Death...

I posed a question on Twitter today. Want to know what non-Christians think happens after death. I really am curious about that.

Since Michael Jackson died last week, I see so much online about his death - as if he's the first real person to die in ages... On Twitter, I am following @denyreligion . The bio reads "Deny Religion Its Hold. Atheism." They have a website dedicated to "saving" people from the hold of Christianity. It appears that they have picked apart the Bible to support their belief that Christianity is a horrible disease for the cruel and weak-minded. I notice they don't examine anything that might prove that wrong.

So, I was wondering what people like them believe happens after death. I wonder what it is they believe about life. What is their purpose? What is their hope? What is their existence about.

Anyway, I hope that I will hear from non-believers on this subject. I am seriously so interested in knowing what makes them believe what they do. Actually, what I am hoping is that I will get someone to discuss it without being mean or rude. Just because we have different beliefs does not mean we can't be civil. I hope.

Peace
--Free

I've Been Cooking (Cos I can't tweet!)

With the kids gone, the house is so quiet these days. We four remaining adults are all so busy running and going and doing that we just kind of eat out of plastic dishes or hit the fast food joints.

I miss cooking for everyone. It's not like I have my PC to Twitter on or blog when I want. So... the other day, I just HAD to get back in the kitchen. Let me tell you something: when I'm "On" in the kitchen, I am wonderful, but when I have an off moment, it's OFF!

I did a pretty lousy dish of meatballs, tomatoes, string beans and potatoes. I don't know what I was thinking. Well, yeah, I do. See, I had this idea of doing something different with meatballs. I was thinking of a kind of oven-done stew. And I happened to have some potatoes and veggies, so... I dunno. It wasn't horrible, but no one dashed back for seconds.

I'm kind of proud of the strip steaks I did last night. I seasoned them with the juice off my jar of store-bought crushed garlic, some oregano, a dash of olive oil, a little bit of salt, pepper and a couple chicken bouillon cubes. Yes, I sure did use chicken on the steak. I let that sit for about half an hour, then I powdered it with a little bit of seasoned flour ("seasoned"meaning I added some seasoning salt) and cooked them in olive oil. That was some good-tasting meat. Too bad I didn't make any side dishes! I was lazy by then & everyone was late getting home and cranky... *shrug*

If we have any more tilapia fish out in the freezer, I'm gonna test out a recipe for frying it in potato chip crumbs. That's right. I heard of doing chicken like that, but I've never tried it.

If my PC stays in the shop much longer, I'm going to expand my kitchen distractions into the area of baking. I haven't made a from-scratch cake in so long I've forgotten how. And I'm just aching to try a peanut butter and jelly shortbread recipe I saw on Food Network...

Anyway, unless you guys are going to send people over to help eat up some of this food, please pray that my PC gets fixed SOON! LOL.

Gotta go now. I'm all cooked out for the evening so I'll be blogging like mad. I'm headed over to Free & Faith to make some enemies of the Oprah crowd! (Seriously, I probably will make some enemies, but that's not my intent.)

To all my Twitterpals, I hope to be back tweeting soon! *hugs*

Peace
--Free

The New Blog Is Up

As I mentioned that I was planning to do, I started a separate blog to talk about matters of my faith.

I titled the blog Free & Faith.

FreeII, a commenter here at times, left comments on this post that seemed to indicate I was no longer free since I was declaring my faith so openly. I disagree with him & told him that I feel even freer.

Anyway, you can check out the new blog anytime now. I am probably going to be fixing the layout some over the next few days - WHEN I have PC access! My poor little laptop is still in the hands of Best Buy & the manufacturer... I don't even know what the status is yet. They might fix or replace it, or they might decide not to. If they don't replace it, I have no idea what I will do for a PC. In the meantime, I am SO thankful to my nephew for letting me use his.

Peace
--Free

New Blog Coming

I'm going to be either setting up a new blog or using one of my defunct blogs to deal with Bible study and other matters of faith. In the meantime, I just wanted to share something with you all.

In further study that I've been doing in the Bible, I was using my NASB version. I remembered that some time back, there was arguments by some scholars that the most accurate Bible is the KJV. I wanted to get more information on this. A couple of things I ran across is (of course) on YouTube. One is a teaching by Walter J. Veith.




Very informative. Another is the teaching of Gail Riplinger

Make sure to watch all parts of the videos since they are in sections.

Now, of course, I will be doing any Bible study with either a KJV1611 or with the KJV inlcluded.

NOTE: Interesting that the mobius symbol (666) is on the cover of the New KJV or NKJV... Why?

Peace
--Free

Go Ahead & Hate Me Now

Recently, I've been doing a lot of examination of my spiritual life. I've had some breakthroughs & am making some serious changes. I can already hear the backlash starting - from friends, family and web-buddies. But: I love the Lord more than all that, so...

I am declaring not just my faith as a Christian, but my faith in Jesus Christ as the only way to his Father.

I needed to say that because I know too many people who "believe" but are vague about their beliefs. I know people who "believe" in "a god." For myself, here and today, I want to renounce some things. I had been living under a certain amount of ignorance & now that I am learning and growing, I want to be very public and very clear about things I no longer want in my life. I want to be clear about what I believe.

• I believe that the ONLY way of salvation is through Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
  
• I don't want to practice (even inadvertantly) anything pagan, unholy, un-pleasing to God. (I will talk about this more further down in the post.)
• I renounce past practices of any of the things not pleasing to God.

Now. About things I dabbled in, practiced, showed interest in. I am giving up the music and entertainment coming from anyone who worships other gods. This includes all those groups I "loved" so much and ideas I either accepted or ignored: Earth, Wind & Fire (for proclaiming the idea of "many paths"to God), Tupac (who was too violent and self-saving to proclaim Christ), Alicia Keys & Erika Badu (who have their own idea of who & what God is & it does not jibe with His Word), and yoga, meditation. I will not stop loving or caring about my friends and family who practice such things, but I will ask that they leave me out of it & know that I disapprove of it because of the Word of my Savior. My friends who are homosexual and lesbian, my friends who live together outside of marriage, my friends who believe there is more than one way to salvation.

If you think it is easy to proclaim certain things and to renounce certain things, then you probably will see me as just another "narrow-minded" Christian. If you understand taking a stand for your beliefs, then whether you agree with me or not, you will at least respect me. To be honest, though, while it will hurt me to lose some people from my circle of friends, it's not more important than pleasing Christ.

By the way, you might want to check out some of what this brother has to say (esp interesting at the 5:20 mark). My family & I are going here to order all the tapes to share with the rest of our fam & friends:



I hope he doesn't mind that I embedded the video, but I really want everyone to have the chane to hear some of his teaching (and then please ORDER the video so he can keep spreading the message!) And, no, this man did not change my mind or brainwash me; he just brought back into my mind what I had learned when I used to study the Bible. I have to get back to that. I hope you will also.

I know that I'm going to have to focus on this Bible teaching alot once I start getting flack:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:2)

Peace
--Free

Git-Git Gittin It On!

Remember back when I was telling y'all about my niece's dogs: Gizmo and Genna? Well, people, Gizmo has got us all falling over laughing these days.

Understand that Giz is quite the little pimp. He's a mischievous rascal, that Giz. And we thought he was a little lover-dog. You know, the one that would have all the gal-dogs running after him. The whole reason for my niece getting Genna was so that she could mate the two pups.

Hmmm...

Turns out that Gizmo has the right idea. He's certainly got the right idea, but... Well, let's just say that his enthusiam tends to be misdirected. Gabs (my niece) says that poor Giz was sure working it out last night. The only problem was that his aim seems to be off! I guess he was tiring himself all out and never even got near the right place to do any good. And Genna - well, that chick-pup has so much at-ti-tude to start with... Gabs said Genna was looking at Gizmo like, "What the hell is wrong with your over-heated self?!"

My sister kept getting these phone calls from Gabs last night:

• "What's WRONG with this dog?"
• "He's all over her LEG, Ma!"
• "What's he doing to her EAR???"
  
• "I thought this came NATURALLY to dogs, but - Gizmo! Gizmo!!! Ugh, gross..."
• "Gotta go. He's made another mess."

Poor Gabs. She said that, at the rate Gizmo's lover skills are going, Genna's never going to breed... I asked what Gizmo acts like when he's, uh, done. She said, "He goes off and falls into a coma like he's really done something!"

So, what I'm wondering is: Is there somewhere Gabs can take Gizmo to get him some lessons or something???

He doesn't look "slow" does he??? LOL

Twitter-Smacked

Well.

Turns out that my Twitter problem may have been due to some cleanup the crew has been doing to the site. I am back up (after about 22+ hrs down!) and tweeting away.

Still...

Strange thing is happening: some of my very fave tweepals are showing that I'm not following them. When I go to re-follow, MY accounts shows that I AM following them.

**grinding my teeth**

I'm thinking that I might have to make a list and go through and verify that I am following my tweepals. I'm telling you - never thought I could get so attached to the folks I tweet with, but I have.

Anyway, if you think I un-followed you, chances are it's just Twitter being a brat.

Peace
--Free
@FreeBeing

Twitter-Jacked

I kind of thought it would happen. I'd been seeing other tweets about people having problems with their accounts being messed with...

Well, I went to sign into my Twitter account this morning and - surprise, surprise, surprise! Account Suspended. Damn it.

I bet this is a little gift from those sleazy broads who "follow" me to look at their 0 updates. Or maybe one of those guys or gals who can tell me how to get 5000 followers in a day (but not tell WHY I would want that...)

Son-of-a... Anyway, I've put in my request to Twitter to straighten it out. We'll see how long that takes. In the meantime, to all my tweepals, I'll see you when I can see you!

Peace
--Free

A Recipe: Hot Water Cornbread

For a Twitter Pal of mine - flyddw - here is my sister's recipe for "Hot Water Cornbread." flyddw & ASK4ME are waiting for this post!

I have never mastered making it because I just got good with regular cornbread. I can cook my butt off with some recipes, but my sister takes after Mama - which means she does everything more by "feel" and "sense" than measuring... She says that, depending on how big you want the bread patties, you can get quite a few pieces out of this version of the recipe. *shrug* Well, here we go:

***What you need***

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 cups water
• apprx tsp of butter
• apprx 2 Tbls fried meat grease or bacon drippings or even Crisco (but not Olive Oil!)
• enough cooking oil to cover the bottom of your skillet to almost 1/4 inch up the side.
• a medium-sized mixing spoon (about three times size of a regular soup or place spoon)
• a mixing bowl
• paper towels to drain cooked bread
  
• a pot to boil the water

***What you do***

1. Mix together the cornmeal, salt & sugar in the bowl with a fork. Set aside. This is your "dry mix."
   
2. Put the 2 cups of water in pot and let come to a boil. When water is boiling, stir in the 2 Tblsp of fried meat grease and the tsp of butter & let it all boil again. This is your "hot water mix."
3. Get your skillet & cooking oil ready for frying. You are going to want the frying oil hot enough to "pop water."
   
4. Slowly add some of the water mix to the dry mix in the bowl, stirring it in. You only want to add enough of the hot water mix to get a mushy consistency that will let you scoop the mush with the mixing spoon.
5. When your skillet & frying oil is ready, you can start frying the scoops of cornmeal. Don't let it cook too fast or slow. Too fast & it will burn; too slow & it will be over oily.
6. Let each side brown as much as you want. (My sister likes hers crunchy, but I like mine golden & kind of soft.) Take out & drain on paper towels.
   

Hot water cornbread is best eaten hot. If you do save some for later, you can break the patties up into hot soup, beans or gumbo, but hot is best.

Peace
--Free

Dangerous Deception

The most dangerous type of deception is the kind that seems the least deceptive. A really good example (in my opinion): David Icke's theories.

As a Christian, I hear a lot of criticism of followers of Christ. Not all of the criticism is undeserved. Christians are fault-laden sinners like everyone. Forgiven sinners, but still sinners. So, yeah, we can be arrogant, judgmental, and spiteful. I know I can. I don't want or aspire to be that way, and I always try to be better, but... I am only human. I have to ask for forgiveness so much that, if forgiveness had to be repaid, I'd be in Bankruptcy!

Seriously, though, as with any belief (or non-belief, which is still a belief of a sort!), Christianity has a foundation. That foundation is Christ and his teachings. When I listen to Mr. Icke - who is intelligent and passionate in his theories and seemingly very sincere - I am bothered.

First let me say that I don't think that Mr. Icke intends harm. I think he has been deceived by something powerful. I think he believes as fervently in his theories as I believe in Christ. (Notice that I didn't say I believe in religion. Contrary to what Icke has said, I have no need to label my belief. I am a follower of Christ, not of a building or named denomination.)

Here is a video of Mr. Icke talking in depth about his theories/beliefs and how he came to them.



When I watched this (and it's not the only time I've watched or listened to Icke), I kept thinking how Satan (yes, I said "Satan") is such a silky tempter. Lies are best swallowed with drops of truth added here and there. I can imagine many people listening to Mr. Icke and thinking that his ideas are so intriguing. They are. And Icke is smart enough to know that many people steer clear of so-called New Age thinking. Notice that he's careful to distance himself from a lot of other "labeled" beliefs that are linked to New Age thought.

The first and clearest sign to me that there was deception in Icke's ideas is that while he claims not to believe in "religion," he nevertheless says a lot of the same things that are taught in the Bible. For instance, most of his warnings are the same that we are given in the Bible: globalism, wars, breakdown of the economy, a central tracking system marking all citizens... He's taking things straight out of the Bible and giving credit to this "open consciousness" or whatever he calls it.

Icke talks as if he doesn't believe in such things, yet he seems to be under the influence of something that controls his spirit. Whatever he has come under the power of is able to make his body do things out of his own control. I admit that my spirit is under control of God, the Son and the Holy Ghost. My will? My body? Free - which is why I struggle not to sin!

David Icke, while warning about things to come, is himself warned about in the Bible. He is a false teacher, teaching false doctrines, believing himself to be wiser than God. I pray that Mr. Icke will repent and ask forgiveness.

Peace
--Free