• Re “‘We support (Cruz) because he believes in the morality of the free market, in keeping our country safe, and in the right of the unborn not to be killed in their mother’s womb,’ Farris Wilks said in an email to Reuters, speaking on behalf of the Wilks family.”

    Interesting they’d be doing this in Jesus’ name, given that Jesus never said free markets were moral, never spoke of keeping countries safe, nor ever mentioned the unborn at all. Because of the fact that Jesus never talked about any of those things, there are Christians who utterly disagree with them on all 3 of those points (e.g. Pope Francis, who’s condemned unbridled capitalism).

    Maybe it’s time Christians started concerning themselves, instead, with the instructions they believe their Jesus actually gave them, rather than railing about … and disagreeing over … things he never discussed. Just a thought.

  • jdog

    Your interpretation of the Gospel just shows how obtuse you are about the Bible. There is absolutely no question that Christ values life and that taking innocent life is murder. Christ didn’t bother himself with progressive synaptics on fetus development, economic viability, etc. A life was a life was a life… a matter of common sense. Christ did opine on individual rights… what makes you think it did not include their economy and their ability to work and trade without being coerced with the threat of Force? Even the 10 commandments elude to free markets… do not steal and do not covet… commandments endorsed by the living and resurrected Christ. Loving thy neighbor would include willing defend the life, liberty, and property of your neighbor. This is keeping you safe and them safe from the trespasses of murders, rapists, thieves, and any other enemy influenced by the adversary. I suspect you have NO Christian understanding or roots… as Christians are “them”, not you

  • Helene

    Cruz 2016!

  • Eric Charles Smith

    The very description of what these folks believe, like the Bible being accurate in historical and scientific detail, indicates that they are severely ignorant and are only newsworthy because they typify the kind of delusional people who would even contemplate voting for Ted Cruz.

  • Larry

    “There is absolutely no question that Christ values life and that taking innocent life is murder. ”

    And yet Christianity has been mired in bloody sectarian warfare with itself since its inception. Christ might have valued life, but Christianity as a faith does not.

    How many outright pacifist sects are there out of the hundreds of Christian churches?
    A handful at best. Certainly not the reactionary ones that would be supporting Ted Cruz.

    Plus the qualifier “innocent” rendered your sentence meaningless. Whereas allegedly “innocent” life is sacred, all life in totality is not. This is why anti-abortion types have to resort to s1utshaming as an important part of their rhetoric. “Innocent life” of a fetus is valued, “sinful life” of the born is not.

    Christians are great at coming up excuses and weaselwording their positions to absolve themselves of engaging in socially redeeming behavior.

  • While it is always encouraging to hear voices raised for good, it is really only a true change of heart that will make a lasting difference in peoples lives. God is into changing hearts. He changed mine and millions like me. “Behold all things have become new.” Paul wrote this verse describing the experience of the new believer in Christ. Receive Him into your heart and into your life. Ask Him to come in. Ask God to forgive your sins. Turn away from sin and follow Him. Then you will know God’s peace and love and truly ‘all things will become new’. God Bless

  • Cecil

    Well let’s see name one thing that you can prove the Bible is wrong about. Let’s see if you are from the “tolerant” crowd and just name call.

  • jay

    “And yet Christianity has been mired in bloody sectarian warfare with itself since its inception. Christ might have valued life, but Christianity as a faith does not. ”
    It sometimes is amazing how some people are so wrapped in their beliefs that they lose the ability to add 1+1. Evolution, my friend, with the aid of the Holy Spirit. When possible, we turn the other cheek.

  • Larry

    The world is not flat as described in the Bible.
    The world was did not come to being in 6 days
    Reptiles do not speak
    There was no world wide flood

    The crew of Noah’s Ark would have died of super instant cholera from all the herbivore poop within a week of launching.

    A family of mesopotamian goat herders could not construct that could stay out on open water for more than a few days, when shipwrights thousands of years later of the Greek, Persian and Roman Empires could not

    I am not oppressing you, I am just pointing out what is plainly obvious.

  • Tarik Azeezeebub

    Catholics are faux Christians. If you’ve ever read a bible you’d know that. They have their own bible, and it’s not the one traditionally used by the overwheming majority of Christians. Far from it. If you don’t notice the glaring differences, such as Christ being paradeded around as still dead, not yet risen. And their leaders dressed in blood red silk, blood red shoes, and real gold and pompous hats isn’t really befitting of humility. In addition Catholic leaders convicted inside the walled Vatican city/state, of pedophilia sexual abuse, are not relegated to a barred cell, but instead, nice apartment. Absolutely free to roam anywhere they choose inside the obscene and audacious, secretive, and walled vatican.

  • Jack

    Psicop, there are lots of other things Jesus never spoke about, either, such as brushing your teeth regularly and not urinating in the street.

    Does that mean he would have favored our ignoring such admonitions?

  • Jack

    Yup, Ted Cruz (Princeton A.B., Harvard Law J.D.) is a real yahoo.

  • Jack

    (1) The Bible doesn’t say the world is flat, nor does a writer who mentions “the four corners of the earth.” Only a six-year old would think this means the earth has literal corners. It does, however, speak of the “circle of the earth.”

    (2) It’s not clear that there were six 24-hour days. Nor is it clear that Genesis 1 is speaking literally. Hebrew scholars have debated that forever.

    (3) Reptiles don’t speak unless God wants them to, in which case it’s a miracle. If God can create a universe, he can make a reptile talk.

    (4) There are plenty of flood accounts in ancient cultures which had no contact with each other.

    (5) The Noah’s Ark crew could do anything God wanted them to and survive anything that God wanted them to, because God can do anything.

    (6) If God decides a person will build an appropriately sturdy ark, He will equip that person to build it, because God can do anything.

    This is all….ahem…”plainly obvious” once you posit God’s…

  • Jack

    ….existence.

  • Jack

    Since we’re talking about presidential candidates, here is the greatest speech, delivered under the most difficult of circumstances, by a candidate from the past:

    https://youtu.be/GoKzCff8Zbs

  • mike

    Christians are called to preach the gospel and fulfill the great commission. With the holy Spirit living on the inside of them and a genuine converted heart (born again) they are called to heal the sick, raise the dead, feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the prisoners in prison. We are called to turn the other check. Go the extra mile. AND ABOVE ALL ELSE LOVE. All men will know you are my disciples because you love. They did not love their lives to death. (Rev) They were faithful. They endured to the end. Fox book of Martyrs. They were burned alive and even their children.They could have denied their faith and lived. They could have saved their children. They Loved Christ more than anything. That is a christian. Christ said if you have not did it to one of the least of them then you have not did it to me. The ones who did not do it were cast into hell. THIS IS REAL. Jesus is not talking about how we treat the nation of Israel. He means how we treat the least of people in need.

  • mike

    If your church advocates a bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other then get out of it and find a bible believing church that is not pc that will talk about the sins that society is condoning. Find a pastor that reproves and rebukes. A pastor who is not afraid to speak the truth and discipline the congregation when needed. You cannot let the state do God’s work because that will lead to the coming AntiChrist. When Church and State come together there is ALWAYS, ALWAYS PERSECUTION and the shedding of innocent blood. It happened in Europe and Babylon. We need to home school our kids and have them grow up in a home UNITED in christ. We need to teach our children the bible not the state run schools. What is extremely frightening is that the Protestant reformation and our religious freedom has never been more in danger than it is right now. The Pope will address congress for the first time, then he will speak to the UN. The goal is to JOIN apostate protestantism with Catholicism!

  • Elizabeth

    The Christian religion started by Catholics in Rome. The original New Testament was written by Catholics. All the other Christian religions are off shoots of the Catholic Religion, and they had good reason to rebel. How did you come to your information about this statement of the manner of pedophiles among the Vatican? What about all of the so called Christian adulters, pedophiles, murders, politicians calling for war that has and will kill innocent people, bankers, and they’re free roaming the world. “He who is without sin let cast the first stone”! Have a good day.

  • larry

    I am sure there are at least 3 Christian sects somewhere in the world which would say so. 🙂

  • (1) Circle is still 2 dimensional. Flat, not a sphere.

    (2) Shall we go into vegetation existing on the 2nd day but the sun on day 3?

    (3)You can’t say as a fact reptiles speak. After all you have no evidence of such a thing happening outside of literary works. Miracles are not facts. I don’t have to accept their existence as them.

    (4) Because early agricultural cultures were riverine (Fertile Crescent, Nile Valley, Mekong Delta, Yellow River …) A flood is the one disaster which is both well known and utterly devastating to such people in a way no others are. Like saying Godzilla is real because you know lizards exist.

    (5) & )(6) Claiming miracle is conceding something is impossible and cannot be proven to be true by objectively credible methods. Miracles require faith and therefore cannot be asserted as facts.

    If you have to claim God needs to exists for it to be true, I don’t have to accept it as fact. Belief in God is faith, not facts.

  • Watch out Dave, if you see two men kissing, you will turn gay!!!!!

  • Bill

    While I don’t agree with all that these brothers believe, I’m glad that we live in a country where they can spend their money as they please to support candidates or anything else. People can read about their beliefs and judge for themselves whether their contributions mean that the candidates they support should be trusted more or trusted less. Obviously, the Reuters reporter looks down on them, but intelligent voters can see that bias and interpret the story accordingly. Plenty of rich people on the left will put big money into this election, and I don’t agree with all that they believe either.

  • P.T. Barnum

    In spite of his Ivy league education Rafael “Ted” Cruz put up a website indicating he thinks he can be president. His mental illness isn’t surprising. Both of his parents are alcoholics. Rafael senior, a former supporter of Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries and tortured for his work with the guerillas, abandoned the family when Ted was only 3. Now a dry drunk and born again pastor, Rafael senior, who only became a US citizen in 2005, advocates concentration camps for U.S. atheists.

  • Jack

    (1) Visually speaking, “circles” don’t necessarily mean spheres — nor do they rule them out.

    (2) You’re assuming that before there was a sun, there was no other way for vegetation to flourish.

    (3) I’m not arguing here that miracles are facts, although they are. I’m arguing that you can’t use nature’s regular workings to argue against miracles, since a miracle is an intervention into nature by something that’s outside of it. If God exists and created nature, He can do as He pleases with it when it suits Him.

    (4) Again, many cultures and civilizations who had no known or conceivable ancient contact with each other have stories about ancient floods affecting the world. If there was such a flood, this fact is exactly what you’d expect to hear from them.

    (5) and (6) All you’re saying is that a miracle can’t be produced by nature itself. Well, duh.

  • (1) Really bad excuse and entirely untrue. One does not refer to a globe as a circle. One does not refer to a pyramid as a triangle.

    (2) I can’t help it if plain reading of the text doesn’t work for you. If you feel the need to contort the meaning into something that fits, it shows

    (3, 5 7 6) But you are, since the original premise was “one thing that you can prove the Bible is wrong about”

    Incredible things which are impossible to believe in based on facts an evidence is not proof something is correct. Quite the opposite.

    As for (4) Total nonsense. Agriculture and literacy came from riverine cultures Their biggest fear was floods. A common fear endemic to a certain type of culture is far more plausible than a worldwide event which left no evidence.

    Btw Creationists typically fudge details of the other myths to fit the Genesis story. Most flood myths share little in common with each other from cultures isolated from each other.

  • P.T. Barnum

    Billionaire Farris Wilks might want to reread the part in his bible about fitting a camel through the eye of a needle. If there was ever an example of “those who can’t do, teach.”, Farris Wilks is it.

  • ben in oakland

    Jesus didn’t say to turn the other check “when possible.”

    “When possible” is a loophole you could drive a very large church through.

  • ben in oakland

    “The Christian religion started by Catholics in Rome. The original New Testament was written by Catholics.’

    If you don’t have facts on your side, make some up.

  • ben in oakland

    But you are lying in just about every word you use.

  • ben in oakland

    Jesus said, Give away all that you have and follow me. Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.”

    Jesus said, ““You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”

    Yet these guys are billionaires.

  • Juan Santiago

    Christians are people just like you, but your post is not factually accurate. Christians are pro-life, and that means all life. We support and feed the homeless, those in crisis, and do not murder or support the execution of anyone unless they have a fair trial and are found guilty of capital crimes. There are followers of Jesus (Christians) and there are followers of religion that do not know Jesus personally, and sometimes those types do bad things, including murder, but it is against the teaching of the Bible and certainly the wars and killings done in the name of atheism far exceed the supposed wars that so-called Christians have started. I would also point out that there is a time to kill – like when there is true evil out there lopping off the heads of children and other Christians while their relatives watch. These ISIS people need killing, because they are evil. In putting down Christians, you place yourself above them. Do you keep the commandments of Christ?

  • Larry

    No, you just feel the need to whitewash your beliefs and history to paint a rosier picture than reality and history permits.

    “Christians are pro-life, and that means all life. ”

    No they aren’t. They find tons of reasons to demean, disregard and endanger people in the name of their faith.

    “certainly the wars and killings done in the name of atheism far exceed the supposed wars that so-called Christians have started”

    That is certainly untrue. There are no wars or killings are done in the name of atheism. Communists are far closer to religious belief than the philosophy of atheism (Cults of personality are still cults). But old ignorant tropes die hard.

    ” In putting down Christians, you place yourself above them.”

    Given bad behavior on their part, I see good cause for that.

    ” Do you keep the commandments of Christ?”

    Why? Are you planning to burn me at the stake?

  • Jack

    Christianity did not began in Rome. It began in Jerusalem after the tomb of Jesus was found empty shortly after his death and burial. Nobody but his immediate followers had any coherent explanation for what happened to it, given the surrounding circumstances that included elaborate preparations by authorities to secure the tomb so nobody could steal the body.

    Rome became the eventual headquarters only after the initial destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 and its obliteration by the Romans after the Bar Kochba rebellion of 132-135 CE.

    Its headquarters remained in Jerusalem for decades, as evidenced by the Book of Acts, which chronicles the earliest years of the church following this.

  • Jack

    The reason for the faith’s rapid spread in Jerusalem was pretty simple: People put two and two together. A number of Jerusalemites of the time were already familiar with Jesus’ prior healings, most prominently of the congenitally blind man in or near the Temple and the raising of Lazarus just a couple of miles outside of Jerusalem. They were equally familiar with his teachings about himself. So when, after he died and was lain in a tomb, the tomb was empty shortly thereafter, and they listened carefully to the authorities’ bumbling, incoherent answers and then to his disciples’ clear-as-a-bell claim that what happened to Jesus is exactly what they had seen him do to a dead-as-a-doornail Lazarus, many of them joined this new sect.

    And all of this took place before the Gospel even made it to Rome.

  • jack

    Larry, you’re projecting again.

  • jack

    Actually, Larry/”Jihadi Jimmy,” both of his parents drank a lot when he was young, but must have become pretty good parents given how far their son has gone.

    As for the father’s supporting Castro, I hate to disturb your historical ignorance of 20th century Cuba, but Castro initially led a broad coalition of pro-democracy people against the right-wing dictator Battista. After the revolution was won, Castro turned on the pro-democracy people and revealed exactly who and what he was. He betrayed a whole generation of pro-democracy, anti-Battista Raphael Cruzes.

    Meanwhile, long after Castro was revealed to be a brutal Communist who was even worse than Battista in his human rights abuses, you lefties were still streaming down to Cuba to pick sugar cane for Uncle Fidel.

  • jack

    But if Farris Wilks were supporting Obama or Clinton, you’d just love him to death, and there would be no admonitions about camels going through needles.

  • jack

    Dave, is it really true that most homosexuals are the kind of monsters you’re making them out to be? I know a few and they don’t fit those stereotypes at all.

    While there has been plenty of politically correct nonsense written that attempts to whitewash and sanitize the gay lifestyle as it has existed in parts of this country, you are taking it the opposite extreme, and that’s not right, either.

    We need a sober, balanced view that does not demonize or romanticize.

    Sorry for the reprimand. I just believe that all truth is God’s truth and that we have to be accurate and honest and not repeat wooden stereotypes.

    And right now we’re in a real battle for religious freedom, and having to push back against flat-out lies by the far left. We should not be telling lies ourselves, or naively repeating those spread by others.

  • jack

    I really think everybody should hear and heed the speech delivered by RFK after King’s assassination. It is simply beautiful and it sums up how we can love our country in a humble yet firm and genuine way, and how we can stand for racial justice and equality without fueling the fires of chaos and disunity.

    https://youtu.be/GoKzCff8Zbs

    That was just before my time, as they say, but I believe that both political parties and sets of candidates are missing what was in the speech above. When speaking of our country, the right lacks any sense of humility and the left lacks innocent, unspoiled love and gratitude.

    Both should be taken to the woodshed.

  • jack

    As an aside, since when did it become a sin to matriculate or graduate from an Ivy? I know you’re not saying that, but it’s worth asking. There was a time where Ivy grads weren’t required to prove they weren’t elitists or other “enemies of the people,” if you will.

  • jack

    Larry, if your politics were different, I’d expect you to believe something like that.