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| Why I'm a capital V...Forward: Reader take note. This post is not in response to anything anyone has said about the topic of sex. This is a mere post to explain my stance in a culture where this stance is often laughed at, sneered at, and seen as "old fashioned and out of date". I sit alone in this musky odored eggshell-white Ford F-150 as the day passes on. I wonder what happened to our American culture in the span of 50 years? Throughout the cold morning I worked in my wrinkled jet-black hoodie lifting manhole lids, but now as the morning wanes on heat and possible odor tells me it's time to shed a layer. I can live with heat, but not the smell of "I told you so". This late model work truck has become a haven of sorts to me. It has become my place of escape where peace and serenity surround me while noise and deadlines disappear. Driving from manhole to endless manhole I can listen to the latest sermons while taking mental notes for sermons of my own. On these hot days I can escape the scorching canary-yellow sun and it's bleeding rays with a pop-tart and grape Gatorade. However, as I drive around this city of Poteau I observe more things then the dirt brown roaches that call our sewer system home. I notice the college and high school girls wearing practically anything to catch the young man's fancy. Their short shorts and mini skirts reveal more skin then was allowable for a woman in her own bedroom during my grandmother's childhood. Shirts and blouses are presented to show not so much cleavage to cause a reck, but enough to keep a guy staring. Young and old men alike hoot and holler at the girls. The women soak up every bit and piece of attention they are given. I meanwhile laugh at co-workers causing traffic jams at one intersection in a town of 8,000 because the guys can't seem to drive more then 2 mph past the town's favorite tanning salon. After a hard day of physical labor I arrive back at headquarters with enough sweat on my forehead to fill a 7/11 Big Gulp and my blue jeans turning midnight black and harvest orange from the dirt and grime of the manholes. I check my email, nothing new as usual, and listen to full grown men talk as if they just entered puberty (for the 19th time in the same week). At 5 I drive a short distance home to change my clothes, get rinsed off, eat a quick snack, and retire to my plaid couch for some SportsCenter. After hearing the same story for the 3rd time I quickly begin to change channels surfing the airwaves with the greatest of ease. As I wiz past MTV I can't help but see some girl shaking her booty in some music video or some teenage couple talking about the county health department really helping them out by giving them a year's supply of condoms. E! is no better as Kim Kardashian tries to save her and her family's life once again from public scrutiny. I no longer laugh at this point. I am exausted, but their is nothing funny about this. I wonder into my bedroom, fall on my back onto my full sized bed, and listen to the radio as I wonder off into random thoughts and ponderings. As I maneuvre past tomorrow's breakfast, and my undying hope for rain, I begin to think back to simpler times with my grandfather. Grandpa and I were drinking buddies, Mt. Dew that is. I remember the great summers as we sat on his front porch guzzling down Mt. Dew talking about my future and his past. I even remember as he was fading away into eternity drinking Mt. Dew with him as he sucked on a rag dunked in the soft drink. Grandfather spoke so much of more innocent times where men and women stayed married, kids were respectful, American cars were better then foreign made hunks of metal, and sex was valued. As I come back to consciousness I begin to look at my culture, my society, what has become the norms and values of these United States and begin to wonder am I the freak here? Am I the weirdo as compared to everyone else? From my point of view it seems as though I am the odd man out. In Sociology 165 back at Blue River CC I read that 75% of guys, and 65% of girls will have had sex atleast once before graduating high school. Once guys graduate college their is a 95% chance they will have had sex. Three out of every 10 girls in college has some sort of STD. So how is it that I managed to be part of the 5% that is still sexually pure, and how did I luck out that my girl friend is a virgin as well? My ponderings point me into one direction. First, the kitchen. It's time for some frozen Boston Market roasted pork with garlic potatoes. Second, our herestanding as virgins isn't by chance it's by choice. During my freshman and sophomore years in high school I was the prototypical male; addicted to porn and if I wasn't thinking about food I was thinking about possible sex. However, like Paul when I encountered Christ on my Damascus road, something not someone telling me to, instilled me a pursuit of a live devoted to holiness. From that age of 15 I made the vow like countless other young Christian teenagers that I would too wait until marriage for the gift of sex. Yet, I wasn't going to be like so many others who threw their vows of purity away for a fateful night of lust with no parents home or in the backseat of the minivan. I knew my decision was going to take strength and determination on my part. Going against the grain head on into a culture that embraces open sexuality would be a tough stand. Strength. Exactly what I needed. Within a month of my committment one of the hottest girls at school made the offer to me of "Whatever, happens happens. Mom won't be home for an hour or so. Just come on in for a coke and we'll have some fun." I did the only thing an adolescent 15 year old would do. Run like Hell! Other "Christian" girlfriends came along the way who broke up with me because my view of oral sex or intercourse was too legalistic for them. As the great rapper Petididee said, "No wed, no bed". In the fall of 2005 I met the girl who will soon someday be my wife. After a few weeks of dating I realized that our dates had become much more then just hanging out, but a courtship for possible marriage. After school one day I approached her and asked her on bended knee, "Jordan, I really like you a lot. I see God having great plans for us. But first, I really need to know. Will you pursue purity with me?" Jordan, a casual Christian at the time by her own account, looked at me with her soft brown eyes and began to well up with tears. After a few minutes of silence she looked at me and told me with a whisper and a clamor in her voice, "Yes". Little to my knowledge, Jordan assumed that my question for her and my purity was my way of trying to avoid kissing or having sex with her. Now with joy in her heart and love in her face she tells me that seeking purity was the greatest decision she could have made at the time. Girls laugh at Jordan openly because she didn't know what a penis looked like in physiology class. Co-workers mock me because I don't understand their crude references to female body-parts. You may ask, why do you want to be pure, come on you guys love each other apparently and have been with one another long enough. It's because of our committment to Christ. So many out there wave the flag of Christianity but have nothing in their personal lives to back up their faith. I made the promise to be real and authentic. I will never become the Christian who causes non-believers to mock the faith and say, "It's because of hypocrites like you that I don't go to church." I loved my future wife enough before I ever met her to save a gift for her that I can only give once to one person. I wanted that person to be her, and whenever that day is I can present to her the gift that no one else can ever lay claim to or say they experienced, my virginity. So now as I close out I stand before all of you a 22, soon to be 23, year old Virgin who is proud of the choice he had made, the lifestyle he has chosen, and the path I will continue to run until I look into Jordan's eyes and say, "Mrs. Bennetzen, could you please turn off the lights." I pray that no one takes offense to my words. If you have or are involved in a sexual relationship don't merely thinking I'm pointing a finger or judging you. Nor am I trying to make myself look holy in the eyes of you my readers. I just want the world to know why I choose to stand out and live the way I do. | | |
| Is it fair that cigarettes don’t have to list additives when other products do?Well I thought that the Surgeon General's warning about how smoking may cause cancer and or diarrhea would be enough of a warning... Telling people that ammonia and tar are in their cancer sticks may gross them out but not cause them to stop smoking.
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| What is the best age to have children? Why?Ok, it's not like anyone can pull one single number out of the air and we all can agree that it's right. However, we can eliminate anyone below the age of 18 or above the age of 35. Below 18 because you are young, immature, and still need to finish high school. A sophomore I know is madly obsessed about having a kid and has been since she was in 8th grade. Is she ready for 3 hours of sleep, restless nights, and loss of freedom? Nopers... Above 35 because once a woman passes that age thresh hold her chances of giving birth to a baby with physical or mental handicaps are greatly increased. I have known people who got married right out of high school, had children, and have been fine ever since. On the other hand I know couples who waited until their late 20's and their fine. I say wait until marriage (thus don't bonk da bonk until you have a ring on your finger. NO RING NO DING. NO WED NO BED) and then you and your spouse should discuss and pray about when to start a family. When Jordan and I get married I hope we can have a good 4-5 years or so on our own to enjoy, and then Ezekiel or Sarah will come along.
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| Another sermon, "The Case for the Creator"Would you know what to say? 1. Current statistics tell us that nearly 86% of Americans would consider themselves a Christian, on what grounds though? They go to church, believe in God, or think that they’re a moral person. However, if these people faced persecution or a round of hard questioning would they be able to stand up for what they believe in? 2. The answer is generally a resounding NO! On the other hand you, you guys who are Christians, who have been washed in the blood of the lamb, should be able to at any instance stand up for your faith, would you, could you? Before you start getting all high and mighty in yourself and think you could stand up to any Atheist, lets take a look at an article from 20 years ago and see if we really could answer this person back. “DEAR BELIEVER” You ask me to consider Christianity as the answer for my life, I have done that. I consider it untrue, repugnant, and harmful. I find it incredible that you ask me to believe that the earth was created in six literal days, women came from a man’s rib, a snake, a donkey, and a burning bush spoke human language; all animal species, millions of them, rode on one boat; a detached hand floated in the air and wrote on a wall; Jesus walked on water unaided; fish and bread magically multiplied to feed the hungry, water instantly turned into wine, a fiery lake of eternal torment awaits unbelievers under the earth while there is life after death in a city that is 1,500 miles cubed, with mansions and food, for Christians only. If you believe these stories, then you are the one with the problem, not me. These myths violate natural law, contradict science, and fail to correspond to reality or logic. If you can’t see that, then you can’t separate truth from fantasy. It doesn’t matter how many people accept the delusions inflicted by “holy” men, a widely held lie is still a lie. If Christianity were simply untrue, I would not be to concerned. Santa is untrue, but it is a harmless myth that people outgrow. But Christianity, besides being false, is also abhorrent. It amazes me that you claim to love the God of the Bible, a hateful, arrogant, sexist, cruel being who can’t tolerate criticism. I would not want to live in the same neighborhood with such a creature! The biblical God is a macho male warrior. Though he said, “Thou shall not kill,” he ordered death for all opposition. He punished offspring to the fourth generation; ordered pregnant women and children ripped up; is partial to one race of people, judges women as inferior to men, is a sadist who created hell to torture unbelievers, created evil; spread dung of people’s faces; sent bears to devour 42 children who teased a prophet; punished people with snakes, dogs, dragons, swords, axes, fire, famine, and infanticide; said fathers should eat their sons. Is that nice? Would you want to live next door to such a person? And Jesus is a chip off the old block. He said, “I and my father are one,” and he upheld “every jot and tittle” of the Old Testament law. He preached the same old judgment; vengeance and death, wrath and distress, hell and torture for all non-conformists. He never denounced the subjugation of slaves or women. He irrationally cursed and withered a fig tree for being barren out of season. He mandated burning unbelievers (The church has complied with relish.) He stole a horse. You want me to accept Jesus, but I think I’ll pick my own friends, thank you . I also find Christianity to be morally repugnant. The concepts of original sin, depravity, substitutionary forgiveness, intolerance, eternal punishment, and humble worship are all beneath the dignity of intelligent human beings. They are barbaric ideas for primitive cultures cowering in fear and ignorance Do you see why I do not respect the biblical message? It is an insulting bag of nonsense. You have every right to torment yourself with such insanity but leave me out of it. I have better things to do with my life. COPYRIGHT 1987 BY DAN BARKER AND THE FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION INC. 3. Sounds like that person got out of the wrong side of the womb! But none the less if Dan Barker, the writer of that article was to list off all of those problems he has with your faith would you be able to stand up against all of his attacks, or maybe even one of them? The issue is that the majority of Christians wouldn’t be able to, why? Because they are unprepared for anything like that. 1Pe 3:15 But dedicate your lives to Christ as Lord. Always be ready to defend your confidence in God when anyone asks you to explain it. However, make your defense with gentleness and respect. It’s time church that we no longer be able to say that I don’t know how to witness or share my faith. It’s time we stopped wallowing like a pig in the mud, stand up, and rise. No more excuses, no more hesitation, we move forward now. How do we do that you ask? We look at the infallible word of God, investigate creation, and disprove the lies and myths of this world. This morning we’re going to look at 10 undeniable proofs for the existence of God to help us stand against those who want to dismantle our precious faith. 1. When other religions prove false, its just a process of elimination Islam is the second largest religion in the world with 1.7 billion followers, and it’s the fastest growing as well. However, Islam isn’t just another name for Christianity. Allah isn’t the same as our Lord God. Islam started 600 years after Christianity. Here’s why we know its false, Islam was founded by Muhammed due to not being accepted by Jews as their Messiah or Christianity as a new apostle. Beyond anything else we know this is a man made religion if when you die and go to paradise, you as a male get between 70 and 240 virgins. (Note: I got this info straight from 60 minutes. Yah for Liberal media for once) Buddhists hold that their founder Buddha reached an ultimate form of enlightenment when he was dead, yet they consistently hold that they have no evidence to back up this claim. Yet also they hold to reincarnation which the Bible says in Hebrews 9:27 that we die once, there are no second chances. What do you do when you see a Jehovah Witness at your front door. What do you say to a person who considers their denomination as the only true Christians, while all Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox are going to Hell? Ask them why their unique version of the Bible has been retranslated several types due to their mistranslation of the Greek and Hebrew such as in John 1:1 and Colossians 1:16. Ask how did the Archangel Michael ever become Jesus and then Michael again? Why the name they give to God “Jehovah” isn’t Gods name at all? Why do they believe that Jesus isn’t God, just the first of Gods created beings? 2. Science is wrong and feeding it by the spoon full to students today Many of us were taught that the universe was created 14 billion years ago when nothing exploded and created something. Problem, how does nothing explode and create something. In the movie Expelled, Richard Dawkins admits that they don't know where the atoms came from that causes the cosmic ripple. This evolutionary time scale would also like us to believe that there was about a 44 million year time span between the death of Dinosaurs and the dawn of humans, yet numerous cave drawings and artifacts prove otherwise. The funny thing is on Nasa’s own web site they admit that the Big Bang Theory can never be proven. It's just that, a theory. 3. Population stats just wouldn’t add up According to population statistics the world’s population has been growing at about 2% per year. Due to wars, famines, plagues and the like, the population is cut by a 1/3 every 75 years. Well if we apply these stats to Noah and his family about 4500 years ago we would have a world population of just under 6 billion people (just under the current population). If we apply these same stats to the big bang theory of the first couple approximately 41,000 years ago we would end up with a world population of 2 x 1089 (that‘s 2 times 10 with 89 zeros behind it). The universe much less the world doesn’t have the room for that many people. 4. Our magnetic field gives it away According to an evolutionary time scale the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, well if that was so the earth’s magnetic field would agree, but it doesn’t. The wear and tear on our magnetic field shows it to approximately be 6,000 years old. Why is that number special you ask? The Bible gives us accounts of Jesus birth, the year 3 BC, when Jerusalem fell, 588 BC, and then we trace back the years that Solomon and King David lived, and use the Bible which tells how old their ancestor were, we see that the earth is about 5,991 years old, or approximately 6000 years old. 5. The earth is too perfect to be an accident. Imagine that you’re walking along one day and find this forest you have never seen before. You walk inside the forest and find (flowers, mulch, bird baths, walking paths, paver stones, ornamental grasses, flowers, trees, vines, and gazebos) in their perfect place in perfect symmetry. Now would we suspect that millions of spontaneous events happened to perfectly place everything where it needed to be. Of course not, by looking at the perfect design of the earth and universe we know that their had to be a perfect designer! Isaiah 45:18 The LORD created the heavens. God formed the earth and made it. He set it up. He did not create it to be empty but formed it to be inhabited. God made this earth and for a purpose, he perfectly designed it. The earth’s distance of 9 million miles is no coincidence. If we were any closer we would burn to death, any farther away we would freeze to death. Our distance allows for the perfect conditions for survival. The oceans show the handiwork of God. God put the moon near the earth as a satellite or moon to help regulate the ocean. The gravity of the moon pulls on the oceans tides that causes the ebb and flow that helps to clean the oceans. Ever wondered what the purpose of salt in the ocean is for, God’s genius. That salt that makes us sick when we ingest it while swimming helps to keep the ocean clean by breaking down bacteria, parasites, and oil so that they don’t harm the ocean life. The earth’s magnetic field that we take for granted helps to ricochet meteors and comets, plus enable you and me to use our cell phones. The earth’s tilt at 23.5 degrees allows for perfect heating and cooling and for the seasons to occur. Our atmosphere provides us with crucial oxygen to breathe while also allowing for the greenhouse affect to avoid extreme cold and hot like other planets. God made this earth to be used and we can see that, it wasn’t just millions upon millions of shear coincidences that made this world as perfect as it is. 6. The Jews very existence silences the critics God promises thoroughly throughout the Old Testament that he would bless those who blessed the Jews and curse those who cursed the Jews. So what has history shown us, all who have endeavored to help the Hebrews have had a blessing over them. Yet the nations who have tried to destroy the Jews have themselves been destroyed. The Canaanites: killed, Babylonians: empire overthrown, Romans: empire destroyed, Nazi’s: Hitler and many of his commanders died, Nazi regime ended. Countless nations have tried to destroy Israel, but it can’t and won’t ever happened. A nation that always been outnumbered, persecuted throughout history still stands today and its enemies who far out weigh them lie forgotten in the dust, nothing but the power of a God watching over his chose people. 7. The reliability of scripture, its infallible The Bible is an unique book composed of 66 books by 40 authors. Authors that were prophets, fisherman, tax collectors, apostles, disciples, Kings, etc… The Bible was written in such places as in jails, mountains, islands, deserts, in battle, in night, in day. It was written in three continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Written over a span of 1600 years. Yet never once does the Bible contradict itself. It is reliable in the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation. The old testament accounts of wars, kings, areas, and movements have all been backed up by historical writers of the time. In Acts 27:9 (Paul and the 4 anchors), Isaiah 42:5 (The universe expanding outward) and Isaiah 66:18 (Nation born in a day) Show this book to be reliable. If you want a better explanation just ask, remember these are sermon notes... 8. Why would 12 guys die for something they didn’t really believe in. During Christ’s time numerous false Christs arose, they were referred to as Messiah movements. But as soon as the Messiah was killed, the movement died and all went back to their lives. However after Jesus Bar Joseph died, his movement kept on going, why? Because his followers claimed that he was alive, he had risen from the dead. Now this all fine and dandy and the disciples could have made it up as some elaborate lie to trick everyone and just went on with life, but they didn’t. They continued to preach and teach about this man. Even when confronted with death and torture they didn’t back down. When it came to the point of death this is when they would have just said it was a hoax and ran away. But they didn’t, because it was real. People don’t die for what they don’t believe in. If Christianity was just some elaborate scheme they came up with they would have backed down from a boiling kiln of oil, or being crucified upside down, but when its real you do what ever it takes. Exactly what they did! 9. Christ in prophecy and as a prophet himself. How do you do determine if what someone says or believes is true, you test it. We test the 600+ prophecies about Christ in the old testament, and the prophecies he made himself in the New Testament. The two best sources of Messiah prophecy is Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 where Christ and his sufferings are described to the detail as it went down 600 years later while being fulfilled. Christ in Matthew 24 gave a description of what was to happen to the Temple, and it happened exactly as he said in 71 AD with the collapse of Jerusalem. 10. How do we really know their was a Jesus and that he did rise again. The world would just like to say that Jesus was a good man or a moral teacher, not the son of man, and not risen from the dead. How do we know that he did, we disprove the theories that say else wise. Theory 1, the swoon theory: Before being taken away while in the upper room one of the disciples gives him a drink that will numb his senses so that he wont have to feel the pain of crucifixion. Christ would have not been able to take some concoction and withstand the pain of being beaten, flogged, crucified, and stabbed with a spear. Then been able to unwrap himself, remove the stone, and fight off the soldiers. Realize there was approximately 100 pounds of aloes and myrrh, plus being wrapped up like a mummy. Then hideaway in seclusion for the rest of his life. He felt all of that pain. Theory 2, the disciples stole his body. The disciples couldn’t have stolen the body. Only 11 men who were already in a panic about Christ dying. How would they have been able to fight off trained Roman soldiers, make them run away, remove the stone, perfectly unwrap his body, and take his body. To get to his body they would have had to broken a Roman seal which would have brought punishment. They would have been ceremonially unclean, plus they would have had to make Christ look like he was alive for the next 40 days. In fact so alive as to fool 500 people at one time. Theory 3, the women went to the wrong tomb. If that’s the case then everyone else including the disciples, and Roman legion did as well. Theory 4, someone died instead of Jesus. No one can explain how he and Jesus switched places without anyone’s knowledge, including the Roman government. | | |
| What is something or someone you find completely overrated?
"Tom, just come out of the closet." In my view Tom the scientologist cruise may be the most over rated person alive. He gets way too much coverage for being a jerk, and a jerky jerk at that. He confused poor Katie Holmes into believing that scientology is just a new three hour credit course being offered at the local Hollywood church (cough) I mean school. She had high hopes of finishing her associates of metereology with an emphasis in underwater basket weaving.  "High my name is Katie, and me and Dawson are going to live happily ever after the WB falls into financial ruin. Does anyone need a basket weaved???"
Nonetheless, people understand we all would be happier, even perhaps safer with less cruise. Then we wouldn't have to use...  Apply directly to your forehead or wherever else your aching!
Oh Oprah... why did you ever let him jump on your couch???  "Er... I was too busy thinking of Echart Tolle's new book, did you know that my finger nails are God? Either did I. None the less, do you think I could control the weirdo???"
I digress.....
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