Number of Potential Bishops in UK has Doubled

The Church of England voted Monday to allow women to serve as bishops, a historic decision that takes the church a step closer toward achieving gender equality. http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Male or female, they'll still be telling the same old lies to the flock: Jesus walked on water ... Tithing is essential ... Women cannot speak in church*

Oh, no, not that last one.

* http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/14-34.htm
   (This bit of the bible is now obsolete and no longer true)

Guess What He Is Talking About

Watch this video and listen to the words spoken by the preacher. Listen carefully and try to guess what particular subject he is heading toward.

Is it World War III? 

The Evangelical End Times? 

The threat of Terrorism?

Or is it something even more important than that?

Watch and learn

Original video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Th-6yCiwM

 -----

And just for fun, you may be interested to know what the bible has to say about the same subject:

Original video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw

The Straw Man Is An Easy Target

Louie Gohmert
American politician

Speaking at "Celebrate America"

A Christian revival crusade 

Organised by Rodney Howard-Browne

July 2014

He sets up a straw man by placing a lie into the mouth of the atheist. Then he pokes fun at the lie and his ratbag audience think he's proved something!

Original video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-piHO3UNdIA

There is not an atheist intellectual anywhere on the planet who has ever used the equation referred to by Gohmert. Atheist intellectuals know that scientists have traced the history of the universe to a point where its age was just a tiny fraction of a second, but they have not gone beyond that point. When asked about the situation before that moment in time they will always answer with the words, "I don't know."

Gohmert is completely wrong when he says that atheists have an equation which says, "nobody plus nothing equals everything," but I am completely correct when I say that he has an equation to explain the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It looks like this:

1  +  1  +  1  =  1

And that's not a straw man - that's what Gohmert truly believes!

Welcome To The 21st Century

Pope Francis has endorsed an international organisation that conducts exorcisms. The Vatican's Congregation for Clergy has recognised the International Association of Exorcists under canon law. Last week it was reported that Pope Francis had formally recognised the International Association of Exorcists, a group of 250 priests spread across 30 countries who supposedly cast out demons. 

http://www.theguardian.com/

It's amazing to think that way back in 400BC, Hippocrates said that epilepsy and insanity were not caused by demons, but by abnormalities of the brain - which puts Pope Francis about 2,400 years behind the times.

Even worse, his more than one billion ratbag followers agree with every word he says. They dare not disagree for fear that they will miss out on a free trip to heaven if they do. Weak, selfish, cowards!

The Inquistions Were Run By Such Lovely People

Remember the excuses you made when you were caught doing something naughty as a child?

• They were picking on me
• They deserved it
• I didn't know it was wrong
• A big boy made me do it
• All the other kids were doing it
• blah blah blah.

 -----

The Catholic Church stoops to the same childish level as it tries to excuse its cruel behaviour during the Inquisitions. According to the "Catholic Answers Staff" the apologist should:

Point out that the Inquisition was intended not to convert people, but to find people who were outwardly claiming to be Christian but secretly practiced another religion ... The inquisition was thus an attempt to protect the purity of the Christian community. 

Also point out that the Protestants had a counter-inquisition that killed Catholics ... In addition, Protestants were the big witch-burners. Witch burning never caught on in Catholic countries. 

When the Spanish Inquisition examined the cases of reported witches, it almost invariably concluded that the charges were false and the accused were not guilty. But tens of thousands of supposed witches were burned at the stake, hanged, or drowned in Protestant countries, including the American colonies. 

Catholic Answers Staff 

-----

On another page at the same website the readers are told:

No account of foolishness, misguided zeal, or cruelty by Catholics can undo the divine foundation of the Church
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-inquisition

Let me translate that for you:

Rule 1: The Catholic church is never wrong.

Rule 2: If the Catholic church is wrong, Rule 1 applies.

-----

But it's not just the glorified social workers on the "Answers Staff" who come out with such craziness. The Catholic Encyclopedia contains an article which says that the Inquisitors, 

Far from being inhuman, they were, as a rule, men of spotless character and sometimes of truly admirable sanctity
[...] 
When the Inquisitor arrived in a "heresy-ridden district"
(no preconceptions there, eh?)
[...] 
The inhabitants were summoned to appear before the inquisitor. On those who confessed of their own accord a suitable penance (e.g. a pilgrimage) was imposed, but never a severe punishment like incarceration or surrender to the civil power ... If the accused at once made full and free confession, the affair was soon concluded, and not to the disadvantage of the accused.
[...] 
Most of the punishments that were properly speaking inquisitional were not inhuman, either by their nature or by the manner of their infliction. Most frequently certain good works were ordered, e.g. the building of a church, the visitation of a church, a pilgrimage more or less distant, the offering of a candle or a chalice, participation in a crusade, and the like.
[...] 
The hardest penalties were imprisonment in its various degrees, exclusion from the communion of the Church, and the usually consequent surrender to the civil power.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm

On two occasions (quoted above) the Catholic Encyclopedia mentions a punishment that included "surrender to the civil power." Do you know what that means? It means the accused were found guilty and handed over to the civilian authorities who carried out the death penalty imposed by the Inquisitors. It was a clever little ploy which allowed the Catholic Church to (dis)honestly claim that it never, ever, killed anyone during 600 years of Inquisitions!

-----

And you'll find more apologies at the Catholic Education Resource Center

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0007.html

A Brilliant, Brilliant, Suggestion

Early in the reign of Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, the English Parliament introduced The Act of Uniformity which included the Recusancy Laws that were initially aimed at the Catholics but eventually applied to all citizens. By this Act, Elizabeth I made it a legal obligation to attend church every Sunday and those who refused were fined one-shilling, which was about a weeks wages for a servant or farmhand.


Throughout the 17th Century the Recusancy Laws got tougher and tougher:

• 1593, movement of recusants was restricted to within five miles of their homes.
• 1605, convicted recusants were forced to receive Anglican communion once per year or pay a fine
• 1605, recusants barred from office and professions.
• 1678, recusants barred from parliament.
• 1692, recusants incur double land tax.
• 1699, recusants barred from purchasing or inheriting land.

Of course we are way beyond that sort of thing today. There is not a civilized person anywhere in the world who would call for a reintroduction of the Recusancy Laws and tax people who failed to attend church on Sunday - or is there?

Christian love and tolerance

More honored in the breach than in the observance

Debating Tactics With Greg Koukl