H. E. R. P. & E. S.

Road Trip! Just think of the blog post you could do after attending.

Lydia and I discussed that as a “field trip” for the kids. An anthropological study of primitive cultures.

Wow. They really don’t want their congregants exposed to or thinking about anything else do they?!?

You might want to watch it on that field trip. They say they’ll be burning anything else pastor Marc considers a satanic influence.

I went to the church webpage for its book-burning and a country song plays in the background the whole time, called “The Bogus Bible Blues.”

On the upside, news of this bizarre news is educational even for a life-long southerner like me. I followed a few links and inadvertently learned for the first time in my life, that King James himself is a suspected sodomite??

OMGosh, I went to the website and the preacher’s pic gives me the creeps!!!!! Thanks for sharing…..

This isn’t a church, it’s the personality cult of Pastor Marc Grizzard. Hope the chicken is good.

Rob, do you say that with a straight face? Is CHRIST-ianity itself not a cult of personality?

JJ, CHRIST-ianity is probably more accurately the cult of Paul.

And yeah, James swung both ways… frequently. His contemporaries didn’t refer to him as “Regina Jacobus” for nothing.

Oh, and as to the article… dayum! That’s hardcore, even for hardcore fundies. I’ll bet Fox News will cover it.

Not to mention at least as barbaric as book-burning –
Never Mind the Children’s Screams

Thx Audrey. Historical accuracy be damned, though, now it seems to have morphed. After all, it’s WWJD, not WWPD. . .

I got no problem with athiests considering Christianity a personality cult of either Christ or Paul. Seems like a reasonable way for you folks to think about it. And yeah, I’ve ‘bought in’ to the things the personality is selling (soul is eternal, heaven is a good place, there is ultimate justice dealt out by a perfectly righteous and merciful being, etc).

So yes, I can say with a strait face that I accept Christ and reject the chicken BBQ pastor. I’m not expecting anyone to convert here.

What does “accept Christ” mean exactly? Serious question. I mean, I think I know the evangelical interpretation but I was wondering about yours.

And, BTW, I hate the recent versions of ChemStation.

I was wondering what responsbility he feels to others being misled about what it represents, and harming kids in the process.

This is giving a bad name to BBQ!

And, JJ, it is for their own good. Doncha know that pretty much justifies any wacked out insanity the religious want to foist onto the rest of us?

Nance

This is giving a bad name to BBQ!

And isn’t that the real tragedy, here? What about the BBQ? What about the BBQ?!?!?!

Exactly!

Nance

“What does “accept Christ” mean exactly?”

Tall order, explaining that to an athiest without sounding like a deluded fool.

I suppose at it’s core, it’s something along the lines of an affirmative belief in a suprmely powerful deity, some beliefs about the nature and character of deity, and willingness to see oneself in a subordinate position to a perfectly just, perfectly good being. It involves an understanding of myself as an imperfect, error-prone, agenda driven, flawed human who can be a better person than I was yesterday if I follow various commandments and accept various notions.

I figure the ultimate goal of our earthly experience is sort of an eternal version of what kids do – learn, grow, make choices, face consequences, and hopefully become happy healthy productive good people. Mormons tend to be better-educated than other Christian sects.

“Faith” is voluntarily chosing to believe all this unprovable stuff – I’ve decided to drink the koolaid. But I drink it with an eye to where it will take me. If it didn’t make me a better person, I’d have second thoughts.

Why can’t you be a better person without the religion part? Don’t you know what the rules are by now?

Nance

to Rob @ 5:12pm:

I can say with a strait face that I accept Christ

did you mean with a “straight” face or were you alluding to George Harvey Strait, the “King of Satanic music”?

(p.s. so what would the Amazing Grace Baptist Church think of George’s 12 multiplatinum, 22 platinum, and 5 gold album legion of followers- multiplatinum = 2,000,000 or more units, platinum 1,000,000, and gold a mere half mil?)

We just watched an Angelina Jolie/ Morgan Freeman movie on demand, called WANTED. Sort of Matrix meets Remo Williams meets Star Wars.

It was a morality play (well, a morality action-adventure) in which the moral seemed to be that you’d better figure out what’s right *without* the confounding variable of trusting a whole system of other people who claim they have ancient wisdom, to be right.

Oops, I guess that movie will be in the bonfire . . .

“Why can’t you be a better person without the religion part?”
I never claimed otherwise. And you might be surprised to find that a lot of what y’all think about morality and being good and just posessing common sense, is taught in a mormon church.

(And just added Wanted to my Netflix queue. Don’t tell my bishop.)

(Well, actually, I guess I used to claim otherwise all the time. Then my eventually-spouse told me all about her counterculture world full of druggies and punks – and some of the most moral people she knew. Part of my personal development from 13 years ago.)

So the religion part is just your choice, Rob. We can all pretty much agree on the goal of being a better person and what that might look like and worshiping in your particular way is just the tool you choose to use to get there.

That’s a pretty inoffensive way to present your religion. It’s not suggesting I have to do it your way. I think it’s a complete waste of energy but that’s your choice.

Good move.

Nance