Via Mano Singham’s blog comes this link to a truly fascinating and poignant story: one year after Harold Camping’s failed prophecy, what happened to the believers? It’s must-read material.
Alethian Worldview
If it's not reality, it's not the truth
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the voters in the state of Missouri will be voting this fall on a proposed amendment to the state constitution protecting the right to pray in public places.
While the U.S. Constitution protects the right to pray in public places, supporters of the Missouri ballot issue want to clarify those rights. In House committee testimony last year, they said there is increasing ignorance about religious expression. Opponents testified that the amendment adds nothing to existing law and may invite litigation.
Here Fido, here boy, who’s a good doggie then? Now roll over.
PZ Myers has a post up about the old “objective morality” gambit popular with Chrislamic apologists these days. It seems a couple of Christian debaters managed to derail the debate by asking “is there an objective morality that determines whether you would torture a toddler?” PZ gives four pretty good criteria by way of answering that question in the affirmative, so I’ll let him cover that aspect of the issue. Meanwhile, I’m going to turn that question around and ask, “Is there an objective morality by which we can judge whether God’s commands are right or wrong?”
For some reason I don’t seem to attract the kind of crank email that, say, PZ Myers gets, but now and then I stumble across a bit of good material. It happened to me this weekend: I was in the store buying vitamins, and noticed that someone had discretely slipped a copy of “Prophetic Observer” into one of the displays. (Talk about a bold witness, eh?) Published by Southwest Radio Ministries and the Southwest Radio Church of the Air, this was a full tabloid-sized four-page newsletter containing a single article: “Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?” by Noah W. Hutchings. And man, it brings the crazy.
The Christian faith isn’t just a story about how to get to heaven in the next life, it a way of walking by faith in all areas of your life.
“We’re going to show you how to get wealth and use it for the building of his kingdom,” [Ephren] Taylor shouted to the congregation one morning in 2009. It was all part of what he called his “Building Wealth Tour,” which crisscrossed the country touting his investments and financial advice.
It’s a popular theme in Christian circles. God actually wants you to be wealthy and successful, and people like Taylor are called by God to help share this good news. But?
But according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, what Taylor was actually peddling was a giant Ponzi scheme, one aimed to “swindle over $11 million, primarily from African-American churchgoers,” that reached into churches nationwide, from [Eddie] Long’s megachurch in Atlanta to Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church congregation in Houston.
Ah. The cost of teaching yourself how to uncritically swallow whatever men tell you in the name of God. Of course, the difference between Taylor and megapastors like Long and Osteen is that the latter two don’t promise to ever give the money back. Gullibility costs you either way, but the latter way goes unpunished.
via ABC News.