The Woman Caught In Adultery and Why It Matters

I know this story is very much disputed as a later addition to John's gospel and based on oral tradition, HOWEVER, the story remains consistent with Jesus's character and actions throughout The Bible and I think there is enough precedent to discuss this and I feel like discussing it today, so let's dive in;

Tongues: Revisited

So, about this time last year, I was confronted with the topic of tongues once again, this time from a church my brother took me to, which declared that tongues were evidence that one was saved, and if you never spoke in tongues, then that was conclusive proof that you were not saved. Of course, I informed my brother that they were heretics and not to be listened to, BUT the discussion I had with them was nonetheless illuminating and worth discussing the topic of tongues again. So here we go;

Responding To Parker

So Charlie Kirk, a Conservative commentator and Christian did a video with Jubilee (sadly not the X-Men character or anyone in cosplay) where the main topic being debated was whether or not college was a scam. Charlie held his own very well until a smarmy young man named Parker approached the mound and decided to hurl curveball after curveball at Charlie. What was the curveball? Parker claimed that religion was likewise a scam and proceeded to make a transphobic argument against Charlie; and as much as I like Charlie, he struck out several times here and I'm here to explain what should have been said to answer Parker's objection. Now, full disclosure I did not watch the entire Jubilee clip because there's only so much I can take of people like Parker, not hating on the guy just when they're so smug and have no clue what they're talking about but act as if they do it really grinds my gears. Let's dive in.

Reflecting The Book Of Jonah

So a while back I was watching a video about an Atheist talking about certain verses that caused her to question her faith, and I may do a response article to that in the future but while I was watching the video I was thinking about The Book Of Jonah and how real the book is to humanity. What do I mean? Let's discuss;

Jesus IS God and Here's Why

So all too often I hear Muslims and various people make the claim that Jesus never claimed to be God or that Jesus never said "I am God, worship me." while they're right about those words never appearing in The Bible they are horribly wrong.  This confusion largely stems from the use of the words "Son" of God, as The Jehova's Witnesses believe Jesus is a son in a literal sense, a god with a little "G" as in a separate being from God Himself (they also believe He's Michael the arch angel but that's a whole other can of worms that I won't get into here.) and so when people see or hear the word "son" they instantly think of "offspring". I'm writing this article because I spoke at my church a while back on this topic and decided I'd write a proper article demonstrating that Jesus Christ is in fact God Himself. Let's dive in;

Death Note, The Christian Anime?

Here's an article that I never thought I'd write and yet here it is. We're talking about the anime "Death Note", "But, Ugo isn't this a Christian blog? Why are you talking about anime?" you might be asking. Why? I'll tell you why; because "Death Note" is a very Christian anime.  How so? Well for those of you who don't know "Death Note" tells the story of Light Yagami, a Japanese high school student who finds the eponymous Death Note dropped by a Shinigami (Japanese Death God) and uses it to cleanse the world, only to find himself in a cat and mouse game against the world's greatest detective. "Ugo, Japanese death gods? This doesn't sound very Christian." Oh trust me, it is. How? Let's dive in;

Who Told You...?

Hey all, been a minute, I know. But I decided to write this article after a discussion I had with my wife a while back. I was talking to her about Genesis and I realized that the first question God ever asked was "Who told you that you were naked?" and I wondered why this was the first question God ever asked and why He asked this question. Let's dive in;

The Secular High Value Man

I wanted to write this article for a while but I wanted to wait until I actually got my thoughts together in what I imagine may be a long article, BUT since no one is reading this anyway and I doubt very much the parties I'll be sending this article to will read it themselves, I'll just be as long-winded or as short as I wanna be. The crux of this article is going to be about the increasing secularization of The Red Pill Movement. If you're unfamiliar with the term "Red Pill", it's a metaphor from "The Matrix", if you're unfamiliar with "The Matrix", the metaphor goes like this;

The Matrix is a system that controls every thought, feeling, and decision you'll ever make. An idea that has been put in place that you just go along with without any questions as to why.

If you take The Blue Pill you remain in The Matrix and life goes on.

If you take The Red Pill you awaken from The Matrix and start to see things as they really are and start thinking for yourself.

In this case, the metaphor is being used to discuss the gender dynamics of the modern era and I feel like I have a lot to say that hasn't been said about this topic which is why I'm writing this article. To put all my cards on the table I do consider myself Red Pilled and I'll get into why and what that exactly means anyway being as I am a man I do have an interest in men's issues, but I'm also a husband and a father of 2 (boy and girl) and more importantly, I am a Christian and I have much to say about this topic from that perspective. Let's dive in;

Why Does God Allow Evil?

This was going to be a different article with a sole focus on rape, but I decided that "evil" encompassed all forms of evil up to and including rape, plus the question is often asked in this manner, "Why does God allow evil?" and this is a valid question that has been asked and answered many times but I think I'll add my 2 cents to this question and see what shakes down as I think The LORD has placed this on my heart to discuss. For starters, if any non-believers are reading this and asking this question please understand that the answer may not be satisfactory, as you may not enjoy the answer presented. Likewise, I understand that you don't believe there is a God but your question posits the existence of God so I'll have to answer the question as a believer. Furthermore, I'll be answering this question as thoroughly as possible so this is going to be a long one but this is a very important question and important questions need thorough answers, so let's dive in.

Let's Speak...But In Tongues!!

So a while back I was at a bus stop coming home from school when I saw a lady who was shouting in a language I did not understand, she was not shouting at anyone in particular and she wasn't aggressive she was just rambling. Now me, being the curious sort I am and a bit of Linguaphile decided to ask what language she was speaking to which she replied "I'm speaking in tongues. You can't do that?" and then she continued to ramble. At this point, I rolled my eyes and continued to wait for my bus. I've discussed speaking in tongues but I don't think I've really talked about it so in this article I'm gonna talk about it, so let's dive in.

Question For Atheists

I haven't written much on this blog about Atheism but I had this article rattling around in my mind and I decided to write it out. There is a long standing myth that Christians are Anti-Science, and with the persecution of scientists in the Middle Ages over the whether or not Earth was spherical or flat, fools who complain that science ruins the mystery of the world, and some unfortunate backwoods folk who think going to the hospital is evil, it's no small wonder why. But I consider myself a thinking man's Christians and for part of this article I'd like to table my Christianity for a moment and speak as a Theist. As a Theist, I have a very important question to ask my Atheist friends. Are we talking past each other?

As Of Late...

I understand I haven't written anything in here for awhile and that's mostly because there's been a whole slew of topics I could talk about but have ultimately been exhausted on discussing and other topics which are just too complex to sit down and hammer out a full on article on. So if you guys don't know I recently became a father, as recently as April 27th and as such a lot of my time has been devoted to working and tending to my son. Yes, I've had opportunities to write on my entertainment blog and that's just easier because I can always find something trivial to discuss but for this blog I really want to dig deep into the topic I'm writing about and make sure my thoughts are straight before I start typing that and I really wanna try and keep Christ at the center. Lately though, I haven't been feeling very connected to Christ.

It's So Easy

Awhile back I was talking to my wife about my job as I often do at the end of the day. Not too long ago we had training, I won't go into specifics or name the organization in which I work for but I work with children and teenagers and we had training in order to update our know-how on how to do our job. Something interesting happened at our training. We were doing training with several other organizations who also work with children & teens and the person doing our training asked us to state our names, what it is we do for our respective organizations, and lastly our pronouns. If you're scratching your head and wondering what I mean by "our pronouns" then congratulations, you're still sane and I apologizes because now I have to pull you into this extremely unfortunate rabbit hole, down we go...

The Cosmic Vending Machine: Science & Christianity

This is an article I've been meaning to write for awhile and I think now is a good time. Lately, there has been an increasing debate regarding science & religion. Those in the scientific community look down on those whole dare to hold any sort of theistic belief while claiming to be a scientist and those in the theistic community (specifically Christianity) continue to make the claim that there is no conflict between science & Christianity. However, no traction has been gained on either side of the debate and some (like Richard Dawkins) don't believe there is a debate to be had. Shock of all shocks, I don't believe there is a debate to be had either. To be fair, Richard Dawkins believes that debating evolution with a creationist is a waste of time and yield validity to Creationism as something worth having a discussion about, that's not what I'm agreeing to and as a Creationist (in the sense that I believe God created The Earth, however I don't believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and quite frankly, I don't care how old it is) I disagree with Marco Evolution (which is the dominate form of Evolution most Evolutionists hold to).

I think the problem between science & Christianity is the fact that I think both camps are talking past each other. The expression "talking past each other" and for some reason or another fail to solidify what we're talking about and worst yet, how to talk about it. I'm not saying I have a solution to this problem but I think I'm pretty close and I think in this post I can bridge the apparent gap between science & Christianity once and for all. It's been said that those who hold to some theistic belief can't be scientists and that the two are incompatible with each other. Not only am I going to prove that notion completely false, but I'm going to explain why Christianity aides in the scientific process. So get your thinking caps on and let's dive in.

No, I Really Don't Think You Understand

"God created us sick and commands us to be well." - Christopher Hitchens (paraphrasing Fulke Greville)

Side Note: Christians, please stop saying Hitchens recanted on his death bed, it's shameless and disrespectful and while I'd would have liked nothing more than for Hitchens to see the light, he did not want to and such did not happen, PLEASE STOP LYING ABOUT IT!  Just wanted to get that off my chest, and now to the article.

Comedian Larry Wilmore MURDERED after mocking Jesus!

For those of you who don't know, last night on "The Night Show", Stephen Colbert's replacement, Larry Wilmore decided to poke fun at obesity by saying the following:

The audience sprung into a fury and assaulted Wilmore after the broadcast, he was then executed by being beheaded and a video of the execution was promptly sent to The White House, demanding that mockery of Jesus be silenced. President Obama then issued a statement shortly after saying; "The future does not belong to those who slander the Christian Messiah."...

Okay, I'll knock off the nonsense because none of your are buying this, RIGHT?! Larry Wilmore is still alive and President Obama issued no such statement (nor do I want him to issue such a statement as that is not his role). I apologize for the Click-Bait title of this article but I felt it necessary to display a very stark contrast in our society and that contrast is between the perception of Christians & the perception of Muslims. When I posted an article dealing with a similar topic I was met with amusement & mockery when one commentor laughed that I said in the article that "Christians aren't known for slaughter people in droves when we get offended." and said it was the best joke he had ever heard. Setting that aside, allow me to display MORE evidence if you're not convinced that Christians aren't the ones you should be afraid of!

The "No True Scotsman" Fallacy & Christianity

So this article has been in my head for awhile. Let me preface this by saying that I hadn't heard of the "No True Scotsman" Fallacy until recently, however, I was aware of it in practice, er usage rather. Anyway, I first heard about this fallacy from a man on a podcast I frequently listen to, he mentioned this fallacy as it applies to Christianity (in passing, the actual context was Feminism) and well long story short, here we are to disprove how The "No True Scotsman" Fallacy can't apply to Christianity. Now for the uninitiated, allow me to explain what The "No True Scotsman" Fallacy is:

PERSON A: No Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge.
PERSON B: Well, I'm a Scotsman and I put sugar in my porridge.
PERSON A: Well, no true Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge.

That's a simple rendition of The "No True Scotsman" Fallacy. The fallacy is establishing an absolute and reinforcing that absolute despite being confronted with evidence to the contrary. That's a simple definition. Now that we have it defined, let's dig in.

How To Read The Bible

So you wanna read The Bible, eh? Well good for you, you should wanna read The Bible because (whether you believe it or not) it's The Word Of God, so kudos to you. However, more often than not individuals read The Bible and are unfortunately unaware of what it is they're reading and how one should go about reading it. This statement is true for unbelievers and unfortunately people who profess to be Christians...and then there are the extremely unfortunate lot who while professing to be Christian look at The Bible as nothing more than a collection of moral tales to live by that didn't actually occur at any point in time.

Certainly anyone can crack open a Bible and read it, but can they read it in context? It's an unfortunate reality that there are some people out there who's minds are blown when they discover The Bible isn't written in chronological order (with some books taking place at the same time as others) and there are some who's minds are blown when they discover that some authors of certain books in The Bible are unknown (that revelation causes some people to lose their faith oddly enough, which is weird because any study Bible will tell you that point blank). So in order to help unbelievers and believers alike, I've crafted this nifty little guide to help you navigate The Bible and get as much out of it as you possibly can. We're gonna go through the entire Bible from start to finish, so strap yourselves in, it's gonna be a long one.

Why Won't God Heal Amputees ?

This was one of the first questions I've ever been (indirectly) asked that made me think about my faith. A long time ago, back when I was in High school, I came across a website titled "God Is Imaginary" and I looked at their long lists of proofs and reasons why God does not exist and this question "Why won't God heal amputees?" was one of the main questions. Since I've discovered that website, I've grown and learned much about my faith and I think I'm mature enough in my faith to answer this question, so let's dive in.

Jesus, Republicans & The Bible...Seriously (Re-post)

DISCLAIMER: This is article previously published Feb. 26th, 2012. I had to republish it due to the high amounts of spam the previous article got, this way I could stop getting spam by altering the URL. Enjoy.

I really have to do this again don't I ? Okay, let's get started point by point.