Holy?

I was driving today and saw a sign for a church named the "Bible Holiness Church."  Now, this name brings up a lot of questions in my mind but the one that I want to focus on at the present is what makes something holy?  We have all sorts of things in the US that is considered holy.  "Holy Father," "Holy Bible," are just two examples.  I cannot stand this stuff.  You hear all the time the phrase, "His Holiness the Pope."  How good does one have to be to be considered holy?  If you are a Christian, you immediately know, per the "Holy Bible," that all are born tainted or sinful.  That alone should disqualify someone as being "holy."  I would also love to hear someone make the argument that the bible is holy.  One would think that there should be certain requirements for something to be considered holy.  I would think that the main character of the book being jealous, vengeful, and a homicidal maniac would immediately disqualify the person as well as the book as holy.  Ask any Christian about the atrocities in the bible, and they will say that that was the old testament and that Jesus changed all that.  That is when they have to be reminded that Jesus is the old testament god because he says so many times as well as him saying that he did not come to change the law.  To me, I don't see how any person or book could ever be considered holy, much less the bible or god.  What do you think?

Labels

I find it very interesting how people label themselves.  Just think about it for a minute.  We label ourselves based on race or ethnicity, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or lack thereof, and economic policy just to name a few.  It is fascinating to me to to observe people and see how they respond to situations depending on their particular label or labels.  I also find it interesting how people label themselves and then do not live up to the label.  Religious people, especially Christians, are a very good example of this.  We recently had the opportunity to do some work for some friends of ours.  It is amazing how money affects how people behave.  These people had been friends of ours for a long time, were very active in the churches that they had been members of, and the gentleman was even a deacon.  Things happened during the course of the job, most of it their choice, that caused the job to go over budget.  They paid for most of it but there were some things that they refused to pay for and were very ugly about it.  I could not help but think that they exhibited a good example of true Christianity.  

Back to labeling, it is interesting to observe people and try and guess how they would label themselves in regard to political philosophy and especially religion.  I would also like to mention that it is intriguing how people's labels evolve over time.  I am a good example of this.  I was raised in a very conservative, Christian home.  I was taught traditional values and these are the things that helped to shape me as an adult.  It was when I was away from the immediate influence of those who helped shape my ideologies that I began to question things in more detail.  Then, I hit a brick wall when I fell into a major depression which was brought on by a serious bout of OCD.  This made me really question thing in detail, especially in regards to religion.  When I started examining everything with the blinders off, the facade of Christianity and religion in general fell to the wayside.  This in turn caused me to question other ideologies that I once firmly held and they too began to change.  There are too many for me to go into great detail at this point but needless to say I am a great deal more open-minded now.  

Now that my beliefs and ideologies have evolved I like to view others.  It really saddens me how closed minded many people are.  Labels and the meaning behind them are one of the major problems that we face as a human race.  Until we can put mythology, ie. religion to bed, this poor world will continue to suffer and may not make it.  As long as those who hold our fates in their hands still hold on to bronze age desert myths, we will never be a truly free people.  I look forward to the day when the labels Christian, Muslim, Conservative, Republican, Democrat, Black, White, ect..., are replaced by friend, brother, sister, neighbor, etc....

Interesting I Think

Hi everyone, hope that you are enjoying the blog.  I am in Dallas for a conference this weekend.  I drove up on Thursday with my family and yesterday we went to the Dallas Museum of Art to see the King Tut exhibit.  It was a nice exhibit but I was disappointed because they did not have the death mask that is so famous nor did they have the ornate chest or the throne.  I was particularly dismayed because we purchased VIP tickets through our hotel so we would not have to wait or anything.  Needless to say, we were ushered in with the rest of the folks who bought regular tickets and had to fight the crowds to see the displays.  I was not pleased.  Particularly aggrivating was having to deal with all of the kids there on field trips.  I know that there was at least two going on while we were there.  Interesting enough, one of the trips was from a Christian school.  I could not help but think that this was ironic because here are the people who won't teach real science and teach fairy tales in school but they are bringing kids to the museum to see the work of real scientists.  I would never have thought that this would happen.  I could hear the pre-trip speech given:

"Now children, remember that you are going to see items dug up in the desert of Egypt.  The items will include all sorts of pagan idols that the evil Egyptians used to worship.  Now, this is before the plagues in Egypt and Moses but just remember that God executed judgement on these evil people for their idolatry."

Give me a break.  I had to step around these morons and their kids to see the artifacts of a once great civilization.  I just found all of this real interesting especially considering that the people here in Texas build churches along the interstate so that you can stop by for a visit if you want.  I actually passed a trucker's chapel at a truck stop that was built under an oil derek.  Wow.  

Ever Wonder?

Greetings:

Welcome to my new blog.  Just to let you know, the title of my blog is Amplitudo Inquisitor which is Latin for The Grand Inquisitor.  I plan to cover a variety of topics but my main focus will be on religion in general.  I want to pose a question to everyone and am looking for feedback from my readers on what you think about the questions that I introduce and give my opinion on.  As previously stated, I want to begin discussing religion.  My question is somewhat complex but is one that is simple in itself.  Do you ever wonder why there are so many different Christian denominations?  Now, I know the easy answer, that it is because people interpret the Bible differently and that has led to the different denominations.  Well, that unleashes another question about if the Bible is truly god's word, then why is it open to different interpretations?  Should be cut and dry.  I will take it a little further, why so many different sub-denominations in Christianity?  Here is an example, Assemblies of God encompasses the denominations of Assembly of God, Church of God, Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ, and probably some others.  Baptists are divided into Southern Baptist (largest fundamental group in US), American Baptist, Missionary Baptist, Freewill Baptist, Landmark Missionary Baptist as well as others I am sure.  The differences between the Protestant (as a whole) and Catholic, is very simple to understand as well as between Catholic and Orthodox.  I could deal with just two or three denominations, but the differences in all the protestant denominations just astounds me.  Oh, don't forget that in the south where there is a prominent amount of Southern Baptist churches, those are white only churches.  Black Americans have separate baptist churches.  Now, this is a result of the history of slavery, but why, in the 21st Century are the churches mostly still separate?  Just my thoughts.