?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbef07aQtB8

If your church actually designed your under garments, would you consider that crossing the line?

There is a tiny town in Texas named Godley, believe it or not. It is very close to Joshua, Texas. Godley is very small but lives up to it's name, the hotel directory lists 50 churches! One that I remember is the "Cowboy Church." Look it up, they accept credit cards!

Today I drove from the Midland/Odessa airport to Andrews, TX. This area is mostly oil and gas fields with nodding donkey pump jacks sucking crude out of the ground and rusty mobile homes. Getting close to Andrews I saw church signs, one after another, popping up out of the weeds along the barb wire fences, competition for souls is fierce! But as I was entering Andrews I saw this huge banner sign, must be over 100 ft long with letters a couple feet high exclaiming "WE LOVE GOD, COUNTRY AND FREE ENTERPRISE." Looks like whoever put up the sign is speaking for everyone in Andrews.

Am I the only one that wonders how an ancient middle eastern jewish myth could have this much effect on a red neck mecca?

My wife has decided to take a job at the "Spring Branch Presbyterian Academy" here in Houston which is basically a day care center. Here are a couple lines from their "Mission Statement."

"Our mission at Spring Branch Presbyterian Academy is to provide a Christian environment for children in the greater Houston area. We strive to provide a loving, safe haven for children of all backgrounds."

Does the above statement contradict itself?

Then in the "Employee Information" it states:

"Spring Branch Presbyterian Academy will employ any qualified person, regardless of race, color, sex, or national origin. (skip a couple lines about age and education requirements) Because of the nature o our Academy, all employees must be comfortable with teaching Bible truths and Christian values." (in italics for emphasis).

"any qualified person" as long as they believe in their particular god?

Amongst the long list of serious offenses that can lead to termination "Conduct away from work does not up hold [sic] the general philosophy of the Church/Academy."

Like being married to an atheist?

They also mention that they do not pay into Texas unemployment insurance since they are a religious organization.

I would like to get some opinions from all sides.

all of which died a tragic death. My question is, who do you consider to be the best looking?

Jim Jones

Jesus Christ

Elvis Presley

Joseph Smith

David Koresh

Marshall Applewhite

I've included a couple links to our evolutionary time-lines to make it easier to place first man. Pope John Paul II accepted evolution on the grounds of “‘ontological discontinuity’ - a point at which God injected a human soul into an animal lineage." I'm sure the pope would not make such a statement without good evidence and at least an approximate date that this occurred.

H. habilis (Handy Man)

H. rudolfensis (Rudolf Man)

H. ergaster (Working Man)

H. erectus (Upright Man)

H. antecessor (Predecessor Man)

H. heidelbergensis (Heidelberg Man)

H. neanderthalensis (Neanderthal Man)

H. rhodesiensis (Rhodesia Man)

H. cepranensis (Ceprano Man)

H. georgicus (Georgia Man)

H. sapiens idaltu (elderly wise man)

H. sapiens sapiens (Hound Dog Man)

http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/species.htm

http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Homo_(genus...

Note: I was forced to remove the "omo" from the H. since Y!A doesn't like the complete word.

Instead of commanding a 600 year old man to build the largest wooden boat on record and then travel the world collecting animals, God could of spoke a new set or animals into existence like He did the first time.

Noah could of just built a nice little schooner for the hand full of humans that needed saving. It would of been more like a cruise vacation than an ordeal, mucking out all that animal poop!

Why do Christians say their God is merciful with every other breath they take when he treats the world's only Godly man like a red headed step child?

"Nude Nuns With Big Guns," has anyone watched it yet?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1352388/

My neighbor is a godless, heathen Atheist and I want to hose him down with some HW.

Suppose I don't care for what I see, does He offer a trial membership?

Some estimates place the total number of humans ever born at 106 billion, and that is just in the last 6,000 years. How does Jesus keep records on that many souls? What would be the size of his hard drive?

What happened to all the gold, frankincense, and myrrh?

In the news yesterday Pat Robertson (of all people!) stated that marijuana laws in the US are too harsh and should be changed. Now that the king of American fundamentalist Christians has advocated marijuana law reform, how will that change the Christian view as a whole?

I was surprised to see comments like "Pat is a good christian" in the comments section of the news article. Those comments show that there's a group of people in the US that think anyone that stands behind a pulpit and thumps on a bible is a good man.Those people have a big problem with reality, a couple days ago they thought pot was the worst thing on the planet, not because they know anything at all about it, just because some religious right winger told them to think that way. They never once used reason, logic, evidence or anything rational to come to their conclusion, they were simply told to think that way.

OK folks, Pat is now telling you pot is not too bad, a religious man told you to think differently, end of story, those are your marching orders, don't question them.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101224/ap_on_re_us/us...

In Japan over 80% accept evolution and fewer than 10% are certain God exists but Japan has one of the world’s lowest crime rates and the lowest teenage pregnancy rate of any developed nation.

Less than 1/3 of Norwegians, British, Germans and Dutch are certain God exists and at least 60% accept evolution as fact. Teenage pregnancy is very low (except Briton, but still lower than the US) and the homicide rate is 1 – 2 per 100,000.

We all know about religious belief in the US, and only 40% accept evolution, some of those even giving God a role in it. Where does the US place in these statistics? At the bottom of the list in every category! The murder rate is 5 times that or Europe and 10 times that of Japan. Teenage pregnancy is the highest of any developed nation, and this is taking the whole nation as an average.

In the heart of the US bible belt the murder rate is 12 – 14 per 100,000, something like 20 – 30 times the murder rate of Japan! Prisons in the US are overcrowded and busting at the seams, the Netherlands were forced to close 8 prisons in 2009 and lay off 1,200 prison workers, and the crime rate is still dropping!

Only 20% of Swedes feel God is important in their lives and only 2% of the members of the Church of Sweden attend church regularly. In 2010 Sweden’s foreign aid program was rated best in the world and college tuition is free for all, Sweden college educates close to 96% of their high school grads.

Bottom line, while the secular nations have it pretty well sorted out and are moving forward, the US with its fundamentalists, Fox News, creationists attacking our education systems and every other religion related draw back that keeps us wallowing in ancient superstitions is letting prosperity slip away. Religion has reduced the US to 3rd world, statistically. Christians ask Atheists why we attach their religion, I one one am tired of being laughed at by the rest of the developed world.

If the birth of Jesus was such an important event, why was the actual date not recorded? Something fishy going on here?

I was reading about the "golden plates" and it is hysterical, my sides are hurting! Different people estimated the weight at 30 to 60 lbs. after giving the sack containing the plates a heft. Joseph's wife Emma talks about the golden plate book lying around the house and having to move it when cleaning! The dimensions are given, 7" X 8" X 4" which I calculate to be 224 cu. inches. If you do the math the gold plate book weighted 156 lbs! How big a women was Emma?

"Emma said that she remembered the plates being on a table in the house, wrapped in a linen tablecloth, which she moved from time to time when it got in the way of her chores."

What will people NOT believe when it comes to religion? Joseph Smith used big clown glasses in the bottom of his hat to translate the plates. The plates did not have to be in his possession while translating, as long as he had his clown glasses in his hat!

"For the earliest phase of translation, Smith said that he translated using what he called the "Urim and Thummim"—a set of large spectacles with stones where the eye-pieces should be.[103] There is no eye-witness testimony that Smith ever wore the large spectacles, although some witnesses understood that he placed them in his hat while translating."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_plates

How pretty it looks, decorated withblinking lights, fancy balls and tinsel, cut down before it's life even began, and soon to be tossed on a landfill along with brown stained pampers and pork n bean cans. Jesus would be proud.

I've sat in church during prayer sessions which usually begin when someone says "Let us pray," then the entire congregation bows their heads and a prayer is spoken towards the group. It is easy to see how the prayer leader can rack up some prayer points but what about the prayer followers? It's not their prayer so does it count in their favor? Does the prayer ricochet off their foreheads and find it's way up the prayer channel with the name stamp of each individual it touched off on?

The reason I ask is I'm curious about the purpose of prayer. I remember reading the prayer survey conducted by Harvard University and 5 other major colleges.

The results of the survey; (which can be viewed at the attached link) the patients that were prayed for recovered at the same rate as those who were not prayed for. But, the ones that were prayed for and told they were being prayed for had significantly more complications.

Prayer results match the mechanism of pure chance almost exactly, unless the person knows they are being prayed for then the success rate of prayer takes a nose dive. So why pray, unless it racks up points like answering questions here in Y!A?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/20029...