What happens to someone who wrestles with god?

Caution: Satire!

You start to wear two colored suits like the author!

How do you even wrestle with god? With a referee? In an arena? Why so combative in your faith of god?

Source

Is there evidence for the existence of God?

As long as we do not have a good explanation for where the universe came from or what came before the Big Bang, the existence of God and the creation by God can not plausibly nor credibly be denied!

That is also why religious tolerance and freedom of religion are so important for human civilization!

Atheism is perhaps the strangest of all religions!

In God we trust! (Origin: Possibly Benjamin Franklin and others)

Church Startups Take God at His Word: Go Forth and Multiply

Recommendable! Today is Sunday! The business of opening new churches!

Why not opening a new church in a shopping mall with unleased spaces!

The article even features an interview with a couple by the name of Dimanche (French for Sunday): "... Tarra Dimanche started attending the East St. Petersburg location nearly two years ago. She was a lifelong member of an African Methodist Episcopal church and said she felt she wasn’t growing spiritually.

Dimanche and her husband, Damas Dimanche, said they felt welcome when they visited Radiant. ..."

"... ARC functions as a startup accelerator, providing money and mentoring in exchange for a continuing cut of church revenues that it invests in opening new churches.

Similar entrepreneurial networks are sprouting new, largely nondenominational places of worship at a time when many traditional church congregations are shrinking. The new churches are opening across the U.S., from urban centers to suburbs, red states and blue, as well as abroad. The “church-planting” networks, established as nonprofit organizations, deploy marketing, branding and social-media strategies akin to other franchise businesses. ...
ARC has started 1,114 churches in the U.S. and abroad since 2001, including 40 last year. Average attendance on launch day was about 500 people in the first quarter this year, the organization said. Another church-startup network, Acts 29, currently has 644 churches, mostly in the U.S., as well as in Italy, Mexico and Thailand. ..."

Church Startups Take God at His Word: Go Forth and Multiply

Live The Golden Rule

Posted: 5/29/2014  Updated: 10/12/2017, 6/11/2014

Update Of 10/12/2017

Never bothered to figure out who is behind these Arizona license plates. Ignorance is bliss until you find out and I just did.

It is the Arizona Interfaith Movement that in November 2007 initiated this Arizona license plate with the motto “Live the Golden Rule”. This movement found that the Golden Rule is central to all major religions or faith. I think, it must be one of God’s eternal principles governing all live in the universe. The beauty of this Rule is awe inspiring!

Update Of 10/12/2017

In the meantime (as of 6/11/2014) I have seen now three cars with such a license plate in the Phoenix, AZ area. Here is a picture of the last one I have seen.

Original Post

This Memorial Day weekend (5/26/2014) I happened to be behind this car at a traffic light stop. As usual, when I have nothing better to do, I glanced at the licence plate to see whether I could make any sense of it. To my great surprise it said at the bottom “Live The Golden Rule”.

To paraphrase James Madison: If there were more humans living daily by the nearly universal Golden Rule, we would not need any government and the world would be a much better place.

Scientists Confirm That Religious Faith Prevents Depression

Trigger

Just read “Resilienz Schützt der Glaube vor Depression? 15.02.2014  ·  Wer gläubig ist, wird seltener depressiv - das gilt sogar für Menschen mit hohem genetischem Risiko, belegt eine neue Studie.”

Here is the link to the underlying study: “Neuroanatomical Correlates of Religiosity and Spirituality A Study in Adults at High and Low Familial Risk for Depression”

From the abstract of the study (emphasis added):

“We previously reported a 90% decreased risk in major depression, assessed prospectively, in adult offspring of depressed probands who reported that religion or spirituality was highly important to them. Frequency of church attendance was not significantly related to depression risk. ”

Faith Moves Mountains

At least since the Bible, humans know or intuitively sense that faith in God can do marvelous things. Finally, scientists are catching up. :-)

I find it very plausible that frequency of church attendance is insignificant. The most frequent churchgoer or greatest church donor may be entirely without any faith.

Senility Caused By Placebo And Nocebo Effects

A Bit Of Background

I have been familiar with the Placebo effect for decades, but only recently I learnt about the Nocebo effect (in German language) from an article published online on 7/12/2012 by my favorite home town newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The following blog is not really related to the above mentioned article about the Nocebo effect.

Faith Moves Mountains

We read in Matthew 17:20 of the New Testament that faith as small as a mustard seed can make a mountain move from here to there and that nothing will be impossible. Did the Bible anticipate Placebo and Nocebo effects?

Besides faith, there is also individual will power: A will to succeed in life; a will to be healthy etc.

A Conjecture About Senility And Its Causes

I am not trying here to explain exhaustively all causes of senility. But I believe that some people as they grow older are conditioned or resigned to experience the usual frailties etc. that come with age, because this is supposed to happen with old age and we are biologically programmed to deteriorate with age.

We all know from experience that seniors have their moments. It’s considered normal by everyone.

It’s like a Placebo effect: I am old now, thus I am expected to have memory lapses, unsteady gait, etc.

It’s like a Nocebo effect, because I am old I should now be more absent minded, more napping, more prone to fall etc. With age also comes anxiety about age related frailties.

How do the trillions or so of microorganisms in our gut react when we have Placebo or Nocebo effects later in life.