Atheism

I was doing some research for a youth talk this afternoon and stumbled upon an atheist website set up to disprove the existence of God and Jesus Christ. I followed a link to a youtube video about how to disprove the existence of Jesus in 5 minutes (yes, that is 5 minutes). After watching the video (which was basically centered on asking Jesus to show himself to you and then using his absence to prove that he doesn't exist), I was greatly distressed by many of the comments on the video. Both Christians and non-Christians alike were posting, arguing and calling each other names.

It made me sad. Not just that there were those who didn't believe in God, but that there were "Christians" who were calling atheists names and throwing bible verses at them. To be honest, I couldn't tell most of the Christians for the atheists by their attitudes.

To my Christian brothers and sisters out the please hear this: do not belittle, insult, condemn, or speak harshly to an atheist in hopes that they will take it well, because all you are doing is "proving" to them that they are right and you are wrong. They see our lack of love and continue on in their Godless lives. Neither the atheist or the Christian should debate with a sense of "I'm better than you." This is arrogance and is sin.

Have any of you ever discussed God with a seasoned and intelligent atheist? What was your experience?

A Very Bad Idea CBS

I was reading Marko's blog this morning and learned about the new season of survivor.

the new season of survivor will have four teams, divided by race. it seems confirmed in this article. one team each for white, african-american, hispanic and asian. wow.

I can't imagine this being a good idea. The article cites a social experiement as the reason for doing the show...I would say it's for ratings. Unless they were to do the show like the movie Crash, I think all they are going to effectively do is spark critisism and maybe a boycott.

What do you think about this new season of Survivor?

Blog 2.0

Update your feeds and bookmarks:

http://erikpasco.blogspot.com/index.html

This will be my last post on this blog. I'll try to merge it with the new blogger blog when the option is available.

Erik's Blog 2.0

You gotta love Google for keeping things fresh. I have been informed that after a while, I'll be able to merge my other blogger blog with this one, so there you go. My blog, version 2.0.

One thing I'm psyched about is the addition of labels. That means you can browse my posts based upon subject (so you can skip all my boring posts).

If you would like to give the new blogger a test run, visit http://beta.blogger.com

a heckofalot of toilet paper

I feel like I have finally transitioned to Alabama. I am going into my third year of pastoring here in Alabama and just last week, I finally ran out of toilet paper.

Let me explain. As a going away gift from my last student ministry, I received a very special gift. A Playstation 2! ...The other special gift I received was a truckload of toilet paper. So much that it took me 2 years to use it all!!!

So, with a sniffle, I bid goodbye to my cheap-generic toilet paper with thankfulness in my heart and buy a new 9 pack of Angel Soft.

Onward to another year of student ministry!

God's Will

I took a personal retreat at the end of last week and while I was there I read a book by the late pastor Kyle Lake called "Understanding God's Will." In this book he discussed God's will and explored how we understood it in our lives. Is God's will a formula to crack (or a detailed blueprint), or do we do better understanding God's Will through our understanding of who God is.

What do you think, does God have a detailed - specific will for your life? If so, where does it leave off? Does God have a will for your breakfast choices (cereal or oatmeal, bacon or eggs), or do our decisions come into play more than we feel comfortable with? Does God have an "X" on a treasure map for us to discover in our lives or does he empower and enable us to make our own decisions with His guidence?

How do you discover God's will for your life? Answer any or all of these questions if you would like...