Is Religion a Deadly Force?

As of late, there has been considerable calls to discriminate against Christians from heavyweight authors, such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Stephen Hawking. Are religious zealots one and the same? Are Christians just as bigoted and hateful as many perceive Muslims to be? If religion could be eradicated from the world, as these "scholars" desire, would violence and hatred vanish as well?

Hardly.

Here is Rev. Jeff Johnson's response in a recent "To the Source" article.

"To be more precise, a comparison should be made between religion and civil government. Civil Government, as an institution, has killed far more people than religion. If a person wants to throw religion overboard on account of religious wars, then certainly the entire notion of Civil Government ought to be tossed on account of national wars. Clearly the problem lies not in the institutions, but in the imperfect human hearts which make up any institution."

Just one of many arguments against a foolhearty attempt to dismiss the Christian faith.

Weather Channel Gone Leftist

As if you needed yet another reminder that the only truth in this world comes from Jesus himself, here is another one. The Weather Channel's propoganda is blowing into a nasty storm: one of its leaders wants to promote global warming as fact above questioning and is willing to mock those who do question the "science" behind climate change theories.

"[Jesus] said to the crowd: "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, 'It's going to rain,' and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, "It's going to be hot,' and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky. How is it that you don't know hot to interpret this present time?" Luke 12:54-56

What I Believe

From time to time it is helpful to lay out what motivates a person. For me, I believe that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is more important than anything on this earth; in fact, he created it all and rules over it even now. While evil is present too, I believe that Jesus is waiting up in heaven for the day when His Father will send him down here to reclaim His own and bring them to live with him in eternal paradise. We are to be watchful; not for bizarre supernatural events, but for the sudden and magnificent return of the King coming with His angels in the sky. I think so many Christians are busy about the wrong things. These are:

1. Worrying about the news, searching for signs of the Rapture, the Beast, or whatever unscriptural attempts they've made to posit the Revelation message meant for the early church onto the 21st century church.

2. Those wishing to force the secular world to adhere to Christian ideals for living.

3. Those who wish to force other Christians to adhere to their interpretations for Christian living and look down on others who do not follow their mandates. (No dancing, no secular Christmas celebrating, no pants for women, etc).

4. Those who go about daily life as if this is the big life worth living. These folks have no real desire for the after life and instead concentrate their time on living up this life by fixating on sports, TV, acquiring wealth.

I believe what is really important is to seek and save the lost by spreading the Word of Christ. We are to give help for the suffering and help for those who have trapped themselves in by sin. The only real way to help those people is to give them Jesus.