"Christian and dull are not synonyms."

Photo note: The above background is digitally altered.  I cropped it from photo number 645-15 (shown at right) taken of a very large Garden of Eden painting mounted on the wall in Mud Street Cafe in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  After cropping it, I decided to use my Corel Photo Paint program to cover over the piece of the chair remaining in the image, as well as the seam line where the two panels of the artwork join together.

"A Christian is someone who believes in Christ, and believes that belief will transform their life into the life God intended them to live. They do not have to live up to anybody else’s criteria."

In my first 38 years, my few encounters with Christian churches and their hierarchies left me unimpressed with organized religion. Now, as a baptized, church attending, Christian, I find myself more concerned and critical of the church than ever. 

I think sometimes the Christian Church is a magnet for judgmental people, providing a venue of perceived righteousness with which to ply their trade. Which is not to judge the judgmental. Let us simply be honest about that too. 

"It has been said that in the Christian Church we shoot our wounded, but that is not totally accurate. First we bury them alive under layers of facades. Then, if they happen to emerge into the light of what is real, that is when we shoot them."

"One of the problems with American Christianity is we evangelize as if we were trying to make a sale to receive some sort of production bonus — whether or not we made any real difference in the other person’s life."

"Unfortunately it has been my experience that the vast majority of ‘Christians’ are particularly focused on examining and judging other peoples lives, but rather lax at critical examination of their own. That needs to change if we truly want to have non-Christians, and other Christians, see Christ through us."

As critical as I can be regarding the church, I am not any more impressed with the philosophies, statements, or arguments, of those who claim to be atheists.  It seems to me there is just as big a facade being displayed in atheism, as in any religious organization.  

"To be a true atheist, a person would pretty much need to be brain dead — the evidence of God is so much 'in your face' everywhere around us. Most atheists I have met reject the idea of somebody else’s specific version of God. Often it is the invisible, very big, male God, who floats around the sky watching us. Who, if you could see him, would be all dressed in white, with white skin, white hair, and a long white beard. In spiritual terms this is pretty much the pre-school version, or image, of God. That is a part of what I hear most atheists saying does not exist. Well, on that much, we can both agree." 

"I am not sure there are any real atheists. Most the people I see who are claiming to be atheists are either simply angry with God, and their way of hitting back is to say He does not exist, or they quite frankly do not want to deal with how professing to believe in God might alter their lives."

I am always amazed to hear people, including ministers, refer to eternal life and this life as if they were mutually exclusive.  Yet, if you think about what the word eternity means . . . 

"Repent and ‘be dull’ are not synonyms."