The Super Blogosphere of a parallel word.

  Does religious freedom impinge on people’s right to life? Do my religious actions during a pandemic put other people’s rights to life in jeopardy? What is the greater right? Religious freedoms or my rights to life and safety? When religious rights impinge on the rights to freedom and safety of other people, constitutionally the rights to freedom and safety win. It can be argued that without religious freedoms the rights to freedom and safety wouldn’t exist, but you would have to prove that without religion the rights to freedom and safety are self supporting. If it couldn’t be proved religious freedom would win. In a purely secular world you can argue for a self supporting right without the bible, but in a world that is still influenced by the bible it would be harder to prove, unless that country or world has drifted so far away from the bible, that it no longer recognizes it’s truths or availability. In that case, a self supporting right could be proved. Where do our rights come fr

  The Law Reveals Our Sin. 7 “ Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.”  8  But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power.  9  At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life,  10  and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead.  11  Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me.  12  But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good. 13  But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terri

  Isaiah 28:15 You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death,     with the realm of the dead we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by,     it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge     and falsehood our hiding place.” The people had sinned to the point that God said they had made a covenant with death, and in verses 18 and 19 God said He would not have any of it,  Your covenant with death will be annulled;     your agreement with the realm of the dead will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by,     you will be beaten down by it. 19  As often as it comes it will carry you away;     morning after morning, by day and by night,     it will sweep through.” He said that he would put an end to their wicked ways that the understanding of the prophet Isaiah’s message would bring terror to the people, that if they continued mocking the Lord He would make their chains heavier. In verses 24 and 28, God uses an analogy of farming and thresh

  In Ephesians 2:12 the bible reads “that you were  at  that time without Christ, having been excluded  from  the citizenship  of  Israel, and strangers  from  the covenants  of  promise, having no hope and without-God in the world.”  It is talking about the current state of the world without Christ. We are living in times where people are heading for a Christ-less eternity. People die every day, and if you die without Christ you die in your sins. The reason why there is so much hopelessness in our world today is because our society has rejected the God of the bible. It is foolish to think that you can be a moral person without God. Our happiness depends on whether we will accept Christ, for without Christ one cannot be truly happy. Why is it that millions are living as if God doesn’t exist, and are denying the Second Coming of Jesus? Are they just content to live in their sins? God has judged most people for their rejection of the Saviour. In Romans 1:18-25 it reads:  Exchanging the T

  While it might be unwise to say the soul ages, it might be wiser to say the soul matures with age. The longer we live, the more things we experience. The soul retains all of our experiences in life, and through memory can replay those experiences. When we experience something happy, the soul remembers it, so in a way we can say the soul is shaped by the good and not so good experiences in life. The human soul has the capacity to experience and understand God, and this is what makes us different from other living beings like plants, and animals.   When the soul learns new things, it creates new memories and new experiences, so this would be the closest thing to it aging. Although it is proper to say that when we are in a physical body, the person is a whole being only as a body and a soul, so in this sense, the whole person ages. A human being isn’t just a soul or a body, they are both. So what happens at death is an unnatural experience because the soul is separated from the body. Th

  What we do in a time of crisis greatly reflects our own personal values and beliefs. In a crisis, things happen almost way to fast, in that we almost default to who we really are and what we were brought up to believe. It’s hard if not impossible to reevaluate your faith, or beliefs when the crisis hits, it’s sad but it’s true, and when the crisis passes we usually are the same in our beliefs as when the crisis hits. This doesn’t mean that there is nothing we can do to get through a difficult time or crisis, how we act in it, usually determines the kind of outcome we have after it.   We have a role to play in our own crisis, and of course so do other people, this is called crisis intervention. However, how we respond inwardly and if possible outwardly usually determines the outcome. It may seem like the outcome is fixed, but I would say in a crisis don’t be too concerned about the desired outcome, just play your role as a human being as best you know how, because in the end you will

  It’s nice to be kind, but just because we are kind to someone doesn’t mean that we give them our consent. Nobody likes to be a doormat and sometimes confrontation is needed to see actual change in society and in others. I’m not saying don’t be nice, but when we consent to everything we are denying ourselves of the happiness that can be ours as human beings. We live in an age of consent and if we are not careful our rights could inflict damage on other people’s freedom to be released from our concern.   Some people want the freedom of being free from other’s concerns, and as strange as that is, we need to respect people’s freedom to choose. It’s only when I don’t give my consent to a particular relationship that that person in turn must respect my rights as an individual. What is at stake is individual rights or individuality. Oppressive things can happen in a society where someone who wants to be free from the concern of others begins to behave in a way that is oppressive. When this

  While it is true that Facebook facilitates friendships, most of my friendships are from a time in my life where there was no social media or even the internet. I have been very blessed in my life to have very few enemies and a large number of quality people in my life, that I made friends with in grade school, high school, in college and my everyday life. I can honestly say that I cherish all these relationships and friendships, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without all these people! My life is filled with memories from each of my Facebook friends, most of these memories were created before we had the internet.   It would appear to be an incredible blessing that every time I log into Facebook, that I would be instantly connected with all the memories and people, from my past that created the happy life that I call my own! It would appear to be a good thing that all my friends are a current part of my everyday life, but it can also be overwhelming to re-live even good events

  Socialism promises something for free, but there is actually a big cost for the things it promises. In the bible, God offers us salvation at no cost, but our salvation cost Jesus Christ his life. If something is too good to be true, it’s probably not true at all. There is a deception that if there is no government and the people rule themselves there will be unity and happiness. I understand that for poor people or for non-religious people, socialism would seem an appropriate answer to many of life’s problems. Sticking it to the man, was a saying that I was aware of when I was younger, and now the growing amount of people who desire a socialist way of life is huge.  The bible teaches that government is meant to create order and harmony, and to restrain evil. We need government to create order in a society. Have you seen the older movie or read the book, “Lord of the Flies?” I saw it back in 1990 with my English class in high school. “Lord of the Flies” is about a bunch of civilian ch

 The world still needs heroes. We all need someone to look up to. When you are a kid, you naturally want to emulate the grown ups, but we can never be too old to have dreams and admire those who have accomplished much. Heroes generally come from the areas in life that we have taken an interest in. It is  hard to be a hero in the times we are living in because people are constantly looking for ways to dehumanise other people. There is more conflict in the world these days, so you think those achieving any kind of virtuous feat would be instantly admired by the masses, but virtue itself is being looked down upon. There were prophets in the Old Testament, who warned to the people that if they didn't change their ways that God would send judgement, so when virtue falls in our society, you see less and less of people of virtue being admired. But if we again regain some sanity in our world, it is ripe for heroes. In a society where we have forgotten practical ways of living, heroism can

  In the heat of an argument or unseen circumstances, our first action or attempt to solve the problem can be usually a reaction. When we react to something negative, it is usually in an unhealthy way because our reason and our minds don’t seem to have the time to process the “bad” event, so we sometimes react in a negative way. Instead of reacting in a bad way, we should learn to ACT rather than react.  Ways in which we ACT should be based on positively good knowledge and wisdom. Sometimes it takes just a little more effort to ask ourselves “What is the right way to act in this situation?” We can always ACT in the right way, even when we are unsure what it is. We have a conscience and we can learn from what failed us in the past and ACT differently. Learning to act a certain way helps us to navigate ourselves through the problem, rather than feeling stuck as if we reacted in a particular way, and are now stuck with the results! Learning to ACT rather than react gives us insight and th

  “For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” These are the words of the apostle Paul in Athens in the meeting of the Areopagus . He was trying to make the point that God is not far from us, as some would like to think, but that we actually exist in His presence. Why is it that some are not aware of this, as were the people of Paul’s day? Look at a passage in Romans 1 that says: “ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,  19  since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  20  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”  It is by our own free choice and the suppression of the knowledge of God, that we are unaware of the

  A Nation must be built on Justice. Proverbs 12:3 A man shall not be established by wickedness; But the root of the righteous shall not be moved. A nation that disregards the teachings of the bible is doomed to eventual failure. Proverbs 12:3 reminds us that human beings shall not be established by wickedness and that it is only when we have our foundation on righteousness that we will stand firm. Moral principles are just the beginning of creating a just nation, but it is living out these principles that we start to build a secure nation. Dialectical thinking weakens our culture and creates unity on the surface, but lacks the real strength to stand up to adversity. Being a dialectical society means that we reject absolute truth absolutely, which leaves no room for the actual truth to be discovered or lived out.  When everyone thinks in a relative way, we push out didactic thinking, which is thinking based on moral reasoning based on the truth or the word of God. When the principles o

  We all want to achieve things in life, but is it healthy to look at success as ultimate or culminating, or is there another way we can look at success which can prove to be more humane? I believe there is. If we look at success as self realizing or the actualization of our entire human beings, we might be missing out on the little and bigger successes that can give ourselves a real sense of accomplishment and happiness! I believe that it is these kind of achievements that we work for everyday, that actually gives us a real sense of accomplishment and that is way more forgiving than if we look at success as the realization of our entire personalities and souls!   What drives us is very important, because we will only feel successful if we are pursuing the things in life that we actually want! When we make goals we should keep in mind the real possibilities of achieving those goals because I personally believe that it is in reaching those goals that we can say I succeed in that thing.

  I remember living in a time as a youth, where there weren’t many open doubts about the historicity of Jesus Christ! We are living in a time now where many young people are doubting if Jesus was actually a real person. What is the cause of these doubts, and why do so many young people have questions that I never had growing up? Of course, our culture worldwide has grown secularized even though there are approximately 2.3 billion christians worldwide, the mindset of this current generation has become secular. While younger generations take their cues from the older generations, Christianity is no longer popular as it was, when I was growing up!  It’s hard to prove the reality of a historic religious figure like Jesus, when the culture has removed itself from his movement! There are more movements and causes now, than when I was growing up, that Christianity has been looked at like just another movement that society can ignore or accept. But I truly believe that Jesus never intended his

  Prayer is simply talking with God. The Church teaches that there are different ways of doing this. There are formal prayers, corporate prayers, private prayers, and interior prayer. There is meditative prayer, which is also called contemplative prayer. We don’t have to speak to be in communion with God, that’s what prayer is, it’s conversation and communion with the Lord. It’s important to start young, and to teach your young people how to pray, because when you get older you will want to develop the habit of prayer.   You don’t have to use fancy words when you pray, this is called informal prayer. Sometimes when you don’t know what to pray, the church has formal prayers that you can incorporate into your prayer life, like the Our Father, Hail Mary, and other prayers that are called Novenas. Novenas are said with special intentions like your health, and family. Also when you attend a Mass, you will also be called upon to pray corporately. Familiarizing yourself with corporate prayer

  The body craves things that comfort it. We spend most of our lives taking our queues from what our natural body desires. If we experience God or happiness it is usually as a result of something that happens carnally in our senses. There have been people who have experienced something of a cleansing that transcends fleshy existence and have experienced God, not as a carnal thing, but as transformative experience in the human body. The bible says that those who live in the flesh cannot please God, but we exist in a body, and we cannot escape our flesh, but the church talks about theosis or    divinization,    where some people have had a greater experience of God that transforms the flesh.  We are not God, but we can experience God. While we can never become a god, the bible says that we are partakers of the divine nature, which means that when we accept Christ we are given the Holy Spirit and partake in the life of salvation. Our appetites change and we are helped to transform our des

  To die in God’s mercy we must live in it. We experience God’s mercy when we trust in Jesus and what he did for us. Salvation begins when we see Jesus as our Saviour and Lord and begin to have faith in him. Confessing him as Lord, and believing that he was raised from the dead in our hearts. Through conversion we are given grace, which enables us to live in a way that is pleasing to God. The bible tells us to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, (Philippians 2:12). If we have no desire to do this, we are probably without the grace of God in our lives right now. Which is a dangerous thing because if you die in that state you will die in your sins, unforgiven.   God doesn’t demand much of us, but to believe. Having a knowledge about God doesn’t mean that you are saved. You must have a living faith that demonstrates the reality of God in your life. This is why there are people who profess to know God, but if you were to know the actuality it would probably scare you. How

  Dear Friends, Reconciliation is just not saying sorry, but saying sorry or being repentant or grieved about the offence is one part of reconciliation. When a nation or group of people commit a national sin, repentance happens first then reconciliation. You can’t be forgiven and restored to a right relationship to those we offend without true contrition of sin. True contrition for sin means that not only are we sorry for committing the sin, but it includes a resolve to not commit that sin again. Also included in reconciliation is making reparations for our sins, when that is possible. Making reparations after we apologize shows that we are truly sorry for our sins.  In the bible John the Baptist warned us that we must bear fruit in keeping with repentance, (Luke 3:8) Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. What is the gospel telling us here? There can only be restoration until we behave in a way that is in keeping with our profession. If we say we are sorry, then we must behave in a w

  Contemporary society has a way of doing things backwards. Things that we prioritized are no longer a priority. We once valued traditional marriage and conservative values, but in the name of freedom we have liberated ourselves. But in the attempt to gain our freedom what have we really lost? Have we lost intimacy in marriage? Have we lost trust in relationships? Is our country more secure or less secure from our enemies? In the attempt for a more fair and just society have we pushed God out, and invited in personal person worship?  We all don’t have to think the same way to live together. Diversity includes freedom of thought, and my thought is are we trying to create a utopia without God? Just what is a utopia? I personally don’t think we can be personally liberated until we have made ourselves ready to die. Death for a believer brings true liberation. Yes we have been entrusted with this world, but by whom have we been entrusted with it? The Creator. Unless we acknowledge this, we

  God’s love is all encompassing that it can change our hearts from bitterness to love. When we fully embrace the love that God has for all of humanity it can free us from demanding that we get our way all the time, and it puts others first. People want to be loved, and there is nothing greater to know that God loves you and He accepts you as you are. How we experience this love is through faith in Jesus Christ. He was put to death by angry sinners because they had never seen unconditional love the way Jesus lived his life. The society that Jesus lived in was one of rules and religious law and Jesus broke almost every tradition that the religious Jews were accustomed to.   He ate with sinners, broke ceremonial laws in regards to washing hands before they ate, taught it was more important to honour your mother and father than keeping rules about traditional giving and other traditions from the law. He set a lady free from the punishment of death after she was caught in the act of adulte

  Society is slowly drifting away from living in the present moment, which is a shame because God can be only found in the present moment. When we begin to lose the ability to cultivate things like love, kindness and compassion, we lose other skills that reinforce conditions of the heart that create inner joy and happiness and also the ability to experience God. This is far from a pantheistic world view, but it is a worldview that supports faith and living in the Lord’s presence. When we forget how to live simply, our thoughts become constructed around our material things, and the ability to hold God in our thoughts becomes extremely difficult to achieve.   Repentance begins when we are able to see how we are living and change our thinking which changes our behaviour and the course of our lives. God is a spirit and He is love, therefore we must prepare our spirits to experience God’s love. The more humanity changes it’s focus outwards to material things, and what pleases our bodies and