Saturday, June 20, 2015
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Conviction or Intolerance
As a former medical student I was often chided for wearing a crucifix to the clinic. Were my troubles limited to angry words that would be enough... however I was told that I must choose between career and faith by one of the school's deans. Several clinical supervisors had voiced their distaste for my cross and these same people gave me failing grades in my rotations. Eventually I was expelled from the MD program for my beliefs.
The argument, I suppose, was that my open display of a cross, the emblem of my chosen faith, represented an offence to 'nonbelievers'. I was guilty of being intolerant.
Yet were one to suspend one's fundamental beliefs in deference to the projected views of others, the integrity of one's personal journey of faith is thus compromised. While I was seen by certain supervisors as being intolerant, I was in fact acting out of conviction.
You see, I did not grow up as a Christian. I was born into a muslim household. In addition to this, I read about other faiths, including Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. How to explain to the uninitiated what happens once you experience Jesus as Saviour? It is the crossing from the hopes and beliefs of other religions into a relationship with the Divine. It is a form of knowing that surpasses the zeal of my Islamic youth, that bypasses the intellectual approach of Buddha, that fills the God-shaped vacuum the Decalogue so aptly delineates.
So while I have been chastised most severely for intolerance of other religions, my conviction stands on a firm foundation, that of having had my sins wiped away, not in theory but in fact. When the Holy Spirit came into my heart years ago and washed my soul of its pain, it was in direct response to my openness to Christ and His cross.
If I were to deny this in public He would deny me before the angels and the Father in heaven. And I would also be denying my patients the very real healing power which accompanies a look at the cross.
The next time you are worried about being intolerant remember that your faith in Him is not a negative, it is a positively golden conviction.
The argument, I suppose, was that my open display of a cross, the emblem of my chosen faith, represented an offence to 'nonbelievers'. I was guilty of being intolerant.
Yet were one to suspend one's fundamental beliefs in deference to the projected views of others, the integrity of one's personal journey of faith is thus compromised. While I was seen by certain supervisors as being intolerant, I was in fact acting out of conviction.
You see, I did not grow up as a Christian. I was born into a muslim household. In addition to this, I read about other faiths, including Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. How to explain to the uninitiated what happens once you experience Jesus as Saviour? It is the crossing from the hopes and beliefs of other religions into a relationship with the Divine. It is a form of knowing that surpasses the zeal of my Islamic youth, that bypasses the intellectual approach of Buddha, that fills the God-shaped vacuum the Decalogue so aptly delineates.
So while I have been chastised most severely for intolerance of other religions, my conviction stands on a firm foundation, that of having had my sins wiped away, not in theory but in fact. When the Holy Spirit came into my heart years ago and washed my soul of its pain, it was in direct response to my openness to Christ and His cross.
If I were to deny this in public He would deny me before the angels and the Father in heaven. And I would also be denying my patients the very real healing power which accompanies a look at the cross.
The next time you are worried about being intolerant remember that your faith in Him is not a negative, it is a positively golden conviction.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Nebular Theory and Red Eye of Jupiter...
If planetoids are in fact spit out of their parent body in decay-like events as is suggested by the alternative to nebular theory, then mightn't the red eye of Jupiter also be in fact a planetoid being readied to burst forth?
Friday, July 5, 2013
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Mohammad and the spirit of Jezebel
As incentive to gather followers to his floundering cult, Mohammad proposed that each man could possess four wives on earth and 72 virgins in heaven.
This base motive is common to other personages from history, including Joseph Smith and their shared spiritual progenitor, the false prophetess from the Old Testament, Jezebel.
How does this incentive compare with the teachings of Christ? Jesus lived as a celibate, was born to a virgin, and called his followers to renounce all worldly ties for the sake of a heavenly kingdom where there was no marriage, as all lived asexually, like angels.
Paul affirmed that marriage was honourable if it consisted of one man with one woman, although celibacy was to be preferred should this gift be manifest in a believer's life, as a celibate follower's mind remained single and able to concentrate on the work of the Lord without division.
Some might argue that Mohammad was simply responding to a societal need in a time when many women were left without husbands due to the effects of war. While one cannot be certain of this, statistically it seems unlikely that 75% of men had been killed in war, thus necessitating such an unfavourable imbalance. Rather it seems to be more consistent with raiding marauder recruitment techniques, for what modern day African warlord does not employ promises of booty to harvest young men to his cause?
In the Old Testament, Jezebel, the foreign wife of Ahab, elicited the people to follow a false god by loosening the restraints of morality. The appeal to the desires of the flesh established a pattern for cults to follow, including those of Mohammad and Joseph Smith.
Today, one sees the deleterious effects of this demon spell in the moral and sociological devastation of nations chained by Mohammad's lust. Men marry for but a season then, when they are bored, they abandon their family and find a younger bride and start again, finding justification in the actions of their false prophet.
Women abandoned in this case often end up as prostitutes, or as second or third wives to wealthy men. The effect on children is like a plague, with no sense of right or wrong, many end up walking the streets in gangs, addicted to drugs or selling their bodies.
The Mohammadan cult boasts no new thing, only an old sin in a new guise. When religion offers flesh rather than calling for denial of the same, no permanent bonds can be established. No ethic for service to other exists, no compass for actions other than burning desire motivates the individual conscience in a Mohammadan world.
But Jesus says, deny yourself and carry your cross daily. Desires are to be satisfied primarily in the comfort of God's presence and Spirit, passions redirected to creative endeavours. Marriage is to be honoured for the sanctity of children, who then go on confidently to establish healthy societies.
The problem with Mohammedan society is Jezebel. Flesh vs. spirit. An age old battle with an age old solution. Deny the flesh, sow to the spirit. For the the life of the spirit is eternity but the life of the flesh is rottenness and death.
And though the Mohammedan and his sympathizers (for many who are politically correct defend Muhammad but this is not love, for it holds the soul of the lost in low regard by denying it the saving grace of forgiveness found only via the cross) would be angry at these thoughts, the test of truth is practical. Would these people, if given the choice, rather live in a JudeoChristian nation or a Mohammadan nation?
I know a man from Pakistan who swears when he talks about the US, calling it a satanic country. But I know this same man would sell his own mother to obtain a visa to come to the US. The proof is in the actions and in the attraction for a Christian nation and all of its benefits.
This base motive is common to other personages from history, including Joseph Smith and their shared spiritual progenitor, the false prophetess from the Old Testament, Jezebel.
How does this incentive compare with the teachings of Christ? Jesus lived as a celibate, was born to a virgin, and called his followers to renounce all worldly ties for the sake of a heavenly kingdom where there was no marriage, as all lived asexually, like angels.
Paul affirmed that marriage was honourable if it consisted of one man with one woman, although celibacy was to be preferred should this gift be manifest in a believer's life, as a celibate follower's mind remained single and able to concentrate on the work of the Lord without division.
Some might argue that Mohammad was simply responding to a societal need in a time when many women were left without husbands due to the effects of war. While one cannot be certain of this, statistically it seems unlikely that 75% of men had been killed in war, thus necessitating such an unfavourable imbalance. Rather it seems to be more consistent with raiding marauder recruitment techniques, for what modern day African warlord does not employ promises of booty to harvest young men to his cause?
In the Old Testament, Jezebel, the foreign wife of Ahab, elicited the people to follow a false god by loosening the restraints of morality. The appeal to the desires of the flesh established a pattern for cults to follow, including those of Mohammad and Joseph Smith.
Today, one sees the deleterious effects of this demon spell in the moral and sociological devastation of nations chained by Mohammad's lust. Men marry for but a season then, when they are bored, they abandon their family and find a younger bride and start again, finding justification in the actions of their false prophet.
Women abandoned in this case often end up as prostitutes, or as second or third wives to wealthy men. The effect on children is like a plague, with no sense of right or wrong, many end up walking the streets in gangs, addicted to drugs or selling their bodies.
The Mohammadan cult boasts no new thing, only an old sin in a new guise. When religion offers flesh rather than calling for denial of the same, no permanent bonds can be established. No ethic for service to other exists, no compass for actions other than burning desire motivates the individual conscience in a Mohammadan world.
But Jesus says, deny yourself and carry your cross daily. Desires are to be satisfied primarily in the comfort of God's presence and Spirit, passions redirected to creative endeavours. Marriage is to be honoured for the sanctity of children, who then go on confidently to establish healthy societies.
The problem with Mohammedan society is Jezebel. Flesh vs. spirit. An age old battle with an age old solution. Deny the flesh, sow to the spirit. For the the life of the spirit is eternity but the life of the flesh is rottenness and death.
And though the Mohammedan and his sympathizers (for many who are politically correct defend Muhammad but this is not love, for it holds the soul of the lost in low regard by denying it the saving grace of forgiveness found only via the cross) would be angry at these thoughts, the test of truth is practical. Would these people, if given the choice, rather live in a JudeoChristian nation or a Mohammadan nation?
I know a man from Pakistan who swears when he talks about the US, calling it a satanic country. But I know this same man would sell his own mother to obtain a visa to come to the US. The proof is in the actions and in the attraction for a Christian nation and all of its benefits.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)