Showing posts sorted by date for query j. m. green. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query j. m. green. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Holy Ghost Porn.

0 comments
Mark Driscoll, pastor of the Seattle-based Mars Hill megachurch is no stranger to controversy.   Early in his career, he was known as the ‘cussing pastor’.  As things rolled along, he garnered a devoted following by preaching a macho Jesus who would probably enjoy watching a UFC cage match, deriding effeminate male worship leaders, and telling Christian wives that they should drop their husband’s trousers and ‘serve’ them by performing oral sex.   His sermon videos on the topic of sex are often too controversial to be carried by GodTube (the Christian version of YouTube).  Recently, he has been in a new kind of controversy, as charges of plagiarism have been leveled at him.
What is perhaps not as widely-known is his claim that he sees replays of sexual encounters and child molestations in his head, courtesy of a ‘gift’ of the Holy Spirit.  That’s right folks.  We have a pastor claiming that he has a Holy Ghost porn channel in his head.  As Mark puts it, “I see things.”

I’ll let him tell you about it:

Bible Prophecy Fulfilled (Part 3): The Christmas Murders

0 comments
The story of the wise men being guided by a heavenly star, to the house where Jesus resided has been a key element of many a Christmas play.    What has not been talked about very often is how this little piece of razzle-dazzle got a bunch of kids murdered.  Yep.  This is one of those not-infrequent moments in the Bible which makes a person (of even average intelligence) face palm and say “Really God?  Really?  This was the best you could come up with?”

Bible Prophecy Fulfilled (Part 2) More of Matthew's Scripture Magic

0 comments

The writer of Matthew had a prophecy fetish and seized every opportunity to declare that events in his version of the life of Jesus happened in order “that it might be fulfilled”. 

In this series we are focusing on examples surrounding the birth narrative.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,  saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;  and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:  “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”Matthew 2:1-6 (ESV)

Matthew’s author quotes the book of Micah as foretelling the birthplace of Jesus.  Does it?

Bible Prophecy Fulfilled: Christmas Trees.

0 comments


Since it’s the time of year when my Christian friends are preparing to celebrate Christmas, I feel that I must point out something very important, to them.

Christmas trees are mentioned in the Bible. 

Not only mentioned, but prophesied thousands of years before they would become a part of Christmas celebrations.  Not only were they predicted, but they were condemned by the prophet Jeremiah:

Thus says the Lord: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.
Jeremiah 10:2-4 (ESV)

Clearly, the Bible condemns the practice of cutting and decorating Christmas trees.   All believers who practice such things are in rebellion against their god - right?  Maybe I will have to tear up my American Atheists membership card.  We have a bona fide example of fulfilled prophesy in the Bible!

An Atheist's Perspective on Thanksgiving

0 comments
For religious people, the standard setting for the giving of thanks is entirely incidental to the meaning of the occasion. The family around the table, the turkey or ham, the football game — all of these are just props and ritual. None is essential to thanking God.

What for a religious person, though, is just the setting of Thanksgiving is for the atheist the entire celebration itself. Family and fun, and marking the change of the seasons, is its only meaning and significance.

I suppose that to a religious person an atheist Thanksgiving must appear a thin thing, lacking reverence and grandeur. But then, again, a person who reveres a grand God must feel diminished in her own eyes. Giving thanks to God must engender in the religious the sense that they are powerless supplicants to a higher reality. Another thing we atheists are happy about, then, is that nothing at all depends on the will of a spirit in the sky.

The quote above is from Mark Mercer, chairman of the Philosophy department at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Submitted by J. M. Green

Family Secrets: Is Your Heavenly Father A Psychopath?

0 comments



In the powerful movie Music Box, Jessica Lange plays Anne, a lawyer defending her Hungarian-American father against charges of being a war criminal who tortured Jews in the Holocaust.  Anne finds these charges to be unthinkable, given that she knows her father to be a loving man. Tensions rise as the prosecuting lawyer claims that the caring father she knows is a carefully-constructed persona which hides the true nature of his past.  Anne manages to secure evidence which results in the dismissal of the charges against her father, but the prosecutor urges her to stop living in a fantasy world, and to dig deeper into her father’s past, to find the truth.   Anne finds herself facing a difficult choice:  pursue the truth at great personal cost, or settle for the easy answers and safe world of what she has always thought to be true
The movie serves as a powerful illustration of the mental trauma which Christians face when they are first confronted with rumors of unsavory secrets in their family history.  Could the loving Heavenly Father which they have known actually be a brutal and heartless psychopath?   Do they dare stir the dust of doubt by digging around in the ancient archives of Yahweh, reading what was written about him in old diaries and tattered documents?

Belief in God: What’s the Harm? (Rush Limbaugh Edition)

0 comments

Right Wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh likes to refer to himself a “talent on loan from God”.  He will be today’s exhibit of how beliefs have consequences, and how religious beliefs can cause harm
.
On the subject of human-caused global warming, Rush (who has millions of listeners) has said:  
"If you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in man-made global warming. You must be agnostic or atheistic to believe that man controls something he can't create.  It’s always been one of the reasons for my anti man-made global warming stance." 
The purpose of this blog post is not to generate arguments over global warming. I merely offer  the Limbaugh quote as an example of how a religious belief can drive irresponsible and dangerous attitudes which could have far-reaching implications for the planet.

The Free Will Excuse

0 comments


When Christians are asked why their all-powerful, loving god does not intervene when people are carrying out acts of horrendous cruelty and violence, they have an answer.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they have an emergency exit.  This mental escape hatch allows them to stop wrestling with the implications of a god who stands idly by and allows psychopaths to carry out their cruelties, unopposed.
Long ago, Epicurus pointed out that a god’s inaction in the face evil calls into question its power and goodness:

Halloween Special: All About Satan!

0 comments

It's that special time of year when the forces of darkness and sugary excess are unleashed upon the U.S. and other countries which celebrate Halloween.  Although this holiday's pagan roots run deep, it also has direct ties to the Christian feast of All Hallow's Day, and I must say that I am a bit disappointed that my Christian Facebook friends are not busily posting "Keep Christ in Halloween" memes on their status updates.

I would also like to take this opportunity to remind our Christian friends (and enemies) that the fact that we do not believe in their imaginary god also means we do not believe in  - or worship -  his fictional arch-enemy.

For those who have never delved into how the Satan character evolves in the biblical writings (and how Christianity borrows from other religions to build its concept of Satan), I am linking to several videos.  I would also recommend the book The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots by T. J. Wray and Gregory Moberly.  It is a fast read, entertaining, and gives a good popular-level coverage of the topic.

The Immorality of Salvation

0 comments
The Christian concept of salvation is an immoral one.
im•mor•al
adjective
1. Violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics
Dictionary.com
Before I tell you why, let’s set the scene. Christianity teaches humanity is doomed to go to Hell where the god Yahweh will do Very Bad Things to them, forever. Why is humanity doomed? Well, apparently, Yahweh did a product launch - Humans 1.0 - without doing adequate beta-testing (perhaps he runs Microsoft also). His product didn’t function quite like he wanted it to.  A skeptical talking snake proved more persuasive than an all-powerful deity, and so the prototypical couple snacked their way into the bad graces of their Sky Daddy. Rather than acknowledging his own incompetence, the Loving Creator instead cursed humans with painful childbirth, male domination of women, and a difficult life, ending in death. No second chance and no appeal process. One strike, you’re out. It’s all there in Genesis 3, if you need more details.

Ted Cruz, Anointed King of Republicans?

0 comments
Republican politics has been in a long-standing illicit affair with religion. Parachurch moral watchdog groups, Bible-banging Baptists and fertility-venerating Catholics all seek to use political means to enforce their peculiar views of human sexuality. Calvinistic theonomists want to impose Old Testament laws (including the death penalty for blasphemy and homosexuality).  In other words, a sort of unholy offspring of the good old days of the 1950's, married to an Iranian theocracy.

Silly Sayings of Jesus: Don't Worry About Food or Clothes.

0 comments
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"                 Matthew 6:25-30 (ESV)
Really Jesus? Paris Hilton could have come up with something more sensible than that steaming pile! I mean, maybe you were doing that whole new-age guru, Deepak Chopra on Ecstacy thing… Pretty, birdies and flowers… bliss out baby! Sorry to harsh your buzz, but your words ring hollow in countries where sad-eyed children with arms like sticks, are starving to death. Try spouting your platitudes to a desperate mother who doesn’t have enough nutrition in her emaciated body to breast-feed her starving infant. “Life is more than food…”? Uh, no. If you go very long without food, life goes away. It’s called being dead. And clothes? Well, fashion isn’t important in the overall scheme of things, but a warm jacket can be helpful in not freezing to death in the winter.

Are Christians Stupid?

0 comments
I have a friend who calls Christians “stupid people that believe in a fairytale, with whom one cannot have intelligent conversations.”

I have to disagree. I know many Christians who are quite intelligent.

Do Christians hold stupid beliefs? Absolutely. Are there Christians who are stupid? Undoubtedly. Just try and follow Pat Robertson’s rambling incoherencies, or pick a different clown from the televangelist freak parade. Are there certain groups or denominations within Christianity which tend to denigrate reason, and celebrate emotionalism and mindless belief? Most assuredly. But, haven’t we also encountered atheists who are uniformed about certain things and yet hold dogmatic assumptions nonetheless?

Wedding Pastor Disaster

0 comments
In this video, we witness a host organism (the priest) whose infection with the God Virus has progressed to an extreme state. He is performing a wedding ceremony for two living, breathing, human beings, but all he can think about is how offended his Invisible Friend must be by the photographers who are documenting the wedding.
“This is not about the photography, this is about God.”
Uhhh, no Reverend Douchebag. This is about the couple getting married, and their happiness. They hired the photographers that you are trying to run off, to capture memories of what should have been one of the happiest moments of their lives.

Silly Sayings of Jesus: Like Little Children

0 comments
And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3
Well Jesus, this was silly because you revealed too much (kind of like a magician telling how he does his tricks). A childlike mentality, and childhood conversions are the fuel on which Christianity runs.

Kids are trusting, uninformed about life, and unskilled in the art of reason. The line between fantasy and reality is blurred for children. It’s not unusual for them to have invisible friends, which makes them perfect victims for spiritual salesmen!

Questions In Genesis: Ken Ham’s Creationist Shtick

1 comments
I have a confession to make. Over a decade ago, I took my family to a Ken Ham creationism event. My kids were taught that dinosaurs and humans coexisted, a few thousand years ago, and they also learned a magic phrase – one guaranteed to stop evolutionists in their tracks. More on that later.

In a presentation for the adults, Ken talked about how evolution attacks the very foundation of Christianity – the book of Genesis. After all, if Genesis is not literally true, then there was no Adam and Eve, no Fall of mankind through eating a forbidden fruit. No Original Sin. No need for a savior. This is something which I actually agree with Ken on.

Prayer Failed for Jesus!

0 comments
We can keep this simple. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was God incarnate. In John 17, Jesus prayed that his current and future followers would have the kind of unity that he and his heavenly father enjoyed. He requested this so that the world would have a basis to believe that God had sent him.

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” John 17:20-21 (NASB)

That was the prayer.  What kind of results did the self-proclaimed Son of God get?

Why Do Christians Speak for God?

0 comments
The god of the Bible sure has a lot of self-appointed press agents.

In the Old Testament, Moses and the prophets spent a lot of time talking about what their god hated and loved. They detailed what behavior he expected, the loyalty and sacrifices that he demanded, and the ways he would retaliate if not obeyed. They revealed who god wanted killed, and under what circumstances. Whenever God was upset, feeling betrayed, or benevolent, his spokesmen let be known, as if they were divine mood rings.

Life Support: Why Does Fundamentalist Christianity Need So Much Propping Up?

0 comments
My years in a variety of fundamentalist Christian churches taught me something: despite all claims to the contrary, these Christians do not really believe that their faith would survive if you took it off of life support.

Believers claim to have the spirit of the all-powerful creator of the universe indwelling and empowering them as “new creations in Christ.” Purportedly, the Bible is the living, powerful word of God – “sharper than any two-edged sword.” The believer’s faith is said to be a shield, able to “quench all the fiery darts of the enemy.” And yet…

Silly Sayings of Jesus: Tearing Out Eyes and Cutting Off Hands.

0 comments
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Matthew 5:29-30 ESV
Really Jesus, you managed to pack so much silliness in these few sentences that it’s hard to know where to start! In fact, it goes well beyond silliness – perhaps ridiculously irresponsible would be a better description. Surely if you were God – all-knowing and wise – it might have occurred to you that encouraging people to pluck out their eyes and cut off their hands (even if you intended it metaphorically) might not be the best idea? Didn’t you realize that mentally unstable people might act on your words? Not very prudent of you to put those ideas so carelessly out there, now was it?