Find Religion

Do you read my blog every day and think “I could do that” ? If so, why not apply for a job here at 451?!? They’re looking for “city” bloggers there days, especially for:

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What Equals 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been in situations where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 101%? What equals 100% in life?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these Questions:
If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 1 9 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R- K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

L- O- V- E-O-F-G-O-D
12+15+22+5+15+6+7+15+4 = 101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:
While Hard work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it’s the Love of God that will put you over the top!

I’m Christian, and so every weekend I’d like to given anyone who is willing to take it a “homework” assignment. They’ll be Christian in nature, but you can use these as a starting point to reflect you own religious beliefs. Stop back every Friday for your homework!

This weekend’s homework: Bring a friend to church.

Bible verse: “Jesus came and told his disciples, ‘I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” - Matthew 28: 18-20

Devotional: Do you remember the first time you attended church? Many of us don’t–I was a child, so I personally don’t remember. The first memory I have of church is singing in Sunday School, and I was probably about 4 years old. Some people, however, are not so lucky. If you don’t belong to a church, it can be difficult to get involved with a church community. Everyone already knows everyone else, and it can be overwhelming to meet so many new people at once. There are people out there silently begging for a friend to invite them to church so that they can muster the courage to go.

Be that friend. Jesus teaches that we can spread the Good News of everlasting life by going out into the world and talking about His love. If you know someone right now who hasn’t had the opportunity to attend church and hear the Gospel, invite them this weekend. The worst they can say is no!

If you do this weekend’s homework, leave me a comment here to let me know how it went or send me a private comment using the contact box!

God, Jesus, Church, devotional, Bible versus

He was sort of like nobody else,” said fellow author Gore Vidal. “Kurt was never dull.”

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view.

He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people. READ MORE

Kurt Vonnegut, in my opinion, was one of the best writers in the 20th centruy. If you haven’t read Cat’s Cradle, do so. He died of brain injuries due to a fall at his home, according to his wife. He was 84. RIP.

Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle, humanist

Votes are appreciated! Here’s the link: http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/2547

Here’s the post I’ve been promising you: My thoughts on the movie 300. If you haven’t yet seen this film, I recommend doing so, because at the core, it’s a movie that everyone should see. It does a lot of things right. However, in no way would I call 300 an accurate movie, and I’m not even a historian. Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD if you have yet to see the movie!

The movie tells the tale of the small Greek state of Sparta fighting the Persian empire. The draw of this movie for me was the amazing fight scenes that were supposed to be shown. In real life, the Spartans were known for their amazing fighting skills–mainly their advanced fighting in formations. Think of it like a marching band. Everyone knew where to go to make the formation strongest in any situation. The first fight scene in the movie showed this, and was breath-taking. After that, the movie resorted to stop-action filming showing the Spartans fighting hand-to-hand combat. Seriously, that doesn’t make sense. Regardless of how they cut off the Persians in order to only fight a few at a time, when the same 10 or so men were always at the front lines, as shown in the movie, they’d get tired eventually. Really, this doesn’t make sense.

But what makes even less sense is the portrayal of the Persians and Xerxes. Historically speaking, Xerxes (also known as Khashyarsha) was a devout Zoroastrian. I’m not saying that he wasn’t a dictator or a tyrant–maybe he was–but he was not a God, nor did he portray himself to be. Xerxes was a devout worshiper of Ahura Mazda, and the Persians would have rebelled against him if he even compared himself to God.

The way that the Persians were represented in the movie, as monsters in many cases, was also ridiculous. In fact, at one point in the movie, I had to laugh, because a character looked like a giant crab-creature. Give me a break. In one interview, Frank Miller said,

Well, okay, then let’s finally talk about the enemy. For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we’re up against, and the sixth century barbarism that they actually represent. These people saw people’s heads off. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. I’m speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I’m living in a city where three thousand of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built.

Sounds kinda…derogatory to me. How about to you? My friend Bijhan, a Zoroastrian himself, had this to say about the film:

This is simply insane, implying that microphones and airplanes are beyond the mental capacity of someone who would believe in a different God than his. Also, for the record, the Persians were not Muslims nor Arabs. The Persians did NOT genitally mutilate their women, they did NOT saw peoples’ heads off. Many Persian theologians at the time were suggesting that God was indeed a woman, and the naval commander for the Persians during the war was, in fact, a woman! Artemisia I of Caria was the Queen of Helicarnassus, a Persian territory in Asia Minor, was one of the closest tactical advisers to Xerxes, and was highly regarded in Persia.

All in all, the movie was a let-down simply because it could have been SO MUCH BETTER. I’m not saying that they needed a perfectly accurate representation of what happened, but they could have done a better job to the advantage of the movie.

Xerxes, 300, Frank Miller, Persia, Zoroastrianism

Many MMOGs have within them some nod toward religion, some degree of religious trappings at least. Priestly characters are common, as are holy warriors (paladins). To say nothing of demons and angels based loosely on Christian archetypes, the former of which make regular appearances in online games.

And yet, actual religion and theology are pretty much absent or at best non-operative in most MMOs. In fantasy games the priest is typically a “healer” but otherwise the character is a façade. In modern or science fiction games, religion is conspicuously almost entirely absent.

I’ve been wondering for some time about enabling the presence of both real-world and made-up religions in MMOs as thematically appropriate. Is this a good way to flesh out a world, to create gameplay surrounding a moral code and shared identity, and to bring a significantly missing piece of human community to the game, or would it just be a way to invite controversy — in effect, to draw aggro from both religious and non-religious players and cause a heap o’ customer service trouble? READ MORE

I’m not going to lie–I like video games. I have yet to get involved with MMOs (although I do play halo occasionally, but not online). There is a new Lord of the Rings game coming out, though…so maybe I’ll play. In any case, my boyfriend and his family play online, and the question posed above by writer Mike Sellers is an interesting one. Some people have a problem with MMOs simply because they don’t seem “real” enough…but is adding religion the way to fix that? Is it the way to entice non-gamers to check out the MMO worlds?

Food for thought. You can visit 451’s resident expert on the subject at Gaming MMO

MMOs, gaming, Lord of the Rings, MMO gaming, religion

ALBANY, N.Y. - Cartoonist Johnny Hart, whose award-winning “B.C.” comic strip appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers worldwide, has died. He was 76.

Hart died Saturday while working at his home in Endicott.

“He had a stroke,” his wife, Bobby, said Sunday. “He died at his storyboard.” READ MORE.

I specifically enjoyed the BC and Wizard of ID comic strips because Hart was not afraid to let religion enter into his work. In fact, he choose to voice his opinions on God often, and the results were quite touching many times. RIP.

BC, Wizard of Id, Johnny Hart

This is my Easter card to all of you. Even if you are not Christian, I think you can appreciate the message in this video. God bless you all, and have a safe and happy Easter Sunday!

Easter, God, Jesus, resurrection, Easter Sunday, Christ, Christian

Here are some fun Easter facts, just to get you in the mood for the holiday and for spring! God Bless!

In 2000, Americans spent nearly $1.9 billion on Easter candy.

As many as 4.2 million Marshmallow Peeps, bunnies, and other shapes can be made each day.

Americans consume 16 billion jellybeans at Easter, many of them hidden in baskets. If all the Easter jellybeans were lined end to end, they would circle the globe nearly three times.

Pretzels were originally associated with Easter. The twists of a pretzel were thought to resemble arms crossed in prayer.

The custom of giving eggs at Easter time has been traced back to Egyptians, Persians, Gauls, Greeks and Romans, to whom the egg was a symbol of life.

Rabbits with long floppy ears can’t hear quite as well as rabbits with erect ears.

The white lily, the symbol of the resurrection, is the special Easter flower.

Ham come to be the traditional favorite for Easter dinner because in pre-refrigeration days, hogs were slaughtered in the fall and cured for six to seven months. Just in time for Easter dinner.

It takes 24-26 hours for a hen to lay an egg.

Eggs are the most popular Easter symbol on the front of Hallmark cards. 118 million Easter cards in total are sold every year.

About 1 billion eggs are hunted every years.

Easter, Easter trivia, Easter facts, trivia, Holiday trivia, Holiday, Good Friday, Easter eggs, Easter candy, Easter bunny

To continue the learning series on aspects of other religions, I though I wold today talk about Hindu gods and goddesses. Much of the prejudice in the world today towards Hindus comes from a lack of understanding regarding the gods and goddesses.

In short, Hindus do not worship idols. Their representations of the gods and goddesses can be seen as a Christian’s representation of the cross or the Catholic saints–simply a tool to help with prayer and worship. Also, the Hindu gods and goddesses are not comparable to the Greek gods and goddesses. Although on the surfaces, they may be similar, most Hindus believe all of the gods and goddesses to be a part of the larger Divine being. It’s more like the Holy Trinity.

Here’s a link to more information on the Hindu gods and goddesses.

Hindu, gods, goddess

FindReligion will be hosting a religious round table starting later this month in order to show opposing viewpoints on some of the major issues going in the world today. This post will feature a discussion with people from several different viewpoints on a single topic. If you’d like to get involved (via email), please contact me today! Everyone is invited to participate, regardless of faith.

For everyone Catholic and dying for a burger on Fridays:

John Smith was the only Protestant to move into a large Catholic neighborhood. On the first Friday of Lent, John was outside grilling a big juicy steak on his grill.

Meanwhile, all of his neighbors were eating cold tuna fish for supper. This went on each Friday of Lent. On the last Friday of Lent, the neighborhood men got together and decided that something had to be done about John. He was tempting them to eat meat each Friday of Lent, and they couldn’t take it anymore.

They decided to try and convert John to Catholicism.

They went over and talked to him. John decided to join all of his neighbors and become a Catholic, which made them all very happy.
They took him to church, and the priest sprinkled some water over him, and said, “You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist, and now you are a Catholic.”

The men were so relieved, now their biggest Lenten temptation was resolved.

The next year’s Lenten season rolled around. The first Friday of Lent came, and, just at supper time, when the neighborhood was settling down to their cold tuna fish dinner, the smell of steak cooking on a grill came wafting into their homes. The neighborhood men could not believe their noses! WHAT WAS GOING ON?

They called each other up and decided to meet over in John’s yard to see if he had forgotten it was the first Friday of Lent. The group arrived just in time to see John standing over his grill with a small pitcher of water. He was sprinkling some water over his steak on the grill, saying, “You were born a cow, you were raised a cow, and now you are a fish.”

religion, Catholic, Lent, jokes

With the cover for the new Harry Potter book recently being announced, the Christian masses are starting to mumble again. Of course, everyone pretty much accepts that Harry Potter is really a way of life these days, but there will still be some protester and some children deprived of the books. Why? One word–witchcraft.

It’s the age-old debate about witchcraft in literature–is it corrupting our children. Some hard-core Christians say yes. Harry Potter features evil creatures that are not vanquished by the power of God, but rather by a child’s magic. The witchcraft also teaches children to wish they could perform magic, which was once linked to worship of Satan.

Others, including myself, believe that’s all bologna. If you’ve raised your children in a Christian home with Christian values, he or she will understand that Harry Potter is fantasy long before he or she is old enough to read it. Harry Potter may not be classic literature, but it is rekindling children’s interest in reading.

What do you guys think?

Harry Potter, Christian, witchcraft, Harry Potter cover, cover art

When I was suffering on YouTube, I found this interesting video, “An Interview with an Atheist.” It raises some really thought provoking questions about Christianity and religion in general. He’s a pretty smart guy. You need to see this video:

You can check out more videos from YouTube on DaveP’s blog. This site can give you everything from amazing child drummers to goldfish that live in a fryer.

Atheism, Christianity, YouTube