Facebook Affirmations, Vol. VI
In my news feed on Facebook I will be served a daily dose of Christian affirmations from friends. In this series of posts, which I call "Facebook Affirmations™," I will post and discuss some of these gems. Here's the affirmation for today:
Satan plugged my pipes.
Spiritual vs. Imaginary
Believers have long argued for the existence of beings in the "spiritual realm" which affect the physical universe but cannot be physically detected (except in very certain circumstances and with very few exceptions). This is convenient, of course, because the believer is free to posit whatever entity he or she wishes without having the arduous task of defending that assertion with actual evidence. What does "spiritual" mean though? The dictionary defines it as follows:
1. of, pertaining to, or consisting of spirit; incorporeal.
2. of or pertaining to the spirit or soul, as distinguished from the physical nature.
That doesn't really tell me much. If we're talking about incorporeal things apart from the physical nature, how is this any different from being imaginary or fictional? Why do we make such a concessionary definition for a word like "spiritual" when the end result is really the same?
Mind Your Manners
JT Eberhard's contributor, Christina, wrote today of an article regarding atheist billboards in Colorado and the reaction of a "research fellow" from Focus on the Family named Glenn Stanton. He calls the billboards "bad manners" because they mock the beliefs of no less than 70% of Americans. The billboards read as follows:
God is an imaginary friend; Choose reality, it will be better for all of us.
Whatsoever Ye Ask
s a Christian I believed that my prayers were not only heard by god but that my prayers were important enough to initiate action. As with any Christian, my basis for believing this was not grounded in reality but in scripture:
John 14:12,13
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Clearly, the quotes attributed to Jesus define prayer as a sort of tangible, telepathic request which (in Jesus’ name) will be heard and granted if the person praying has even the slightest bit of real faith. Jesus describes the amount of faith necessary in Matthew 17:20 as a mustard seed (long considered the smallest seed). That's not a whole lot of faith, by anyone's standards. However, if this amount of faith is attainable why aren't more prayers answers and more miracles performed/observed? The answers to these questions don't come easy (to a rational mind) but I'll detail the Christian thought process -- or, at least, the thought process as I understood it while I was a Christian -- and give my best answer.
Family Ties
ne thing religious people cannot stress enough is that they're all about family. Their organizations even have names like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association (branded a hate group out of MS). For the most part I find this to be true so long as everyone's keeping the faith and maintaining the status quo. I can say from my upbringing (aside from corporal punishment and having no say in church attendance) that our Christian family was very tight-knit and we spent a lot of quality time together. It wasn't perfect, but it was far better than a lot of other families I've seen. Now, to clarify, some of these not-so-happy families I've seen are religious as well so it's not as though they have a corner on the market. I'm just speaking to the Christian view that family is important.
As I said, religious families are close-knit and happy so long as everyone's keeping the faith. They don't say, "The family that prays together stays together" for no reason. It's literally true. I found this out myself when I started to upset the status quo of my family and I was made to feel like an outcast. My family's treatment of me was mild compared to what some people endure at the hands of their religious parents, grandparents, and siblings.
Jon Willis
"Yes, I've read the Bible; it's why I'm an atheist."
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Recent Posts
- Facebook Affirmations, Vol. VI
- Hyper-Patriotism
- Spiritual vs. Imaginary
- Mind Your Manners
- Facebook Affirmations, Vol. V: Pro-Life
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