoy. It just wouldn't have been the same without the real Spock.

9/10

WiredForStereo

WWJT? Who Would Jesus Torture?

A news story for you...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

The Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture rallied on Capitol Hill in March 2008.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.

The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Leith Anderson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The survey asked: "Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?"

Roughly half of all respondents -- 49 percent -- said it is often or sometimes justified. A quarter said it never is.

The religious group most likely to say torture is never justified was Protestant denominations -- such as Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians -- categorized as "mainline" Protestants, in contrast to evangelicals. Just over three in 10 of them said torture is never justified. A quarter of the religiously unaffiliated said the same, compared with two in 10 white non-Hispanic Catholics and one in eight evangelicals.

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There is no way I can pass this one up. This is the kind of thing that makes me disgusted at American Christians for those of you who want to know. You really want to know why I don't group myself in with the rest of the Christians, this is why. I'm not saying the sentiment resounds in my church, but it would be really unfortunate if only one in 8 of the people I know thought torture was never justified. I guess that one is me. There, now I'm different.

I mean is this really a discussion we need to have? I'm gonna have to go back to Jesus on this one, you got my hands tied behind my back. What was that whole thing about doing to others what you'd have them do to you? Yeah, I think that was the way it went. But now American Christians are adopting more of a "do to others what you think they'd do to you" sort of philosophy. I'd definitely say, that's not what Jesus had in mind.

And you know, the argument that it would save lives is completely null because that's what morals are about. You don't ruin lives to save lives. Ethics and morals are the things you do when no one else is looking, and now everybody is looking and Christians are saying "hey, just dip his head under the water for a while, make him think he's drowning, and he'll tell us where the bomb is." Well, if that's the way it's gonna be, you can officially count me out of the whole "Christian" thing because it's done. The movement is over. They tell us from the pulpit that we are supposed to be different and that people will want what we have, but I'll tell you right now, I don't want what we have. It is morally repugnant to me.

I want what Jesus left us with, the love your neighbor stuff, the stuff that American Christians now think only applies to Americans. One in eight. It's just sad. Do you want to know where I draw the line when I don't think people are really followers of Jesus? When 7 in 8 evangelical Christians think that torture is ok at least some of the time.

At what point do you go to your boss and say "I can't lie to our customers any more."? At what point do you say "This is wrong and against company policy and we shouldn't be doing it." These are ethical decisions. One thing I regret is that I never said these things to my boss when I worked at Total Document Solutions. I've let it go for this long, and now it's out. The same thing goes for the American Church. This is wrong. Torture is wrong. You've sold your soul to a political party, when it didn't belong to you to begin with.

Read your bible, hypocrites. And lets be perfectly clear what a hypocrite is. "Hypocrisy, Noun. The claim, pretense, or false representation of holding beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not actually posses." If you say you are a follower of Jesus and you think torture is even sometimes okay, you are a hypocrite. It's that simple. You are a liar, and you are doing a horrifically poor job of representing your Great God and Savior, Jesus the Messiah. This is not an issue like taxes where your beliefs on the subject don't really matter in the spiritual realm. If you think it is ok to harm a human being to get information, you are a bogus christian.

It is just sad that more atheists, humanists, secularists, and abortionists would say that torture is not ok than Evangelical Christians. That makes me sad. It really grieves my heart. So, that being said, I'm deciding to not be one anymore. I am only a follower of Jesus Christ, not a "Christian," the word was originally an insult anyway. I am a Jesus Freak. He is king, his word rules, and living and walking in his footsteps are the status symbol of choice for his followers.

I have found that the quickest way to win any argument with a "Christian" is to quote Jesus. And boy do I like being right.

WiredForStereo

Why Don’t We Make a Difference?

I was having a conversation the other night with a Honduras mission trip alum at Perspectives and he was asking a very good question. The teacher that night was Bobby Gupta and he was kind of giving us a Christian pep talk. He was telling us how Evangelical Christianity is growing faster than any other religion and how many churches had been planted and how many people were coming to believe the gospel. These are very good things to know, it's nice to know that the movement you belong to is vibrant and growing, but my friend was asking the question "why don't we make a difference?" Dr. Gupta was kind of addressing this question, but not really and my friend really wanted to know where the meat was. Pep talks are good I said, but it's like a battle. We can get the soldiers really fired up and encouraged, but if you don't give them weapons, they're gonna lose the battle.

Then it hit me. In one of my great moments of bullcraptitude I conjured a truly profound thought. I said "We live in a culture where everyone is either spiritual but not religious or religious but not spiritual." The difference is one of those groups will readily admit it, the other one wont.

Let us explore. On one hand are the religious, the typical white Anglo Saxon protestant Christian conservative republican. On the other hand you have the typically non-religious educated yuppie liberal who still believes in some form of spirituality whether it be an eastern philosophy or Crossing Over with John Edward. Yes I know there are other hands here, but keep with me.

Why are the Christians not making a difference in this country? A recent event speaks to this, at least in my mind. A few days ago, thousands of people lined up at various ponds and lakes and threw tea bags in the water. They were protesting taxes, all good and fine, but so many of them had signs protesting taxes in God's name. I believe the when Jesus was asked about whether or not to pay taxes, he said "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's." He didn't say "F*** Caesar, don't give that m0~#&* f@(&#$ a g@& d@!* thing!"

Why aren't we fighting poverty? Why aren't we caring for unwed mothers? Why aren't we feeding the hungry? These are all things that Jesus explicitly wanted us to do, he never said anything about fighting taxes. Forget the blessed money; if Jesus wants you to have money, there isn't a tax on earth that can take it away from you. These are the things this country needs. In other countries they need clean water to drink before you can tell them about the gospel, they need food in their bellies before they can listen to stories about Jesus. In this country, we have food, we have water, what people need is for someone to care about them, to care for them, to love them.

That's why American Christians don't make a difference, because the only difference between them and the guy in the car next to them in traffic is that they go to church on Sunday or Saturday or they have a fish with no legs on the back of the car. The reason why American Christians don't make a difference is because there is no difference. There just is no difference.

I'm not trying to float my own boat, but those of you who know me, you know, there is a difference and it's not the difference you'd expect. There is a difference because I choose to be more like them than I do you. And believe me, I know, you don't take all that kindly to it, and I am willing to bear that burden. But I will live what I believe, because I'm not religious in that I'm not a republican, but I am spiritual because I am a Jesus Freak. Christianity is not a religion, you don't just do and believe stuff and are a Christian, signing a piece of paper doesn't make it so and answering an alter call has no effect.

You meet Jesus. And when you meet Jesus you are a Christian. You have to meet Jesus.

WiredForStereo

Are you Gay or just Lazy?

It has come to my attention recently that the conservative right has been hounding issues related to homosexuality. You know, the good old ones like gay marriage, gay rights, and I'm not sure, but I think they may just want all the gay people to move away to somewhere.

As a Christian, I have a few problems with hounding gays. Firstly, homosexuality is listed in the Bible somewhere around 12-16 times (not sure exactly, I've found evidence for both, but for the sake of argument, I'll go with 16.) However laziness is mentioned a bunch more. So who should we be going after?

Secondly, the idea of a Christian using a governmental position to attack anyone or otherwise attacking anyone at all seems a bit foreign to me. Jesus never attacked sinners, he never said "Hey you prostitutes, I'm gonna outlaw yer business." No, he hung out with them, he love them and he told them not to do it anymore.

And what's this crap about a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? What is this crap? This is ridiculous. You want to take what our most important document and spray horse $h!t all over it by putting that nonsense in there? It's ponderous. It's frakkin' ponderous. Again, Christians don't control or attack other people. This kind of thing gets me incensed. Jesus told us to go into the world and teach what we were taught. The only people who Jesus attacked were religious professionals who were doing a $h!tty job of what God put them in charge of. Real Christians let people do what ever they want, and if they want to take it in the butt, that's what they want to do. We are supposed to be there to help bring people out of sin, not to force them to not sin.

And why gay marriage anyway? What's the big deal? They're already gay for frak sake. It's like saying "You got a car but I'm not going to give you a drivers license!" How exactly does that work, you'll drive it anyway. And they say it ruins heterosexual marriages. Wrong, selfish straight people ruin heterosexual marriages. That's facts.

Here's a well reasoned idea for you to ponder. I've thought about this for a long time. Marriage is a religious ceremony. Marriage is between you and your spouse and God. Government and religion should be separate. Therefore, government should have no control whatsoever over marriage. It should not decide who gets married, or how many, or what gender, or what species. It's between you and God, not you and uncle Sam. If your church wants to marry Chuck and Larry and you don't like it, then find a different church. As far as legally, a company should not be required to provide any benefits to your spouse. Your spouse doesn't work there. If they do, it should be a simple perk, something to draw you to the job or to keep you there. And if you have eight wives and your company likes you so much that it will provide benefits for all of them, then by all means you should stay at that company, because I sure ain't gonna have that kind of benefit at my company.

One more time, it is completely nonsense that Christians should by trying to control people through political means. This is why we have separation of church and state, and not just so that the church doesn't control the state, but also the other way around. Corruption travels both ways.

Sorry for the swearing, I need to blog more often to keep the anger down.
WiredForStereo

Quid Est Veritas?

My sincere apologies for not writing lately, I have been either very busy or alternately too tired to blog, but since I've not had much of a release in this respect lately, my intellect is about to explode out of my head and start taking hostages.

So,

What is truth?

There's a guy who teaches at our church some times, especially in front of youth. Lately he's had the habit of getting up and prefacing his message with claim that he's "bringin' the truth." This bugs me, alot. Now I can't just sit down and enjoy the message, I have to pick through everything he says and point out every tiny thing that he says that is either not true or questionable. I can't enjoy the sermon anymore. Thanks alot you arrogant so and so.

The thing is, what he's giving me is not the truth per se, it's his version of the truth. It's the truth as he sees it. It is not THE TRUTH simply because he says it is. I see this kind of thing in conservative circles all the time. Just because something believes in absolute truth, they automatically think they have it.

There is absolute truth, but I'll guaran-d***-tee it, you aren't in possession of it. You can't be. You're human. Even if someone told you the truth, the absolute truth, you'd mess it up somehow before you could repeat it. You're human.

When I tell you something, it goes without saying that what I am telling you is the truth, so far as it is known to me. But I'm not going to preface my "truth" by saying that it is the truth. Remember, it's the people who say they are honest that you should look out for. I believe what I am saying is the truth, just as I do about what I'm saying now, but you should evaluate it for yourself to see if it is really the truth. Because when someone says "I'm telling the truth," my first reaction is "no you're not." Wrong or right, that's the way it is.

But back to absolute truth. I just want to recapitulate the idea that though there is absolute truth, your and my grasp of it is finite. I love to listen to Rob Bell, but he has this curious habit of making small mistakes when explaining scientific things. So I'm watching and going "hmm, yes, good research, that's an interesting idea, oh, I think he messed that one up a bit, that's interesting, I never thought about it that way, etc.

I also hate April Fool's Day. Do you know why? Because I hate lying with an ever-burning passionate hatred. So I wake up and my wife tells me she's pregnant, and there goes the day. Sojourners says that Rush Limbaugh is singing a different tune, and the anger wells up inside me. Then JDizzle's phone rings and he says his wife is going into labor, and I'm about fit to be tied. My new favorite TV show? Lie to me.

Did I pull any AFD jokes on anyone? Absolutely not. I used to be a liar, I don't do that anymore. Not for the holiday, not for anyone. That's not who I am anymore. And I am absolutely disgusted with people who claim to have the truth, because they don't. Sure it's the truth that something may be on the left and something else may be on the right, but if you turn around, it's all screwed up.

Moral of the story, don't tell me you are giving me the truth, and I won't doubt your credibility.
WiredForStereo