I still ask for people to pray and I still pray, but I try to reorient my prayers these days.
I no longer believe in prayer as a cause-an-effect endeavor.
I don’t believe in a supernatural Santa Claus who dispenses life and death based on the conduct or heart of the recipients.
I don’t believe in a God who withholds miraculous healing or compassionate care—until sufficiently begged by us to do so.
I believe prayer works by unlocking our empathy for others.
I believe it binds us together in relationship.
I believe it to be a beautiful expression of love for people who are suffering.
I believe it connects us personally to God in ways that cannot be quantified.
I believe it is a sacred act of kindness.
Officially, most Evangelicals believe in the pretribulational rapture of the church. However, if you let their works testify to what they really believe, it is evident that Evangelicals no longer believe that Gabriel is fixing to blow his trumpet and Jesus is returning in the clouds to catch away his chosen ones. TV preachers such as con artist Jim Bakker continue to preach up the could-be-tomorrow rapture, but tomorrow never comes and their bank accounts continue to grow.
Evangelicals have traded a soon-coming Lord for megachurches, fancy AV systems, praise bands, relational preaching and, most importantly, political power. Evangelicals seem far more concerned with expanding their kingdoms on earth than they do evangelizing the lost and building the kingdom to come. I don’t know of one Evangelical preacher, church leader, or congregant, for that matter, who lives as if Jesus could split the eastern sky today. I told Polly last night that Evangelicals sure do talk and sing a lot about Heaven, but none of them seem to be in much hurry to get there. The vast majority of Evangelicals not only are indifferent about their own souls, but they also couldn’t care less about the souls of their unsaved, heathen neighbors. Evangelicalism has become that which it stood against decades ago — institutionalized. It has become little more than cultural religion. The only reason any of us should give a thought about Evangelicalism is that it continues to have a dangerous anti-human hold on the Republican Party.
David Koch Pumps Billions Of Dollars Into Campaign To Secure Antonin Scalia A Seat In The Holy Trinity
“It’s been far too long since a true conservative like Antonin Scalia ascended to the highest ranks of Heaven and held the title of Divine Person,” said Koch, who, after arriving in the afterlife, reportedly began lobbying prominent Holy Angels and poured cash into conservative Heaven-wide advertising initiatives in order to secure a spot for the former Supreme Court justice to replace the Holy Spirit.
This idea came to me when I happened to see a right wing video that claimed that the earthquake was actually caused by reptilians from outer space, to accomplish something I was never clear about.
Anyway, that started me thinking about that earthquake. It was the biggest earthquake to hit the United States in decades. What a strange coincidence that it struck right in the middle of one of the largest US military weapons testing centers, huh?
Well, here’s my conspiracy theory. Trump is backing out of international treaties against nuclear weapons as fast as he can, the disgusting monster. I’m suggesting that this was actually an underground nuclear test, conducted at Trump’s orders, to send a message to Russia and China.
Nuclear Hurricanes On the Way
From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:
It may be a little disturbing to dwell on how much Trump fixates on nukes, but we shouldn’t really worry too much, right? He has a very good brain because his uncle was a nuclear scientist, and that’s why he knows things like windmills and lightbulbs can cause cancer, and your heart is really only supposed to beat so many times during your life, asbestos isn’t really dangerous, and climate change is a Chinese hoax.
So rest assured, even if his politics might lead him to think that as the King of Israel (undeclared, but in the hearts of many, people are saying) he really has every right to at least make an offer on Greenland, it is totally not at all batshit that he has suggested that maybe to stop hurricanes, we should just fire a nuke into the eye of the thing, and that’ll teach it!
I guess the best part of the story, for me, is that he didn’t just suggest it one time, but brought it up more than once.
This was the epic theme ending the movie Gladiator. the score was written by German producer Hans Zimmer. I listened to this rendition by the Lithuanian group Indigo for years before watching the video. I’m glad I finally saw it.
It is a wonderful choral arrangement that fits the intended mood: an epic return by a General, who is brought down, sold into slavery, then struggles to return and eventually sacrifices himself for justice.
At the end of the choral video, an unidentified man singing from a wheelchair pretty much brings the curtain down.
The words are from a private personal language invented by Australian composer Lisa Gerrard that she has developed since childhood. Their meaning is a mystery, at least to me. They simply lend the beautiful music an authentic flavor.
The man, who has barely clung to his job for the past two and a half years, is justified in believing that an economic downturn would result in his unemployment, experts said.
“When the economy is good, it’s possible for someone like him to hold down a job for which he is woefully unqualified,” Harland Dorrinson, a human-resources specialist, said. “But when the economy goes south, look out.”
Dorrinson said that the unskilled man’s résumé, which lists six bankruptcies and multiple business failures, could come under scrutiny in the event of a recession.
Isn’t the president supposed to be easing our fears that a recession is imminent?
I have no idea whether the U.S. is headed toward a recession. What’s sort of shocking me this week so far, however, is the possibility that President Donald Trump will manage to panic the nation into hard times. Is that possible? I’m no economist, but from the politics side, I would never have thought a president could do such a thing, mainly because the normal instinct for all administrations is to spin the economy in as positive a way as possible, and then some.
Frances Langum watches the chaos. Just when we thought forcing Denmark to sell Greenland was the dumbest Trump idea ever, a panel on CNBC explodes as my President “hereby orders” American corporations to stop doing business with China.
Woodstock can only happen once. As many times as it has attempted to be duplicated it never has been. Give it up. Altamount happened just a few months later and people got beat up and killed and the ugliness of humanity came back full force. But for that 3 days in upstate New York in August 1969 humanity was free and nice and kind to each other. Its just a fact. Its not some hippie rewriting of history its just a fact and it cannot be taken away.
Later in 1970 the 3 hour movie came out. Now you could see what you’d been listening to on a record. The only problem was because it had a few F bombs in it and a few naked people bathing in a pond, it was rated R and this kid couldnt get in without an adult. Well my parents were not going to take me to see Woodstock thats for sure. So we had to find an alternative. So my friend and I bought tickets to see one movie at the Six West Theaters (yes we had a “multiplex” in 1970) and snuck into the Woodstock movie. And we got caught and booted out. Ok thats traumatic. I wasnt sure I could ever show my face there again. Then we tried again a week later. But this time we followed very closely some guys in their 20’s into the theater and sat right next to them which probably freaked them out a bit. Then the movie started. We moved. For 3 hours we SAW what we had been listening to for all those months. Holy shit again. I knew all those songs by heart by now. Thats what those guys and gals looked like. F bombs and nudity. Who cares? Get on with the tunes man.
