The First Baseball Game... Image by Bill Gracey via Flickr    Bob and Tom Show classic skit written and performed by Dan St. Paul . Whether you're a fan of Bob and Tom or not, if you know your Bible, you'll have fun with this bit.

By Jeff -- T his week a Christian friend of mine asked me to explain what I believe about death and the afterlife . I was a Christian minister for 40 years and now am essentially an atheist. I put together something informal and sent it to him. I thought I'd post it here, just to get your reaction. Image by Unitopia via Flickr Death is the inescapable consequence of birth, the singular destination of all living organisms. Therefore, we who are conscious organisms and able to reason are advised to come to terms with the ineludible eventuality of our own personal deaths. Life has built into it a tenacity, a drive to keep on living. Those of us who are conscious see as a primary objective the maintenance of biological continuity (i.e. life.) We are physically constructed and genetically programmed to avoid pain and danger, to protect our life organism at almost all costs. Survival is our constant focus, consciously and subconsciously. A very large proportion of our time, energy...

Vendors who helped produce popular Christmas and Easter pageants at the Crystal Cathedral megachurch in Garden Grove said Thursday that they are owed tens of thousands of dollars for their work. Image via Wikipedia The towering glass church, founded by Robert H. Schuller in the 1950s and home to an international ministry and the popular " Hour of Power " televangelist broadcast, has long been a symbol of success. But the church has struggled financially in the last two years, laying off workers and seeing revenues drop 27%. Now the financial pain has spread to vendors involved with the "Glory of Easter"  and " Glory of Christmas " pageants, elaborate productions that attract thousands of spectators. "They simply quit paying us," said Sharon Crabtree of Murrieta. "We're all astounded by this." For 25 years, Crabtree said, she has designed props, decorated sets and provided wigs and special makeup for the prod...

By Jacob (The words god and jesus are intentionally not capitalized) T his is my rant of empathy for those who never had the chance to choose. This is for those who were told about a burning place of eternal torment as soon as they were able to carry out a competent conversation as a child. Most of all, this a message of hope, a message that says-You are not alone. Image by [u:ur] [gylεr] via Flickr I was born a preacher's son. From an early age I was told to sacrifice my most important things to god, so that he could bless me abundantly. Being a naive and humble child, like most, I did as I was told and threw my most treasured toy away in a form of sacrifice at the ripe age of six years old. This god my parents told me of seemed awfully greedy, I thought. A few days later I went on a rescue mission and retrieved my toy. I was incredibly disappointed that that god had royally screwed me over with no results -- not blessed me like my parents had promised. I remember sitting...

By WizenedSage -- I am fascinated by the great big deal many people make of the stunt this character Jesus Christ supposedly pulled off. As the story goes, these Romans killed him and his friends put his body in a cave. A couple days later, some people go back to the cave and find the body missing. Then a few people wrote that this guy Jesus showed up again and walked around talking to other people for days and days before he disappeared again. Image by quantum bunny via Flickr Cool, but I know of much, much more impressive tricks. Just for starters, hundreds of people saw Elvis buried and hundreds more have seen him alive and walking around since then. And, I’m told some of them have even talked with Elvis, long after his “death.” Now that’s impressive. It is true, there is no film or video of these encounters; but then, there’s no film of Jesus either. But there is film of Elvis before he died, so at least we know for sure that he existed. But, really, how are the Elvis sighti...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) – Former Lubbock pastor Dean Richard Tarkington, 57, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of attempted possession of child pornography , according to the office of U.S. Attorney. He had been pastor at Word of Faith Christian Center in the 7300 block of 82nd. Official records say that for several years Tarkington had secretly engaged in sex chat and phone sex with young women and teenage girls on the Internet. He did so at home and using his church office. Official records say Tarkington made contact in November of 2009 with an undercover police officer who was posing as a 15-year-old girl. The two talked using a chat room called "married but looking." According to prosecutors, Tarkington both sent and requested inappropriate pictures via the Internet. He will be sentenced at a later date to a possible maximum statutory sentence of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine (or both), and a lifetime of supervised release. Related: Pastor indicted on ...

By Chris -- I recently realized that I didn’t believe in the Bible. Actually, now that I’ve come to this realization, I wonder if I ever truly believed, but that’s not the point of this essay. The true point of this essay is to pinpoint exactly why I don’t believe, and how I came to that. Also, this essay is more for my own benefit than for anyone else's (although I DO hope that this may help others in their journey). Tonight I told my mother that I don’t think I believe in the Bible and Jesus’ divinity, and when she started in with her typical Christian counter-arguments, I realized that I need to pinpoint and solidify what I believe and why so that I can form rational and coherent responses to these questions rather than stumbling over my words trying to express something so vast and overwhelming. So I will start at the most obvious place: the beginning. That is, what led me to start questioning the Bible? In the past I always considered myself a “rational Christian”....

By Sarah Bertrand -- W hat happens when you die? As a Christian, I always believed that a person goes one of two places when they die. I was convinced that all my sins were forgiven, and I would spend eternity in heaven, with all of my Christian friends and family, and I would watch over the loved ones I left behind. I wasn't concerned with being a GREAT person. Image via Wikipedia I figured I just had to do my best to live a life that was pleasing to God, and ask him to forgive me when I made a boo-boo. It was kind of like grade 11 all over again. I didn't care about getting good grades...I just had to pass. In my mind, grade 11 didn't count, because it was my grade 12 and OAC marks that would make the difference in my University choices. I could worry about that later...right now I just needed 50%. I could ditch class, miss assignments, have a good time, and then make up for it later. I thought I had all the time in the world to worry about being great. I wonder how mu...

A former pastor in Floyd County is arrested and charged with assault in what detectives call one of the worse cases of domestic violence they have seen. Alonzo Bradley 37-year-old Alonzo Bradley is accused of torturing his wife for years. Wednesday afternoon Bradley's case was waived to a grand jury. Police and domestic violence shelter directors say this case is an example of domestic violence increasing in the Big Sandy region. Bradley was arrested wearing a " Be Like Jesus" t-shirt . Police say he used to be the pastor at the Freedom Pentecostal Church on Conley Fork in Floyd County, but detectives say behind closed doors he tortured his wife for a decade. “It's just a horrendous case. It's one of the worst assaults we've seen on a woman in a long time. Sadistic type injuries to this woman of beating with implements and using instruments to actually burn her with and so forth, so it's just a terrible situation,” trooper Mike Goble said. ...

By Alexander Monday -- C hildhood experiences are what form you to be the person you are today. Your brain is actually still forming into adulthood until around age 24. Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr The struggle of my particular childhood was one of constant fear, guilt and shame for things that I've since come to learn are natural human urges and impulses, particularly the urges associate with puberty. In my experience, none of these were ever really talked about as being a part of my natural course of development. They were sort of lumped together and regarded as simply more temptations from Satan, therefore you can presume that the conflict that ensued inside my psyche was nothing short of a gargantuan ordeal. More than the more obvious pubescent things to contend with are the many more nuanced and insidious impactors as well. One such impactor would be what I like to refer to as the "imaginary friend." My imaginary friend was an amalgam of Je...

Religion writer Valerie Tarico is traveling with her husband and two teenage daughters during the first half of 2010. Missives from the Southern Cross are her occasional dispatches from the road. The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read. – Mark Twain Image by Teemu Mäntynen via Flickr T he ability to read was sacred in my family; being a Tarico meant being a reader. I remember sulking when my parents bribed my younger sister, Kathy, with candy to get her through her first easy readers—Where was my candy? I read constantly if picture books were provided, which they were. Mom took us to the library weekly and came home with a box of picture books; thirty years later she would maintain the same ritual with Kathy’s sons, who she was raising. When I was in high school, my father suffered retinal hemorrhaging that left him with only blurry peripheral vision, 20/200 in one eye and 20/500 in the other. He was stoic, but until he got a brightly-l...