Sunday, February 25, 2007

Loving God With All Your Heart

When Charles Schwab was 70 years old, he made the following statement. These words were spoken for the record in a court of law after he’d just won a nuisance suit. He said, “I’d like to say here in a court of law, and speaking as an old man, that 9/10ths of my troubles are traceable to my being kind to others.

Look you young people, if you want to steer away from trouble, be hard-boiled. Be quick w/a good loud “no” to anyone and everyone. If you follow this rule, you will seldom be bothered as you tread life’s pathway. Except you’ll have no friends, you’ll be lonely, and you won’t have any fun!”

We have been talking about love over the last three weeks and while we have discussed several aspects of love relationships we have yet to fully devote time to the way we are to love God.

At the height of his ministry and popularity Jesus found his greatest opposition to be from the religious leaders of the day. In fact many of them hated Jesus because he didn’t do things according to their traditions and the popularity of Jesus’ love based ministry threatened to bring imminent change.

Hoping to trap Jesus and turn the crowd against him the religious leaders asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. In typical Christ like fashion he didn’t reply the way they expected but he did give the correct answer. It is this answer that teaches us how we are to love God.

Matthew 22:37
37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'

Loving God with all of your heart, soul and mind literally means loving Him with all that you are. I want to put the focus of this lesson on loving God with all your heart because your heart is the source of all your emotions.

What does it mean to love God with all your heart?

It means to love God will all of your character. Each of us at some point has been in a relationship where we didn’t show our “true colors” to the other person involved. We didn’t allow that person to see our real character. We can’t be that way with God because he created us and already knows our true nature/character. There is no fooling God and no holding anything back because he already sees and knows all. So why not love Him with all of your emotion.

Love God through your joy.

It’s easy to love God when things are going great. Even the most ungodly will stand before thousands and thank God when the win an award but loving God through your joy is more than just acknowledgment it’s a way of life! Look at what Jesus said.

John 15:10-12
10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Joy has nothing to do with material things, or with a man’s outward circumstance...A man living in the lap of luxury can be wretched, and a man in the depths of poverty can overflow with joy. - William Barclay (1907 - 1978)

There’s a huge difference between joy and excitement. Often we confuse them thinking that because we heard a good sermon, sang our favorite song, read a passage, got a promotion or experienced something else that brings about a sense of excitement that we have joy but joy is lived not experienced.

Joy stems from love and is completed in the person of Jesus Christ. Loving God with all your heart means seeking to not only live in joy but to share your joy and its source every day.

Love God through your sorrow.
Here we have the exact opposite issue than we do with joy. Sorrow is a part of life but for some reason when we experience it we want to get mad at God, the church and Christianity as a whole. Everyone experiences pain and sorrow but not everyone has learned to love God through them.

Look at Job’s complaint about the condition of his life and then his response towards his own complaint.

Job 19:7-21, 25
7 "Though I cry, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.
8 He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; he has shrouded my paths in darkness.
9 He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
10 He tears me down on every side till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree.
11 His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies.
12 His troops advance in force; they build a siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.
13 "He has alienated my brothers from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
14 My kinsmen have gone away; my friends have forgotten me.
15 My guests and my maidservants count me a stranger; they look upon me as an alien.
16 I summon my servant, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth.
17 My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own brothers.
18 Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me.
19 All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me.
20 I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.
21 "Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.

25 I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

Job got it that there was something bigger than his sorrow. To him it was never a question of control. He didn’t look to make excuses or cast blame even though there was a group of people around him begging him to do so. Instead he stated his situation for the world to hear and then proclaimed his trust in God, his redeemer, being in control.

Loving God through your sorrow means using your experiences to show others your true self and genuine faith in God because it will allow others to do the same.

Dr.Claude H. Barlow was a missionary to China and one of the most revered foreigners to work in that land. When a strange disease for which he knew no remedy was killing people Dr. Barlow sought for a way to fight it. There were no research laboratories for this disease, so Dr.Barlow conducted his own research. He studied the disease, filling a notebook with his observations. He then procured a vial of disease germs and sailed for the United States. Before he arrived, he took the germs into his own body, and then went to the John Hopkins University Hospital to be observed. Claude Barlow was very sick now. He allowed his old professors at John Hopkins to use him for experimentation. A cure was found, which a healthy Claude Barlow took back to China with him.

His efforts saved countless lives.

We would never be able to minister to others during their time of sorrow if we never experienced sorrow ourselves.

Love God with full surrender.
Here’s the problem that keeps people from living a Godly lifestyle. It’s the same problem that prevents us from experiencing true worship. I’m talking about a heart that hasn’t been surrendered to God.

There are people who will not come to faith in Christ simply because they don’t want to surrender their hearts. If they did it would mean a change in lifestyle, a change in their thinking process and a change in the way they view God.

A fully surrendered heart will say yes to God when it really doesn’t want to. We see that in the life of Jesus as he was agonizing in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was so torn between his own will and the will of God that it caused him to sweat drops of blood.

Matthew 26:38-39
38Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."
39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
That’s surrender! “God, I don’t want to give up my life of immorality but not as I will, but as you will.”
If we could just learn to utter those prayers over all the areas of our lives we would see not only our lives but those around us drastically changed.

Love God by modeling Christ.
As in most everything else in life Jesus modeled for us what it looks like to love God with all your heart. All we have do then is model Christ in the way he loved God without holding back.

Monday, February 19, 2007

God is Good – All the Time!

Well, since making the statement two weeks ago that Mayfair had finally navigated beyond the beyond the 100 barrier we haven’t seen the century mark. Last week we had 90 in our worship attendance and yesterday was 93.

I have to admit that is a little discouraging but there are plenty of other areas in our church where we can see God working. Last week we finished up the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering to raise money for international missions. Our goal was to raise $1,500.00 for missions and we went beyond that to $1,600.00. We have a mission team of eleven people who are leaving in just over three weeks to go to Panama for a mission trip. Mayfair has been thoroughly behind this trip by supporting our team members financially and through prayer. Wednesday night is our mission’s banquet and we have basically sold out of our tickets to attend. There is an overwhelming sense that the Spirit is moving in our church as we are reaching people and changing lives. We are constantly seeking God for new avenues and opportunities to reach people and He has been faithful to provide.

Tonight I am meeting with a retired missionary and some minorities who are members of our church about starting a non-English bible study. Our goal this year is to reach out to an ethnic group and it appears that God may be opening that door for us. Please join with us in making this a matter prayer as we are excited to see what God has in store.

The most exciting thing that God is doing in the church right now, to me, is bringing us new members. Over the last two weeks we have had four new members join the church.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Loving No Matter What

C.S. Lewis penned these powerful words about love. "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."...

Its amazing how often the word love is misused. We often use it in place of infatuation, a strong liking or even a desire to get to know better. Truth be told that we often have no idea what we are talking about when we tell another person that we love them. Love in its truest form is sacrificial. It gives way more than it receives even to the point of hurt.

We are designed to love and really can’t function properly without it. We are genuinely miserable without experiencing true love but on the same hand we are often brought to our highest points of frustration by the ones we love. However complete love allows us to move beyond the frustration hurt and pain that are commonly experienced in relationships to continue in the joy that God intended for that relationship bring into our lives.

The question is how, how do we continue loving no matter what? The answer is actually easier than you might think. There are two keys to growing your love relationship through difficult times. First, understanding what true love is and secondly, understanding how to truly forgive when you have been hurt.

In general we live in two types of love relationships, Eros and Philia. Its pretty easy to identify which type of love matches each of our relationships but it isn’t always easy to understand the full measure of that love.

For example, Eros is the type of love that describes our romantic/marriage relationships. We know it best as an attractive or sensual type of love but if that is our only understanding of it then we are missing out because there is so much more to it.

Eros can easily be defined as a selfish love based on the way the world understands it but in reality it is a giving love. It was Eros that not only initially attracted you to your spouse but it was also the motivating factor in your desire to be united in marriage. Think about that for just a second. Because of this kind of love you not only desired your spouse (selfish) but you also desired to give yourself to him/her in marriage. The concept of giving out of our romantic love is reinforced through the bible.

1 Corinthians 7:4: The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.

Ephesians 5:22: Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

Ephesians 5:25: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

When your romantic/attractive love fails to be sacrificial or giving then it will also fail to survive through the most difficult times of your marriage relationship.

However romantic relationships aren’t the only ones that have the potential to bring both joy and hurt in our lives. Many of us have been hurt by our closest friends and then find years later that we were hurt worse by the severing of that relationship than we were by the actual hurtful act.

Philia is the word used to describe brotherly love which is the type of love that we enjoy with our closest of friends. It is the type of love Paul uses when he referred to the church in the book of Philippians.

Philippians 4:1
1Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!

There is nothing romantic or sexual stated in that text. It is just a man longing to be with his friends whom he genuinely loved as though they were his own flesh and blood.

This is also the type of love that Jesus enjoyed with Peter, James and John. Remember that John is often referred as the disciple that Jesus loved. It was these three men who not only shared in all the great moments with Jesus during his three year public ministry but also were with him during the lowest point of his life at the Garden of Gethsemane.

Keep in mind that Jesus was fully human and experienced all the emotions that came with his humanity. He enjoyed the company of his friends and understood what it took to make a friendship relationship work. Understanding that, Jesus gave us the ultimate example of what it is to be a friend.

John 15
12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Once again we find that giving and sacrifice are crucial elements to not only enjoying but also continuing a relationship that is based on brotherly love.

Now the key to loving not matter what is not just understanding Eros or Philia love but also understanding and living Agape love.

Agape love is the way that God loves us. It is unconditional love that allows us to say, “I may not like you at times but I will always love you!” That is exactly the way that God views you and me. He doesn’t like the sin in our lives but He does love us. God’s love is not based upon who we are or what we do but solely on who He is. We are God’s creation and as I said last week there is absolutely nothing we can do to cause Him to stop loving us. That is Agape love!

Understanding Agape love and living it will allow you to repair the hurt done and continue on in that relationship.

I can hear you right now, “But you don’t understand what they said or did to me.” You are right I don’t and while I acknowledge that hurt will many times sever a relationship, forgiveness always provides a way to bring it back together. Remember if your love is unconditional then it isn’t based on the other person it is based on you.

If our relationship with God was based on us then we would be in a lot of trouble because we allow sin to come between us and God on a daily basis. Some of you have been hurt more than once by your friends or your spouses and even though you desire to see that relationship continue you are at a loss as how to make it happen.

Look again at God’s example. Jesus didn’t die for the righteous he died for the wicked so that they may become righteous. He died for you and I in the midst of our rebellion against Him.

Romans 5:8: But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Look at that, while we were still sinners! We have this misconception that God only loves those who love Him but the truth is that not only does he love everyone He loves everyone in spite of their sin.

Knowing that sin would sever the lines of communication and damage the relationship God made a way for us to receive forgiveness and be restored to the full benefits of that relationship. Follow what I am saying here.

1) We are the ones who have the sin problem.
2) God loves us in the midst of that sin.
3) Our sin is direct rebellion against God
4) God is the one who paid atonement for our sin.

The power of God’s forgiveness is humbling. He offers us what we don’t deserve over and over again in spite of the fact that we are the ones hurting him.

Whether it is your spouse, child or friend they are going to hurt you at some point. The key to repairing that hurt and mending that relationship is not what they offer in retribution but what you offer in forgiveness.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Church Update

I had the opportunity to go to the national pastor’s conference last week in Jacksonville, Florida. It was an amazing time of ministry and worship and I came home eager to continue the work here at Mayfair. While I do love my job it does get taxing at times when you are working with people who have, “never done it that way before.”

Not that our church has a negative attitude, they really don’t, they are just learning to do new things and serving at my first church as pastor I am learning along with them. We have made some great strides and have experienced significant growth as a result. Frankly the people of the church deserve more credit for allowing God to use and stretch them than I do as the pastor.

Mayfair has finally reached the point where we are almost always over 100 in attendance during our worship services. We actually had a low Sunday this week, due to illness and some families traveling, but still had over 90 in attendance. We’ve come a long way since our low Sundays were in the 30’s.

I started a sermon series on love that I am really excited about. It’s only a three week series but I believe it has the potential to not only be life changing but also change the dynamic of our church. I preached the first message titled “Love the Way God Intended” Sunday and we had three people come forward and join the church. I’m sure it was God working in their lives more than it was the words coming out of my mouth.

Right Now on the Message Boards
Christians being persecuted in Mexico

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Love the Way God Intended

Okay, honestly, raise your hand if you have ever said of thought any of those things you saw in the video towards your husband of wife. There have been times in my life when I have wondered why or better yet how my wife loves me as much as she does. I have rolled out of bed before, look into the mirror and said, “What was she thinking?”

I’m glad that I am confident in the fact that my wife loves me but where does that confidence come from? Part of it comes from when I look in the mirror. She is too smart to put up with a guy like me for all theses years if she didn’t really love me but the main thing that gives me confidence is my understanding of love. Not the love that we find that video, or on television and in books and magazines but love the way God intended it to be.

My goal through this lesson is to illustrate through some personal examples from my life God’s design and intention for love. Not that I have a better life than you do or that I am somehow on a pedestal above you, because I don’t think that way and if you know me then you know for certain that I’m not. However, I have to use illustrations from my life because you didn’t give me permission to use illustrations from yours.

Look for a moment at how the bible describes love in 1 Corinthians 13.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Look at the adjectives in this passage. Can you honestly say that these descriptive words are found in your love relationships? If you can’t then you do not love the way God intended.
We have to understand that love is a process. All of these characteristics don’t just pop into the picture the moment you first fall in love. Rather they are developed over a time through the process of learning how to love.

The mistake that we often make is to assume that because love is a natural emotion then all the characteristics of love will come naturally with it as well. That is simply not true! Marilyn and I will celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary this coming May, Lord willing!, and I can honestly say that I am so much more in love with her now than I was almost 14 years ago when we stood at the alter and shared our vows.

Why is that? It is because over the last 13 plus years I have been learning how to love her. That’s the beauty of love the way God intended for it to be. Through the process of instilling all of these qualities into your relationship you actually see your love for another person grow.
With Oklahoma among the top five states in the nation with the highest divorce rates there aren’t as many people who will give you the testimony of their marriage that you just heard from me. There is no shortage in theories when it comes to identifying the reasons for a rising divorce rate but the problem is actually pretty simple. People just simply don’t want to adjust.
The process of love requires adjustment.

I told you earlier that Marilyn and I are close to celebrating 14 years of marriage but honestly some of you have been married for so long that you would still describe us as being in the honeymoon stage. Think about this for just a moment. How many things do you know now about your spouse that you didn’t know about them before you married them? What kind of adjustments did you have to make in order to continue loving them? What kind of adjustments did they have to make in order to continue loving you?

That’s the process that I am talking about. For you to enjoy love it has to grow and for it to do that you have to be willing to invest time and effort into the process making the required adjustments.

Failing to adjust to the process had implications on all three types of love relationships.
Eros – Romantic relationship
Philia – Friendship relationships
Agape – Godly relationship (also the way you should love your children)

Let me tell you two quick stories. Several years back the church that I was working at hired a new secretary. She was exceptional and very efficient in her work and above all else was a huge OU basketball fan. She had a grandson around my oldest son’s age and we would tell stories about the boys as well as talk sports just about every day.

One fall she asked Marilyn and I if we would like to tickets to the OU/Texas football game. Absolutely we did! It was the perfect opportunity to get away from the kids for a weekend and enjoy some alone time as well as watch our favorite football team. Going to the Cotton Bowl to watch the Red River Rivalry is the Mecca to both Oklahoma and Texas football fans and we finally had an opportunity to make the trip ourselves.

On the day of the game parking was chaos. We finally made our way to a small lot where we paid an outrageous amount of money to park our little car. After passing through the gate into the lot we were guided to a tiny spot to park. It was so crowded in that lot that after we pulled in the parking spot there wasn’t enough room for Marilyn to get out of the car. I tried to pull the car over to a lager spot so we could have enough room to actually get out and the lot attendant came sprinting over to emphatically tell me why we couldn’t do that. It was at that point when I saw my beautiful wife do something I had never seen before. She actually got out of the car and stood nose to nose with this man matching his tone of voice and body language demanding that she either get a parking spot that would allow her to get out of the car or her money back.

I was absolutely speechless. Try your best to get the mental picture of my little wife matching a rather large man in a battle of wills. I had never seen this behavior before and had no indication to ever expect to. After just a few minutes we were invited to enjoy a parking spot at the very front of the lot that left more than enough room for us to exit the vehicle to which Marilyn said, “Now, that’s more like it.”

Here’s the thing about Marilyn. She doesn’t settle for second best. It doesn’t matter if it’s a parking spot, our kid’s grades, the condition of our house or whatever. She wants the absolute best for herself and her family. Sometimes that attitude can be frustrating to me, especially when it comes to house cleaning, but it was something I needed to adjust to and here’s what I realized.

There are day when I don’t feel very confident in who I am as a person, a father or a husband. Hey, I’m just human and I am the first to admit that I am very imperfect. Its that truth in life that often causes us to feel less than we really are. Check this out, my wife doesn’t settle for second best and she chose to marry me! It is not in her nature to settle for second rate and I am the guy she fell in love with. What does that say about me? It says that I am not second rate, I am not second best. When I am having a bad day at work and feel like a miserable failure, my wife doesn’t settle for second best. When I have messed up at home and guilt makes me feel like a bad father or husband, my wife doesn’t settle for second best! Do you see the adjustment there? That is the process of love.

Here’s another angle from this story. When we returned home from the weekend I shared the parking story with our friend who gave us the tickets. She laughed and thought it was funny but guess what happened the next year? Not only did she come through with tickets again but this time she got us a parking pass that allowed us VIP parking right next to the team busses.
Now over the course of our friendship we have given her a few gifts as well on holidays and birthdays but I can honestly say that I have never given her anything like this opportunity and yet she continued to get us the tickets year after year for as long as she could. Here’s why? God’s intention for love isn’t self-focused.

How many times have you based a gift on what you received from that person? How many times have you helped out a friend only to the extent that they have helped you? Are your friendships based on you or are you truly reflecting God’s intention for love.

There is another aspect to love the way God intended and that is the Agape or unconditional love. His love for us is not based upon our actions, good or bad. His love is based solely on His love. There is absolutely nothing that you can do to make God love you any less. In fact the bible teaches that if we could then we could never again gain that measure of love back.

4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Hebrews 6:4-6

Jesus was crucified once for the forgiveness of man’s sin. It was God’s love for you that allowed Jesus to go to the cross. Many people will try to use this passage to make the point that you can actually lose your salvation but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. In fact, the warning is that if you could fall away you will never be able to come back. Why? In order for God to withdraw His salvation from you not only would that mean that the cross wasn’t enough it would also mean that He would have to actually go back on His word and quit loving you.

Do we deserve the cross and God’s offer for salvation? No! Do we get it anyway? Yes! Because God’s love for you and I isn’t based on condition.

When I was a kid there were many things my dad asked me to do or not to do. I wish I could say that I always did what I was asked but I was a child and as children do I often disobeyed. My disobedience earned me what I deserved which was punishment by my father.

I remember one particular incident when my brother had deliberately disobeyed our parents and were caught red-handed by dad. Knowing what was to come we were sent to our rooms to await our punishment. In our minds this punishment deserved spanking and when dad arrived to our room we “assumed the position.” However instead of swatting us (what we deserved) dad actually gave us some toys and candy he had bought earlier in the day for us.

It was the perfect time to explain God’s grace which is simply defined as unmerited favor or getting from God what we really don’t deserve. Dad could have easily spanked us and been justified by it but instead he chose to take the opportunity to show us favor and instill in us the confidence that even in our disobedience he still loves us.

There is a lot of talk and debate today about what is and is not sin but the simple truth is that sin is anything that is outside the will of God for your life. It is an act of rebellion against God and the bible teaches that we deserve eternal separation from Him (death) for those willful acts of rebellion. Instead of justifiably giving us what we deserve God instead offers us the gift of salvation in what is His greatest example of love the way He intended it to be.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Evidence that God Doesn’t Exist?

I initially intended for this to be a quick post to go on the forum but wound up ranting a little longer than normal. Feel free to leave a comment below or discuss it further here.

New Book Examines Existence of Divine Creator Using Scientific
Method

Amherst, NY – Books on God and science, religion, and nonbelief have enjoyed unprecedented popularity in recent months—a trend Time magazine called an “atheist literary wave”—demonstrating the interest of American readers in intelligent debate on these topics. The God Delusion by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is number nine on the New York Times Best Seller List dated February 4, 2007; Sam Harris’s atheistic response to critics, Letter to a Christian Nation, sits at twenty-six. In interviews, both men have directed readers to an additional work that continues the “new atheism” trend: God: The Failed Hypothesis (Prometheus Books, January 30, 2007.)In God: The Failed Hypothesis, physicist Victor Stenger argues that science has advanced sufficiently to make a definitive statement on the existence or nonexistence of the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. He invites readers to put their minds—and the scientific method—to work to test this claim. After evaluating all the scientific evidence—the studies done by reputable institutions on the power of prayer; the writings of philosophers who have puzzled over the problem of God and of good and evil; the efforts of biblical scholars to prove the accuracy of holy scriptures; and the work of biologists, geologists, and astronomers looking for clues to a creator on Earth and in the cosmos—Stenger concludes that beyond a reasonable doubt the universe and life appear exactly as we might expect if there were no God. He convincingly shows that not only is there no evidence for the existence of God, but scientific observations actually point to his nonexistence.

I guess people will truly believe whatever they want to and honestly anyone can bend facts or create evidence to support to match their beliefs. I don’t plan on purchasing or even taking a second look at this book because it really is a “seen one seen them all” format with these types of books.

These “intellectuals” chose to ignore the evidence of an organized created universe and grasp on to theories in an attempt to refute the existence of God. Science has yet to fully explain, and provide evidence, for a universe that is self caused. It cannot explain eternity or the complexity and order of created things (DNA etc…).

They would rather explain the anthropic principle (the universe is so finely tuned as to allow life to exist on earth) as a freak accident and ignore the fact that is just makes more sense that there was a creator.

Where do morals, ethics and values come from? How do we know something is good? There has to be a standard. No one will deny the existence of evil but yet how do we know of evil. In order to have evil then you must have a standard of good (Holiness) to compare it with. However, if God does not exist then there is no standard of Holiness and therefore there is no opposite, evil.

These guys say that faith is foolish and people are blindly led astray by it but they base their existence on an unproven impossible scientific theory and stubbornly hold the position that it will someday be proven true despite mountains of evidence that point to the contrary. It really makes you wonder who is blindly being led astray.

Right now on the Message Boards:
Evidence that God Doesn’t Exist?

Arrest for Street Preaching Leads to Lawsuit