I love when idiots on teh intarwebz drag out that old chestnut about Sodom as proof of god's hatred of homosexuality.

Internet Whackyjob: Remember Sodom and Gomorrha? It was completely destroyed because God cannot stand this sin. Please read a KJV of the bible.

My response:

I have read the KJV Bible. Here's what it (very explicitly) has to say about your god's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:

Ezekiel 16:49 "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."

Sodom was torched for being rude and inattentive to the poor (hmm, sounds familiar). No mention of homosexuality there. There's actually no implication of homosexuality in the verses you mentioned, either. Yes, I understand that your holy book sometimes uses "to know" in place of "to penetrate in a sexual manner," but in this case, it makes much more sense if you refrain from turning everything into a sexual reference.

Here's how it reads if you don't make a penis joke out of it:

Two strange guys show up in a village city and sequester themselves in the house of a particular person. This being the Bronze Age, people are understandably wary about this. Might be spies from a neighboring tribe, here to case the joint in anticipation of a raid! "Bring them out unto us, that we may know them," they say, meaning "who are these strangers that you've brought in here to spy on us? Inquiring minds want to know!"

Lot's response? He offers up his *virgin daughters* to the crowd and suggests that they gang-rape the poor girls (not exactly Father of the Year material, but he's not done yet). The crowd, security-minded (albeit a bit rude) citizens that they are, are not mollified. Of course, Lot deflowers his daughters himself later in the narrative (*now* he's Father of the Year), something your god doesn't seem to have a problem with.

Now, let's look at this from your perspective:

Sodom was torched because your god apparently couldn't find 10 non-homosexuals residing therein. Interesting, considering that homosexuals make up *at best* 10% of the population. People in those days rarely traveled more than 10 miles from their homes *in their entire lives*, yet your version of events would have required practically every homosexual for hundreds of miles to make the trip to the ol' Gayborhood, Sodom and Gomorrah - because since they were all gay, it's not very likely that they had a self-sustaining population, right? The only way they could maintain it would have been to promote immigration. "Hay HAY hay! Come on down to SODOM and be a SODOMITE! Every day is a gay holiday! Everyone just FLAAAAMES! Well, except for this one guy who might suggest that you gang-rape his daughters, but we don't talk to him."

Yeah, your scenario doesn't seem very likely. Or even plausible.

You need to get over this sex obsession of yours. I understand that your holy book is chock full of people having sex with all manner of inappropriate partners, human or otherwise (with and without your god's consent), but seriously, you need to let it go.

-pb

Every time I open my mouth to respond to this, only a small squeaking sound comes out, and a vein on my forehead throbs and threatens to explode, so I'll just give you the quote:

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."
-Mike Huckabee, Warren, MI 1/14/08

::squeak!::

::THROB::

-pb

Religious politics: The dangerous facts

Here's an article about religion in politics, 1932-2007. I'll let the article do the talking (it's not really that long), but here are the distressing talking points:

the total number of references to God in the average presidential speech 1981-early 2007 was an astounding 120% higher than the average speech 1933-1980. References to broader religious terms, such as faith, pray, sacred, worship, and crusade increased by 60%.

and even more disturbingly:

To declare that liberty (or freedom, a term used interchangeably by presidents) is a gift from God is to position oneself as a prophet: that is, the wording suggests that one has knowledge of divine wishes and desires.

But the prophetic approach is not the only way to link God and liberty/freedom. Pre-Reagan modern presidents more often spoke as petitioners, asking for God's blessing or guidance. Franklin Roosevelt, for example, in his famous "Four Freedoms" address in 1941, used this approach when he spoke of the nation's "faith in freedom under the guidance of God."

This petitioner style used to be the norm in presidential politics, but no more.

... the ratio of petitioner to prophet style speech has almost completely reversed, from ~85% petitioner 1932-1980, to ~75% prophet 1980-2007.

This isn't just Republicans, folks. Sure, they may be the most forthright in their theocratic bent, but just listen to the God talk flowing from the Democratic camps.

This begs the question... Are we headed towards theocracy, regardless of which party wins in 2008?

It scares me that I even have to ask that question.

-pb

You should all know by now that I trust the so-called "mainstream" news media to report accurately about as much as I trust the Bush administration to do the right thing... on anything.

You should also know that I think Mitt Romney (and his Republican opponents) are all despicable people. All of them.

And, you should know that I think that people who can't write proper English, even though it's their native tongue (especially those who fancy themselves media outlets), should be flogged.

This post will address all of those issues.

So, Mitt Romney gave a speech yesterday that he'd like you to believe was akin to John F. Kennedy's "I AM NAWT BEHOLDEN TO THE POPE" speech. It wasn't. He wants everyone who didn't hear the speech to think that he gave some massive statement about how he's a Mormon, but everyone should be cool with that because he's not going to answer to Salt Lake City when it comes to Presidenting. He didn't.

Here's what he said about it:

If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.

There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it's more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I will be true to them and to my beliefs.

Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect respecters -- excuse me -- believers of convenience.

Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world. There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind. My church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.

There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.

They are not unique to any one denomination. They belong to the great moral inheritance we hold in common. They're the firm ground on which Americans of different faiths meet and stand as a nation, united.

We believe that every single human being is a child of God.

I highlighted "Mormon," because that's the only part of the speech where the word appears. A speech about being Mormon. Now, taken out of the context of the rest of the speech, these are some pretty words. But...

Infinitely worse is the other extreme, the creed of conversion by conquest: violent jihad, murder as martyrdom, killing Christians, Jews, and Muslims with equal indifference. These radical Islamists do their preaching not by reason or example, but in the coercion of minds and the shedding of blood. We face no greater danger today than theocratic tyranny, and the boundless suffering these states and groups could inflict if given the chance.

Wait, I thought we were talking about how you're a Mormon? But, it gets better. Romney lands his space-ship in Wackyjobland and flashes the correct gang-signs:

The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation "under God" and in God, we do indeed trust.

We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from 'the God who gave us liberty.'

DANGER WILL FUCKING ROBINSON! DANGER! FUNDIE WHACKJOB IS GOING TO RAPE YOU!

If you don't understand my reaction, uh, I can't help you.

The Media, predictably, reports as Romney likes:

Ann Romney made two campaign stops in Las Vegas Thursday night, telling crowds that the address husband Mitt Romney gave earlier in the day on the role of religion in America and his Mormon faith was a “historic moment.”

First off, this speech wasn't really about his Mormon faith. It was about how he agrees with paying lip service to the Constitution and installing a theocracy. But the real tragedy of the article is this:

a “historic moment.”

BUY A FUCKING EDITOR.

-pb

"I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George H. W. Bush, 27 August 1987

"Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom." - Mitt Romney, 6 December 2007

I fail to see the difference in these statements.

-pb

I've already aired my lack of support for Barack Obama, so don't take this as any sort of endorsement or defense of him.

Obama's presence in the Presidential race has allowed the worst aspects of racism to rise to the surface in our national discourse. Mitt Romney's presence has also helped stoke the fires of bigotry, but I'd say that Obama is getting at least twice the lumps that Romney is. The difference is that while Republican voters may be murmuring about Romney being a Mormon, they're not falsely accusing him of being one, and they're not clamoring to bomb yet another Mormon country.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, is being accused of being a Muslim. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Muslim, but the nature of the accusations is particularly disturbing. I've seen this posted hundreds of times:

q. Is Barack Obama a Muslim man?
a. Yes, His father was a Muslim. Muslim's sons are Muslims for life.

Cue the spittake. The sons of Muslims are Muslims themselves... for life?

It's not so much the attack on Obama that bothers me here, it's the implied assault of the very validity of Christianity that these (ostensibly "Christian") posters are making. They are saying, in essence, that Islam is so gripping, so compelling, that simply having 23 chromosomes in common with a man who was Muslim is enough to make any man Muslim for life, and Christianity simply can't compete with that. Obama's acceptance of the Christian faith is simply a sham due to his absentee father's Islamic sperm, because there's no possibly way that the awesome power of Jesus Christ could possibly overcome it.

Do these people realize that their argument effectively castrates their own religion?

-pb

Brigadier Gen. Keith Kerr (R): “My name’s Keith Kerr, from Santa Rosa, California. I’m a retired brigadier general with 43 years of service,” Kerr told the candidates in the video that he submitted to the YouTube debate. “I’m a graduate of the Special Forces Officer Course, the Commanding General Staff Course and the Army War College. And I’m an openly gay man.

“I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA): “General, thanks for your service, but I believe in what Colin Powell said when he said that having openly homosexual people serving in the ranks would be bad for unit cohesion.

“The reason for that, even though people point to the Israelis and point to the Brits and point to other people as having homosexuals serve, is that most Americans, most kids who leave that breakfast table and go out and serve in the military and make that corporate decision with their family, most of them are conservatives,” Hunter said.

“They have conservative values, and they have Judeo-Christian values. To force those people to work in a small tight unit with somebody who is openly homosexual goes against what they believe to be their principles, and it is their principles, is I think a disservice to them. I agree with Colin Powell that it would be bad for unit cohesion.”

Military people are conservative, conservatives hate gays, therefore, gays shouldn't be in the military. Well, now we have a candidate that comes right out and says "Republicans fucking hate your homo guts."

Principles schminciples. If it's against their principles to participate in an illegal war, they get court martialed.

-pb

So, this story about the Governor of Georgia leading a prayer for rain is, in my mind, fucking ridiculous. Seriously. I mean, come on. The Governor of Georgia is getting on the horn with his constituents and saying "Well, we apparently fucked the dog here on drought preparation, so the only thing to do is blame Jesus and ask him to fix this shit, because it's certainly not our fault. Great waste of taxpayer dollars. Maybe up here in PA we can get Ed Rendell to just tell Jesus to knock it off with all the goddamned snow so we don't have another Route 81 clusterfuck. Screw preparation, Jesus sent the snow, he can bloody well fix this for us.

The outcome of this is mind-numbingly easy to predict, as it's eventually going to rain in Georgia, barring the explosion of the planet. So, no matter how long this drought goes on, when it does rain, people will insist that God (that's pronounced 'gawud') has answered their prayers, and this is unassailable proof that he exists and loves America, and Baptists are his favorite denomination.

Bullshit. Are these people really stupid enough to believe that their god is actively withholding rain until enough of them to get together and pray? What kind of barbaric monster-god do these people worship? "Ha ha! DIE OF THIRST! I'll not send you relief until you get at least 30,000 people together to pray publicly for me to send you rain! HA!"

This prayer for rain runs contrary to everything I learned when I was a Christian. Jesus taught his disciples precisely how to pray in Matthew 6:9-13 (specifically 9-10 for this argument): "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

This prayer - nay demand - for rain, runs contrary to that. You don't demand rain from the Almighty, you accept that maybe this is part of his plan.

Of course, you could take the temporal tack and realize that your population has stretched your natural resources to the point that any stress on the system is a catastrophe and not just an inconvenience, and try to solve your situation from that perspective.

But I guess it's easier to demand that Jesus fix your mess.

-pb

victoria_fusion and I went to the Penn Dems presentation of Jesus Camp. Needless to say, head asploded.

At the very end, the camp leader said (to paraphrase) "people on the left have got to see this, see these passionate kids, and be scared out of their wits". Horrifyingly correct.

I spent a few years as a member of a Charismatic Pentecostal youth group, so I can attest that a lot of the things in this movie aren't just dramatizations or "the worst case." I've actually seen this stuff up close. I even participated in it. I wasn't politically aware at the time (this was in 1994-1995), so I didn't see the political indoctrination, but they were plenty of people railing about the "evil, godless system," in particular education. I knew a number of home-schooled kids. Like I said, "Jesus Camp" isn't a fabrication. Check it out, it's scary stuff.

-pb

My beliefs have changed drastically throughout the course of my life. I’ve been the average Christian bystander, bordered on raving fundamentalist, quasi-fluffy Wiccan, non-fluffy Pagan, and pretty much every shade in between and then some. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a “religion of the week” kind of person. These changes have been gradual, a spiritual journey, without a road map, and, I admit, at times beset with the metaphysical version of ADHD.

I have recently come to a new point in this journey. As I’ve done with a number of things in my life, I’ve decided to quantify exactly what it is I believe. This hasn’t been easy, and I’ve had to ask myself a lot of uncomfortable questions and justify a number of things to myself.

In this quantification, I realized that there were two options: Reason and Faith. I could either attempt to explain my entire spirituality rationally, or I could do it on faith. You’d think that quantifying one’s spirituality on faith would be the logical path… right? But, wouldn’t doing that imply reason? So, I abandoned the notion of saying “I believe this because I believe it”, and decided to go with “I believe in Y because X”. Now, I just had to come up with X.

This internal conversation wasn’t nearly this structured.

So, we have Y, that is, what I believe, and X, that is, why I believe Y. Let’s cover the Y. It’s pretty straightforward.

I don’t believe in the supernatural. At all. Nothing supernatural exists.

Yes, I know I just explained a positive with a negative, but it’s far easier to concisely define what I don’t believe in, because the converse to that explains what I do believe in. So, here’s X:

I believe in the natural. Everything is natural. Science can explain everything. Scientists just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

This is my grand indictment of all religions: Science and Reason can explain anything. Miracles? Science and Reason can explain them (either they’re hearsay and fabrications, or there’s a scientific explanation for them). Ghosts? Science and Reason can explain them.

Here’s where I’m going to cop out of a complete explanation: Dark Energy. Physical cosmology posits that 22% of the universe is comprised of dark matter, 74% is dark energy, and only 4% is ordinary matter. Scientists admit that 96% of the universe exists in a state that they simply don’t understand. I don’t need to believe in an all-powerful deity, because Science tells me that I still don’t understand practically anything. I don’t see that as a reason to fill that void with a god.

Let’s take Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

That last one is the driving force in my personal spirituality.

Let’s say, for instance, that you’re in the basement, changing a blown fuse, and suddenly you and your flashlight are whisked off to the year 1387. You meet a villager, who marvels over your flashlight. You explain to them that it’s simply two batteries and a light bulb. Do they, even after years of explanation, accept your simple explanation?

Nope, they burn you at the stake for harnessing demons in little metal cylinders.

We stopped burning people at the stake in the early 1800’s, but the concept is still there. Claiming to be able to explain the afterlife? Don’t try getting that paper published. But why can’t science explain the afterlife? Like I said, 96% of the Universe is a mystery.

So, does your god exist? Maybe, but at some point, science will be able to measure, quantify and categorize it to the point that while it’ll be powerful, it won’t be, well… godly. Not any more than a man is to an ant.

So where does all that other stuff from the title fit in? Let’s tackle prayer. People have posited that prayer has power. That their deity answers prayers. There’s scientific evidence that people in surgery that are prayed for fare better than those that aren’t.

Science can explain it, and it doesn’t need to use E=MC^God to do it. It’s a basic matter of energy transference. It is the same thing as magic: the willful manipulation of reality. “God” just becomes the focus, the conduit. Prayer, in my mind, is the biggest argument against an all-powerful deity. Why would an all-powerful deity even need lowly humans to pray for anything? Wouldn’t he/she/it just do it? “Please save my dog, God!” “Well, I wasn’t going to, but now that you’ve asked!”

Prayer is a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I prayed, nothing happened, God has a plan”. “I prayed, it was answered, God is looking out for me”. I reject that. Prayer is magic. It’s the willful manipulation of reality. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Eventually, I am confident that science will be able to explain it. When that happens, prayer will become more powerful, because then we’ll know exactly how to do it right.

And finally, the Druidism. That’s the path I’m on right now. How, exactly, do I reconcile a pagan religion with everything I’ve just said? Simple: I don’t have to believe in my deity’s actual existence to use them as I’ve already described. I believe that every deity is simply a manifestation of the universe, an aspect of something we desire. A creation, if you will, of the human subconscious that acts as a conduit to the greater untapped power that surrounds us. Do I need to call the Great Bear of the North to watch over my rites? No, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. The Great Bear of the North only exists due to the will that is put into its existence. Is it going to watch over my rites? Who knows. Who cares? It’s a personal choice that adds to what I get out of my particular religion.

And that is the core, the argument in favor of religion: Regardless of what form it takes, if it refreshes the spirit, lifts the mind and energizes the soul, it’s serving its purpose. It’s the point that it turns from that to demanding exclusivity and claiming a monopoly on truth that it becomes malevolent. It ceases to serve the purpose that faith and spirituality are there to serve. The Universe, as a whole, is divine, at least to us, just as an individual cell would see the whole of our bodies as divine. It doesn’t really care about us or watch over us, but it provides for us and contains a vast well of power that we can tap. We just don’t understand nearly all of it. The closer we come to explaining it all, the more powerful we’ll become. The closer we’ll come to the divine.

That’s where science and reason have lead me.

-pb

More from Topix

nrs: Stalkers are bad but God is loving and he doesn't stalk in the human sense of the word. He does court us or woo us desiring friendship. He is not out to hurt us. He is out to save us.

Me: If your idea of courting and wooing is "Worship me or burn in Hell", you need to go to a crisis center.

-pb

Interesting little exchange on Topix:

anon: am praying for you. I will pray that you will find the true and living God who made heaven and earth,flowers blades of grass and sea. You will find him when you look for him with all heart and mind and soul.

I pray you find him before he comes in the clouds of heaven to take those who love him to himself. He said he would and I don't want it to be too late for you.

Me: I did find him. We just didn't get along, and decided to go our seperate ways. I'm seeing other gods now.

nrs: Why didn't you get along?

Me: His other special friends kept demanding that they "knew him better" than I did and that I wasn "living up to his standards" and all that jazz. Then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that we just didn't see the world the same way.

-pb

More from Topix:

Mary-CO Quotes a whole bunch of founding fathers, including this gem:

Thomas Jefferson
1781 - Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18
Category: God
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.
Reference: Our Sacred Honor, Bennett (352)

and adds this:

What other "Nature's God" is named as such if not for the God of the Bible? What other religion were we founded on that was monotheistic?

Knowing Jefferson's not-so-Christian leanings, and smelling the fundie-speak, I respond with:

Me: Try doing a little research beyond your own religion. All of the founders that you quoted were Diests - not Christians. "Nature's God" was a term used to describe the Deist belief in the divinity of the Universe itself, not your Christian god.

To simply ascribe your religion to people simply because you believe their words imply it is pretty arrogant.

Mary-CO: What is the foundation for the "deists" god? On what monotheistic religion did they base their ideas?

Time to educate:

Me: Deists hold that religious beliefs must be founded on human reason and observed features of the natural world, and that these sources reveal the existence of one God or supreme being.

Individual deists varied in the set of critical and constructive elements for which they argued. Some deists rejected miracles and prophecies but still considered themselves Christians because they believed in what they felt to be the pure, original form of Christianity — that is, Christianity as it existed before it was corrupted by additions of such superstitions as miracles, prophecies, and the doctrine of the Trinity. Some deists rejected the claim of Jesus' divinity but continued to hold him in high regard as a moral teacher. Other, more radical deists rejected Christianity altogether and expressed hostility toward Christianity, which they regarded as pure superstition. In return, Christian writers often charged radical deists with atheism.

In fact, during Jefferson's reelecton campaign, he was attacked as being an atheist. This is, of course, the man who re-wrote the gospels to remove any trace of supernatural elements from them.

Deists worship Nature and the Universe as a divine being, a supreme being, and the one true god that all religions seem to gravitate to. Don't confuse that with Christianity. Christianity worships on faith. Deists worship Reason.

Mary-CO: You did not answer my question. Deism, has in it a belief in a Creator. That thought came from somewhere. It is not made manifest by looking at nature. Deists don't just believe a Creator but a Creator that gave man rights. A God that elevated the concept of what it means to be "man." That is a VERY CHRISTIAN idea. They did not just wake up one day and think it up. Why would a deist believe in a creator? The ideas behind Darwinianism already existed. Darwin was not the first to think it up. What evidence is there in nature that says there is a Creator of Nature that gives man rights (that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable rights)?
That thought is only found in the Judeo/Christian God.

Me: Superimposing your belief structure onto someone else's doesn't make you right. Deists were not Christians. Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on creation myth. In fact, nothing in Christianity is particularly original. Saying that anything is a VERY CHRISTIAN idea is funny, actually, because Christian ideas were basically cribbed from other existing religions.

Mary-CO: You can "say" anything. The onus is on you to prove it. Put up or shut up. What Creator God in any other religion besides Christianity gave men inalienable rights, created men equal, elevated man in any way?

Me: The onus is on me to disprove your unfounded statement? You don't seem to understand how that works.

What Creator God in Christianity gave men unalienable rights, created men equal, and elevated man in any way? Perhaps you're not familiar with your holy text, The Bible, that is frought with inequality, has no concept of "rights" as we define them, and doesn't so much "elevate" people as it promises to destry them if they don't believe every word of it (no matter if there's a contradiction). So, perhaps you should back up your statements.

You can't offer one shred of proof that Deism is in any way connected to Christianity other than "I'm convinced they share a similarity, so they MUST be the same!"

Mary-CO: It is on you to back up your accusations. I can say you are the product of a dog and a rat but that is nothing without a proof text or a photograph. It is just hot air without proof. Accusations carry no weight without proof.

Me: I'm not the one making accusations. You made the accusation that Deism is based on Christianity. You haven't backed that up yet. To use your metaphor, you're the one who needs to provide a proof text or a photograph.

-pb

Some Muslim cabbies are refusing to transport people who are carrying alcohol

And I'm not talking about people with an open beer. I'm talking about people who have just purchased a bottle of wine for their dinner table. That's fucking ludicrous. The cabbies are refusing to do their job for which they are paid. They are refusing to transport someone because they happen to find something that the person is legally carrying to be objectionable.

A quote from one such cabbie, after the proposal that such refusals should lead to up to a two-year suspension of hack licenses:

"I would leave my job, instead of doing something that's not allowed in my religion."

Good. Leave.

If you don't want to cut down trees, don't be a fucking lumberjack. If you don't want to transport people carrying alcohol, don't be a cabbie. It's that simple. You do your job. If you find a part of your job is against your religious code, you make a choice: continue on and suck it up, or quit your job.

-pb

Poor CNN. They get dumped on by the right for being the "Communist News Network" and a part of the great big Liberal (or Jewish!) Media Conspiracy. And now, they're going to get dumped on by me for being the opposite of all that.

Radical Muslim: We drink our enemies' blood

That's the actual headline from their "Latest news" section, the top current stories. Yes, the article itself has a less sensationalist title, but "Radical Muslim: We drink our enemies' blood" is what they lead with.

Here's an excerpt:

"These people, ladies and gentleman, have a good look at them. They actually believe if you kill women and children, you will go to heaven," said one young Muslim who waved his finger at the radicals.

"This is not ideology. It's a mental illness."

Too bad they didn't lead with this: "Moderate Muslims: Killing women and children is mental illness". No, because that doesn't sell, does it? It's easier to start with "Radical Muslims want to kill you" and then suggest that a small minority are well-adjusted, instead of going with the more realistic "Moderate Muslims think radicals are truly mentally diseased" and then report that a small minority are bloodthirsty killers, but are in no way indicative of the whole.

Because we all know the facts, right? All Muslims everywhere hate our freedoms and want to kill us, right? Heck, why is CNN even reporting this? It's old news to them.

-pb

A heapin' helpin' of self-loathing

Now, I don't go out of my way here to bash Christians (other places, yes, not typically here), but this is classic. The link above is to "The Good Test", basically, it asks you, one by one, if you've ever broken the 10 Commandments. At the end, it tells you that you're a sinner, that their god is angry with you, and that he's going to punish you. Pretty standard, and I'd be ok with that from a "well, here's what we think!" standpoint. Go you! But the really interesting part is that it tells you that you're an evil, vile sinner even if you answer "no" to every question. It says "who among us can say that we have never broken these commandments?"

They simply assume you're a hell-bound sinner. Groups like this scare me, because they see no good in the world. They see evil lurking behind every door, in every construct of man, and in the heart of every person. How do people like this live their lives? I see a lot of bad in the world, but I still see a lot of good. I see things that have no bad. I marvel at things every day. I know people who are good people and I don't give one thought to their state after they die. But not these people. They are so overly concerned with the salvation of every man, woman and child that they have already condemned them to damnation in their own mind. That's frightening.

-pb

Religious Conservatives Gather to Discuss 'War Against Christians'

"The message of 'V for Vendetta' is that Christians are plotting to seize the reins of power."

No, the message of 'V for Vendetta' is that fascist, totalitarian governments can only control the people for so long until someone stands up and refuses to be put down. It only features your uber-corrupt version of Christianity as the antagonist because it's something familiar to the target audience. And why is that? Because you've been forcing this Christofacist ideology down our throats for years, and screaming about how we're attacking you when we choke on it.

"...a self-described progressive evangelical..."

Well hole-e-shit. What is that? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? (Sir, a self-described progressive evangelical, sir!) Not a self-described pagan, but a self-described progressive evangelical. Of course, this is to be expected. Anyone who falls outside the "mainstream" can only be "self-described", and therefore, not legitimate.

Because no one who is anything ever calls themselves that.

"I'm the President of the United States." ~ George W. Bush, 12/17/2005 - George W. Bush, self-described President of the United States. How come we never see that from the goddamned liberal media?

I digress.

This so-called "War on Christianity" is a fabrication. It's a smokescreen and a strawman. "We're under attack!" they scream. "Gather to our banner and help us! IF YOU'RE NOT WITH US, YOU'RE AGAINST US!" Sounds like the same tired old rhetoric. Newsflash: Christianity is not under attack. Simply because you perceive it to be does not make it so. Liberal Judges are not trying to erase you. In fact, the judges that have made decisions that you don't like (i.e., activist judges) tend to be overwhelmingly conservative. Hollywood is not out to get you. In fact, most of the battles in this so-called war are battles that you, the Religious Conservatives have started!

Gay marriage is not an assault on Christianity. Christians trying to ban it, that's an assault on homosexuals.
Evolution is not an assault on Christianity. Intelligent Design is an assault on science.
Abortion is not an assault on Christianity. Bombing abortion clinics in an assault on women.

It's not a "War on Christianity", it's a "War for Ideology". Right-wing Christians believe, despite being the priviledge majority, that they are the repressed minority. They want their ideology pushed on everyone else, and recoil in horror when everyone else objects. They started this war, and labeled it a war against them. Sounds like a kid getting his hand caught in the cookie jar and then complaining that there weren't enough cookies in it.

-pb

http://www.fuckchristmas.org/


"But these bastards are all 'But they call them Holiday trees!' Here’s a clue: no, they fucking don’t. Ok, maybe in a couple places, like on FOXNews.com and at the White House, but if Christmas is under attack, I’m Kris fucking Kringle."

It's long, there's more F-Bombs than an Andrew Dice Clay act, but it's right on and wildly hilarious.

-pb

Something I've been mulling recently is the slogan "God Bless America". I'm typically personally offended by bumper sticker policians. I mean, I take it personally in a way that I probably shouldn't, but I do. It has less to do with the actual message, and more to do with the use of the English Language. I'll be the first to admit that my grammar isn't always 100%, and I make the occasional spelling error, but I TRY VERY HARD to maintain a high level of adherence to the often insane laws of our language, and I am easily offended when other people don't.

Back to the subject. "Vote For [candidate]". This is a command. A direct, unapologetic command. If they read "Please Vote For [candidate]", then it would be a request. "Kerry/Edwards" and "W04" are shows of support, and don't offend me. But I swear, I would be offended if I saw a "VOTE KUCINICH" or "ELECT PENNACCHIO" sticker, because even though I cast my vote for Dennis and intend to do the same for Chuck, YOU DON'T FUCKING TELL ME TO DO IT. It's my choice, not yours.

And this brings me to the "God Bless America". Who is so arrogant as to command the diety they claim to fear and worship? That's insane! These people think that they are somehow more pious because they are demanding that their god bless their country. This is beyong fervor, this is beyond nationalism, this is downright insanity. I would never dream of using the slogan "Herne Bless America", because I don't want to tempt the wrath of a diety who would more than likely not appreciate being ordered about by a mortal.

So, one of these days, I'm going to design a bumper sticker that says "I'm not arrogant enough to demand that God bless my country. He will if we deserve it."

And that's the real point that offends me. "God Bless America". Are you kidding me? America takes money from the poor and gives it to the rich. America ignores the masses huddled in the path of a hurricane. America starts wars of aggression on lies and kills innocent men, women and children. America tortures people. America supports regimes that brutally rape and kill people. America supports policies that foster the spread of disease. America defends all this by pointing to the few other country that are worse and saying "they're worse". The god that I'm told is all-loving and all-caring about humanity wouldn't bless this country if it were the last one on Earth. And he certainly won't do so at the behest of people who, by and large, support the politicians who make all that possible.

-pb

So, I saw this picture at christian-underground.com. It says "I will pray where I want when I want / school work the street the mall / persecute me at your own peril"

Shit like this pisses me off. These people think that just because we won't organize things for them, that we're persecuting them. "No prayer in schools" means that we're not going to have a huge circle where everyone has to come and pray to their god. It doesn't mean that they can't, on their own, gather around a flag pole and pray. In fact, their right to do so and specifically pray for non-christian students by name has been upheld, even though those students have felt threatened by it.


If these people are so fake as to require people to hear them praying to make it valid, then they've got more problems than their employer telling them to knock it off. I pray all the time. I don't go praising the Goddess out loud in situations where it would be disruptive or inappropriate. These people can't seem to wrap their head around the fact that just because we don't want their religion jammed down our throat does not mean we want to criminalize it.

-pb

http://www.wftv.com/news/5523415/detail.html

WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. -- A Seminole County mother is speaking out after her daughter's teacher forced her to remove a necklace, which is a religious sign. The necklace is a pentacle, a sign of the Wiccan religion.

Aleigh Garmen said Indian Trails Middle School teacher Mary McNeal told her to remove the necklace because it represents Satan. The girl took it off, but with her mother's permission she was transferred to a new class with a failing grade.

Her mother feels it's no different than someone wearing a cross.

"It's your right to be Christian, just like it's my right to be Wiccan, just like it's my daughter's right to wear a necklace," said the girl's mother, Angi Martin.

Channel 9 tried to talk to the teacher, but she would not comment.

The school district said it should have never happened and gave the teacher a warning.

So, let me get this straight: A Wiccan is instructed to remove her pentacle by a teacher who had no authority to tell her to do so, and she has to take a failing grade to transfer away from this bigot?

The teacher should be transfered and fined, not the other way around. Apparently someone didn't get that whole religious freedom memo.

-pb

Evangelicals, in particular, seem to have a great reverence for Biblical law, in particular, the Ten Commandments. They act as though they are being oppressed, persecuted even, similar to the way Jews were in Germany in the 30s, when told that they cannot erect yet another monument bearing the Ten Commandments on some public property. However, they're being eaten by the same cancer that they accuse the rest of us of succumbing to. Evangelical leaders, with all their reverence for the Bible, are fulfilling their own prophecy. They are becoming, in essence, the Anti-Christ, by leading their flock far from the word of their God. If their book is to be believed, they are becoming their own damnation.

A look at the Ten Commandments verifies this. They violate all of them, some subtly, some less subtly.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me

They have created themselves a new vision of Christ and God, who they have replaced the old with. They have made themselves a god, not one that preached peace and love, but one who preaches antipathy for all who are not of him. They do not try to proselytize, they try to convert by force. Anyone who does not wish to listen is viewed to be against them. Christ would never have condoned their methods. They have made their own god, and simply use the name of the old one to give them a shell of credibility. They use this commandment in particular to attack their enemies.

2. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images

The Ten Commandment monuments themselves have become graven images. They are considered holy, sacrosanct, and to be defended at all costs. The monuments themselves have become far more valuable to them than the words written on them.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain

Every time they invoke the name of God or Christ in a manner that is not in line with the teachings in the Bible (which is often), they violate this commandment.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy

I guarantee that they mow their lawns, pay their bills and do their shopping, just like the rest of us. And what of those who have jobs that require toil on Sundays? They expect the world to conform to them, yet I cannot imagine them demanding that emergency rooms shut their doors on Sundays.

5. Honor thy father and thy mother

This commandment is so often overlooked, and not entirely practical. However, there are plenty of Evangelical-run nursing homes with forgotten parents languishing inside.

6. Thou shalt not kill

This is the greatest commandment that they violate. Granted, they may not kill on their own, but they kill by supporting those who kill. They support politicians who support the death penalty. They support politicians who support the wholesale destruction of the populations of other nations. They support politicians who support repealing a woman's right to choose her own health choices, something that could affect her health and well-being. Their hands are surely as bloody as those they support.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery

Again, they support ministers who are caught in the arms of their secretaries, claiming forgiveness for them. They support politicians who do the same. Status, apparently, is a way around this commandment, if you're an Evangelical.

8. Thou shalt not steal

They demand lower taxes and fewer social programs, effectively stealing from the poor. They refuse to support initiatives to feed the hungry or heal the sick. This is theft, grabbing the bread from the mouths of those who long to eat.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor

They lie to support their ends on a regular basis. Intelligent Design is a perfect example of this. They lie about the Scientific Method in order to make their theories seem valid. They lie to themselves on a regular basis, convincing themselves that they are just and righteous.

10. Thou shalt not covet

They covet the wealth of the world, from the smallest unit of currency to the mightiest reserves. They covet the resources of the Earth, which which others have set aside for preservation. They covet everything that could bring them more money. And they have set money up as another god.

And what of Jesus’ commandments? The two greatest commandments?

1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength

As with the first commandment, they do not love their God. They have made a new god, one that speaks with their voice, says what they wish to hear, and calls them righteous when they are not.

2. Love your neighbor as yourself

They have no love for their neighbor. They may have a sense of community amongst themselves, but that charity ends when one is found lacking. They have no continuity with those who fall beneath their twisted standard, and they have no love for their world neighbors. Jesus made no distinction as to which neighbors to love. He simply said to love them. Evangelicals simply ignore this commandment.

Evangelicals are their own Anti-Christ. If their rapture comes to pass as it is written, they will be among those left behind, not the ones who are called to heaven. Their leaders are wolves, leading the entire flock astray. They left the shepherd long ago.

-pb

So, I went to a lecture about Intelligent Design (thanks to khrystabelle's info) at Marbar in Univeristy City last night. Tons of fun! It was a good discussion about science vs. pseudoscience, and really wrapped up a lot of loose ends in a way that only a scientist could accurately explain.

A lot of the problem with Intelligent Design Vs. Science is that people don't understand a few basic priciples:

• There is no 'proof' in science. That's not to say that there's faith, though. There is evidence. That the sun is going to come up tomorrow morning is NOT a proven fact. However, thousands of years of recorded observation suggests that a pattern exists to show that there's a 99.999% chance that the sun will indeed rise tomorrow morning.


• A theory as it applies to scientific study is not a guess. It's a researched idea with a set of ancillary hypotheses that can be repeated and observed. The Theory of Gravity is a great example. It's a Theory. It can be tested, and it could be disproved if you were to assume some of its primary tenents to be false. Just like Evolution. If you wanted to start with "The earth is only 6000 years old" as a given, of course you could disprove it. Of course, you'd basically be ignoring countless hours of accepted, peer-reviewed research that states with greater probability the contrary.


• Peer-review is necessary to sound science. If you can't show your work, it's not science, plain and simple. If people can't replicate your work, it's not science, plain and simple.

One of the interesting points that Paul Sniegowski made was that for all the money that the ID people are blowing on this 'theory' of theirs, most of it is going to PR firms. If they were to take that money and dump it into research, they might actually get somewhere, but that's not in their agenda. They want ID to be labeled a science, but they don't want to treat it like a science. Scientists don't take their research to the public for review, they take it to the scientific community for review. The general public is not qualified to examine the ID data and make sense of it or determine if it is valid or just snake oil (which would lead me to believe that it is, in fact, snake oil).

Someone asked if there was any real damage being done by teaching it, and Michael Weisberg's answer was "yes". By teaching ID in school as a science, we would be teaching students horribly incorrect ideas about the scientific process. We would be teaching them, essentially, that dishonesty and shortcutting are acceptable to push an agenda. We would be teaching them to lie and cheat, all in the interest of teaching them about the god that 70% of the population worships, who, incidentally, condemned lying and cheating.

Another interesting point that was brought up is that ID is bad theology, and may well be damaging to the core precepts of faith itself. If god is used to patch holes in science, then the more we learn, the less we require god. These people are working so hard to push an agenda without realizing something so essential: God and religion are COMPLETELY IRRATIONAL. They have no place in science. They cannot be explained, and THEY SHOULD NOT BE. The concept of divinity needs to remain irrational and unexplained to remain divine. We need that, as humans. It's a basic drive to seek divinity. If we erase that by quantifying it, then we've lost something of our humanity. And that's what ID does. It puts god into the holes that science can already fill. Once that hole is filled, where does god go?

Edit: I'd just like to point out that ID does not just run counter to Evolution, which is only one part of one scientific discipline. It runs counter to the whole of science by dismissing the entire scientific method. It would be like trying to pass off a 2-year-old's crayon scribbling as one of Michaelangelo's sculptures. They are not created the same, envisioned the same, approached the same or made from the same media. This goes beyond apples and oranges. This is apples and golf balls.

-pb

Note to Left-leaning and Democratic-aligned organizations:

YOU'RE NOT GAINING ANY POINTS WITH THE MUSLIM WORLD BY REFERRING TO PAT ROBERTSON'S STATEMENTS AS A FATWA.

Knock it off.

I just zipped this off to Democracy for America in response to their press release "Robertson issues a Fatwa":

----
Can we please stop referring to Pat Robertson's statements as a Fatwa? It's denigrating to Islam and Muslims in general, and it's not winning any points. We shouldn't be using the words of Islam to reference the insanity that spews from the Right. Calling Dobson's assaults on civility a 'jihad' is just plain ignorant. Simply because a few terrorists have co-opted the word does not change the fact that it refers to a personal inner struggle against imperfection. We need to practice the tolerance that we preach.
----

-js?!

Pat Robertson is the brush with which Republicans are painted. They want Muslim leaders to denounce terrorism, but the White House refuses to denounce Robertson's comments, and the State Department merely called them 'inappropriate'. And even now, Robertson is backpedalling, thinking that no one will notice when he lies about things he said only days earlier. A review:

"You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war… We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

~Pat Robertson in a 22 August 2005 airing of The 700 Club

"I didn’t say assassination. I said our, uh, our special forces should quote, take him out. And take him out can be a lot, a number of things, including kidnapping. There are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power, besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP. But that happens all the time."

~Pat Robertson in a 24 August 2005 airing of The 700 Club

So, he calls for the assassination of a world leader (which is illegal), and then he FLAT-OUT LIES ABOUT IT while preaching on his Christian network. First off, the White House should be coming down on him like a ton of bricks for a) trying to dictate foreign policy to them ans b) making them look even worse. But, they're not. This is how it works, folks. Someone in your party, sect, or religion says something so reckless and insane and paints it as gospel, and you don't tear into him like a pack of hungry dingoes, then YOU SUPPORT EVERYTHING HE JUST SAID. Plain and simple. Conservatives say that Islam is a terrorist religion because not every single Muslim steps up and screams their head off about terrorism. The door swings both ways. You either denounce and abandon Robertson, or you become him.

-js?!

Once again, Chuck Asay makes up his own reality and peddles it as fact. Barry Lynn wouldn't be bursting into classrooms to arrest teachers who hold a 'moment of silence' for a fallen soldier. He might, however, object to teachers who say "let's recite the Lord's prayer and ask Jesus to ease their pain blah blah blah etc". You know what? So would I. Because that makes the Jewish kid in the class feel very pressured to fall in line with his Christian classmates. It makes the Pagan kid the target of ridicule because he doesn't want to talk to Jesus. If anyone thinks that this is just a "well, you don't have the right to not be offended" case, I 'm going to assume that you never dealt with any sort of discrimination in school. You have no idea what it's like to be the kid that everyone thumps on. You have no idea what it's like to be the target of persecution because you're different. It's bad enough that our schools basically encourage bullying, but to allow religiously-motivated harrassment, or even foster an environment where a student is made to suffer for his religion goes against the precepts of the First Amendment.

If kids want to get together on their own and pray on school grounds, go for it. It should be a student activity with no pressure to join and only supervised by staff. Organized prayer should have no place in the classroom. Moments of silence do not count as organized prayer. They count as a moment where everyone shuts up, and if people happen to pray, then that's ok. If people happen to think about last night's rerun of Seinfeld, then that's ok too.

Keep your Jesus out of the school that I pay taxes to support, mmkay?

-js?!

Whoa, I may have seriously underestimated my figures:

Numbers of [Neopagan] adherents went from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001

That's a 1600% increase, not the 400% I had calculated earlier. People who call Christianity and Islam the 'fastest growing' by dint of sheer numbers are wrong. You can't measure that way. Percentages are all that count when you're talking about exponential increase.

-js?!

German Churches Grub For Money, Disguise It By Attacking Paganism

[C]oncerns refer to the increasing changes to burial traditions that have taken place across Germany in recent years, and specifically the trend towards anonymous burial -- burying urns containing ashes in unmarked parts of cemeteries without headstones -- as well as "green burial," the increasingly popular new-age way of laying the dead to rest often described as a more ecological choice.

According to the church, the practice is a throwback to a pagan, pre-Christian age -- and therefore firmly frowned upon.

This is, of course, in Germany, where the CHURCH rents out BURIAL PLOTS for 25 years, and if somone doesn't pony up, they KICK YOUR CORPSE OUT.

So, I think I see what the issue is here. It's not about dirty evil pagan devil heathens influencing people to scatter the ashes of loved ones in forests, it's about the Church getting pissed that people aren't giving them thousands of dollars to BURY A USED LUMP OF DEAD F