Long Term Investments

Good to have you aboard Bro. Kelly, keep in touch with me.

Ecclesiastes is without a doubt my favorite book of the Bible. Nice to see a new name. Good luck with it.

You are a wise investor.

Pastor, Am just looking for a little insight on some thoughts that I have had for awhile, I also posted this on Michael's blog (seeing as how is indeed a "pastor") Curious as to what your responses will be on these.

1. The idea that a personal all-powerful god is rewarding people with eternal life in paradise merely for believing in an unproven, questionable story and punishing others for not believing it is actually an extremely unjust idea.

2. The Bible says they were his chosen people for at least 2000 years (Abraham to Christ), and some Jews still think they're "the chosen." Why would god only reveal himself to one small group of people and totally ignore the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Northern Europeans, Celts, Africans, Hindus, Chinese, Australian Aborigines, American Indians, and all others? Why would he reveal himself to Moses and ignore the rest of the world as if they were trash, letting them suffer in ignorance? Does this idea seem arrogant? ethnocentric? mythical-sounding?

3.Fundamentalists claim that the almighty Spirit of God/Jesus is personally dwelling in them, and is not dwelling in those who do not believe the stories literally. While I recognize that many Christians live in love and happiness, practically speaking, Christians have no more "spiritual" power, love, or happiness in their lives than I do, and I know this very well from living with them all my life, from being one of them for most of my life, and from visiting all kinds of different denominations of their religion. I can see no evidence that life/nature/god treats them any differently. They are no more blessed than I am.

4. If a personal god really wanted us to know him, yet didn't want to force us, why didn't he then and why doesn't he now just appear to everyone the way he allegedly did to certain Jewish people thousands of years ago in a superstitious age? All he would have to do is speak plainly and show us all who he is. Is that so hard? Why can't he treat us equally and fairly if he really, honestly loves us, and give us the same privileges he supposedly gave a few Jews 2,000 years ago?

5. If Jesus really rose bodily and imperishable from the dead, why didn't he just stay on earth after the resurrection and teach people the truth and lead the world to harmony and happiness? Would that have been too easy? Did he prefer to make things hard for us by going away and living in seclusion up in the sky and testing people to see if they would believe a story that sounds like fiction?

6. Why should one accept Jewish myths or Christian myths as true, but not Greek, Roman, Hindu, Muslim, or other myths? How many Christians even bother to look into other traditions? To me, Christianity is hardly more believable than these other faiths.

7. and LASTLY....Honestly, If 2 men from a rebel group in Iraq were to come to your house tomorrow and tell you that they had a leader named Ali, who was born to a virgin teenager, performed numerous awesome miracles like healing the sick, casting demons out of people, even walking on water, and that he was killed by the U.S. government but came back from the dead 2 days later out in the desert and appeared miraculously to a few of his favorite followers and once even to 500 Iraqi disciples at the same time, but only to them and not to Iraqi leaders or U.S. agents, and that he then went up in a cloud into the sky, promising to return soon and commanding his followers to teach the world his message, would you believe these 2 men?

Hello Vindicated - I just happened to look at one of my older blogs and saw that you had left me the same post that you left Mike Bell about your 7 points. I think your 7 points are all reasonable questions and I would love to discuss them in depth with you. I am inviting you and anyone else who is debating this on Mikes blog to come this Thursday night January 8th to The Crossing across from Wal-mart. We start at 7pm. Thursday night is usually a Bible study for tough discussions so I think your topics would be great. We are very casual-jeans and coffee. Hope you can come. Even if you don't come I agree with you that Christians should look at what we believe about God in light of the difficult questions they we may have to face.---kelly

Hello Disturbia, I am guessing that you are the lady I met at your work place. Hope I've got the right person in mind as I write this. I simply asked you about your black nail polish because of your age. It struck me as out of place, not that you are wrong for wearing it if thats what you want to do. As far as me telling you that your musical taste is sending you to hell--I never said that---that's the way you heard it, I said that many people are misled by the music of the world. But nevertheless it doesn't really matter. Here is the point...I was making small talk when I spoke with you. You told me you had taken your teenage daughter to a certain concert. You told me the names of the bands that you allowed her to listen to and that their lyrics weren't bad. I have included a link to the lyrics of one of Hollywood Undead songs. I am only trying to reach out to you and your teenage daughter. I would only ask you to go to the link that I included, and as you read the lyrics of their song, ask yourself one simple question---who is trying to reach my daughter and me with truth? Hollywood Undead or kelly. WARNING-explicit lyrics at the following link-By clicking on the link you are agreeing that you are 18 or older.

http://www.utterlyrics.com/h/hollywood-u...

These are the lyrics to one Linkin Park song, no need to be 18 or over to click this link.

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/linkin-park/l...

kfernandez, As someone who has a taste for more colorful music, I have to say that I am pretty sure that I agree with Disturbia about the influence of music on most people. It can not alter someone's ideals judging from my own personal experience. I imagine it may have some ability to form them from a vacuum though, given that the person affected would likely have to be vulnerable to suggestion anyway.

I have always listened to music that you would certainly not approve of, and my children have been exposed to it regularly and show no signs of being affected by treating women as objects, and do not carry a pistol grip pump in their lap at all times. They have also shown no inclination to join a gang, hang out at strip clubs, fight, steal or otherwise act out the music that I listen to, except that my oldest son wants 24 inch chrome spinners on his car. That's a joke, but he actually did a few years ago when he was younger.

I do not personally have any problem at all with you making small talk about your musical tastes, religious beliefs and your opinions about how music affects people, but I think it may be important to keep in mind that music (even music you find unappealing) represents some degree of genuine human emotion and thought. To discount it and pretend it is not there, hoping demand for it will just go away one soul at a time, seems to me to be missing the point. I am assuming you meant no offense to Disturbia, and I figure your objective was noble. I think the better way to approach it though, is to ask yourself why someone would find any value in music like this, and for that matter, why their fingernails are black. I think when you get that understanding, you will have more ability to approach strangers who you may not have much in common with, without giving them an impression that you did not intend to (if in fact there was no negative intent in your comments), and ultimately could lead to a real dialogue with less defensiveness.