Spreading the Good Word of God Gently - Religious Conversions

The other day I was walking through the park when I saw a man, an extremely large man reading the Bible. I was minding my own business like I normally do in full observation mode, just simply enjoying life. When what I thought was a tree reading the Bible, moved and scared the crap out of me. This man was about 6'9" and look like he played professional football but when he spoke it was nonthreatening and very gentle.

Have you read the Bible he said. I thought to myself, you have got to be kidding me. Couldn't this person have been smaller and what's he going to do when I tell him that I have but no longer follow Christianity. I liked my face and the rest of my body, should I lie to this man to save my own life or would he be understanding about my beliefs.

I threw the dice out on the table and told him that I have read the Bible and do not believe it is the word of God, the Creator of the universe. I explained to him that, there is a lot of useful information and some wonderful stories in the Bible but that it could not completely be proven as factual information. I continued to explain to him that there was a lot of information in the Bible that contradicted itself and some that simply wasn't true.

He sat back down on the park bench and asked me to join him. I couldn't resist as I always have enjoyed talking about religion and ready to learn something about this man and why he is a Christian. He started to tell me about some recent events that have happened in his life, some bad, some worse and of course some that he didn't want to talk about. However, he did mention a trip to church a few Sundays ago that changed his life.

I was happy for him that he had found peace but explained to him that he is extremely vulnerable to anything right now that can make a little sense out of his life. Be careful I told him, because you could get caught up in something that feels and sounds good, only to find out later in life, that you have questions about Christianity that can't be answered.

I had a very pleasant conversation with this person and I believe he appreciated a few of the points I made. When people are down and out and their lives seem to be really messed up, they're extremely vulnerable to others religious beliefs, whether they're right or wrong.

Don't force your religious beliefs onto others, be kind and courteous to those who are on the edge and having difficulties in life. Explaining to them about your religion and how it has benefited you is wonderful but it might not be as beneficial to someone else. The next time you plan on converting someone who is down in the dumps, make sure that you understand your own religion before you pass false beliefs onto others.

It's like a cancer spreading through the body, most of the cancer cells don't know what they are doing or how much damage is going to be done until it's too late.

You are free to copy this article to your site as long as you include the following resource information with an active link to my site:

Greg Vanden Berge is a published author, internet marketing expert, motivational inspiration to millions of people all over the world and is sharing some of his wisdom with experts in the fields of writing,marketing, and personal development. Check out one of his recommended books, You Can Have It All

Greg is currently working on a great spiritual articles filled with great subjects on a wide array of topics, like religion, self help and spiritual changes in the world. His views on religious freedom are slowly changing the way people think about institutional religion.

Good People Get to Go to Heaven

I found a website that was recommended to me and it had the comment, is Jesus the only way to heaven at, Gotquestions, seems like your typical Christian website that replies with biblical quotes and simple to follow information. If I was lost, they will help me find a way. There's even a button at the bottom that states, I have accepted Christ today. I guess if I was to push that button, I get to go to heaven and be with Jesus. Hard to imagine, avoiding a life of burning in hell could be as simple as pushing a button and uttering a few simple words.

I found this question and began reading their comment. The first comment is from somebody answering as a nonbeliever in Christianity. It states something like, if I'm basically a good person and live a moral life, I get to go to heaven, right, only the bad people like murderers go to hell.

Now the answer that the website gives, seems to create fear if you do not belong to Christianity and provide you with hope if you join the group.

It mentioned Satan as the ruler of the world, and he can plant these thoughts into your head if you're not a Christian. He also controls your mind and let's you believe, that it would only make sense to any rational person, they get to go to heaven if they're good.

Now this is what makes sense to me but according to this information, I am doomed to rot in hell for eternity, even if I am a pretty good person. All I have to do is accept Christ as God and I get to go to heaven. That seems pretty easy and I wonder why more people don't do it. Just push the button.

I wonder if Satan is controlling, non-Christians minds and that's why there's brutality and war throughout the world. If everyone was a Christian, would our world be better.

Here's a quote from Wikipedia The Crusades were a series of religion-driven military campaigns waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents. Crusades were fought mainly against Muslims, though campaigns were also directed against pagan Slavs, Jews, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and political enemies of the popes.

These Christian Crusades killed thousands of people. To give you an idea how many people were killed, all I had to do was type the word crusades into a search engine and it took me to the Christian Crusades.

I guess that rules that out, it seems like the Christians a long time ago were pretty aggressive towards their enemies, I wonder if most Christians would refer to these people as enemies today or are they just being controlled by Satan. Do these Christians from the Crusades get to go to heaven? If people like this get to go to heaven, may be hell is a better place anyway.

Greg Vanden Berge is a published author, internet marketing expert, motivational inspiration to millions of people all over the world and is sharing some of his wisdom with experts in the fields of writing,marketing, and personal development. Check out one of his recommended books, Mere Christianity

Here's something to think about, go to heaven

Online Article Results - Let's Talk Turkey After 3.5 Years

Many new online article writers wonder how successful they will become by writing online articles? And this is a good question considering how much work they will be putting into it. Of course, success is always an elusive thing to define because it means so many different things to so many different folks.

In my opinion success in online article marketing and using online articles to drive traffic is not merely about click-thrus. You see, targeted traffic is the important thing, as those are the folks most likely to partake in your services or products that you offer online.

Now, I am often asked by new online marketers and online article authors if I can quantify my results after three-years of writing articles online. Yes, indeed I can and perhaps this article may become both a testimonial for the online article writing venue and inspiration for your future efforts?

Today, I have over 7 million article views on one website alone, but since my articles are syndicated they end up all over the Internet and my articles are syndicated nearly 17 times each. I now have over 250,000 article pickups from other websites and ezine publishers. So, figure 250,000 + articles published and an average of 300 article views on each of those = 75 million total article views, but that's not all.

Each article is re-published with links in the byline and thus, there are incoming links (2-3) per article. Seventy-five percent of the articles picked up leave in the links. So, 187,500 + 15,000 articles = 202,500 incoming links multiplied by 2 -3 = 405,000 to 607,500 incoming links. That's huge and thus, puts me up at the top of all search engines for multiple key words and my websites rank extremely high in their main categories.

So, my article writing efforts have helped me get my information out to the world, which is goal number one, more importantly, my articles help bring targeted traffic to our Think Tank website, like-minded people, who would like to help fix the world. Fixing the world is a noble cause and I have the confidence in that mission, and I am not about to listen to any more nay-sayers, not in this lifetime!

Lance Winslow - Lance Winslow's Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/.

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Why do Muslims and Islam Honor Jesus and Mary?

Many do not know that Muslims honor Jesus and Mary as part of their religious beliefs. The following highlights some of the facts regarding Muslims beliefs about Jesus and Mary.

* Muslims believe in Jesus as a prophet. They believe that God (Allah) sent many prophets to mankind and Jesus was one of them

* As the Muslim religions foundation is to believe in one God and not to associate anyone with God and His powers and attributes, Jesus was only a human being that was raised by God and will return him to this earth in this life. Jesus will then die as a regular human being.

* Muslims believe that Bible was revealed on Prophet Jesus. However, with time, as that book was changed, God (Allah) revealed His last book, the Quran on the last prophet, Prophet Muhammad.

* Quran was revealed over a period of 23 years

* Muslims believe in Mary as the Virgin mother of Prophet Jesus

* There is an entire chapter in the Quran that explains in detail the birth of Jesus, his family, etc. The chapter is called Chapter of Mary

* Muslims believe that Jesus although was put on the cross was never crucified. Instead, he was raised to the heavens by God (Allah) and another person instead was crucified in his place. These teachings and the fully story are narrated in the Quran.

* Muslims also believe that Jesus will come back to earth, unit the Christians and the Muslims and will kill the anti-Christ.

* The Quran teaches Muslims that Jesus though was a normal human being but had special powers from God (Allah) including raising the dead and curing diseases.

Waseem works for HilalPlaza.com, an Islamic and Middle Eastern Portal Website.

Why Companies Need Motivation During Tough Economic Times

Companies need motivation, especially during these tougher economic times. Senior management must find ways to motivate employees in order to have their people perform at high levels. This is also true for associations and their members.

Motivation is required for any company employee at any level but is even more crucial for those in roles that have more direct consequences on revenues. An obvious example would be the company sales force. Another is customer service staff since they have direct interaction with customers. Dealing with complaining customers day in and day out can be a very demotivating. Production teams can also fall into this category because overall quality is impacted by the efforts of assembly people.

During booming economic periods, many companies made sure that there were incentive programs to help motivate employees. They were very aware that if some employees were not happy, they could easily jump ship to other companies. This was particularly true for valuable positions of high demand in the market. I've seen this type of jumping many times with top pharmaceutical sales representatives during my career and quite often, these high performers would end up with a direct competitor. Competitors love to snap up high performers much like professional sports teams do.

Some senior management might think that because we are in tougher times, the risk of losing valuable employees to competitors would be much lower. There might be a perception that most people would be happy just to have a job during times of recession and layoffs. There might be a lower emphasis to motivate employees since there probably won't be much jumping around to other companies.

However, this may not be true. The security of a job is not the only motivating factor among many employees, particularly younger ones. Even though it's true that people may stay with a company without much motivation from senior management, it doesn't mean that they will be motivated to perform their jobs at high levels. Quality will suffer as a result. This is why companies still need motivation during both good and bad times.

Of course, it is great to have inspiring company leaders and managers to motivate their staff. But messages from the same internal people over and over again can grow stale. This is why external motivational speakers can be such a plus during company meetings. External speakers can motivate company audiences in different ways and angles that employees have not been exposed to. It becomes a fresh source of motivation for the company. External motivational speakers can use examples that are not directly connected to a company's business but still make them relevant for the audience.

Having been on both sides as a motivational speaker and as an audience member, I can say that the best way for a company to motivate its staff is to bring in an external motivational speaker to address its people and then have senior management regularly reinforce those key messages made by the speaker. This will help employees keep motivated since in order to be successful, companies need to make sure that their people are motivated on a regular basis over time. Motivation is like vitamins, as we all need regular doses in order to keep performing at high levels.

Clint Cora is a motivational speaker, author and martial arts karate world champion. His book, "The Life Champion In You", is about how to overcome challenges and achieve life success. It is one man's journey from personal tragedy to becoming a karate world champion. More information about his speaking programs, books, videos, articles on motivation and success can be found at http://www.clintcora.com

Article Marketing Strategy To Promote Your Business

Article Marketing is the best possible and least expensive means of promoting your business. This is especially true for small and home businesses with shoestring budgets. You have the best possible product, a huge market and plenty of enthusiasm, how to en-cash the opportunities without a massive advertising budget are the key question in your business.

Traditionally called editorial publicity, it has now taken the form of Article Marketing. Even in the traditional method of garnering some editorial publicity you needed to spend a huge amount Promoting Your Small Business through Article Marketing
of time, money and effort in wooing the publishers, wining and dining them and building a relationship before you could get any editorial coverage about your business.

Article marketing strategy does away with all these time wasters. You are dependant only on yourself or a few key members of your business. For work from home businesses writing articles could be the ultimate business promotion strategy.

With the boom in internet and penetration of 30 % to 70 % depending on which country you are in, you can be sure to reach massive audiences globally or locally with the article marketing strategy.

How does the entire process of article writing and marketing work?

You know best about your business, products and markets. Use your specialized knowledge to write a 300 to 500 word article. You can create any number of articles on the benefits of your product or useful information which your customers may want about your product and services. You can give it a different slant each time you write an article aimed at targeted customers.

Make it keyword rich using specific terms people may use to search it online.

Put a resource box at the end of the article with a small introduction to your product with a link to your website or sales pages.

Go to any search engine and type out Article Submission and you will get thousands of websites and content syndication portals who are willing to publish your article for free. My favorite content syndication portal is EzineArticles.com.

Just submit them to all these websites and content syndication portals. The webmaster would be happy to get free content for his website. The content syndication portal is happy to offer them to their publisher and web master community. Customer is happy to find the information he is searching for.

The entire process is so fast that within days thousands of people are reading about your business offering.

Does article marketing sound good and cost effective.

R.G. Srinivasan is a Managerial professional, Writer and Author. You can learn more about article marketing strategy and resources at his home-business resources blog at http://www.home-businessresources.blogspot.com

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Green Building Certification Debate

Since March of 2004 the National Association of Home Builders has been working towards having their own NAHB National Green Building Program for certification. Different groups have debated, why should the NAHB devise their own program and not just use the well known U.S. Green Building Council LEED program. To some the LEEDs program is to stringent and expensive. One of the big factors that have builders frustrated is the fact that LEEDs only will allow Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) lumber.This limits the resources available in many areas because not all lumber yards carry or are certified to supply FSC.

The certification process with FSC is getting more expensive. An article posted December 8, 2008, written by Craig Web, in the ProSales Magazine states The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the key wood certification standard-setter in green construction, is doubling its accreditation administration fees for chain of custody (COC) certification as well as retaliating against certifying bodies that suggest other standard-setters' rules are as good as FSC's.

How is this productive in getting more suppliers and builders embracing the whole Green Building concept. The FSC does not want to see Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) lumber get included in the LEEDs program. FSC dislikes this SFI option because it sees its standard as being better than the others. The Green Building Council plans to decide whether SFI can be included this spring.

By allowing more options and availability to the builders would help promote the use of certified lumber products into everyday projects.

Making products more available and having healthy competition between suppliers gets the cost of certified lumber more in line. Today many lumbers yards charge a high premium for certified lumber because of the added expense and the hassle to control the certification process. But by doubling the accreditation administration fees is not helping answer the builders request for more economical products. The builder needs to maintain a profit and in many surveys many end home owners are not willing to pay more than a 5% increase for a certified green home. So how can a builder provide a green home and still be able to get buyers if the home has a high premium?

The industry needs to allow more options to get leveled pricing and added support.

Allowing only one main entity to certify and dictate what can be a certified green home limits the grow with in Green Building.

http://greenbuildingideas.info

by Steve Feller