loPEZ Dispenser

Why oh why must we embarrass ourselves? In the same spirit as this article I wrote a while back the Christians have gone and done it again. I would like to introduce to you GodTube, a Youtube for Christians with the tagline “Broadcast Him”.

Again, I will say that I believe we need to do everything we can to spread the Word of God to the world, but this stinks of cheese from 20 miles away. In addition, I don’t think that this is a place that non-Christians would visit. Maybe I’m wrong. To me this is like a Christian tree house and its a “safe” place where you can catch reruns of “Flying House” and “McGee and Me” (yes I did watch those as a wee one). I guess the new one is Veggie Tales…

…ridiculed, seen as crazy, unreasonable, and hypocritical. This is another symptom of how out of touch many Christians are with the world. We are told to be “in the world but not of the world” but we are still definitely IN THE WORLD.

How often do we see Christians trying to “protect” themselves via segregation? This is evidenced in the fact the we have separate schools and colleges, Christian workout facilities where men and women are separated in the name of modesty, and Christian bookstores where you can get the latest praise album.

Yes, God does tell us not to partake of the sins of the world but we are also told to “go into all the world and preach the gospel”. How can we accomplish this if we are never in the world?

You must be wondering by now what this is all about. Well, today I read about a new conservative Christian website that was introduced to counter wikipedia. Conservapedia is “A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.” Um, I trust wikipedia just fine, thanks. This is what they have to say about themselves:

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian “C.E.” instead of “A.D.”, which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance.

Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of “political correctness”.

It was started by a guy named Andy Schlafly and a band of “58 high-school-level, home-schooled students from the New Jersey area”, according to this article (which is where I discovered this waste of web space). The fact that a group of sheltered homeschoolers (of which I used to be one) started this site pretty much throws all credibility out the window.

Schlafly claims that Conservapedia is “one of the largest user-controlled free encyclopedias on the internet.” Is this some kind of joke? Does it really matter whether dates use CE or AD? I mean, does it really, really matter? Are people going to turn away from God because of it? If they do, they had other issues to begin with.

This site has become a laughing stock of the blog community (rightly so) and it embarrasses me that I, as a Christian, am lumped into the same category as those who proliferate this nonsense.

My wife and I have been discussing the issue of education recently. Our daughter just turned 1 last week so we have some time before any critical decisions are made, but we both seem to agree on one thing. No amount of parental sheltering can protect a child from everything. Instead of teaching a child to avoid and shun everything we should be teaching them how to deal with things and make proper decisions for themselves. Case in point, I went to a Christian school (and was partially homschooled) and I turned out good. I never smoke, drank or did drugs and I didn’t have premarital sex. My wife went to only public schools and she never smoke, drank or did drugs and didn’t have premarital sex either. So what does that say?

I will continue to use wikipedia. In addition to wikipedia, I will confirm that information with additional sources, which you are supposed to do ANYWAYS!! Plus, I imagine that (at least) scientific information on wikipedia is more accurate than on Conservapedia. Just a hunch though.

With all that said, I will now officially launch a boycott against all things Conservapedia!! After all, boycotts is what we Christians do best, no? If you wish to join my boycott, leave a comment below…

Compliments of Stephen Myers…

For My Democrat Friends:

“Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our
best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially
responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral
celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within
the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of
your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with
respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or
traditions of others, or their choice not to practice
religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a
fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically
uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar
year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of
choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have
helped make America great. Not to imply that America is
necessarily greater than any other country nor the only
America in the Western Hemisphere . And without regard to
the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious
faith or sexual preference of the wishes. By accepting these
greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is
subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely
transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It
implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any
of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void
where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole
discretion of the wisher . This wish is warranted to perform
as expected within the usual application of good tidings for
a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent
holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is
limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new
wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.”

For My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

To all of you, Friends and Foe, I wish you the Merriest of Christmas and the Happiest New Year!!

danPEZ

Most of us have seen the animated movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and are well aware of the accompanying song that goes along with it. Does anyone else get the feeling that over the past few years the Grinch has been attacking Christmas in America?

In my head, the last five or so years have been a particularly aggressive campaign by the Grinch. It seems to get worse every year. Lets see, so far this year the more notable instances have been the deal with the Christmas trees coming down in the Seattle airport by threat of a lawsuit and the town who is displaying a Nativity without Mary, Joseph or Jesus as to not offend anyone. Many shops and malls no longer display any reference to Christ. Now it’s “Happy Holidays” or “Winter Celebration”. They no longer call my work event a Christmas Party. It is now called a “Recognition Social.” So just who is the Grinch that is stealing Christmas?

Most of these Grinch attacks are occurring in the name of fairness and tolerance (to everything but Christians). In other words, if everyone isn’t happy than nobody should be. Political Correctness has eaten at this country like a cancer. God forbid one Rabbi out of the tens of thousands of passengers in the Seattle airport is offended. You know what? I am offended by all the people that get offended over ridiculous stuff. Why must you project your self misery on to everyone else!? Its not our fault you have a pine cone stuck in your anus!! I AM SICK OF IT!!!

Glenn Beck satirically calls the holidays “Ramahanukwanzmas” so he can include all the religious celebrations this time of year. They rewrote the words to a familiar Christmas carol:

Have a RamaHanuKwanzMas
It’s The PC time of year
Every holiday displayed
Because of morbid fear…

Lets see, with Ramahanukwanzmas Beck covers:

Ramadan – Muslims
Hanukkah – Jewish
Kwanzaa – African Americans (don’t get me started on this)
Christmas – Those darned Christians!!

What about the Native Americans? Chinese? Buddhists? Hindus? Albinos? Handicapped? How about those Canadians? Nah, its gotta be those Atheists that are stirring up all this trouble.

Last year around Christmas time Ben Stein made some “confessions” on a tv show. He discusses how he is Jew and how that affects his view of Christmas. Below is the transcript:

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my
beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see
them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog
biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery
stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they?
Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken
up? Why are they so important?

I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all
about Tom Cruise’s wife. Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a
subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. If this is what it means to be no longer young, it’s not so bad.

Next confession:
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it
does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful
lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I
don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I
don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a
ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers
and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at
all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near
my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine
with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think
Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think
people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around,
period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an
explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution, and I
don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we
should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren’t allowed to worship God as
we understand Him?

I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came
from and where the America we knew went to.

So as someone who is in the minority, why is it that Ben Stein is not offended by Christmas? Why isn’t he suing to get that Nativity near his house removed? How can he look at a Christmas tree and not become overwhelmed with anger and disgust.

This is a case where the very few are ruining it for the majority. Think long and hard. Do you know anyone who is offended by the Christmas holidays? I mean truly offended? So who are these people that are making Corporations and Government entities bend over and bow to their wishes? Is it that one lone Rabbi in Seattle? Is it the Michael Newdows of America? Are these ridiculous things happening to countries in Europe that celebrate Christmas? How about Canada? Mexico?

Political Correctness, meet Mr. Grinch. Mr. Grinch, meet Political Correctness. You guys are long lost evil twins!!

I will offer this fair warning to the Grinch. Most people love Christmas. To this point we have been mostly tolerant of the Grinch’s shenanigans but if he continues on this path there will be repercussions. The townsfolk will come after the Grinch with torches and pitchforks and drive him out of town. Don’t mess with people’s happiness.

What do we do about it?

I wish I knew the answer to this. I’d say to write your senator but now that the libs are in control I’m not sure how much good that would do.

We can get mad! We can loudly proclaim to all we know that we will no longer tolerate the double standard presented in this country where we all must coddle minority groups but where Christianity does not have to be tolerated. We will no longer allow ourselves to be brought to our knees and repressed.

I disagree with boycotts. I will not boycott because they are useless. I will, however, more likely support those companies who have cojones enough to still say Merry Christmas.

I have not watched the Comedy Central show South Park since its inaugural year, back when I was a senior in high school (I can hardly believe that was almost ten years ago). That changed, at least for two episodes, last week when I found out that they had a storyline that centered on Cartman wanting a Nintendo Wii. I thought it was great that the show focused on this console before it was even released, so I had to watch it.

The basic premise was that Cartman wanted a Wii so bad that could not wait the three weeks until its release. Instead, he had his friends freeze him so that he could be thawed and wake up on the morning of the launch without having to bother with patience. Of course, his plan backfired when he was lost in the snow and was not rediscovered for 500 years. At that point the Wii had become ancient technology and he was unable to play it. While I enjoyed the Wii focus I found the rendition of the future to be even more interesting.

Hundreds of years prior, all religions had been vanquished from the Earth by scientists and other enlightened people. Atheism swept the globe as man decided that, logically, there could be no higher power. Instead of saying phrases like “praise God” they would say “praise science,” and “Jesus H. Christ” became “Science H. Logic.” The “Jesus” of the atheists was The Great Dawkins (Richard Dawkins), the most renowned and worshiped purveyor of atheism and evolutionary science in the world today. The interesting thing was that the people of Earth had split into three warring factions of atheists, each of whom believed in a different answer to “The Great Question.” These factions were setup to portray the atheists in the same way that many modern atheists view religions (they also reminded me of the ones in The Life of Brian). One of the most often cited reasons that atheists use as a basis for their ideas that belief in God needs to cease, is that too many people become polarized as a direct result of differences in their religious beliefs. This polarization leads to wars and hate. They claim that an absence of religion would end all “holy” wars and would usher in a new time of peace and acceptance of all. I think that what they have envisioned is nothing more than a dream world, and this cartoon displayed a perfect scenario to illustrate that point.

Ann Coulter correctly framed atheism as a religion in her latest book Godless. It is a good read, if you are into books that focus on society and politics. Her main thesis was that liberalism, and to greater extent atheism are religions in their own right; albeit religions that are god free. I don’t think that religions inherently lead to violence; unless that is, they explicitly teach it (see Radical Islam). I believe that it is human nature to have core beliefs, and to try to find others who share those beliefs to ally with. When others who don’t share those beliefs are encountered it leads to conflict. This holds true whether that belief is that Clay Aiken should have been the American Idol or whether the only path to heaven is through Jesus. The utopia that the atheists envision would in no way usher in sustainable world peace; it would simply alter some of the reasons for the fights.

In a recent story in Wired magazine Richard Dawkins clearly expressed his goals with respects to the spread of atheism throughout the globe. He wants to make it seem that belief in God is so in contrast to logic and science that anyone who does believe will be ridiculed out of that belief. He also made a statement that he hopes to someday limit parent’s rights when it comes to teaching religion to their children. Frankly, this man scares me. He is the earthly “god” of the atheists and has no qualms with stating their intentions. That can only mean that he will not restrain from acting on those intentions. There is going to be a huge war in the coming decades (in fact I would say that we are already in the trenches). This war will be heavily based in the media, with the end goal of making religion, and especially Christians appear unintelligent and naïve. When the Bible speaks of persecution most of us probably only think of physical pain, but now and in the future the persecution that will be experienced will most likely be rooted in creating internal feelings of embarrassment due to external societal pressures. Of course, the Bible teaches us to not be ashamed of our Faith, so for many, myself included, that will be the true test.

I find it kind of funny that I got so much out of an episode of South Park. While many would probably scoff at what was portrayed, the writers did create a story that is a (possible) logical progression of an atheistic society. I want to end this post with a simple question to atheists. Christians want to spread the word of God because we believe that without Jesus others will not go to heaven. Why is it that atheists are so intent on spreading their beliefs?

If you want to see the episode of South Park that inspired this post go here.