Have you ever had Korean Bul-Go-Gi? Delicioso!

So there’s too much evil in the universe for there to be a God, eh? Only one problem with that statement: what’s evil? Whatever you care to pick as your example of evil (cruelty to children, cancer, Hilary Clinton…) one need only ask, what would make you call that ‘evil’? Personal preference? Genetic programming? Social conditioning?

In fact, the only sensible reason to call anything evil is if we know that there is a transcendent morality. For there to be a transcendent morality there must be at least a God along theistic lines (a deistic God wouldn’t care, would He?). Acknowledge that, and you then must deal with the evil within your own soul, and mine too. What will He do with such wicked creatures as we are? He would be just to cast us into eternal torment for our cosmic treason against Him. However, He has made it plain that those who trust in Jesus to have taken their place, to have made the sacrifice for their sins, will be saved from His wrath. Gosh, sounds so fundie and judgemental, doesn't it? Too bad; deal with it.

Too many recipes! Comes with the territory being in one of my professions. Here’s a non-chef recipe for a very simple and tasty meat pie I learned from my English grandmother. It’s a great recipe for those nights you have no idea what to make for dinner:

1-1.3 lb ground beef (stay away from the lean stuff this time)
1 can corned beef (yes, the one in that weird looking can)
2 Medium yukon gold potatoes (or other waxy potato), medium dice.
1 pack of brown gravy mix
To Taste - White or black pepper
To Taste - Salt
2 Quality Flaky pie crusts (Marie Calendars in the freezer section) or make it from a flaky pie crust recipe (Don’t be intimidated by the pie crust. They are very simple and recipes are available in any basic cookbook or on the web. And if you have any leftovers you can make cinnamon & sugar twists for dessert).

1) Medium dice the waxy potatoes (do not peel) and boil them till cooked (use small knife to test potato for doneness - should have little resistance). Strain and set aside.

2) Cook ground beef in saucepan and add can of corned beef when the beef is partially cooked. Cook beef throughly.

3) Add packet of brown gravy mix to the unstrained meat (A little fat won’t kill you. Besides, you need it to adhere to the gravy mix).Throughly combine meats with gravy mix.

4) Season to taste with ground pepper and salt. Test flavor.

5) Add meat filling to one of the pie crusts, alternating with a layer of potatoes until you’ve formed a nice mound of filling.

6) Now you cap the pie with the other crust and let the steam of the meat thaw the dough right over filled pie crust. Mend the top to the bottom crust using a fork or three fingers. Note: If you’ve decided to make your pastry from scratch then you need enough dough to cover the pie as well.

7) Cook at 350F for 15 minutes or until crust is golden (the meat filling is already cooked so you don’t need to worry about it).

8) Serve this killer pie with a beef gravy. Enjoy.

Yield: 1 heaping pie.

Prep time: Assuming you boiled your potatoes while the meat was cooking: 30 minutes
Let me know how you like it.
-Eric

I am a HUGE pot pie fan Eric, and your recipe sounds scrumptious.

If we are wicked creatures, and God created us that way, he has a lot of chutzpah punishing us for it.

Bulgogi! The Koreans just make the best steak - I don't know how they do it.

It is a good pie and very simple to make.

I did forget one ingredient now that I look at it... you'll need to medium dice 1/2" a medium yellow onion and add it to the ground beef mixture to cook.

-Eric

John:

I'm pretty much a fundamentalist myself and I basically agree with your apologetic - our recognition of right and wrong in the universe implies a divine presence - but I don't see that your account of Christ's work is terribly helpful.

The essence of the Gospel is that God is good; as St. John writes: 'This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there's not a trace of darkness in him.'

That is, God is good. Actually good, in the real sense of the word good. Not good, as in 'good, but he's on your case, bitch, and he will fry your arse given the slightest pretext. Not good as in 'good, but unless you and all the people you love and care about make themselves believe that Jew who died 2000 years ago was actually God, he is going to send all of you to hell forever.' Good as in good, actually good, like the sort of good that we normally mean when we say the word 'good.' He loves people like a mother, he watches over them like a father, he feels their pain more deeply even than they do. His anger lasts a moment , but his kindness lasts forever. He is unreservedly, without qualification, very, very good.

He is closer to each of us than we can imagine, for as St. Paul taught the pagan Athenians: 'He himself gives all men life and breath and everything else', 'We are his offspring' and 'it is in him that we live, and move, and have our being.' God is hidden not by distance but by presence; a man may struggle to make out something on the distant horizon, but he also struggles to see the nose on his own face. God is intimately present to each one of us, guiding, whispering, wooing - each of us must choose for ourselves whether to make that presence welcome or not.

My criticism of your post is this: by throwing out substituionary atonement point-blank as your message, you place what is essentially a technical piece of theology in the place of the gospel. The gospel is actually good news. We don't need to be told that we are sinners and that God is angry with us (most of us are thouroughly aware of our own inadequacy), what we need is to be reminded of the depth of his love.

I have called myself a fundamentalist; I am not a universalist. I believe (Christ leaves me no option but to believe) that there is a hell, and that people go there, not just real nasty pieces of work like Hitler or Idi Amin, but well-ajusted popular people, celebrated public figures, and even highly respectable middle-class churchgoing family people. But hell is in no sense an expression of God's character or his desire; it is in fact defined by his absence.

Christ came into the world not to condemn but to save. The reasonable objection to the God of the Gospels ought not to be 'The Christian God's a bastard' but rather 'The Christian God is just too good to be true.'

If there is a god, I think we merely bask in his indifference.

Hmmmm, well in a very brief form of a long and complex topic...

God, through the Word (who became Jesus Christ) created the universe and the angels... the head arch angel Lucifer rebelled against God the father and tried to replace him. He lead astray a third of the angels who became demons. Lucifer is now Satan. (this is all int he bible)

Because God the father can create everything except character, character is the determination to do the right thing and can only be developed by experience. The angels were created as immortal spiritual beings and the demons who turned against God will be kept in chains for all eternity..

So God created man, a physical being without an immortal soul who has a finite span of years to develop and build character, and if he doesn't and sins (which we all have) the penalty is death. God says eternal life is his gift and the penalty for sin is death. So the concept that sinning earns you immortal life in purgatory is absolutely wrong and illogical, apart from the fact that a loving God would not do that to human beings anyway.

So God put Adam on the earth, taught him, and hoped that he would choose his way and eat from the Tree of Life that would've opened up his mind to God's spirit. he was influenced by Satan (who has lost his exulted position and wants to take all of us with him) to eat of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, so he can influence us, it closed off god's mind to us, and we can do extroadinary good things with this knowledge and just as evil things. God basically said that we had rejected him, so now try to develop your own codes, own laws to live a happy life by.

Satan has been influencing mankind for all these centuries, that is why man, with all his genius and good intentions has never devised a paradise to live in with all our good intentions. If God let him, satan would influence and give us the means to destory ourselves like we almost have done. Thats where "man's way of thinking" would lead by now, to total annihilation if God had allowed it.

God will eventually return to earth, Jesus Christ's sacrifice has paid for all of our sins if we choose to accept his sacrifice and choose to live God's way, and eventually everyone who has lived, even those who never heard of god, will be resurrected and given the chance to choose god, to choose to live his way, once Satan has been put into the pit... Without his influence the people will have the choice to choose God's way, and then he says that eye has not seen, nor ear heard what he has prepared for those who love him... that is what the wonderful loving god has in store for those who want to choose to live his life in the future... all this eternity in the fires of purgatory is a load of bull put out by church's down through the centuries so they could control their members through fear, and make a lot of money selling indulgences for sins that they have no right to excuse or pardon anyway..

At the moment god is leaving us to live the lives we wanted when we rejected him, until we learn that we can't devise a workable system with all our genius and good intentions, and with Satan still influencing us, and just before we totally destroy ourselves, he will return to establish his rule on the earth...

once again all this stuff is in the bible if you just read it...

PS to the post aove, reading some of the other posts, just thought i might add:

Although God is a loving god and wants to give us eternal life and everything that is good, he is not like a human parent that is prepared to accept sulky rebellious members into his family that will choose him only on their terms.

He wants to make us spiritual beings that will live forever. God knows sinning often brings short term pleasure and long term pain and consequences which we sometimes might even be able to avoid in our short life spans. but when you live for all eternity and everyone would be sinning and doing their own thing, that is a recipe for disaster and god knows it.

To live happily and harmoniously, for everyone to enjoy themselves, they will need to live the way of outgoing love and care for one another (like god does) and that is to live by god's rules. He isn't saying come as you are and i will accept whatever your prepared to give like human parents might do.

That is why we will all have to choose to accept god and to live by his rules to ensure a happy eterntity, or for the sake of the pain and suffering we would not only bring to ourselves for all eternity but also to his kingdom, he will snuff out humans who continue to rebel against him, rather than torture them with fire and brimstone for all eternity... that is simply not how god works....