⁸Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you;
     rebuke a wise man and he will love you.
⁹Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still;
     teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning.

– Proverbs 9:8-9

Tags: bible, quote, proverbs, wisdom

Often, the pro-creation or anti-evolution argument looks to the first chapter of Genesis as its basis, that God created all kinds and so nothing evolved from something else. What strikes me as odd is the presumption that this same omnipotent God is bounded by what we perceive as time. Why is it hard to accept that God conceived of–not literally “created”–everything at once but that some would only come to manifest at a certain point in time? This would indeed have all scientific appearances of evolution, of one kind of beast becoming another, but God still having done this magnificent deed during the act of creation.

Even in Genesis, God “evolves” woman from man, taking a part of him and creating something new that did not exist before. This is absolutely testament that evolution happens and that God may indeed be at the center of its happening. Yet, pro-creation arguers insist that evolution doesn’t happen? This is absurd at best.

Similarly, the pro-evolution arguers insisting that such miraculous events could occur purely by random chance seems too optimistic for my tastes. We have very little evidence of “evolution gone horribly wrong” which would inevitably need to happen much more frequently than evolution getting it right to get us to where we are today. Yet, the fossil record is clearly lacking this proof. Apparently, the evolutionary stasis in the observed fossil record is clear.

Scientists have coined the term punctuated equilibrium to describe the short bursts of evolutionary improvement that happens. Why is it so hard to accept that these apparently miraculous core changes to a species wasn’t guided somehow? Believing that these rare and unlikely events, which now seems to not stem from constantly failed random attempts, can happen repeatedly is like winning the lottery every time you buy a ticket, and repeatedly buying tickets and winning every time! Sorry, that kind of luck is … Godlike, to say the least.

Tags: religion, creationism, evolution, punctuated equilibrium

Next week, our third grade Sunday School children each will receive their own Bible, which this year, my older daughter will be included. Part of the process involves parents selecting their favorite Bible verses and highlighting them, so that when the children read through their Bible, they will be able to share this with them.

Now, I imagine for most parents who have gone through Sunday School and otherwise grew up in a church already have a bunch of favorite Bible verses. For me, this isn’t the case; I was only baptized at the end of 2005. I suppose I could skim through and try to find meaningful passages, but for some reason it just seems wrong to do that.

So, I put out a call to my Twitter friends asking for their favorite Bible verses and several people responded! Here’s the first few responses that came in:

• Micah 7:8 – “⁸Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall I will rise; Though I dwell in darkness, the LORD is a light for me.” [from @jaymartinez]
• Proverbs 31:8-9 – “⁸Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. ⁹Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” [from @jerseymomma]
• Leviticus 24:15 – “¹⁵And speak to the people of Israel, saying: Anyone who curses God shall bear the sin.” [from @jgrossberg]
• Exodus 21:17 – “¹⁷Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.” [from @jgrossberg]
• Matthew 6:28-34 – “²⁸And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” ³²For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” [from @suebob]
• Psalm 118:24 – “²⁴This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” [from @suebob]
• John 14:18 – “¹⁸I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” [from @suebob]
• 1 Corinthians 15:56 – “⁵⁶The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” [from @harda]
• John 14:6 – “⁶Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” [from @ronaldbradford]
• Matthew 5:1-12 – The Beatitudes [from @ronaldbradford]
• Genesis 1:1 – “¹In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,” [from @ronaldbradford]

Some of my own favorites (that aren’t included above) that I’ve learned so far through the few years I’ve been regularly attending Sunday services include:

• 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 – “⁴Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ⁸Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.”
• Ephesians 2:8 – “⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—”
• Titus 3:5 – “⁵he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”
• Romans 12:2 – “²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
• John 13:34 – “³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
• James 1:5 – “⁵If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.”
• Hebrews 13:5 – “⁵Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’”
• Galatians 3:28 – “²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
• James 2:14 – “¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?”

Do you have a favorite Bible passage that isn’t listed above? I’d really love to know what it is–tell me what it is in the comments below. Thanks.

Tags: religion, Sunday School, Bible

The gospel lesson this past week was on John 4, where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman. Our church uses this lectionary insert which uses the NRSV translation of the Bible. As our pastor read the gospel lesson, I couldn’t help but LOL at verse 11:

¹¹The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

The first thought my mind produced, was, “Jesus, you has no bukkit.” I couldn’t help it, my mind went into full LOL mode. This was the internal dialogue that went on inside my head:

JESUS: GIMME DRINK.
WOMAN: LOL! WTF?
JESUS: GIMME DRINK, NAO!
WOMAN: O RLY? U HAS NO BUKKIT. HOW U GET WATER?
JESUS: YA RLY! I DRINK UR MILKSHAKE! I DRINK IT RITE UP! WE CAN BE BFF!
WOMAN: NO WAI! GIMME WATER!

JESUS: I BEEN WATCHIN U FAP.
WOMAN: OMG! I SEE WHAT U DID THAR.

Yeah, pray for my immortal soul, or something.

(Before all you bright people point it out, yes, I know about the LOLcat Bible and there’s even a translation for John 4 already.)

Tags: Christianity, Bible, John 4, LOL, meme

I like to describe myself as an igtheist–one who doesn’t care whether God exists or not.

However, I attend a Lutheran church every week, and I play guitar for the children’s choir and sing in the church choir. I do this because I really like the people in the congregation, as well as the opportunity to share my love for performing music and singing with people.

How do you go about choosing a church? Think about it this way: choosing a church is like choosing a supermarket. Some folks go to the nearest one to their house. Some stick with a particular chain because they prefer it for whatever reason. Some go to the one that sells at the lowest prices. Some go to the ones that offer the highest quality product. Some go to the ones that give away free food samples.

Going to church is not so much about believing in God than it is about liking the community of people that attend church at a specific location. Your criteria for choosing a church will likely differ from someone else’s, but in the end if you go to church, go because it provides you with the value you’re looking for, not as a statement about your belief (or lack thereof) in God.

Tags: religion, Lutheran, church, igtheist