DID YOU KNOW?: Smoking is bad for you

It wasn't until very recently while on a walk with my friends, ignorantly enjoying a cigarette after a few drinks, that I learned a hard truth. A young girl was standing on the street as we walked by, tending to her vomiting drunk friend when an Angel of Truth compelled her to reach out to us. And she, being a conduit for the heavenly being, said,"Smoking is bad for you!" Her words cut me like a sword. Not a skinny, old sword that weird collector guys keep in their basement either. This was a double-edged, shiny, chrome (not sure how they make swords really), steel type sword. My friends and I immediately dropped our cigarettes, stomping them out and falling to our knees to repent. We had no idea!

Now, me and my friends aren't completely stupid! We knew that sodium nitrites found in processed meats were bad. We knew being overweight was the leading cost of health care in the United States today. We knew that subsidizing corn production, leading to the injection of corn goo into everything we eat including ketchup and fun kids snacks, was bad. We knew that drinking too much led to cirrhosis of the liver. We knew that adding ranch to everything we ate was bad. We knew countless hours in front of TVs and computers was bad for our eyes and our souls. We knew that not exercising ever was bad, too. We just had NO IDEA that smoking was bad!

From now on, whenever I see someone smoking a cigarette, instead of being content with my own life choices, and basking in the glory of my non-smoking ways, and just plain minding my own business, I will definitely ignore my vomiting friend on the curb and stop to tell you that smoking is bad for you. I won't hide it under a bushel, no. I'm going to let it out. I'm proud to say that I haven't had a cigarette since last night and I already feel so much better!

Election Issues from a Biblical Perspective

Now that election season is officially over here in the United States of America, I've decided to take a look at some of the sticky social and political issues from a Biblical standpoint. Since The Bible is pretty much the subtext of Western civilization, it's good to know where Jesus himself stood on some of today's modern issues. I know everyone pretty much agrees on what The Bible says and what all of it means, but I just had to find out for myself! Let's see how we did as a country:

Here's what Jesus said about...


Fiscal policy and welfare programs

"And Jesus said, 'Give to those in need, and do everything you can to help those who are poor and less fortunate than you. Just not with your taxes, because everyone on welfare is lazy. And, uh, not to homeless people either because they'll just use it to buy booze. And then I probably wouldn't give to any charities because most of them are pretty Liberal and who knows where the money is really going. So really, give to maybe close friends who can pay you back pretty soon or if you give your money to banks, they do a great job of using your money to give other people loans with it. They also make money off of your money! It's pretty cool, actually.'" 

- Matthew Something verse Something


Gay Rights

"And then one from the crowd asked Jesus, 'Lord, what about gay people? I hate them.' 

And Christ responded, 'Uh, well, I said to love your neighbor as yourself, but, I think I meant only for straight people now that I think about it. We should treat gay people or anyone different with much disdain. Because they are gross and weird.'" 

- In there somewhere, can't remember exactly where right now (will update later with specific verse!)


Immigration

As Jesus and his crew were trying to leave, His PR guy, Rick, signaled to Him that there was time for one more question. The crowd, unable to form educated opinions on their own, was delighted. A man asked, 'What do you think of immigration, Lord?' 

'What is that?' replied the Christ.

'It's when Mexicans try to steal our jobs.'

'Mexicans?'

'Yes,' the man replied, confused. 'You know, brown skin, really poor, want to take over the United States.'

'I have brown skin... but anyways. What are the United States?' Jesus asked politely, obviously just trying to get home to catch The Voice on NBC.

The man laughed, then felt bad for laughing at Jesus, straightened his face and responded, 'Uh, a country with most of the world's wealth founded by different immigrants who killed the people that were there first. But in fairness to them, the people that were there first were Indians and they should have been in India. They were trespassing kind of, you know?'

Christ answered as he was walking away, half-shouting, 'Uh, for it is written, or write this down I mean: You should try to keep these 'Mexicans' away and immigration is only okay if it happened a long time ago or if they come from Europe or you know them personally.'"

- It's in there, again I'll find the verse later. I'm busy right now.

Well, clearly we've got some work to do America! Let's get it right next time!