Tag: atheist

Minority Rules in America

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I live in Melbourne, Florida, which is located in Brevard County in East Central Florida. In Brevard County we have Atheist groups that have not been asked or allowed to give the invocation at the beginning of a government or organization meeting. Consequently, one of the Atheist groups, calling itself the Central Florida Freethought Community, filed a lawsuit (they had other atheistic groups join) to force the county government to allow them to give an invocation at it’s meetings. The judge ruled that refusing them was a violation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and ordered them to be allowed to give the invocation.

I agree with the judge- the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law, which means that the Atheists should be allowed to have their freedom of speech. What I don’t agree with is that they have to be allowed to give an invocation: if I want to ask for God’s blessing on a meeting, then I should also have the same 1st and 14th amendment rights to do so, but apparently it doesn’t go both ways in America. The minority rights win out over the majority rights.

Let’s not forget the blatant hypocrisy of this entire lawsuit: an invocation, according to Webster’s Dictionary (1993) is:

  A appeal to a deity or other agent for inspiration, witness, or help; a prayer which is used at the opening of a ceremony or service.

So, if I do not believe in God or a superior being, who am I going to invoke for help? Who am I  praying to if I do not believe that there is anyone up there? Do you see the hypocrisy, or more accurately, the ridiculousness of this claim? They are an organization which says it doesn’t believe in God, a superior entity or prayer demanding that they be allowed to perform a prayer to a superior entity! Huh??

But this is America- the land of the free, the home of the brave, and the judicial system that doesn’t want God involved in anything it does. We did when we started, and we were blessed. Just look at the wonderful things we did when we were a young country: we defeated the greatest military and sea power in the world (twice!); we had some of the greatest leaders the world has ever known; we formed a government that was the first truly representative government and has outlasted nearly every other government that has existed; we were THE world super-power. All of that shows God’s blessing on us. But today? Today we  have kicked God out of our schools, our courtrooms and our government. And what do we have to show for it? Our system of education is much lower than the other developed countries, our economy is weakened, our government is  laughing stock (and not just the current administration), our media lies and misleads the country worse than the town gossip, and the most important things for our youth today are their cell phones and violent video games. We are no longer the leader of the world, in terms of the rest of the world looking up to us- we are a fat, sloppy and lazy giant that once was feared and admired, but now we are the world’s laughing stock. I served this country in the Marine Corps and still love it- it is still one of the best formed governments in the world and we are a sleeping giant- if we ever get our heads back in the game, no other country has a chance against us.

But our heads aren’t in the game, their up our…well, they’re somewhere else. This court case demonstrates absolutely that today the minority does rule in America. The case where the baker refused to bake a cake for a same-sex marriage is at the Supreme Court level- how stupid is that? What?- there isn’t any other bakery around they could get their cake? Will the government force a business to have clients that the business doesn’t want to have? Since when does the right of a business owner to run his or her business the way they want to take second place to someone who wants to force them to accept their business? If I went to a business and they didn’t want to serve me, why would I force them to? What in the world could ever make me think I would get good service from someone who is forced to do something against their personal, religious and/or business ethics?

And if I do not believe in a spiritual entity or prayer, why would I force some organization to allow me to give their invocation? There is only one answer- I want to do it not because I have something to offer, but simply because you said I couldn’t. Oh, yes- I forget to mention that the organizer and leader of the Freethought Community added that he would prefer prayer be completely done away with, but he is willing to accept that his group be allowed to give an invocation. In other words, these “free thinkers” are suing for the government to force others to stop thinking freely.

Oy! And the government agreed, and I understand why. What I don’t understand is how this even got to a courtroom. The judge should have thrown it out as frivolous and unfounded. We all have the right to free speech and to practice our religion (or lack of same) as we choose, so long as we don’t infringe on the rights of others. Well, if I don’t believe in prayer or God and demand that you do not prayer or even mention God, then aren’t I infringing on your rights?

The enemy is at the bottom of this, and he is influencing the government, which he will eventually be in charge of. That is why although I can’t stand to see our government and court system so brutally and obviously manipulated, it is what will be happening more and more, here in America and all around the world, until Yeshua returns and we get things back on line.

God is not tolerant

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Here comes another “Dear Amy” (you’re off the hook today, Abby) letter that represents how misunderstood God-fearing people are in the world today.

In short, a child of Atheists is upset because her friend, a child of Christians, told her they can’t be friends because the Christian parents believe the Atheist girl will be a bad influence. Amy is very sympathetic to the Atheist child and complimentary to the parents (who wrote the letter) saying this is a great opportunity to teach their daughter about tolerance and intolerance.

And you know what? Amy is right. The Christian’s are intolerant. In fact, God is intolerant. God says so, more than once:

Ezekiel 44:23– “They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.”

Leviticus 19:19– “Keep my decrees. “Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.”

2 Corinthians 6:14– “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”

These are repeated, in one way or another, throughout the Tanakh and New Covenant writings. God wants His people to be holy, which means, literally, separated. You can’t be separated from the unholy when you are playing with and living with and (yes, even this) working with the unholy.

When Bilam was unable to curse the Israelites (Numbers, Chapter 22) he got around that by suggesting to the Moabite king to have the women get “friendly” with the Israelite men, and by doing so they will influence them to begin to worship the Semitic gods of the Moabites.

And it worked.

Tolerance in today’s world is more than tolerance- it is passive acceptance. According to Dictionary.com (if you want to get a worldly opinion, go to the Internet, right?) tolerance is:

a fair, objective, and permissive (bold added by me) attitude toward those whose opinions,beliefs, practices, racial or ethnic origins, etc., differ from one’s own; freedom from bigotry

There is a much more ancient definition, one I found using an historic, out-dated form of research called “looking it up in the Webster’s dictionary”:

to put up with; to recognize and respect the opinions and rights of others; to endure

There is a difference between tolerating something and accepting something as “right.” If someone living next to me is loud and un-neighborly, I think that is a very wrong way to act but I can tolerate them. But, if they are selling drugs I cannot tolerate that and must report them to the police. There is a level where tolerance becomes intolerance, meaning (simply) that I will not accept that behavior and will do what I can to either change it or get away from it.

Intolerance doesn’t mean bigotry, but today these two words are treated as synonyms.

God is intolerant of non-Believers. God says we are to be separated and holy, kept from that which is unclean and sinful. Yet, we are to be a light to the nations and Yeshua says no one lights a lamp and places it under a basket. So what does that mean? Are we to be tolerant? Should we intermix with sinners? Is God saying to stay to ourselves, become communal hermits from the world? If we do that, if we remain separated from the world, how can we be a light to the world?

We must be intermingling with the unholy, we must bring light to the darkness, we must be in the midst of the unclean to bring the cleanliness of God’s deliverance to them.

What we must be careful not to do is become influenced by the world.  We are commanded to be holy, for God is holy, and we are commanded to make Disciples. How can we make Disciples or show our light to the world if we are separated and apart from the world?

It is a conundrum, to be sure.

God tests our faith- we see that throughout the Bible. Abraham and Isaac, Jonah, Gideon, Kefa (Peter) walking on the water to Yeshua…all of these are tests of faith that God performed not to find out for Himself but to show us, ourselves, the level of our own faithfulness. Testing of faith is something we do for our benefit and the benefit of those watching us, and don’t think for an instant you aren’t being watched by the non-Believers! They are watching us like a hawk looking for a rabbit, and that predator-prey relationship is exactly what it is like. Non-Believers look for any excuse to show that God-fearing people are intolerant (as the world describes it, meaning bigoted and racist) in order to discredit God.

They do not understand what it means to be holy, and (frankly) they don’t care- they don’t want to be holy, and when you don’t want to be something you make that something look as unwanted and undesirable as you can.

We are to be intolerant of sin, but we are also to love the sinner. Love the sinner, hate the sin, and we can do both. To a Believer, tolerance should be accepting that others are different and they have that God-given right to be. God gave us all free will so we can choose to love Him from our desire to do so. Consequently, we also have the right and freedom to reject Him. That is all part of what God has given each and every one of us, and as people of God we should respect and honor what God has done and not condemn it.

Basically, we are to be holy and show the world what that means. We need to get dirty, we need to soil ourselves with fleshly exposure and we need to walk into the midst of Hell to see what souls we can save: we always have the blood of Messiah to cleanse us. I am not saying we should sin, just that we should allow ourselves to be exposed to the sin of others in order to bring them out of their sin.

Truth is, you can’t work with fish all day and not come home smelling of fish.

If you think that isn’t right, then ask yourself why did Yeshua strip off His righteousness and give up His divine spiritual being to become a flesh and blood human? He took off His divinity and put on the mantle of disgusting, earthly flesh, with all it’s stench and filth, and wore it while acting perfectly holy. His light shone through His flesh and taught us all that it is possible to be light, to be holy and to be God-fearing while in the world.

Both Yochanan and Shaul (John and Paul) tell us that although we are in the world, we are not part of it. We are separated, but we are also present: we are separated from the world spiritually but we are still in the world physically, so we need to show those in the flesh the way to join us in the spirit.

You can’t do that by being physically apart from the others.

I think the Christian family is doing what they think is right, but they are wrong. They should trust in God, and if the faith of their children is strong enough, then the Christian child should be allowed to play with the Atheist child as a means to deliver the light into the darkness.  In fact, the Atheist child should be invited into their home and welcomed to show what the love of God means in the real world.

We are the messengers of God, and the symbols of His kingdom; you can’t deliver a message to someone unless you talk to them.

 

Just because we don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there

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Ever see the wind? Do you see sound waves when listening to the ocean? When you get a sunburn, did you see the UV rays all around you?

There are many things we don’t see, yet they exist. And how do we know they exist? By their effect on our world.

We don’t see the wind, but we see flags moving in the breeze, we see trees bend over, we see waves in the pond and we see smoke traveling sideways. And we feel it.

We see the red skin and feel the pain when we are in the sun too long, we get a ringing in our ears when we go to a concert or have the radio too loud, or when a fire truck goes by blaring its siren.

There are so many things we don’t see that are there. We easily accept their existence because we see their effect on our physical world. Sometimes it is immediate, sometimes it takes a while to appear, but because we see the effect it has on our physical world we trust that it is real.

If it is so easy for us to accept the existence of UV light, of wind, of sounds we are incapable of hearing, of mesons, and so many other things that we have never seen, why is it so impossible for us to accept that God exists and that He is always there?

I am sure most people reading this already accept that God exists, but do you really, really believe that He is always there? Always watching and aware?  I do. Just because I don’t see His work in my life, at that time of my life, it doesn’t mean He isn’t present in my life.

God’s time is not like our time: we live in a lineal timeline, flat, one-way only, from this moment to the next one. We can’t go backwards, and we can’t go any farther into our future than right this second. God, on the other hand, is unrestricted by our timeline. He is in the ancient past at the same moment He exists in the distant future, all the time being right here with us, now. That’s why He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow: it is all the same time to Him.

When Joseph was in the dungeon for 12 years did he think God had abandoned him? When Daniel was praying for answers, did he think God was ignoring him? When David cried out his heart to the Lord through his psalms, while being chased for years by Saul, did he think that God was missing in his life? Did Yeshua think God was ignoring Him when He prayed to “let this cup pass by me?” When Shaul (Paul) was in jail and chained, did he think that he was singing to the wall?

When you are going through tsouris, are you praying to God and expecting relief right away? There’s nothing wrong with expecting God to answer prayers- He’s good that way. But we need to be doing much more than just faithfully expecting the answer: we need to be looking for it, too! The answer to prayer we receive is (I believe) more often not what we expect but it is always exactly what we need. God knows much better than we do what we need because He can see what will occur from what is happening to us right now. We can only hope and try to make things happen the way we want them to, but God can make things happen the way He wants them to. Every time.

That is why we can’t really know what He will do when we ask something of Him. Yeshua told us in the Gospels, when we ask in His name we will receive, and we need to be expecting to receive. But what we receive may not be what we asked for, yet it will be the answer to what our prayers were about.

That sounds a little convoluted, but it is true. At least, it has been for me. When I have thought that maybe God was too busy to deal with me, looking back I see that I was too busy dealing with myself to see what God was doing. And sometimes, I wasn’t doing anything wrong, it just wasn’t time for the answer to my prayer to be realized. God’s timing is perfect because, well, He controls time. Duh! When you make the rules you always win.

Just because we don’t see God at work doesn’t mean He isn’t doing anything. You know, sometimes just waiting is the best thing to do. Doing nothing is, in many ways, doing something.

In my high school was a guy named Mike Santoro (Mike, if you ever read this, how ‘ya doing?) Mike was the best wrestler we had, state-level champion. He taught me that my body could be maneuvered into positions that you couldn’t imagine. When Mike wrestled, he often just sat on the opponent- doing nothing. The other guy was face down on the mat, and Mike is sitting on that guys’ butt, just waiting. The ref would whistle and tell him to stop stalling, but Mike wasn’t stalling- he was prowling. He was stalking the prey, and the moment the other guy moved- POW!! Like a snake striking, Mike was intertwined in this poor guys limbs, and the next thing you knew the ref was on his belly smacking the mat three times.

That’s how God works. He waits for the right moment, and when He moves it is immediate and devastating. Just because we don’t see God doing anything doesn’t mean He isn’t doing something. And  when we don’t see God at all, it doesn’t mean He isn’t there, or that He doesn’t exist, and never means that He doesn’t care.

People who are agnostic, atheistic or just sheep believing what they are told to believe have doubts about God, and refuse to see His effect on their world. The bible tells us of all that God has done, and I am constantly disappointed in how people believe a priori what Huffington Post or Wikipedia says,  but doubt the bible. The people who wrote the bible didn’t do so to make themselves rich, or to appease some special interest group, or to make themselves look to be heroic. They were often ridiculed, stoned and killed for their writings. As a point in fact, we are currently celebrating Hanukkah, and the Maccabees are the heros, but when you read their story you find out that just about every single one of them was assassinated later. Not a very happy ending.

We need to stop looking for the Son of Man to come down with power and glory from the skies. It’ll happen when it happens. In the meantime, just look for the effect that God has on the physical world- that is what we can use to prove His existence when we are ministering to the world.

As for all of us, when we go through tsouris and feel that God is ignoring or forgetting about us, and we don’t see His presence in our lives, please remember that just because we don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Is Your Head in the Sand?

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There’s the old wives tale that an ostrich is so dumb when it sees danger it sticks it’s head in the sand, figuring if it doesn’t see the danger, the danger isn’t there. And it is an old wives tale; ostriches live in Africa and where they live there isn’t a whole lot of soft sand.

How many of us have worked for someone, or some company, that decides when there is a problem to just ignore it and hope it will go away? Isn’t that what people do, in general?

When it comes to God, Yeshua being the Messiah, and the validity of the Bible, people of just about every religion have a different take. And then there are those that deny the very existence of God. Just start to mention Him and they stick their head in the sand: “Shields up, Mr. Scott!”

Their choice. And just like the ostrich, they can deny God’s existence, say that all life evolved from an amoeba by random chance mutations, and that aliens are really the one’s that are responsible for the “God” stories, but that won’t change the truth that God is real, He is the creator, and Yeshua is the Messiah He promised to send to us. And, worst of all, if you reject God, Yeshua and the truth about salvation, you will end up suffering through all eternity.

BTW..to all those that believe aliens are responsible for life on Earth, please answer this: who created the aliens?

God is real, and He is waiting for us to accept that fact. He has proven His existence, but it isn’t what would be called a “scientific” proof. That is something that is reproducible- if you can’t make it happen on demand, it can’t be absolutely proven, scientifically. The Bible tells us of all the miraculous things God has done, but it also says “Do not test the Lord, your God”, so to ask God to prove He exists will not get us anywhere. When asked for a sign, Yeshua called the people an “evil generation.” Were they really evil, just asking for a sign? I don’t think that’s what He meant: I think Yeshua was calling their lack of faith an evil thing, meaning not Godly. Their faithlessness was evil and their desire to see miracles, I think, would not have made any real difference. Those calling for a sign are the “poor soil” that may let the seed of God’s kingdom sprout, but it is too malnourished (spiritually) to keep the plant growing. With the very next “sign” they will follow someone else. The Bible also tells us that in the End Days there will be many signs and people who say they’re Yeshua, and they will be able to make miraculous things happen.

The people who call for a sign to prove that God is really God will end up being evil, for they will be fooled by the Enemy and they’ll end up taking the mark.

Faith is believing in things that can’t be proven. God does give us proof, though: the existence of everything you see, birth, death, the unbelievable diversity of life and the total balance of everything. He really has shown us, unquestionably, that when He says, “I am that I am”, that He is. It’s faith that lets us accept this proof, and lack of faith that ignores it.

What a pity! Those that lack faith will have all the proof they ever wanted, but it will come to them too late for them to do anything to reverse their position.

My father and mother both denied God’s existence, and especially Dad. He was a stubborn and faithless man, and when he couldn’t argue with me or deny God, just before he died, I prayed for him, and tried to intercede on his behalf. I don’t know if he heard me and was able to accept my prayers, and it is too late now to change anything. I can only hope I was successful. My sister says that she was with Mom and Mom did accept the Lord before she passed, so I hope to see her again.

How many of us have loved ones that just don’t want to accept God, or remain bigoted and steadfastly ignorant of the truth about Yeshua being the Messiah? How many of us have prayed until we sweat blood to have God intercede, miraculously, to bring these people into the Kingdom?

My two children have rejected me and that’s mainly because they were fed their mother’s hatefulness and spite their whole lives. Once they got their inheritance at 21 they both, in their own way and for their own reasons, just cut me out of their lives. And, just like their mother taught them to do, they made it all my fault. So, I pray for them every day. I pray for reconciliation, I pray they are protected, and I pray for their mother (not as often, I confess) because if she can be turned to God then she can help them turn to God.

Yet, although I pray in Yeshua’s name, and I remind God of Yeshua’s promise that His father will give us whatever we pray for, and I remind God that my prayer is in keeping with His will that all sinners be turned from their sin, I know God will answer my prayer and intercede in their lives but it is still up to Alexandra and Bryce to make their own choice. God can lead them to water (the water of everlasting life, that is) but they have to choose to drink. God will not force us to accept Him, and if he has plans for you but you refuse to be part of it, then He will simply find someone else.

Just as Mordecai said to Hadassah (Esther), if she doesn’t help then help will come from another source. God’s will will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven. When we accept that as fact, then we will be riding on that train, instead of being run over by it.

We cannot make someone love God, or accept Yeshua as their Messiah. We can only show them through our words and what we do that there is something more than just “human” about us. God wants His people, no matter what religion they were brought up with, to be separated from the world. That also means separated from the human-made religious tenets you may have grown up with. If you profess to worship God but obey a Rabbi, Priest, Minister or Pastor over the word of God that He gave us in the Torah,  you need to rethink your devotion. God tells us that He is no respecter of men (check it out in both Acts and Romans), so what makes you think He will respect the extra regulations and rules that men made over and above what God told us? Especially when these rules and regulations go directly against what God said we should do? Doesn’t God tell us in D’Varim (Deuteronomy), at least two times, not to add to or detract from any of the words in this book?

I wish there was some way to prove to those asking for proof that God exists and Yeshua is His Messiah. Evolution goes against God, and it has never been scientifically proven, but the world accepts it as fact. They have total faith in something that is a lie, but no faith in the ultimate truth of God. Oy! Shaul said he was willing to even give up his own salvation if it could save his Jewish brothers and sisters, and so would I. In a heartbeat! In a breath! In the wink of an eye! In a nanosecond, even! (OK, OK, Steve- we get it!) But I know that’s not how it works- we each are responsible for our own choices (the sins of the father will not pass on to the children, and the sins of the children will not pass to the father: Ezekiel.)

We each have to make our own choice, so when you pray for someone to accept God and Yeshua, pray for God to send them angels of mercy to help open their eyes and unplug their ears, and have hope in the fact that although God will never force them to accept Him, He is really, really good at convincing people.