Today I received a surprise. This morning I was asked to become the teacher for a group of 7 year olds at church. Oh boy. I am not too sure how things are done in other churches, but when I tell folks how we do things they act like it is odd, so I will briefly explain for the sake of clarity. In our church we don't have a paid clergy, rather we have a lay clergy. All those in positions in the church, leadership, teaching, facilities management, material management, financial affairs,...

The following is extremely long. But I didn't want to seem a point grubber, so I am placing the entire article here as I wrote it. If it is too long to read I understand. I consider 100 articles here to be quite an achievement for me. Sixty or so articles ago I had pretty much decided to toss it in, stop all together, and not come back. Those reasons are my own, and not infrequently are reinforced, but I chose to continue blogging, mainly because I found it was helping me think things ...

There it is folks, the atheist's nightmare, all wrapped up in a yellow skin. (please note sarcasm right there) The problem underlying such an argument is the obvious need for faith. And that is what this gentleman seems to have forgotten. To him, the banana may be a perfectly logical and obvious manifestation of a creator. But only because he already has faith in God. Likewise, the more I learn about the way the human body functions, the more difficult I find it to chalk it all up to...

Religious groups (and their followers) often get blasted by people for trying to 'force' their beliefs down other's throats. And, often they deserve it. I, too, have had the opportunity to share my beliefs with other people. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon Church), I served a two year mission, during which my main duty was sharing our beliefs with others. Some may think we are trying to force our beliefs on others. Perhaps some have that sort of a...

Faith is a fascinating thing. We all have it, to some degree, though many choose to pretend they don't. Most of us probably have faith that the sun will, in fact, rise each morning, marking the dawn of a new day. We probably have faith that we will be able to rise the next morning in pretty much the same condition as when we went to sleep. And the list goes on and on, little things we do each day because we have faith we can or faith they will happen. Why do we have faith in those th...