Don't Forget Johnny Cash

Damn, he sang the song for me, for the poor and downtrodden.

Republican Jesus

Arnold Abbott: Fighting to Feed the Poor

Mr Arnold Abbott, Ft Lauderdale, has become my new hero for feeding the homeless because many people do the same, but few face arrest and most cease and desist before incarceration.

Mr. Abbott, a World War 2 veteran, has fed homeless folks on the beach since 1991.  An ordinance passed last month effectively prevents Mr. Abbott from doing so, and the city has cited him three times since the ordinance passed.  Presumably, he faces arrest and jail time f he continues his campaign of civil disobedience.

Unlike the rest of us cowardly lions, Mr. Abbott says he will continue feeding hungry humans.

This WFTV news story quotes him as saying, ""I spent two and a half years in a combat infantry in combat in World War II. I knew what I was fighting for then, I know what I'm fighting for now."
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/90-year-old-world-war-ii-vets-fight-feed-homeless-/nh67H/

What do you want to bet those who passed the ordinance claim to follow Jesus as Christians.  You just can't get elected if you worship Satan.  Nevertheless, the words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew say, "35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in."

Homelessness has never numbered among my problems.  It passes beyond my ken to think of living on the streets, especially as a mother with children.  Those who passed the ordinance sweem to have forgotten the recent recession, the one where otherwise hardworking people faced foreclosure and lost their homes. It dosn't sound easy.

One who lived through losing the "American Dream" courageously relates her experience below.  Please try to imagine yourself huddled with your children under a bridge on a cold winter night wondering where your next meal will come from.  Imagine rising after fitful fighting for any scrap of sleep-hungry because every scrap of food you gleaned you gave to the kids who now cling to your legs--and meeting Mr. Arnold and getting all of you fed for what seems like the first time in weeks.

How does it feel?

Then, please sign the petition and join the campaign to feed your neighbors in need.

[It’s illegal to feed homeless people in public in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Earlier this week 90-year-old Arnold Abbott was arrested and now faces 60 days in jail for offering food to the homeless with his church. Ft. Lauderdale police should drop the charges against Mr. Abbott and repeal the law against feeding homeless people in public.

My children and I were homeless for 6 years. It wasn’t easy, but luckily I had the kindness of strangers to lend me a hand from time to time. They would buy me meals, give me hope, sometimes stop to see how I was and it showed me that I wasn’t alone and that although I was homeless, I wasn’t invisible. It was in large part because of them that I got off of the streets and can now proudly say I have a place to call my own,  a husband and 5 beautiful children.

I remember my time on the street often. That's why I was so upset when I learned that not even a 30 minute drive from where I live, 90-year-old homeless advocate Arnold Abbott, along with two Christian ministers were arrested for violating a new Ft. Lauderdale ordinance that virtually bans public feeding of the homeless. Now Mr. Abbott and his companions each face 60 days in jail and a $500 fine! It's outrageous to think that someone’s kindness could land them in jail.

As an ex-homeless person I take every chance I get to repay the goodwill strangers afforded me. I give what I can to those in need and I teach my children treat others as they wish to be treated and that means being compassionate and understanding. I’m sure many of you do the same. Just imagine being arrested and thrown in jail for 60 days for buying a sandwich for a person in need!]
https://www.change.org/p/ft-lauderdale-city-officials-drop-the-charges-against-90-year-old-arnold-abbott-for-feeding-the-homeless

Not my Jesus

Unsure of all theology involved, but pretty sure my Jesus of the Gospels walked 'round with just a cloak and tunic and samdals, seeking the coming house of God rather than a multi million dollar mansion,  Geez, this archbishop could seem like a televangelist.

[In a time when Pope Francis is cracking down on the Catholic Church’s extravagant spending, John J. Myers, the Irish American archbishop of the Newark Archdiocese, in New Jersey, is spending $500,000 on a three-floor expansion of his 4,500-square-foot retirement home. The 1.3 million strong Catholic dioceses is footing the bill.

Just in time for the “archbishop’s annual appeal,” when the dioceses calls on their congregations to donate, Myers' construction of what is being called a palace is getting underway.

Myers’ 4,500-square-foot house sits on 8.2 wooded acres in the hills of Hunterdon County, in the hamlet of Pittstown. Currently the house is made up of five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a three-car garage and a big outdoor pool. Valued at $800,000, this house, used as the Archbishop’s weekend residence, is getting a three-story, 3,000-square-foot addition.

This extension is in preparation for the Irish American Archbishop’s retirement, due in two years, the Star Ledger reports. The 72-year-old Archbishop plans to live there fulltime.

The new three-story extension, now just a wooden frame, will include an indoor exercise pool, a hot tub, three fireplaces, a library and an elevator, according to records at the Franklin Township building department. The extension will cost $500,000, excluding architectural costs, furnishings and landscaping.]
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Newark-Archdiocese-foots-bill-for-Myers-extravagant-mansion-extension.html#ixzz2u7xR7Z8V 

Love my enemies?

Jesus, You have got to speak in jest here. Even though don't think I've any enemies in the sense of those actively seeking to harm me, currently have plenty of incompetent and indifferent fools standing in the way of my regaining independence. Not to mention the legions of wrongheaded humans who despise me because I'm right and vast multitudes of those I've wronged in the past and who probably still hate me decades later.

I have to love all of 'em sez bible verse of the day from those pesky Gospels. Darn, just when i wanted some Old Testament stuff which would let me feel good about some righteous smiting. Gollly gee whiz, please let me smite someones. Please? Wait. Pray for them too, Lord. Dang, that hurts.  Can't I just buffet the bastards 'bout the head with pillows and well placed wrath?  No?

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."

Matthew 5:43-45

The Conservative Bible

Shared by Stay at Home Feminist Mom::

Jesus Rebranded

For quite some time, have suggested my church update the look and mouth feel: merchandise miracles, condemn gays, sell adverts onn the altar and etc.

Geez, how we gonna compete with 2000 year old Gospels as our gospel?  Can't we  sell some miracle ointments?

http://youtu.be/USeR4myzKQI

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/20/1263810/-Jesus-Rebranded (With 20% more fiber plus added links.)

Atheists, Listen to the Pope

[Francis wrote in a papal statement, “Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system…. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”

When the Pope washes the feet of convicts while calling for greater efforts to lift up the world’s poor, he makes it possible to establish meaningful partnerships with other moral communities, secular and religious. Of course, when Francis speaks about the “idolatry of money” and “growing income inequality,” you know, the things Jesus spoke about, you can set your watch in waiting for someone on the Right to accuse him of being a Marxist. Hello, Rush Limbaugh.

Atheists like to talk about building a better world, one that is absent of religiosity in the public square, but where is the atheist movement, as defined by the some 2,000 atheist groups and organizations in the U.S., when it comes to dealing with our third-world levels of poverty? Not only is the atheist movement absent on this issue, it is spending thousands of dollars on billboards that make atheists look like assholes, at the same time Catholicism is looking hip again. The Pope has changed the perception of the Church in the minds of millions while the atheist movement has been sucked into the Right’s fictitious “war on christmas.”]

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/12/why_atheists_should_listen_to_pope_francis_partner/

35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25:35-40

Jesus a Man of Colour?

[As light-hearted evidence that Jesus was black, it adds that he "called everybody 'brother', liked Gospel, and couldn't get a fair trial".]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3958241.stm

Christian with a little "c"

People often become confused when told I believe in Jesus but am not a "Christian" with a big "C."  The former has me trying to follow my Savior as found in the Gospels and taking action within my meagre means to put those words in my life.  The latter has become contaminated if not nearly obliterated by right wing neo-conservative politicians, faith healing charlatans, snake handlers, and insufferable, intransigent, intolerable and judgmental prigs who prefer reading the Old Testament and pronouncing judgment on others rather than considering the contradiction of their beliefs with their actions.

Faith for me comes from trying to become a christian.

This becoming happens thought by thought, word after word, and incremental actions, using the good examples learned from my parents and also rising above their negative qualities: the passive aggressiveness of my Moms and the bluster and bullying of my dad.

Then we have the human tendency to do what we want rather than we ought to do.

Given these considerations and realizing one ought not judge other humans, still we must evaluate actions in the political realm and ask whether they comport with becoming a follower of Jesus, He who had such concern and compassion for poor folk.

Thus when one learns Ted Cruz, senator from crazy town, gets a platinum level health plan by means of his wife's employment as managing partner at Goldman Sachs, worth $40,000 tax free, we can evaluate Mr. Cruz's parsimony in trying to deny health insurance to people of modest means and deem him a hypocritical asshat, to put it as politely as I can.

As oft happens, found another who put it better than I: "[I]t's okay if you don't want to feed the hungry, or heal the sick, or house the homeless. Just don't say you're doing it for their own good. Don't say you'd like to help people, but your hands are tied, because if you did it would cause the culture of dependency, or go against the Bible, or worst of all, rob them of their freedom.... to be sick and hungry.

Just admit you're selfish and based on how little your beliefs mirror the actual teachings of Jesus, you might as well claim to worship Despicable Me. […]"  (Transcription from Crooks and Liars)

Don't even get me started on the Epistles, as one ought follow Jesus and not Paul, http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=3429012&pageno=1.

Sorry, Lord, for Asking You to Help the Florida Gators

Your Book tells me You love all people: humans good and bad, rich and greedy folks, mean people and  poor clowns like myself who revel in their misery, atheists, mormons, and  even Republicans and RepubliKKKans.

So You do not play favorites in particular athletic contests or elections but my heart says you enjoy sports, like the miracle Mets or Red Sox wining World Series after down to last strike of last out of at last at dat.  Had to feel blessed well exciting, even for You.

Nevertheless, why you got a mad on for my Cubbies?

Interesting Scrap of Paper

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Inside-Story-of-the-Controversial-New-Text-About-Jesus-170177076.html?c=y&page=1

Amish Hate Crimes

Gee, this makes me really angry that small groups of religious extremists want to enforce their views on the majority: anti-choice Republican'ts, Westboro fools, now this Amish splinter group.  They make me so mad want to beat them about head, neck and shoulders with a rubber chicken.

Yes, Lord, know that implies violence so should not harbor those passive/comic urges but what I ought do to counter insanity and virulent hatred let loose in the world?

Ty to make my little corner of the Earth better by becoming a better person?

Oh Lord, you really do ask for the impossible.

[CLEVELAND -- Sixteen people charged with hate crimes in hair-cutting attacks on fellow Amish are going on trial this week in Ohio.

Jury selection began Monday morning in Cleveland. Among those who are charged are the leader of a breakaway Amish group and four of his children who all live in eastern Ohio.

Prosecutors say some of the suspects forcibly cut the beards and hair of Amish men and the hair of women last fall. Authorities say the attacks were motivated by religious differences.]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/amish-beard-cutting-attacks-ohio-trial_n_1833189.html?utm_hp_ref=crime

Why Do Republicants Lie?

Because they have to to get votes.

They could not very well tell actual reasoning humans they oppose every single progressive social movement for the last 6 or so centuries: from the Magna Carta to Teddy's Square Deal to FDR's New Deal.  They oppose anything to help the common man carve out a decent life in the face of overwhelming money and power that seeks to impoverish the many for the benefit of the few: Medicare and Social Security to name 2 modern manifestations in the United States.

How could any human save for Fox "News" watching fools even fall for this crap?

Ach du lieber mein Gott in Himmel!

Read the Wikipedia version of Teddy Roosevelt's Square Deal: "The Square Deal was President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection.[1]"

Control of corporations and consumer protections!

Whoda thunk it?

Well, maybe someone who actually read the New Part of the Bible these Republicants claim to follow, the parts where a man called Jesus rails against the privileged of his day, the brood of vipers.

It pains to block quote the words of anther, but you gotta read this dude's screed.

My emphasis throughout.

[If I were writing a political novel about a presidential campaign, I would never dare have the government-hating, free-market, Rand-adulating vice presidential candidate of the right-wing party have inherited his fortune from a grandfather who made his money from government contracts. It's too obvious, too pat. A fiction editor would say, "Come on, Tomasky, this is just too heavy-handed."

Especially if the same candidate and his running mate were attacking the other guy with a lie that specifically distorted what he'd said about, of all things, roads and bridges! ("You didn't build that.") Grandpappy Ryan did exactly what Obama says other people did to help small businesses thrive. He built the roads. And he was paid to do so by government contracts. Forget fiction. That's even too pat for Hollywood.

Ryan tries to address this by saying there's no contradiction between the source of his wealth and his views because of course he's not anti-government, that's a caricature of his views, etc etc. This is absurd. No one who got into politics because of some arrested-development reaction to reading Ayn Rand is pro-government. He can talk pretty to Ryan Lizza, knowing that he's talking to New Yorker readers, and try to pass himself off as nuanced, but there's nothing nuanced about the numbers.

Back in 2001, Paul O'Neill wrote some talking points as debate prep for Dubya. As Jon Chait wrote in my journal, Democracy, of those talking points:

One frankly conceded, “The public prefers spending on things like health care and education over cutting taxes. It’s crucial that your remarks make clear that there is no trade-off here.”

Put more bluntly, what O'Neill was saying here is: You have to lie. By definition, you have to lie. You can't tell people that tax-cutting will result in less money for these programs, which is the truth, so you/we Republicans have to invent a fiction of no trade-offs, of a free market that can deliver everything. What Bush delivered to us was essentially no net job growth in eight years and the worst crisis in 80.

So the Ryan-Romney ticket, as it should properly be called, has to say things like "we want government to do the things it does well." Romney has to say things like he said on TV this morning, "No one is talking about deregulating Wall Street," when in fact he is talking about exactly that. Because they can't tell the truth and hope to get elected.

"What we're going to do here is make sure society's very richest people have a lot more money. Our theory is they will spend it and that will help the whole economy. History hasn't been kind to this idea, but it's our theory and we're sticking to it. These are the people who pay us to run, after all. Besides which, we really don't like poor people; we think at bottom that it's their fault they're poor, so it doesn't really matter to us whether anything trickles down to them." That's the truth. How would that sell?]
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/15/why-by-definition-republicans-have-to-lie.html

Ted Nugent Goes off His Meds Again

To see Ted fairly, perhaps we should see this latest unhinged outburst of the Motor City Madman as simply what washed entertainers do to keep their name in the media, sort of like Dennis Miller went over to the darkside of radical Republicanism or, on the distaff side of equation, Kardahians having--oops--nude photos leaked or hacked, see Miley Cyrus below.

Nevertheless, my well-traveled work history included a stint at an unnamed christianist organization headed by one Bill Bright, working with many wonderful people, even some Lutherans, even through a day of paid prayer in 1992 at a local church where Mr. Bright compared the coming election to the ultimate battle between the forces of God--apparently the God he spoke with--and forces of evil in the earthly form of William Jefferson Clinton.

This illustrates the deep psychological need of many on the right, the ones who get air time and ink anyway, to see themselves as soldiers of the Lord in the apocalyptic battle against evil.

Nevertheless, they get so hell bent on enforcing their own judgment that they fail to read what my Jesus said, leaning instead on words of Angry Old White God With that Long Beard recounted in the Old Testament.

Indeed, we have had a paranoid style in American politics for quite some time, "American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority."
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html 

It just saddens me how the number of people affected by this madness has seemed to increase exponentially since 1964.

At long last, sane Republicans, have you no decency to confront this hatred?

[Musician Ted Nugent has added a fresh chord to his harmony of negative comments against President Barack Obama.

In an interview with the New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Nugent was asked what rock bands would represent Obama and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

"Out and out politicians are anathema to rock-n-roll, so I hesitate to attempt to connect the two," he replied. "But on important issues, I am saddened to admit that Obama represents everything bad about humanity and Romney pretty much all that is good. It is really that stark."]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/ted-nugent-obama-humanity_n_1747876.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Please Forgive Me, Lord; but the Rise of the Machine in Public Education Makes Me Angry.

"You know I try to keep my politics from judging people, to refrain from profanity until my youngest niece, Elise,  turns 18, and try to write satire instead of sarcasm.  Heck, I even try to avoid first AND third person posting constructs."

Umm-hmm.

"Hate to bag on people, too.  Your Dad made everyone so all have spark of humanity.  Really try not to hate."

Umm-hmm.

"You know me as a curmudgeon, loving humanity but people really piss me off, especially when Your relentless Samaritans want to help."

Umm-hmm.

"Nevertheless, I really hate JEB! Bush, gutting the intangibles tax in FL, his sanctimonious pursuit of education reform which benefits his corporate cronies, pretty much his whole dang family save for his idiot ex-figurehead brother.

Why do You continue to suffer on earth the continued pestilence of President Dick Cheney breathing Your air?

Just asking."

You know We cannot discuss other people.

"Surely.  Even so, You have to admit robbing money from public schools to put high school youth in a class rooms using computers with no teachers in the room amounts to a crime against the commonweal.?"

You know I am all about the children.

"Sure, but can't You call down fire and brimstone on the people I see as sinners?"

Do others see you as a sinner?

"Undoubtedly"

But we ain't talking about your daddy.  Do not fall back on facile excuses.

"Yes, find it hard to move beyond the rage at how things be to writing without profanity, sarcasm, and hard to find irony  all the time."

Keep writing.  You use this as free therapy.

"My Medicare Advantage has a counselling component."

And you avoid it why?

"Just trying to work things out with You, Supreme Dude.  Can't You promise me a better world?"

No promises.

Only possibility and responsibility.

"Not sure I like those choices."

What else you got?.

Schrodinger'ss Cat: "As long as you just accept these paradoxes, quantum theory works fine."

The article linked below illustrates my existential philosophy; sure in an infinite universe where all possibilities occur, a random collection of atoms which parents named Daniel Allen Hill had to happen.

Not exactly the religious idea of Creator but perhaps amounts to a random # generator, not particularly acceptable orthodoxy at my church.

Nevertheless if Einstein himself expressed this as an either/or proposition, this perhaps puts the question of causation a bit above my ken and pay grade.

Whatever the answer, I perceive my existence within this infinitely improbable collection of atoms.

I yam what I yam!

Accepting the paradox of our being and becoming, where do we go from there?

Descartes famously wrote, "Cogito ergo sum" (French: Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am;" but Freud might write that overestimates the importancce of rationality in human existence.

No one who knows me could accuse me of a surfeit of rationality, since actions seldom spring from plans. Retired now too early from workaday world, the flow just kind of carries me along.

Nevertheless, my existential philosophy disallows thinking of my thoughts as as merely operations of what Freud called "superego" or what Skinner would see as merely the results of all the conditioning received during my life.

If either of the above were "true," from where would spring my whimsy, humour, seeing satire and irony in all things; whence laughter and tears and love and loss?

Perhaps between positions of Freud and Skinner--my consciousness determined by sub-conscious or determined by outside conditioning--we can place Jung's ideas of the collective unconscious existence and theory of archetypes.

Since life has led me to no greater archetype than Jesusof the Gospels, we can lead ourselves to a restatement of Descate's proposition, I care about other humans, so I live as a human.

I care, therefore I am.

[Quantum mechanics is more than a hundred years old, but we still don’t understand it. In recent years, however, physicists have found a fresh enthusiasm for exploring the questions about quantum theory that were swept under the rug by its founders. Advances in experimental methods make it possible to test ideas about why objects on the scale of atoms follow different rules from those that govern objects on the everyday scale. In effect, this becomes an enquiry into the sense in which things exist at all.

In 1900 the German physicist Max Planck suggested that light—a form of electromagnetic waves—consists of tiny, indivisible packets of energy. These particles, called photons, are the “quanta” of light. Five years later Albert Einstein showed how this quantum hypothesis explained the way light kicks electrons out of metals—the photoelectric effect. It was for this, not the theory of relativity, that he won his Nobel prize.

The early pioneers of quantum theory quickly discovered that the seemingly innocuous idea that energy is grainy has bizarre implications. Objects can be in many places at once. Particles behave like waves and vice versa. The act of witnessing an event alters it. Perhaps the quantum world is constantly branching into multiple universes.

As long as you just accept these paradoxes, quantum theory works fine. Scientists routinely adopt the approach memorably described by Cornell physicist David Mermin, as “shut up and calculate.” They use quantum mechanics to calculate everything from the strength of metal alloys to the shapes of molecules. Routine application of the theory underpins the miniaturisation of electronics, medical MRI imaging and the development of solar cells, to name just a few burgeoning technologies.] emphasis added to article
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/09/quantum-theory-paradox-philip-ball-new-pursuit-of-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-cat/

"The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed"

"The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you."

- Psalm 9:9-10

Jesus Christ, Someone Killed My Cabbie!

"What, you ain't gonna talk to me?"

"Did you curse or want to talk?"

"Sorry, wanna to talk," as me and He, we be friends who do try to use "proper" english and yet still disobey spell check at times for effect in dialect.

Breathe in the good through the nostrils; let out the bad through the mouth.

Count to 10.  Ten breaths.

"Talk.  Listen please, when I lost my phone, the Mears dispatcher, Heather, said she only had 1 Matt working that night and he brought me back my phone, going out of his way, and I only tipped him $3 for the second trip."

"$3?"

"'Tweren't a cell phone but a walk around Christmas gift from my sainted sis' who still talks to me and had 2 more.  Iffen I'd of known it his last night on earth, would have given him my BOA Cubs debit card and my Personal Identification #."

"What do you want me to tell you besides Ecclesiastes chapter 3?

"Something I haven't read or heard since a child?"

"Every step a human takes leads to their last."

"'Ceptin' me, right?"

"Sure," He said with a wink and ironic smile for he to me looks like the statue at my Trinity Lutheran Church, downtown Orlando above the altar, reaching down to me.

He really doesn't "talk" to me, but let "my" fiction be.  It makes me happy even if imbued with irony.

[According to a paid obituary, donations for Matthew's son Christopher can also be sent to the McLeod Law Firm at 48 East Main Street in Apopka.]
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-vfw-breakfast-cab-driver-killed-20110129,0,2698563.story

McLeod Law Firm, Apopka, FL: http://www.mcleodlawfirm.com/contact.aspx

"What's the least you can believe in and [become] a Christian?"

["What's the least I can believe and still be a Christian?" What a great question! Danny's provocative question prompted me to write a new book, using his question as the title. Part one of the book presents 10 things Christians don't need to believe. In short, Christians don't need to believe in closed-minded faith. For example, Christians don't need to believe that:

• God causes cancer, car wrecks and other catastrophes
• Good Christians don't doubt
• True Christians can't believe in evolution
• Woman can't be preachers and must submit to men
• God cares about saving souls but not saving trees
• Bad people will be "left behind" and then fry in hell
• Jews won't make it to heaven
• Everything in the Bible should be taken literally
• God loves straight people but not gay people
• It's OK for Christians to be judgmental and obnoxious

On the other hand, there are things Christians do need to believe, which is the focus of part two of my book. They need to believe in Jesus -- his life, teachings, example, death and resurrection. A great benefit of these beliefs is that they provide promising answers to life's most profound questions including:

• Who is Jesus?
• What matters most?
• Am I accepted?
• Where is God?
• What brings fulfillment?
• What about suffering?
• Is there hope?
• Is the church still relevant?
• Who is the Holy Spirit?
• What is God's dream for the world?]  emphasis added

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-thielen/whats-the-least-you-can-b_b_811353.html

So people wonder why I say I mainly talk to Jesus and not His Daddy nor to Jesus Christ.  Can't really believe in the old, bearded, angry white dude of GREAT wrath.  As for using the term Christ, Jesus never used it in the Gospels to my knowledge.  Tried to convince a Mormon that Jesus also character of God and therefore worshipped as Son of God and The Christ and could only find in the Gospel of John (chapter 11 or 14, Pastor?  {John10:30)} where He tells the Jews that if they have seen him, they've seen the Father, which they deemed as blasphemous.

Besides, see Jesus' role as the forgiving one, although he did preach brimstone as well as peace and love.  But my job, 'tain't judging but doing, trying to become a christian.  Also don't use capital "C" when calling myself 1.  Google spell check also hates MY spelling.

So do prefer Gospel'n' rather than 'Pistl'n and do take the Old T' with a grain of salt'.

peace

Postscript:  OK, Lord,  I do have a kind of problem with judgmental "Christians" who never fail to condemn other humans to Hell yet I try to not judge them--except for the RepubliKKKan ones.  Hey, I'm working on it so don't damn me!  Don't Damn Me

Well, might as well lay my life out on line if not ON the line.

Heck, people at Campus Crusade for Christ gave me a job in the payroll department for 4 years tolerating for a time my progressive side.  As things go, they eventually let me go so filed for unemployment under the laws of my state of FL.

While a top CCC for Christ official testified in front of the Orange County, FL, county commission, on nature of the corporation as a church resourcing organization in hearing to build their new world center out near Lake Nona on donated land in a very rural area, another testified under oath in a FL Dept of Labor hearing that CCC was a church and therefore did not have to pay unemployment.

After prevailing at the Dept. level ,the Unemployment Appeals Commission, and FL 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, they had to pay me a pittance because of, frankly, my failure to file for weeks claimed.

Now, read the "funny" part.

After a number of years, maybe 10, called my old supervisor--sort of on a 6 step program as still drink beer but at least have refrained recently since May '10 from pouring vodka into the hole in my soul--to tell him how much he'd help me learn about life and not just Jesus but his whole knowledge of the Bible and role as parent and person.

His wife answered the phone and refused to even allow me to leave a voice mail msg.

Still wroth me even after a decade, she judged me, "I don't where you are in your walk with the Lord, but you should never have sued Campus Crusade for Christ!," taking me completely aback.

I kind of looked at it from the "render under to Caesar" thing, something which reasonable christians can disagree on and not judge each other.

If he gives me permission, I will publish his name and staff number for contributions to support his ministry because because I think him a good and decent man, husband, and father even though disagreeing with his politics and biblical exegetics.

Lord, forgive me for this, but you can contribute for his family and mission through searching for his staff #, #0109310.