Hornet

Just out of curiosity, what kind of sermons do you hear in churches that embrace progressive Christianity? In my experience with evangelical Christian churches, I have heard a lot of expository preaching where the preacher would explain the meaning of a particular text of Scripture and how it applies to our lives. In some evangelical churches, the preacher speaks on a different topic every week. In other evangelical churches, the pastor preaches through an entire book of Bible before speaking about another book of the Bible. The main point of the sermon in evangelical churches has to do with God or Jesus. Even if the preacher talks about marriage, one's career, money, and so on, he will talk about how those topics relate to God or Jesus. Evangelical preachers will talk about what is morally right or morally wrong, but they don't merely give a moral lesson. They talk about how God saves people from their sins.

Inanimate survival mechanisms are not concerned about what is morally right or morally wrong. Survival value is not the same as the rightness or wrongness of an action.

Things such as moral values and the laws of logic can only come from personal things, not from impersonal things. The uncreated cause of all things that began to exist must be personal.

Do you believe that when it comes to religious beliefs a person should just go with whatever he thinks works for him?

Having a relationship with God is important. Some people go through the motions of participating in rituals or church activities without having any sort of love or affection for God.

He probably meant, "If something began to exist, then something must have caused it to begin to exist."

If someone asked you, "How do you know that your religion or belief system is true?", how would you respond?

If a society bans same-sex marriage, then is that society morally wrong for doing so? If so, then what moral standard are you using to judge other society for being morally wrong?

Maybe religious people should come up with non-religious arguments against same-sex marriage.

God defines what marriage ought to be. God says that same-sex marriage is wrong. I think that this is better than saying, "Same-sex marriage is wrong because two people of the same sex cannot procreate" or "Same-sex marriage is wrong because it is unnatural."

One's religion or worldview is going to influence one's political philosophy. One's religious beliefs are going to affect one's views about freedom, liberty, the rights of other, what the government should prohibit or not prohibit, and so on.

My source for this is Colin Humphrey's book, The Mystery of the Last Supper. You can read about his book here: http://www.cambridge.org/asia/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521517553

According to the Synoptic Gospels, the Last Supper was a Passover meal whereas the Gospel of John says that the Last Supper was before the Passover. How do you resolve this alleged discrepancy? This is resolved by understanding that the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John were using different calendars and that these different calendars give different dates for the Passover. The Synoptic Gospels use the pre-exilic Jewish calendar which was based on the Egyptian lunar calendar and John uses the official Jewish calendar which was developed during the Jewish exile in Babylon. According to a reconstruction of the pre-exilic Jewish calendar, in A.D. 33, the year of Christ's death on the cross, the Passover meal was on a Wednesday. According to the official Jewish calendar, the Passover meal was on a different day.

I don't see it as an evangelizing tool. The purpose of praying in restaurant is to give thanks for the food. The purpose doesn't have to be to show off.

I believe that omnipotence should be defined as having unlimited power rather than the ability to do anything. Since God has unlimited power, He cannot have any weaknesses. Since God doesn't have any weaknesses, He cannot do evil. Just because someone cannot do a certain task does not mean that he is lacking in power. For example, no one can make a square circle. Not being able to do this task does not mean he is lacking in power. He cannot do it because the task is logically contradictory.