97 Percent Prophetic Pastors Are Quacks, says “Apostle”

Every now and then something catches my eye that makes me realize that Christianity outside America is very different from Christianity inside America. Like this report, from Ghana.

The Founder and Leader of Cornerstone Bible Church International located at Tech a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region Apostle Godless Boateng has descended heavily on prophetic pastors alleging that they are quacks who are portraying themselves as men and women of God saying all sort of prophesies that are not in line with the word of God.

He averred that as followers of Jesus Christ, “we have been blessed and when the Son sets you free from any tribulations and spiritual bondage, there is no amount of lesser gods which can overcome you.”

Hmm, come to think of it, apart from naming himself “Godless” and despite a certain lack of monotheism, he doesn’t sound all that different. I’m guessing “Godless” is supposed to mean “ex-polytheist,” despite his lingering conviction that other gods are out there trying to overcome you.

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Pascal’s counter-wager

[Note: I’ve disabled comments on this post due to spam. Let me know if you’d like to have commenting turned back on again, and I’ll be happy to oblige.]

The interesting thing about gambling on the supernatural is that the supernatural, by definition, has no objective, reality-based constraints. As soon as you can objectively measure and/or test something, and can determine whether or not it is likely to be true, it ceases to be properly supernatural, and becomes a question that can and should be answered through the use of the scientific method. Stick to the supernatural, and all bets are equally baseless.

For example, let’s suppose that there exists a supernatural predator who preys on the spirits of the gullible and incautious. Such a predator might groom his prey for the harvest, much as the American farmer fattens his turkey for Thanksgiving. He could manifest himself as a god, and attempt to lure believers to himself by various apparent (or genuine) miracles, and a pretense of spreading love, mercy and forgiveness. In the afterlife, anyone who sincerely believes in this god becomes god’s lunch for all eternity, or for at least as long as it takes the god to slowly gnaw away at your soul and devour it.

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Top 5

Attention Twitter fans: are you having trouble deciding what to say about the news that ill health is forcing the pope to retire? Here’s a quick list of Top Five 3-Word Responses to the news:

5. It’s a start.
4. What, no cops?
3. Prayer failed, eh?
2. He deserves it.

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The Gypsy Curse

Over at Evangelical Realism, we’re continuing our look at Pastor Stephen Feinstein’s debate with Russell Glasser, and I I can’t help but think of a post I did a few years ago about Jesus and the Gypsy Curse.

It’s like a scene from an old B-grade black-and white horror flick: Jesus is walking down some dank alleyway in Jerusalem and carelessly bumps into an old gypsy woman, knocking her in the mud and muck, and then thoughtlessly laughing at her misfortune. Her deepset eyes blaze, and she scowls at him. “A curse upon you,” she mutters. “From now on, your followers and supporters will be unable to accuse their critics of any fault or fallacy without being guilty of the same thing themselves.” He, like all B-grade movie heroes, doesn’t take her seriously until her curse starts coming true. Only then does he realize, to his horror, that the curse is inexorable, inescapable, and infallible.

Yeah, cheap entertainment, but if you enjoy that sort of thing, come on over, we’ve got lots.

In the woo zone

Everybody get out your patented Gullibility Boots, you’ll want them buckled up to about mid-thigh for this one:

“Every cell in my body tingled with pure joy,” that is a common statement made by anyone who just entered “The Zone” state of consciousness. The euphoria reflects the fact that anti-aging and stress hormones are surging through our body, a signature of “The Zone” experience. Faith-based athletes are more likely to experience this elevated state of consciousness, simply because they have streamlined their thoughts and emotions to be focused on the highest vibration frequencies.

Mmm, faith-based higher vibration frequencies, oozing into your bloodstream and cleansing away all those icky, stinky toxins. But wait, I left off the last sentence of that paragraph.

We see this focus, each time they do the “Heart Pump” and point to the Heaven’s, a gesture birthed from my book.

OMG, this article is written by the guy who invented fist pumps? Wow! Like, I mean, wow, man.

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Question of the week: Will Jesus protect me?

It’s fascinating sometimes to dip into the real conversations that people are having, just to see what kind of world they live in. Ok, there’s an element of tabloidish voyeurism here, I admit it, but I can’t help taking a peek now and then. Here’s my pick for Question of the Week, from Yahoo! Answers.

Will Jesus protect me from the demons that desire me to sin?

The correct answer to that question should be pretty obvious, if boring. But how do Christians deal with Jesus’ consistent and universal failure to provide believers with protection from temptation?

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An informal competition

In honor of the new year, I’m going to try something different. We’ve seen a few billboards over the years whose goal is to promote atheism in some way. Some have been good, some have been meh, and a few have been counterproductive (in many people’s eyes, at least). We need more good ones.

So here’s my idea. Let’s have an informal contest to design a good billboard promoting atheism and/or skepticism. To enter, grab your favorite graphics program, put together a mockup whose proportions match a standard billboard size (but reduced to monitor-friendly pixel dimensions of course), and then put it up on Flickr or deviant art or some other online picture service and send me the link. Then at the end of January, 2013, I’ll nominate the 5 submissions I like best and put it up for a vote. It’s just for fun, and unfortunately I can’t promise any cash prize or anything, but maybe if we get some good designs, some individual or organization might pick one and make a real billboard out of it.

Official rules below the fold. [Addendum: in rule 3, clarified that entrants are responsible for securing their own licensing, permissions and releases for any materials and/or persons appearing in their entries.]

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