Welcome to my blog!

Hi to everyone! Welcome to my blog; I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

This blog is all about about cognitive dissonance. I am a Christian. And not just the Christmas/Easter type, I'm a real Christian, with real convictions and beliefs in moral absolutes. I am also an American citizen, born and raised here in the good ol' US of A, of voting age (29, actually). That means that I have an obligation to my country to vote.

This is where things get difficult. See, in the US we have a two-party system; in any given election, there are only going to be two viable candidates (anyone can run of course, but if you aren't in one of the political parties, you're gonna lose). The Republican party has done a fairly good job of convincing people that they were the "Christian" party since the 1980s, but with the recent landslide election for Barak Obama as president in 2008, which included many evangelical Christians, its clear that people are finally seeing past this facade.

See, the problem is that the Republican party isn't the "Christian" party. At least, its no more a Christian party than the Democratic party is. Here are some of the reasons the Republican party is not Christian:

• The majority of our deficit spending has been under Republican leaders. The Bible, however, tells us that the borrower (the US) is the slave of the lender (largely other nations, such as China and the UAE) (Prov. 22:7).
• The basic Republican fiscal policy is to give upper class citizens tax breaks, with the idea that this will prompt them to spend more, making everyone wealthier. This is a far cry from the Biblical concept of finances, which teaches that we ought give our "first fruits" (10% of our income) to the church, set aside 10% of our income in "the store houses" (aka a savings account), provide for our families, and use the rest to give alms (aka helping the poor).
• Under the Bush/Cheney administration, we engaged in two wars, one of which was unprovoked (Iraq). During this war, we tortured our prisoners of war, including the barbaric process of simulating drowning sensations called "waterboarding." Several prisoners were subjected to waterboarding over 200 times. Our Savior, Jesus, handled His enemies a little differently: "For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

So I guess I must be a Democrat, huh? Think again:

• Abortion is absolutely incompatible with Christianity. Many don't realize this, but abortions date back to ancient times. Didache, a church patriarch in 150 AD, declared "do not murder a child by abortion or kill a new-born infant."
• Homosexuality is a sinful lifestyle, directly forbidden by Lev. 18:22. This said, we as Christians are taught to not just tolerate others, but love them--even those living in sin. Gay bashing or harming homosexuals in anyway is absolutely wrong. But we as Christians still declare the immorality of homosexual behavior, along with everything that goes along with it (homosexual marriages, homosexual couples adopting, etc).
• More liberal leaning Democrats tend to want to repress all public Christian speech, especially that which condemns immorality. We as citizens of this nation have an obligation to stand up for our right to freely practice our faith and freely speak.

So there's my dilemma. I'm a Christian, and I'm an informed citizen who is eligible to vote. Which do I pick? Which is the lesser of the evils? Because I'll tell you right now, there is no such thing as a "Christian political party."