The following is a note to myself:

BECAUSE IT'S CATHARTIC!

  posted by Scott @ 12:07 AM

 
Sometimes, when I'm sitting around, I'll start to hurt. Sometimes specific places, sometimes not, but never for any really apparent reason. My body is broke.

  posted by Scott @ 2:09 PM

 
On a left turn, use the appropriate lane.

  posted by Scott @ 11:54 AM

 
"I know you weren't trying to be anything. I was joking."
Ok, it's hard to express sarcasm online. I'm really sarcastic too. Well, only on Fridays.

I had my first day of work today. woohoo. Actually, it wasn't that bad. All they did was kinda show me around the place, introduce me to everybody, etc.

I take my driver's test tomorrow! wish me luck!

  posted by Josiah @ 11:45 AM

 
They should just crown me now and get it over with.

I wish I had a car, now especially, since due to unfortunate circumstances (ie- sucky car), so our entire family has to coordinate its efforts to get anywhere. Pure suck. But at least I don't have to walk, I guess.

College should be good for a slacker like me. I just hope I'm not a slacker when I get there.

  posted by Scott @ 10:47 PM

 
Right on. That, my friends, is Christianity in its purest form. Forget all the crap we were talking about earlier. That's just theology. If you want to know the basics of what Christians believe, Scott just said it, more or less.

  posted by Josiah @ 4:19 PM

 
This space will be filled with my own impersonal rantings, in essay form!

Okay, here's some fun to read, blah blah, and sorry for it's length, but I'm just a first-time offender. And yes, I'm biased, but feel free to point out any discrepencies or errors of mine.

PRESENTING!

Scott King’s, a LINE of LOGIC!

Okay. The beginning of the universe. The start of it all. Everyone knows that it happened, but how? Was there a creator standing back behind it all, or was it all a chance explosion of matter? The universe as it is today is a VERY complex thing. The odds of such harmony and other cosmological matters just happening are astronomical. To believe in such a beginning takes the same or more faith to believe that one would survive a leap from the Sears Tower onto the pavement below. So that leaves the choice of a creator.

Since matter cannot be created from nothing, where did this creator come from? Simply, this creator would have to be eternal, since nothing finite could self-exist. This creator is self-existent. It relies on nothing; nobody. It’s hard to be self-existent, though. To be such, one could not rely on food, help, or anything. Anything at all. So in order to be sustained, that creator would have to be perfect; lacking nothing. (As a side note, something that exists is more perfect that something that doesn’t, so a perfect being must exist.)

If this creator is perfect, then it cannot have imperfection in it’s presence. That presence is usually referred to as heaven. So how can an imperfect mankind ever enter heaven? They must be made perfect. Many religions are established in order to better oneself spiritually, in hopes of getting to heaven. A popular idea is that being good enough will get you into heaven. In essence, human religion is focused on making oneself perfect.

Therein lies the problem. How can an imperfect man perfect himself? It’s impossible for that to occur. Imperfection cannot achieve perfection, however, the reverse is possible. Since man cannot make himself perfect, there must be an outside source. A perfect outside source. Since it can be reasoned God is perfect, then he must be the one who can perfect mankind.

So why would he want to do that? It certainly can’t be because of anything mankind has done, since a perfect being cannot be held in debt to anything. To be honest, I don’t know why, but apparently he does, because it wouldn’t even occur to us that there is a heaven, much less that we could get into it, if he didn’t want us to. So we have to be made perfect by God.

This is the part where most of you will disagree. Jesus, who is God, was sent to earth with the sole purpose of making us holy. Since the times of Eden man has been born into sin, so Jesus had to overcome sin. To do so, he was crucified, taking the weight of all of mankind on himself, descending into hell to take our punishment for our sin. He took our sin, so we could be perfect. Does that make everyone perfect ever since then? No. Since Jesus is the only way for people to be perfect, you have to go through him to get to heaven. That’s what “true” Christianity is, walking on God’s path for us to take; heaven’s highway.

Man cannot do it, only God can. And he did.

  posted by Scott @ 11:52 AM

 
"I say the same thing as chucho about you being forced to believe something."

I think that that's one thing that makes Christianity at least somewhat believable. It contains ideas in it that aren't very attractive even to people inside the faith. I believe that there's a Hell because the Bible says it, and I believe the Bible is true. If everything were just hunky-dory about Christianity, that would make it suspiciously sound like something made up by humans as a crutch. But you can't lean on something you hate. And I hate the idea of a Hell, yet I still believe in it. I don't understand how people can pick and choose out of the Bible. People agree that it comes from God and all, but then they say, "oh, I don't like this part." If it comes from God, doesn't it have to be true? If God can lie, then God can sin, and there Christianity, and pretty much all major religions, goes out the window. I think the Bible stands or falls together. If one part is wrong, all of it's wrong.

In response to your quote from the bookm, I totally agree that what Jesus has said has been abused pretty badly throughout the years, The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, recently with the priests, all the televangelists who have turned up crooked. But that's why you have to keep on going back to the Bible in order to look at HIS words. This is what I was talking about earlier. Some things that people believe about Christianity are so far from what the Bible says that it's insane! The Bible should be the basis of Christianity, not some preacher on television. Notice one common theme through all the examples I listed? They all involve people AFTER THE FACT. People are wrong, the Bible is true. And that, while maybe not proven, can be shown at least beyond preponderance of the evidence, if not beyond reasonable doubt. Give me your complaints about Christianity, and I'll show ya how they line up with the BIBLE, not with the majority vote.

Me and Scott are from an Evangelical Free Church. It's a pretty small denomination. It's basically that we try to ignore all the big theological debates and try to stick to things that are the simplest parts of Christianity. Stick to the basics without expanding too much. If you want the statement of beliefs of our church, they're here.

Here's an interesting topic that's becoming pretty popular. Do you guys think that truth is absolute, or that everyone has their own personal little truth?

  posted by Josiah @ 11:46 AM

 
Yankees bad. Twins good. Well, not lately. They won 1 of their past 6 games, but other than that they're doin' good.

In answer to Pat, I'm not sure I understand your question, but I really do believe there's a hell. I don't LIKE it, but it's clear in the Bible that there is, and I trust the truthfulness of the Bible.

Like priest child molesters...I wanna know what God's gonna do about THAT one.
Mebbe He'll castrate em. (jk)

  posted by Josiah @ 6:21 PM

 
Thanks you tall, long-legged, curly-haired freak of nature, well, see if my dad ever fixes YOUR car again! Ha!



  posted by Josiah @ 2:02 PM

 
Jos hates people. You heard it here first!

  posted by Scott @ 1:40 PM

 
In response to your statement about me telling my opinion as fact, one, I believe it is fact, and two, in the statement you were referring to, I clarified at the beginning by saying, "Let's assume for a moment that Christianity is true."

"How can you presume to know what god thinks and does"
Because, to a point, I know what God thinks and does. The Bible is God talking to us, pouring out his thought to us.

"What kind of repetition has your faith had?"
Hey, God speaks to me. What more repetition do I need?

"I will say though, that Josiah has great writing skill, and even though his entries are long, I don’t get incredibly bored reading them"
Why thank you. Some of what I posted was copied though, sorry. (Please don't call the Plagarism Police)

"I don’t think it’s any person’s right to tell another person that they’re wrong."
Aren't you telling me it's wrong to tell other people that they're wrong? Hmm...

"I’m sure that everyone in my church (calvary Episcopal, the little one across from the clinic) doesn’t have the same opinion as me, but we all love god, and that’s what brings us together."
First of all, I agree, but that shouldn't stop people from expressing their opinion and talking over it. One thing I dislike about many Christians is that they just learn and accept everything without question. I've done this my entire life, until recently I've started going back and thinking, "What do I REALLY believe? Is what I've always believed TRUE?" That's why I've loved the conversation so far. Sorry if I sounded like I was preaching at you guys or something, but I've loved this because it gives me a chance to go back and look at basic components of my theology and try to back them up.
Second, is your church that really, really old one over there? I really do like Episcopal churches, they're similar to Catholic churches in that they still preserve all of the tradition and everything from the early church. I love going to Mass with my grandma in Wisconsin because I love to see all the symbolism and stuff that comes into play.

"When you accept Christ you accept him as your PERSONAL savior."
I totally agree with you, yet again. Again, I'm sorry if I came across as a fire and brimstone, come to Christ or go to Hell type of Christian. I was simply trying to answer questions and statements that were posted. Unfortunately (and I really do mean that), Christianity does say that there is a Hell. I don't like it, but I have to believe it because it's clearly expressed in the Bible. In real life, I'm not a big fire and brimstone kind of guy. Ask Scott.

"I think that when god sends people to hell, it’s because he’s looked inside of them and seen that they’re bad people."
I think that's what I was saying earlier, but oh well.

"When you say “better” what do you mean? Because, even if someone has led a “good” life, as in, helping the poor, giving their life to helping others, maybe they were doing it for the wrong reasons. Maybe they were just doing it so they could get into heaven. Maybe they thought that was the only way they could get to heaven, so they thought they were forced to be a “good” person. In that case, I believe that god can see inside of them then too, and if this person is really bad inside (which I’m sure usually isn’t the case) then god would send them to hell, despite their actions on earth."
I agree.

"And what you do on earth includes what building you use for worship. A muslim person can have the same relationship with god as I do, he/she would just use a different name and have a different history lesson than i. What matters most is that you love god and feel that you have a relationship with him."
I agree and (maybe) disagree. Church is not a building, the Church is people. We are the Church, as in Christians. God doesn't care about buildings, He cares about people. About the Muslim guy, I agree sorta. There's a group out there called Jews for Jesus. They're Jewish, but they also believe that Jesus is the Messiah, they just continue to follow Jewish tradition and stuff. I think that's awesome! That's the way it's meant to be. See, the key (and maybe you were saying this, but I kinda wanna stress it) is not what you do or what you believe in terms of theology. That would make salvation something based on what you do or believe, but it's not. It's all about Jesus.

Hehehehehe, Scott said ass.

"you get a freakin 15% of CD's and postcards, but I got a 55 gallon saltwater fishtank for 30% off."
Dangit!

  posted by Josiah @ 12:19 PM