My God Only Punishes People I Don’t Like

From Patheos-

There should be a special place in purgatory for people who use theology to bludgeon their neighbors. And they almost always surface at times when tragedy strikes, ready to pronounce on its significance – for others, of course.

As Kimberly Winston notes, when Superstorm Sandy hit New York in 2012, John McTernan who runs USA Prophecy attributed the storm’s impact to God’s anger over “’the homosexual agenda.’” Franklin Graham blamed Hurricane Katrina on orgies in New Orleans and Buster Willson of the American Family Association argued that Hurricane Isaac was whipped up to stop an annual LGBT festival.

And, of course, it’s not just a particular brand of Christian who peddles this kind of nonsense. Jonah Goldberg notes that hard on the heels of Hurricane Harvey, the social media coordinator for an organization called Compassionate (?) Humans posted a satellite image of Harvey, declaring “Texas has been bitten by Karma, but they still have a huge debt to the bank of Karma…I just can’t bring myself to even consider providing aid to any red state, let them clean up their own mess.”
Read more at

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/whatgodwantsforyourlife/2017/08/god-punishes-people-dont-like/#VO0V8KU8CbE6Tkep.99

God is Love. Full Stop.

From Experimental Theology-

Over the summer I've re-read two of George MacDonald's novels. I haven't read a George MacDonald novel since college when they had such a transformative effect upon me.

I know a lot of George MacDonald fans, but not many of them express my degree of enthusiasm for his novels. Most MacDonald fans love Unspoken Sermons, his fairy stories or his children's stories. There aren't very many people who adore MacDonald's novels. Admittedly, they aren't all that good. But I love them, and they had a huge impact upon me.

Why?

During High School I had reached the conviction that the deepest confession I could make about God is that God is love. Simple enough, but at that time I still lacked the courage to make that confession unconditional. I lacked the courage to confess that "God is love" full stop.

More here-

https://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2017/07/god-is-love-full-stop.html

After Great Pain, Where Is God?

From The New York Times-

These days I find I’m more alert to the grief and sorrow around me than I once was. In part it’s a product of my age, of youth giving way. I’m guessing my situation is not that different from many of yours.

Last month I checked in on a childhood friend whose 13-year-old son committed suicide last year after struggling with a brain injury. He told me, “I’ve stopped crying every day, which is a major transition.” He added, “I spent more than a year trying to get him well and keep him alive, and only in recent days have I finally, mostly, lost that mode of thinking. I don’t have to do anything now because I can’t.” Yet in his dreams, my friend said, his son is still alive and he’s checking on him to make sure he’s O.K.

Another lifelong friend recently died of colon cancer. His wife wrote to me: “I wish I could tell you that we are walking this journey with courage and faith, but that really doesn’t describe our situation at all. The outward courage feels like a ruse to convince ourselves that this immense pain will subside in time, and the weakness of our faith is showing us its shallow limits.”

More here-

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/opinion/sunday/after-great-pain-where-is-god.html?smid=fb-share

Reclusive Deity Hasn’t Written A New Book In 2,000 Years

From Onion-

Leading writers, scholars, and publishers gathered this week at Fordham University for a literary conference and panel discussion on God, the widely praised but reclusive deity who has not published a book since His landmark debut 2,000 years ago.

Hailed by critics as one of the most important authors in recent millennia, the eccentric divinity is said to have long ago retreated from the public eye, eschewing a life of celebrity for one of solitude and quiet. To this day, experts confirmed, His artistic reputation rests exclusively upon His bestselling and highly acclaimed first work, the Bible.

More here-

http://www.theonion.com/articles/reclusive-deity-hasnt-written-a-new-book-in-2000-y,36936/

'Our Great Big American God': a wry history of America's very patriotic Deity

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-

Matthew Paul Turner’s “Our Great Big American God: A Short History of Our Ever-Growing Deity” attempts to tell the story of how Americans’ perceptions of God have changed over the course of American history.

Mr. Turner briefly traces the last 400 years of American history through the perspective of Christianity and its leaders. Many Christians believe that this is a history that has been molded and changed by God, but Mr. Turner attempts to answer a big question: “Has America changed God?”

Read more:

http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/books/2014/08/24/Matthew-Paul-Turner-offers-a-wry-history-of-America-s-very-patriotic-Deity-Our-Great-Big-American-God/stories/201408240020#ixzz3BJ1QfniB

Physicists say they've found evidence of 'God particle'

From The LA Times-

The head of the world's biggest atom smasher says they have discovered a new particle that is consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson known popularly as the “God particle,” which is believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.


To cheers and standing ovations from scientists, the world's biggest atom smasher claimed the discovery of a new subatomic particle Wednesday, calling it "consistent" with the long-sought Higgs boson -- popularly known as the "God particle" -- that helps explain what gives all matter in the universe size and shape.

"We have now found the missing cornerstone of particle physics," Rolf Heuer, director of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), told scientists.

He said the newly discovered subatomic particle is a boson, but he stopped just shy of claiming outright that it is the Higgs boson itself -- an extremely fine distinction.

More here-

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sciw-god-particle-20120704,0,871581.story

Are you there, God? It's him, Eric Weiner. Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11345/1195771-148.stm?cmpid=newspanel0#ixzz1gE8570hg

From The Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh)

I came to Eric Weiner's "Man Seeks God" looking for a fight. But in the end, I didn't find the fight I was looking for; instead, I found an affable, candid, deeply thoughtful, sometimes ironic and funny soul, with whom I shared certain similarities (among them, we've read many of the same authors and we're both prodigious underliners).

What accounts for the proverbial chip on my shoulder? The author bio describes Mr. Weiner as "an agnostic by default." And I, as one of those freaks of modern society who still believes the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God, have a major disagreement with that premise. The Bible says that all humans are theists by default, and instead of seeking God, most are running from Him, filling their lives with distractions from Him, and/or worshiping humanistic distortions of Him.

Mr. Weiner, erstwhile NPR correspondent and author of the 2008 New York Times bestseller "The Geography of Bliss," is a self-described "grump," "gastronomical Jew" and "Confusionist." That means "confused -- deeply and profoundly -- when it comes to question of God and religion."


Read more:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11345/1195771-148.stm?cmpid=newspanel0#ixzz1gE7yZets

Courtesy of Twitter, God speaks

From the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" Department- (CNN)

Apparently even God is getting in on the Twitter business.

A new website launched this week called almightytweets.com culls tweets in which God’s advice is shared. Take, for instance, this one from this afternoon: “Yesterday Eli said ‘God told me we had to go to dippin dots.’ So we did.”

Some others that have posted in the last 24 hours include:

My mom said God told her I was gettn married soon. I hope he didn’t mean this weekend in Vegas…lol

I WANNA SPAZZ OUT SO BADD BUT GOD TOLD ME CHILL OUT RELAX BRUDDHA KUZ U NO FOOL JUST DO U

God told me that I’d become self-righteous!

Hot on the site are references to a news story earlier this week in which a man in Lousiana was found walking the streets naked. When asked why, he reportedly said God told him to do it to save his soul.

It’s stories like these that inspire Marc Hartzman, a creative director in a New York ad agency who’s behind almightytweets.com. He wrote the recently published, “God Made Me Do It: True Stories of the Worst Advice the Lord Has Ever Given His Followers.”

“The stories range from the totally absurd to the horrific,” he said by phone.

More here-

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/26/courtesy-of-twitter-god-speaks/?hpt=Mid

Brain unable to understand existence of God: expert

From Canada-

One of the world’s foremost neuroscientists is about to tell some of the world’s foremost theologians the bad news: God may exist, but the human brain is simply not capable of knowing that for sure.

Georg Northoff, research director of Mind, Brain Imaging, and Neuroethics at the University of Ottawa’s Institute of Mental Health Research, will speak March 23 to several hundred theologians at the University of Marburg, in Germany. The 500-year-old school has produced such towering intellects as theologian Paul Tillich and philosopher Martin Heidegger.

Northoff, internationally recognized for his research into brain function, will be the only scientist to speak to the group.

“We will never be able to answer the existence of God,” he said this week from his office at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. “There is a limit because of the way the brain functions. (That) limit . . . is the price we to pay for consciousness.

“We can research the neuro-mechanism into belief, but we cannot say anything about God. That’s where we have to go to philosophy.”

To any theologian, or simple man of faith, the fact that science doesn’t have all the answers seems laughably self-evident.

More here-

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Brain+unable+understand+existence+expert/2682486/story.html