Tag Archive for 'Religion'

Blind Faith Gone Wrong

Meet Lakshmi.  Her story broke in November 2007 when she was a two year old born with 4 arms and four legs.  To make things worse, she also had four kidneys, entangled nerves, two stomach cavities and two chest cavities and shoe couldn’t stand up or walk.

You’d think her family would be shattered with these circumstances surrounding their child.  But instead they, and the village where she was born, considered her to be the reincarnated Hindu goddess of wealth and fortune, Lakshmi.

But the truth is, Lakshmi is a joined to a “parasitic twin” - a headless sibling which failed to develop in her mothers womb and attached itself to Lakshmi’s pelvis.  Click on the picture on the right to see what her skeleton looks like.

This is a life threatening situation for Lakshmi.  But instead of her parents listening to medical advice, they submit Lakshmi to public display and worship as the reincarnated goddess.  Check out the video below for more details:

Removing Parasitic Twin

What a sad reality for this poor little little girl.  Her reality as a child in dire need of medical intervention is hindered by a faith steeped in superstition and idol worship.  I wonder if the goddess she represents would have been something other then “wealth and fortune,” if her parents would listen to medical advice.  After all, they seem to come from a very poor village and the caste system in India would probably have something to do with their hesitation to intervene medically.

This is an example of blind faith gone horribly wrong.  This is religion and superstition at it’s ugly worst and it’s not only prevalent in Hinduism, but rampant in all the world’s religions - including Christianity.  And that’s really sad.

But there is a litmus test exemplified in scripture for us that should guard us from error and it’s found in Acts 17:11:

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

The Bereans listened to Paul’s teaching and instruction - but they also wanted to prove if what he was saying was true. So what did they do?  They listened with open ears and then they searched the scriptures with open eyes and minds.  This kind of attitude and discipline can guard us from believing all kinds of things and guard our minds and hearts.

We’re not Hindu’s - therefore goddess worship should not really show up on our faith radar.  But when you think of it honestly, how many things do we blindly follow out of ignorance also?

As for Lakshmi, the beautiful little girl ended up having her surgery and it was reported in June 16 2008, that she took her first steps after having her conjoined twin removed.  Check out the video here. I hope she gets the chance to live a normal life as any little girl has the right to do.

Burn Your Plastic Jesus

Well being an Aussie, and not a rich one, I never thought I’d see the day when I can get to hear Mark Driscoll preach live.  Well not until today anyway when I got an email from my Pastor asking if I’d be interested seeing Driscoll in Sydney on August 27.

Is the Pope Catholic? Don’t fundamentalists vote Republican?  Sorry I just finished watching “Jesus Camp” - another story for another post.  I jumped onto the website and booked tickets right away as Driscoll’s main meeting in the mountains just out of Sydney was sold out way before i even knew he was coming over.

Driscoll is speaking at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and the details are here. “Burn Your Plastic Jesus” is an attempt to shake off the stranglehold weird and whacked out so called Christians have on forming the perception of Jesus to the masses.  Again after just watching Jesus Camp, I think we have a lot of work to do to convince people our Lord is not a complete lunatic.

And so in the middle of Michael Buble, Chris Rock and The Wiggles, at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, Driscoll will talk about Jesus.  Got to love it!

Anyway, below is the promo clip for the event and below that is a cool little video where Driscoll rants against religion.  Enjoy and if you’re an Aussie, I’d love to see you there and meet up!

Burn Your Plastic Jesus

Jesus Vs religion

Example Of Dumb Christianity

I got this video from “Kingdom People” and it’s a beauty in that it shows just how pathetic the Body Of Christ looks when people elevate man made things above the things of God.  It’s about a KJV only fundamental preacher who comes across the term “he that pisseth against the wall” 6 times in the KJV. 

Instead of getting into the scripture like a good preacher should, he launches into verbal diarrhoea…

 

 

To all you who don’t know Jesus, please don’t base your opinion on people like this.

Jesus & Satan. Brothers?

As an Aussie, I watch the candidates in the run up to the US elections with intrigue. In particular, the debate over Mitt Romney’s faith in Mormonism and Mike Huckabee’s reactions to it.

By now, you would have seen Romney’s "appeal" to the US that his faith will make no difference in how he would run the US if elected.  Fair enough.  But central in his appeal was the reference to John F Kennedy’s "similar" appeal to run for election as a Catholic.  Here are some highlights:

Now let’s make one thing clear here.  I am a Protestant Christian with little regard to Catholic doctrine.  But much of Catholic doctrine ties in with mainstream Protestant beliefs.

One thing we do share is belief in the divinity of Jesus.  Yet Mormonism is Romney’s faith.  And Mormonism declares that Jesus and Satan are brothers birthed by our Heavenly Father (and the mother is thrown in for good measure).

So much of Romney’s speech is hidden behind this fact.  Of course Mormons could say that Jesus is the Son of God.  But they fail to say that Satan is also the "Son of God" - thereby making Jesus and Satan brothers.  Good cop, bad cop to the extreme!

Huckabee has raised this issue and has been ridiculed by the Associated Press (AP) where they use the "authoritative Encyclopedia of Mormonism" which doesn’t refer to Jesus and Satan as brothers.

But thanks to Bible Belt Blogger, the Mormon website actually states this belief in very clear terms:

"On first hearing, the doctrine that Lucifer and our Lord, Jesus Christ, are brothers may seem surprising to some—especially to those unacquainted with latter-day revelations. But both the scriptures and the prophets affirm that Jesus Christ and Lucifer are indeed offspring of our Heavenly Father and, therefore, spirit brothers."

OK, so let’s think this thing through.  Who cares about the encyclopedia account?  AP should have done their research more fully on this topic instead of attempting to make Huckabee look ill informed. A church website has more authority than any encyclopedia. 

From a spiritual perspective, this belief is just too bizarre.  You see, Mormon’s believe that when they die, each couple will be given a planet to populate and become the Father and Mother of that planet.  Their offspring will be the spiritual children of that planet and they will be the "God" of that planet.

God the Father and God the Mother of earth had Jesus and Satan as offspring and one chose good and the other evil.  Therefore Romney see’s the battle between Jesus and Satan as a sorry form of sibling rivalry.

What an insult to God.  The Trinity is thrown out the window.  Jesus’ divinity is reduced to being a sibling of darkness.  It makes God look like a horny spirit being spewing forth his spiritual semen into his "glorified wife" and thus "populating" our planet with little critters like you and me.

According to Romney’s faith, when he dies, he and his wife will inherit a planet of their very own and they will become heavenly daddy and mummy and populate their own private planet. Of course none of this was made clear in his speech.

While I respect the right of people to practice whatever religion they choose, what get’s me infuriated is when they try to use aspects of Christian truth to justify completely non-Christian beliefs.  Mormonism does this better then any religion.

Romney seems like a great guy and has probably raised his family based on solid principles.  And, seriously, I don’t care if he becomes President as there are a lot worse candidates than he. But in his "Faith Speech," he should have elaborated  more on Mormon belief as the people deserve to know.

As for me, Jesus is Lord.  To equate Him as the brother of Satan is disgusting and is against everything Scripture stands for.  But each to their own.  God did, after all, invent free will.