[Chicago Tribune]

It’s 11 a.m. Saturday, and whiskey is flowing at the big houses on fraternity row at the University of Alabama. Guys in ties and baseball caps are laughing and dancing with sorority girls in bright dresses as a band blares away just around the corner.

Smack in the middle of that row is the Lambda Sigma Phi house, but things are a lot quieter inside. Parents are helping put out lunch before a Crimson Tide football game as a few members lounge in the den watching TV.

A Bible passage decorates a door. “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,” it begins.

Lambda Sigma Phi is part of a wave of Christian fraternities and sororities that has gained a foothold on U.S. college campuses—with at least 210 nationwide—sometimes despite the wishes of school administrators. Members get pumped up about prayer, Bible study and service projects, passions they say campus officials should and often do embrace as fresh amid a Greek culture typically seen as centered on hazing, keg parties and little else.

Founded in 2001, Lambda Sigma Phi hopes to show other groups at the university what Jesus is all about.

“We want to be a light on this campus,” said chapter president Daniel Weaver.

Alpha Delta Chi, a Christian sorority with 14 active chapters nationwide, is straightforward about its membership requirements: Churchgoing Christians only. No smoking or illegal drugs. No premarital sex. And please, no drinking to the point that it would reflect badly on Christianity.

“All the girls are in Bible studies. We also do sisterhood retreats and outreach,” said Kiran Thadhani, president of Alpha Delta Chi at Georgia Tech. “Many girls work at soup kitchens, go on summer mission trips, and work right here on homelessness and poverty issues in Atlanta.”

Many campuses welcome the combination of religion with Greek-letter social groups, but others haven’t.

Read more here.

[From me]

I was amazed to see this story occurring in my home town.  When I lived in Tuscaloosa it was like living around the movie Animal House.  The University of Alabama and Ole Miss weren’t even allowed to be in the Party School rankings because they were “Professionals.” That is why my parents encouraged me to go away for college.

At Samford I was involved in a Fraternity.  I met some great, life long friends.  I think it also limited friendships with guys in other fraternities and those who were independent.  That is my only regret. For the most part being a “greek” was a good experience.  It taught me a lot of valuable lessons.  Samford is a “Christian” University but the fraternities still had their share of partying. So I learned to share my faith within a party atmosphere.

I can’t imagine why college administrators would be against “Greek” organizations that tried to live clean lives.  That puzzles me.  But I wonder if the members are sheltering themselves to the extent that they have no influence on those who need to hear about Jesus?  Maybe not, just a thought.

What do you think? 

[Wall Street Journal]

Late next month, atheists, humanists, freethinkers, secularists — in short, nonbelievers of every description — will gather in dozens of cities to mark the holiday they call HumanLight.

Whether by singing from a Humanist Hymnal, decorating a winter wreath or lighting candles dedicated to personal heroes, they’ll celebrate what has been an exhilarating ride for the faithless — a surge in recognition that has many convinced they’re on the brink of making a mark on mainstream America.

During the past three years, membership has grown in local and national associations of nonbelievers. Books attacking faith as a delusion shot up best-seller lists. For the first time, the faithless even raised enough funds to hire a congressional lobbyist.

Building on that momentum, nonbelievers have begun a very public campaign to win broad acceptance. On billboards and bus ads, radio commercials and the Internet, atheists are coming forward to declare, quite simply: We’re here. And we’re just like you.

“We’ve had an undercurrent of emotional and academic support, but we’ve been waiting to make a movement happen,” said Joe Zamecki, an Austin landscaper who recently organized Texas’ first statewide convention of nonbelievers. “It’s a very new age.”

Not so fast, religious leaders respond. They point out that the vast majority of Americans believe in God. A poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life earlier this year found 71% of American adults are absolutely certain God — or some sort of universal spirit — exists, and a further 17% said they were fairly certain. Only 5% said flatly that they don’t believe.

Atheists “are talking to a very small slice of the population,” said Mathew Staver, a leading Christian conservative and law-school dean. “In some ways, they’re really just talking to themselves.”

Read more here.

[From me]

I still don’t understand the need to have a holiday for every group. Pretty soon we will have a holiday every day of the year. If Atheists don’t believe in God then they sure are obsessed with convincing everyone else He doesn’t exist.  Now why have a holiday for Atheists? An Atheist Hymnal?  I love that one.  What would be some of the Hymns?

• Have “Mine” own way “Me,” Have “Mine” own way. (Have Thine Own Way Lord)
• I love me (Jesus loves me)
• Just a closer walk with me (Just a closer walk with Thee)
• Not so Amazing Grace (Amazing Grace)
• I love me, me (I love you Lord)
• I exalt me (I exalt Thee)
• This is my own world (This is my Father’s World)

AS the world celebrates World Toilet Day today, sanitation experts have called for the end of the flushing dunny to save water and provide fertilizer for crops.

Leading health advocates have called for the use of “dry” toilets which separate urine from faeces and remove the need to flush.

Speaking at the recent World Toilet Summit in Macau, World Toilet Organisation founder Jack Sims said the concept of the flushing toilet was unsustainable.

Mr Sims said a culture where people flushed their loos but disregarded the thousands of litres of wasted drinking water each year was one of sanitation’s greatest challenges.

“This ‘flush and forget’ attitude creates a new problem which we have to revisit,” he said.

There have already been calls by Australian experts to reduce the amount of water wasted through toilet flushing with a proposed new toilet tax.

Toilet facts:

• The average person spends three years of their life on the “john”. 
• The average person flushes a toilet about 2500 times a year, while using about eight sheets of toilet paper per day.
• An estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, particularly in rural areas of China and India. 
• Lack of suitable toilets and sanitation kills approximately 1.8 million people a year, many of them children. 
• According to Jack Sims, a further 500 million toilets are needed to bridge the gap in sanitation.
•  The first flushing toilet was invented in 1596 by Sir John Harrington, a British noble and godson to Queen Elizabeth I. He only invented one, as he was ridiculed by his peers, but he still used it for himself. 
• Most toilets flush in the key of E flat.
• On average, a person will use 22 litres of drinkable water every day flushing a toilet.

Read more here.

[From me]

I had no idea there was a “world toilet day!”  What is this world coming to?  Our holidays are flushing down the drain.

Look, if the government wants to tax my income, that is one thing. But don’t tax the “reading room!”

What do you think?

Focus on the Family wants shoppers to know which retailers are naughty and which ones are nice - at least when it comes to holiday lingo.

On Thursday the Colorado Springs-based ministry’s political action arm launched its second-annual holiday campaign by posting an online shoppers guide with three categories: “Christmas-friendly” retailers, “Christmas-negligent” retailers and “Christmas-offensive” retailers.

The “friendly” retailers are so designated because they prominently use “Merry Christmas” and other Christmas-specific references in their catalogs and in-store promotions. Those on the Christmas-offensive list use secular phrases such as “happy holidays” and have “apparently abandoned” the use of the word “Christmas,” Focus said. Christmas-negligent companies “marginalize” their message by using “Christmas” in some cases and “holidays” in others.

The ministry - which made its determinations based mostly on an examination of retailers’ print and online holiday catalogs - encourages shoppers to patronize the Christmas-friendly stores, but does not tell them to avoid the other retailers.

“It is not a boycott,” said Sonja Swiatkiewicz, Focus’ director of issues response. “Consumers can do what they wish with the information.”

Even so, the online guide includes an electronic petition shoppers can sign that tells retailers “I plan to consult Focus on the Family Action’s Shopping Guide … while making my Christmas purchases this year.”

Read more here.

[From me]

Does it really matter? They are secular companies. Christmas has become less of Jesus anyway when it starts before Halloween. We get presents instead of giving. Personally I like Thanksgiving because it involves just being “thankful.”  If Christians are really worried about keeping Christ in Christmas, shouldn’t we be living a life that “points people to Jesus” EVERYDAY instead of “pointing out where His Name isn’t?” Just a thought.

What do you think?

For 15 years, Cascade College in Portland, Ore., struggled to find the financial necessities for any college: students to pay tuition and donors to help build an endowment. Then came the global economic crisis, and suddenly that struggle became an impossibility.

Late last month, the small Christian college with just 280 students and $4 million in debt announced that it would shut down at the end of the current academic year.

“Our hearts would have said we would like to continue trying,” said Cascade president Bill Goad, somberly adding he never imagined his duties would include closing the school. But on top of their long-term challenges, “small colleges like Cascade just don’t have the slack to survive those kinds of impacts,” he said.

Every year, a handful of institutions go under. And while a wave of college closings is unlikely, the economic turmoil could accelerate the pace.

In addition to Cascade, another Christian institution, Taylor University, announced last month that it would close the undergraduate program at a branch campus in Fort Wayne, Ind., while Pillsbury Baptist Bible College in Owatonna, Minn., said it would close.

Read more here.

[From me]

I really wonder if this is happening “because” of the ailing economy or is it just the final straw?  Colleges are getting more and more expensive.  The economy can’t be blamed for that.  I went to Samford University in Birmingham, AL in the 1980’s and paid for it for 10 years afterwards. I enjoyed my time there and met many friends. But in retrospect, should I have attended the University of Alabama where my mom worked for free?  Is being in a Fraternity and at a small campus for 4 years better than just getting a degree? Samford has a great reputation but I don’t think it ever got me an interview or a job.  Actually, my UAB degree got me more interviews than my Samford degree did. 

If I had to do it over, I would go to a Jr. College for free then transfer to a 4 year college.  There are very few jobs that will pay enough to get you out of college debt.

What do you think?

I saw this banner on a website and I wondered what “Truth” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” has restored? There are many wonderful people who follow this false religion.  I believe they are truly looking for truth but they have been deceived.  

The first problem is they follow a false prophet.  Joseph Smith was a liar who plagiarized the Book of Mormon from the King James Version of the Bible.  No reputable archeologists can find prove that anything written by the Mormon church goes beyond the 1800’s.  They believe that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers. They believe that you can baptize people after they had died and that will save them.  The Bible says we have all been appointed once to die and then face the judgment.  

I love when Mormon “missionaries” come to my house.  I feel the longer I keep them at my home the fewer neighbors they are deceiving.  They always talk about a “burning in the bosom” that lets you know if the Mormon religion is true.  Well the “burning” could be heartburn.  

The Mormons try to pose as “Christians” by using Christian terminology and phrases.  Why in the world do they want to be considered Christian?  Just say who you are.  You are Mormons and we don’t worship the same God and we don’t have the same beliefs.  There is nothing about our faiths that are similar except we strive to live good lives.  But the difference is the LDS believe that you are good to enter into heaven. The Christian faith believes we are good because of what Jesus does in our lives.  That is a major difference.

So, to my Mormon friends, you are free to believe false teaching if you want to. But don’t pose as a Christian religion because you are not. It is time that you turn from your false “good works” religion and turn to the Grace that is offered to everyone through Jesus Christ.

What do you think?

Yesterday I saw this painted on the back of a pick-up truck.  ”Heaven or hell the choice is yours.” 

My question is do these signs, or bumper stickers or billboards or church signs ever work?  If you have a story of one that has, I would like to hear about it.  I’m curious if these kind of signs ever have a positive affect on those they are meant for–or do they turn people off?

My experience is it is a turn off.  If I see a sign or bumper sticker or anything that goes against my beliefs it doesn’t make me want to investigate what they are pushing–it makes me angry.

What do you think?

[Yahoo]

A British woman is divorcing her husband after discovering his online alter-ego was having an affair with a virtual woman in the fantasy world of Second Life, media reported on Friday. Amy Taylor, 28, said her three-year marriage to David Pollard, 40, came to an end when she twice walked in on him watching his online character, Dave Barmy, having sex with other virtual women.

Second Life enables players to create online lives in which their virtual alter ego, or avatar, can socialize, develop relationships, buy property and set up businesses in an imagined world using the game’s virtual currency.

The couple met in an internet chatroom in 2003 and married in real life and in a fantasy tropical setting in Second Life.

However, Taylor always had suspicions about Pollard’s online loyalty. At one point she hired a virtual detective to test whether his avatar was cheating on her, after finding him at the computer watching his character having sex with a prostitute.

Pollard passed that honeytrap test but earlier this year Taylor found his character in a compromising position with another virtual woman.

“He confessed he’d been talking to this woman player in America for one or two weeks and said our marriage was over and he didn’t love me any more,” said Taylor, who filed for divorce the next day.

“The solicitor wasn’t at all surprised — she said it was her second divorce case involving Second Life that week.”

Source

[From me]

O my. I don’t see how anything good can come from a website like this. Hiring a “virtual” detective?  People need to get a life! A real life!

What do you think?

I’m trying to relax after driving non-stop to Birmingham from Charlotte and back in less than 24 hours. We did not go to look at homes and I won’t go into details why we were there. (It wasn’t bad) But we are exhausted and mentally and emotionally drained. 

We have a lot of major decisions to make concerning our move to Birmingham.  Praise God all of our support has been raised. The biggest obstacle that stands in our way is our house in Charlotte. As of 2:00 AM we haven’t even had a showing of our home.  It just goes to show had bad the economy is. 

If you would please pray with us that our house sells we would appreciate it. We can’t make any plans with this hanging over our heads. It may be a bad market to sell a house but it was also tough raising money and somehow God provided. So there has to be someone out there that needs a nice house in Charlotte. We can’t do anything but pray and that is what we are doing.