You don't touch the Lord's Annointed, the Lord's Annointed touches you!

Don't you just love it when people accidentally make your point for you?  For a while now I've been trying to make the case that calling out religious leaders when they make statements that are wrong/evil/lying/bullshit is nothing short of a sacred duty.  So then I find this video of Creflo Dollar over on Scotteriology (go read his take on it, it's brilliant) which totally makes my case for me:



Question:  Did you see anything wrong with what he just said?  If you said to yourself "Wow, that seems incredibly wrong and dangerous because it clearly sets up religious leaders to abuse their followers without fear of repercussions" then congratulations, you just had the sane, healthy reaction to a terribly abusive bit of preaching.  If on the other hand you watched it and saw nothing wrong with any part of it then you are the reason I feel the need to keep writing these posts because believe me, your response is neither sane nor healthy.

I know this because I used to be there.  A couple of years ago I would have listened to a sermon like that and gone "Mmm-hmm, preach it brother Dollar!"  See, the Christian worldview is driven by authority so for it to work this authority must be obeyed absolutely.  Now in theory of course that authority flows directly from God and His Word.  In practice however that authority is wielded by the men of God - Pastors, Priests, Bishops, Rabbis etc.  They're the ones who dispense the Word and Will of God to the people so therefore they are the ones with all the authority.  When you get socialized into this authoritarian view of Christianity, it's very hard to see the problems with it.  I know that 10 years ago I certainly would not have seen anything wrong with a teaching like this one.  If anything, I would have perpetuated it by teaching it to others (and I probably did).  But that doesn't change the fact that it is utterly and completely wrong.  It is wrong to the point of being evil and the only just course of action is to reject every word of it.  If you can't see why, hear me out and I will demonstrate why.

Firstly, try a simple thought experiment.  Take everything Pastor Dollar just said and pretend he said it about kindergarten teachers.  All that stuff about overlooking and covering up the wrong things they do no matter how bad.  Everything he said about not telling others about bad things you learned.  Still sound OK to you?  What if he said it about doctors or coaches or camp counselors or babysitters or psychiatrists?  No, of course not, it doesn't sound like a good plan at all, it sounds like a recipe for abuse.  Because it is!  So then why is it OK to make a special exception for clergy?  Just to be clear, he isn't talking about malicious rumors or hearsay here, he explicitly references true facts about actual wrongdoing.  If you wouldn't keep quiet and cover up for other professions, why is it different for preachers?  And just in case you think that surely he couldn't possibly be including sexual predators under that umbrella, think again.  When Bishop Eddie Long was accused of sexual misconduct with young men in his congregation, Creflo Dollar was right there to "cover him" and "restore him".  Honestly now, if you don't even draw the line at sexual abuse then what can't you excuse?  Because of teachings like this we find countless cases across denominational lines of people protecting the abuser while attacking the victims.  This is inexcusably evil!

For another thing, why do clergy even need to be put above the simple societal rules that the rest of us abide by?  No, really?  Again, we aren't talking about malicious lies here we are talking about people you absolutely 100% know are doing something bad.  Why protect them instead of exposing them and protecting everyone else?  Seems to me that only frauds and abusers would fear the truth becoming known.  You don't swear people to secrecy unless you have something to hide.  Abusers thrive on secrecy.  Frauds fear the light.  Honest people do not and therefore they tend not to preemptively insist that you cover their misdeeds.  A good person wouldn't ask you to become an accomplice to wickedness, would they?

That just leaves one more question - isn't it all Biblical though?  That is certainly what Creflo Dollar is claiming here.  He isn't the one telling you to hide your pastor's misdeeds, GOD is the one telling you.  Except God is not telling you that and his claims here are not supported by the Bible.  But what about David then?  Yes, what about him? Everything Pastor Dollar said about David and Saul was technically correct except for one teensy but very important detail - Saul was not David's pastor, he was David's king.  That's a difference that changes everything.  Complete allegiance and obedience to government authority is a running theme throughout the Scriptures.  Regardless of whether they are good or bad you are supposed to obey them.  Even if they are heathens who are brutally persecuting you, the Bible commands that you follow their orders and pray for them.  Funny then how most Christians today (especially in the American Right wing, looking at you Tea Party) are happy to be flagrantly disobedient to this clear teaching of Scripture while still claiming to "Bible Believing Christians".  But I digress, my point is that while the Bible does teach that you should always humbly obey government office (and not for instance slander, rebel, secede or wish them dead - still looking at you Tea Party) that doesn't hold for those in spiritual office.  Why yes, I can back that up with an example from the Bible!

"When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.  When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?"  (Galatians 2:11-21)

Here you have the Apostle Paul publicly reprimanding the Apostle Peter - yes THAT Apostle Peter - for being a hypocrite.  Does that sound anything like the model Creflo Dollar proposed?  No.  Yet, this too is in the Bible and it is far more applicable than the story of David and Saul.  In fact, why not take the time to read through the Epistles (seeing as how they are the books dealing with church and Christianity as opposed to ancient Israeli monarchy) and see what they have to say about the matter?  I think you'll find that far from telling you to hush up crimes in the church it commands that the immoral and wicked be exposed and expelled from the congregation.

Besides, do you think someone with real authority has to resort to vague threats like a non specific "facebook curse"?  Please!  People with actual authority don't try to scare you into cooperating with empty threats.  Even the curses in the Bible were incredibly specific.  Pastor Dollar is being vague because he has nothing.  No power, no authority, spiritual or otherwise.  He stays vague so the credulous can create their own curses.  This way the supposed "curse" can be whatever you want it to be.  Yes I said what YOU want it to be - washing machine breaks, must be the curse!  Flat tire?  Facebook curse!  Stuck in traffic?  Twitter Curse!  Come on, that's just stupid!  Don't fall for it.

So if you see something, say something.  It doesn't matter if the perpetrator is an esteemed clergyman, abuse* is always wrong.  If it isn't OK when your postman does it, it's not OK when your pastor does it either.  When you cover up wrongdoing, and when you side with the abuser over the victim, you debase yourself and everything you stand for.  So just don't do it.
   

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Remember, sexual abuse is not just a sin, it's also a felony!

 

Unimpressed Martyrs

If there is one thing I'm consistently irked by it's the Persecution Envy of modern Western Christians.  They live in a world where they have more religious freedom than at just about any time in history and yet you wouldn't know that just by listening to them.  Somehow this privileged group considers itself the most persecuted group in the world.  They keep finding more and more ridiculous reasons to feel "persecuted".  Schools teaching evolution is not persecution.  Someone calling you a bigot because you said gays were abominations that will destroy civilization as we know it is not persecuting you.  Neither is someone who doesn't agree with your view that everything will be perfect if only we got rid of democracy and got a Christian Theocracy instead.

How did we come to a point where criticism = persecution?  That's an insult to everyone who has ever been ACTUALLY persecuted - for instance the countless Christians who were robbed, beaten, tortured and killed for their faith through the ages.  Two thousand years ago persecuted Christians had to face lions, now they just have to face facts!

So I decided to create some LOLart (based on the "Unimpressed" meme) to illustrate just how ludicrous and pathetic the faux-persecution complex of the modern Christian is.

So maybe lay off the hyperbole and whining and be grateful for just how great you have it?

In which I get hit by a bus and damnation

I had an interesting Thursday.

First, I get hit by a bus.  Not the famous Christian Hypothetical Bus, an actual bus.  Lucky for me I happened to be inside a bus myself at the time so I'm totally fine.  Word to the wise, if you really have to be hit by a bus I strongly recommend being in a bus yourself!  Aside from some slight whiplash that may or may not be entirely psychosomatic, I walked away without a scratch!

Then I get home and I get hit by a metaphorical bus in the form of my first ever blog related hate-mail.  Except it wasn't really "mail" in that it was a comment on my previous post and I'm also not sure if "hate" is the appropriate term since despite calling me the son of Satan and implying I should kill myself, I didn't really feel like it was that hateful.  So forgive the poor terminology but I had to call it something.

Now I have had people disagree with me in the comments before but this was a first for me.  At first I was a little stunned, then I was a little hurt - which I know is ridiculous because this is a total stranger from the internet and I really shouldn't care what they think of me but nevertheless, it wasn't pleasant to hear - but that passed eventually.  Now clearly Rebecca didn't come here looking for an argument, she took the time to read my blog, disagreed with its content (rather vehemently) and then composed a rather long comment to me explaining why.  That is all good, this is an open forum and I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with me.  Also, this is actually a great opportunity for me to think about and clarify my own beliefs, so thank you Rebecca.  I know you weren't asking for a response but I'm going to give it anyway and I'm doing it here rather than in the comments, not to be a dick, rather it's because I detest having to read long walls of text squeezed into the tiny comment strips and I suspect others may share my distaste. 

Ok, after reading through your blog I think you are doing what your father the devil tells you to do. You are turning everything upside down, you call evil good and good evil (like calling satanic Lady Gaga holy and a Nazarite), you paint a very unbalanced view on purpose, for example concerning modesty. 

I like how this starts by you casting yourself in the role of Jesus with me playing the role of the pharisee.  Obviously we aren't going to agree on much here.  I agree with you that there is an evil side and a good side here.  On the one side you have the Church, on the other side you have a pop star.  The one side is causing a lot of pain and shame and suicide in the GLBT community, the other side helps prevent such suicides by offering unconditional love, kindness and acceptance.  One of those sides is very good and the other side is really evil.  One of those sides can even be called "satanic".  I just don't think its Lady Gaga's side.

I have never heard a teaching about modesty that does not place responsibility on both sexes, but you chose to compare Christians to radical Muslims. Since you can express yourself very well I don't think this happens because you are stupid. I am sure you are intelligent. You are deceiving on purpose and at the same time you are being terribly deceived. The devil has obviously blinded your eyes. So sad.
The reason my view of Modesty seems unbalanced is because it is.  It may very well place responsibility on both sexes but the responsibility is overwhelmingly placed on the women.  In all my years in the church I have lost count of the many admonishments for the ladies not to "cause their brothers to stumble" but not once have I ever heart the same admonishment given to men.  Whether it is said or merely implied, the message is always there - men have trouble controlling themselves therefore women must carry the additional burden of being responsible for a man's lack of self control.  Men being a temptation to women is rarely if ever even discussed.  Have you ever heard words like "cheap", "trashy" or "easy" being used to describe men and how they look?  I certainly haven't!  Those are words you use to describe things, not people and yet somehow it's OK to use it to describe women.  While I appreciate you complimenting my intelligence and writing clarity, I obviously didn't express myself that well if you walked away with the idea that I'm comparing Christians to radical Muslims!  What I did do was point out how expecting women to bear the responsibility for not being "stumbling blocks" just leads to an endless shifting of the goal posts.  No matter how conservatively they dress, no matter how much they cover up, men will just find new "stumbling blocks".  You are clearly intelligent and not just some troll so I have to wonder how you missed that.  Maybe I'm not the one being blinded here...

I don't think you were ever a true Christian who believed with all his heart. You hate Gods word and you did not have the Holy Spirit to open it up for you this is why you don't understand it. You were never born again. Because born again people are sealed and persevere to the end.
I disagree but obviously you are never going to believe me.  I get it though.  The scaffolding that holds your worldview together cannot accommodate the possibility of someone moving from true believer to honest doubter.  I've been there.  Those truths are supposed to be self evident and anyone who looks at it is supposed to believe more, not less.  You have the blessed assurance, you know that you know that you know that you know that this is all true.  Therefore people like me must have just never really gotten it.  Not true but you're never going to believe me so just believe what you need to in order to function.

You could be striving to understand Gods Word correctly, like I did, and yes, it is a journey through a thick jungle of heresies and plain stupidity, it takes a lot of study and effort, but instead you are mocking Christians. 
You have no idea how much study and effort I put into that.  I just ended up at a different destination than you. I do think the very existence of that "thick jungle of heresies and plain stupidity" raises a lot of interesting questions though.

Where is the love you like to talk about so much? I don't see any love, kindness, forgiveness or humility from you. So perhaps you are not in the position to judge Christians for not being loving enough.
You may very well be right here.  I mean I try not to be a total asshole but I could very well be failing miserably at that without even realizing it.  My main beef with Christians is not their lack of love (though that pretty much falsifies the entire faith according to its Founder), I mainly take issue with them when they are cruel, dishonest and/or just plain wrong.  There is a difference.

Are Christians not loving enough? For sure. But we are not going to heaven because we are good, we are going to heaven because Jesus was good and we lean on His victory over sin and death. Frankly, I don't expect anything from my christian sisters and brothers, all my expectations are fixed on Jesus. Have I been treated unjust in the church? Oh yes. But that does not stop me from loving the church that Jesus has died for, how imperfect it may be. It is the only church we have. These are the children of God with whom I will spend eternity. And in the meantime we are commanded "to bear with one another". (Col 3, 13). Not an easy job, pretty exhausting sometimes. But we are to die to ourselves. We are to become LESS! Not expressing ourselves to the maximum like Lady Gaga. That is why your comparison totally stinks. Lady Gaga dies for nobody else. She does not try to cut parts of her selfish ego back to serve another human being. She serves only herself and mammon and satan. And she does not glorify the Creator!
OK first off, I said Lady Gaga is the last true Nazirite, at no point did I say she's the Messiah.  So apart from that last screed about Lady Gaga I don't quite get, you do raise some interesting matters.  Clearly you are not blind to just how bad things can get inside the church.  Does it ever bother you that the people inside and outside the church are basically indistinguishable despite the life altering power promised by the salvation experience?  Does it seem at all odd to you that an infinite and almighty creator God would create people to be unique and distinct persons and then expect them to empty themselves of all He created them to be so they can all be identical empty vessels for Him?  Sorry, that is probably a really long discussion and I know you're not looking for a debate here.  It just illustrates our differences I guess, that you can hold such strange contradictions in your mind and believe them both while I cannot.

It is one thing to call out heresy and to ask heretics like Benny Hinn to repentance, it is an entire different thing to mock all of Christianity.

In the midst of the congregation you have been like Judas has been in the group of Jesus desciples. A traitor. But we all know how Judas life ended. 
I would very much like to thank you for the sincerity of your comments.  You accept that we disagree and you didn't try to persuade me to change and I'm taking that as a sign of respect, whether you meant it to be or not.  I especially appreciate you not signing off with something condescending like "I'm praying for you".  Thank you for that.  However I can assure you that I am in the midst of no congregations and I haven't been for quite some time.  I labour under no illusions that I'm winning hearts and changing minds here.  This is just my tiny corner of the internet where I try to make sense of things.  So rest easy, I'm not leading anyone astray.  That's why - if it's all the same to you - I'm going to go ahead and NOT hang myself (or fall to my death, depending on which version of his death you are referring to).  Thanks!

Recent Ancient Beliefs

When I was a young fundamentalist Christian, I felt very secure in my beliefs.  After all, the things that we believed in MY church were the things that all real true Christians have always believed.  The rest of Christianity may fall away from the one true faith thanks to all their compromises with the fallen world, but not us!  No, we would always stay true to the things that Christianity have always taught and always believed.  We knew we were right because we were holding fast to what had always been right.  So it came as quite a shock to me to find out that so many of my age old beliefs were really quite modern!

I've blogged before on how some of our doctrine wasn't as Bible based and unambiguously clear as I once thought.  But it's really more than that.  It's not just about how "Bible based" my beliefs really were it's how recent they were, considering that these were the things that, supposedly, "Christians have always believed".

Christians have always been Young Earth Creationists.  Except they weren't.  This wasn't always an article of the faith, once upon a time it was totally acceptable to be a Christian and believe in an old Earth.  Throughout Church history there have been a variety of opinions on just how to interpret Genesis and the consensus was not always on the side of a strictly literal interpretation.  Some Christians fear that accepting science undermines the authority of the Bible (and therefore their own authority) and therefore we have the modern insistence on YEC as a tenet of the faith.  But listen to what the early church leader Augustine of Hippo (354 AD to 430 AD) had to say on the topic in his commentary on Genesis:

The full quote is even better!

So to paraphrase Augustine, if a literal interpretation conflicts with science then stop holding on to the literal interpretation because you will only embarrass yourself.  Or as he wrote elsewhere: "In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture."  This also shows up the claim that, Christians have always been Biblical Literalists.  This just completely flies in the face the long history stretching all the way back to the Judaic Rabbis of debating and discussing the meaning of Scripture.  The whole strategy of throwing out all interpretation and only taking every verse at literal face value is a fairly recent invention. I believe that the strict literal approach arose in opposition to Higher Criticism gaining more mainstream acceptance around the 19th century.



Around this time a new doctrine also arose amongst Christians, that of The Rapture.  I was taught that Christians have always believed in the Rapture but no, this belief is only about 200 years old.  Christians may have always believed in the Second Coming of Jesus but the idea that all Christians would be snatched up to heaven some time before that is very new.  In fact the entire premillenial dispensationalist end times doctrine has very recent origins.  Before that time, most Christians were postmillenialists and if you go all the way back to the New Testament it certainly looks like the early Christians were amillenialists in they weren't following any kind of prophetic playbook, they expected Christ to return at any time.



Have you been following the current events in American politics?  Christian legislators are doing all they can to outlaw abortion and even contraception.  After all, Christians have always believed that life begins at conception.  Except it turns out this belief isn't even as old as I am!  As The Slacktivist points out, this is A ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal.  Now just to be clear, yes Catholics have for centuries held this belief.  Catholics.  Not Protestants.  Up to the 70s evangelical protestants did not believe that abortion was murder or that contraception was evil and they even quoted from the Bible to back it up.  But I guess the sexual revolution and the rise of feminism was scary enough for Protestants to put aside their differences and start agreeing with the Pope.


Once upon a time, to be Christian you had to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and that He died for your sins.  These days it seems that to be Christian you have to believe that life begins at conception, homosexuality is a sin, science can't be trusted, every word in the Bible is literally true, the Antichrist is coming, sex before marriage is a mortal sin, Christian morality must be enforced through legislation, welfare is from the devil and oh yeah, some stuff about Jesus.  Seems to me like Fundamentalist Christianity has little to no relation to the fundamentals of the Christian faith at all.  Funny how ancient and eternal truth can change over time...

God Hates { ... }

If you step into a church odds are really good that you would find something saying "God is Love" displayed prominently.  However if you listen to Christians talk or read what they have to say in the media you probably won't see that displayed prominently at all.  Instead the odds are really great that you would instead be hearing about how God hates things.

When I grew up, everyone seemed pretty convinced that God hated race mixing*.  In fact even when I was in college, the fact that I was friends with a black girl led to me getting a lecture about how God hated mixed race people. These days though, God mostly seems to hate The Gays.

Now granted, most Christians won't go around with "God Hates Fags" signs like the Westboro Baptists Church but they still share the sentiment.  Apparently "you will burn in hell forever for being gay" is considered friendlier than "God hates fags".  The litmus test for being considered "Christian" these days seems to be agreeing that God hates gays.  Gays get the blame for everything from earthquakes and terrorist attacks to the destruction of Western Civilization because God hates and punishes their sin more than any other.   At best some Christians will try to make the distinction that God only hates homosexuality but not the homosexual person.  However I could forgive gays for failing to see the distinction... 

Now everyone listing the things God hates seem pretty confident that they are 100% correct.  Whether it's desegregation, homosexuality or just sexuality in general, when someone claims God hates it they are pretty sure it's in the Bible.  Now I may be a lowly seminary dropout but something about that seemed off to me.  Probably because I've actually read the entire thing and didn't see any of that.  I could be wrong of course so I went back to check and I found this comprehensive list of everything that God explicitly hates according to the Bible (I used the NIV but other translations may differ.  Feel free to leave the verse in the comments if I missed one)

God hates:
The religious practices of pagans (Deut 12:31)
The erection of sacred stones (Deut 16:22)
All who do wrong (Psalm 5:5)
Those who love violence (Psalm 11:5)
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community (Prov 6:16-19)
The religious observances of hypocrites (Isa 1:14; Amo 5:21)
Robbery and wrongdoing (Isa 61:8)
Burning incense to and worshiping other gods (Jer 44:3-4)
Unspecified sinful deeds in Gilgal - most likely idolatry (Hos 9:15)
Plotting and swearing falsely (Zec 8:17)
The practices of the Nicolaitans (A heretical sect that mixed Christianity with pagan idolatry) (Rev 2:6)

And that is all of it.  Every single instance in the Bible where God is explicitly mentioned as hating something or someone.  Notably absent are things like teen sex, interracial canoodling and gays.  Also weirdly absent are things like rape and child abuse.  Mostly God just seems to hate people not worshiping Him.  Well that and people who destroy the lives of others with lying and deception, which I am totally on board with hating.  Especially interesting was God's hatred for those who love violence.  I wonder when I can expect to see Christians start protesting boxing and MMA matches?

Now some may argue that while the Bible doesn't explicitly state that God hates the things they say He hates, He must nevertheless hate it because the Bible teaches that it is sinful and wrong and surely God hates sin!  Fair enough but this leads to a bit of a weird double standard.  By that ruling we should be telling everyone that God Hates Pork and also that God Hates Seafood Platters but since we love those things and consider them delicious those rules from the Holy Bible obviously don't count.  Same thing with God hating mixed fibers.  Surely God didn't actually mean that because those are super comfy!  Similarly we rarely argue that God hates people who work on the Sabbath.  Sure, that one is actually in the Ten Commandments but come on, our way of life would be soooooo inconvenienced if some people didn't work on Saturdays!  Plus there would be no weekend sport!  Surely God couldn't actually hate that!!  But two dudes getting it on?  Eeuuuwww!!  That's icky so God totally must hate that!!

It's weird, it's almost as if God only hates the things we hate!  But that would be crazy right?

Via Stuff Fundies Like

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*The recent shitstorm that erupted around this poster shows that not much has changed.  Only instead of saying that God hates it people seem to be cutting out the middle man and going straight to "I'm not racist but I find this disgusting and wrong" - and those were the civil comments!

All things to all people

I just played the funnest game and got really upset with the English language!  But first the game.  Thanks to my awesome new blogging friend Ali I found an online game called Bible or Qu'ran.  Basically you are given a verse of scripture and you have to say if it's from the Bible or the Qu'ran.  It's a lot of fun to play and you can learn a lot!

Go give it a try before you read on, otherwise the rest of this post won't make that much sense.  My final score was 156 (178 correct, 22 wrong), think you can beat me?  If you're not the type who enjoys a challenge then highlight for some spoilery tips:  FUN FACT!  Verses talking about "Paradise", "Hell", "the hereafter/afterlife", "Satan" and "unbelievers" are almost always from the Qu'ran.  As I've pointed out before, these things - though popular in Christian dogma - don't play much of a role in the actual Christian Scriptures.  Islam does seem to resemble Medieval Christianity quite a bit which coincidentally was the time when Islam got started.  Not saying the Prophet did any cribbing, just saying it's interesting...

Now as soon as I finished it I knew I had to blog about it but I needed a good title.  I can write pretty much anything if I have a title I like but if I don't I just can't get started!  Hence my frustration with the English language, specifically its lack of idioms!  But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

If you did the quiz (and I really hope you did it and didn't just skip ahead) you will have noticed that they didn't use any nice, happy, fluffy verses on love and peace.  No, these were the horridly hardcore verses that most believers either don't know exists or have to bend over backward (twice!) to explain why they're not actually as bad as they seem.  Apologetics exist because of verses like these.  Seems to me that if the Bible was written today then every Christian Family Watchdog group and all the self appointed morality police would tell you to stay as far away from it as possible due to all the questionable content.  But, because it was written thousands of years ago it's somehow OK to hand it out to kids in primary school!  Is it just me or is that more than just a little weird?  He-Man and the Turtles are too violent and immoral for your children but a book full of rape, slavery and genocide (and that's the mild stuff) is not only OK, it's highly recommended!  Somehow these Holy books have become famous as sources of extremely enlightened moral teaching despite their actual content.

And yet, most of the people who claim to follow and obey these books, don't look or act anything like those ugly verses.  Most people read these books and find the good while mostly ignoring the bad.  This is where English fails me.  In Afrikaans we have a saying that fits nicely:  "Vir elke ketter is daar 'n letter", which translates roughly to mean any heresy can in some way be justified with a quote from the Holy book.  That sounds about right to me.  People find what they need from their scriptures.  Doesn't seem to me your morals - or lack of them - depend on the Holy Scripture you read.  Seems more like people who are good and kind and peace loving find scriptures to support that lifestyle in their Book while people who are cruel and violent find excuses to be that way from the same Book.  Seems more like people use their Books to justify what they already believe and then retroactively claim that their beliefs are not their own but that it comes from their Book. 

I once read this interview with some of the survivors of David Koresh's cult, 18 years after the tragedy at Waco.  This one part always stuck with me:

"[Clive] Doyle says his daughter started having sex with Koresh when she was 14. Koresh fathered at least 13 children with sect followers and engaged in sexual acts with underage Davidian girls, according to the Justice Department, numerous affidavits of Davidians and interviews CNN conducted...

 Doyle knows that trying to justify Koresh having sex with underage girls incites nothing but outrage from nonbelievers. And, initially, when David began preaching a message that his holy seed must be spread to any girl he preferred, married or in pigtails, Doyle admits he was bothered by it.  "I wondered, I asked, 'Is this God or is this horny old David?'" ... But Doyle's concern didn't last long. "I couldn't argue because he'd show you where it was in the Bible." "

Scripture really can be all things to all people...

The end is never as nigh as you think it is, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

When people fail to learn from history it's usually because the lesson they were supposed to learn happened a very long time ago.  This could (and does) happen to almost all of us.  If on the other hand you fail to learn from history that happened just the other day, you must be a special kind of stupid.  There's really no excuse - excepting brain damage - to not learn a big history lesson that happened a couple of weeks ago.  And yet here we are, just a short while after Harold Camping's spectacularly failed Rapture predictions, with another "prophet" giving an exact date for the Rapture.

You would think people would learn.  You'd think no one would be that stupid.  You'd think they would wait at least a year or two after the last spectacular FAIL so people can forget about the last guy who tried it.  You'd think all of that but you'd be wrong.  In fact it turns out you will be about as wrong as any prediction for the Rapture's date will turn out to be, which experts agree is as wrong as humanly possible.

The new date on which the Rapture won't happen is 27 May 2012 so at least we won't have to wait long to point and laugh.  This time the prediction is being made by one Ronald Weinland, self described Prophet of the End Times and leader of a small Christian denomination called The Church of God – PKG (Preparing for the Kingdom of God).  Much like Harold Camping's little group, this is also a small group of believers who are convinced that they are the one true church of God.  The only reason I even know they exist is because recently I've been flooded by Google ads on every website I visit inviting me to find out more about this one true Christian church originally founded by the late Herbert Amstrong.  In case you're wondering how this date was calculated, you'll be happy to know that it's far more scientific than Camping's numerology and features far less maff.  As Weinland explains:

"January 7, 2012, is another important occurrence for the timing of God’s work and end-time events. This date is an important crossroad in time as it ends a prophetically historic portion of time in Daniel that consists of a prophetic measure of “time” and “times” that began after Trumpets of 2009.

January 8 of this year begins the final “half-a-time” of this full prophetic period known as “time, times, and half-a-time.” That day is the start of the final period of 140 days (half-a-time) that leads up to the very coming of the Messiah spoken of in those same prophecies of Daniel. This post will also address a newly revealed final fulfillment of the 70 weeks prophecy that has a dual fulfillment of both Christ’s first coming and his second coming.

The final “half-a-time” that begins January 8 will be the prophetic period when the Trumpets of Revelation will finally be heard (witnessed and seen) throughout this world, along with the Thunders of Revelation that will progressively escalate in a dramatic manner. The period of “time, times, and half-a-time” consists of seven segments of time (seven half-times). It can be likened to God’s plan covered in the weekly cycle of seven days and the 7,000 year plan where the last 1,000 years is when God takes control and gives mankind the ability to know His ways."

I believe the most apt response to this would be from the movie Happy Madison:  "what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. "

Now you may wonder why I'm taking the time to point out one more insignificant group of religious nutbags who believe the world is ending.  The haven't been as vocal as some of the other groups so they are really easy to ignore.  Except for this:



That makes it impossible for me to ignore them.  When he threatened anyone who mocks him with cancer he pretty much forced me to mock him.  I grew up predominantly in the Pentecostal and Charismatic wings of Evangelical Christianity and I've seen this happen too many times to be OK with it.  Far too often, some charismatic gasbag will make ridiculous claims and/or demands in the church and then claim to be speaking on behalf of the Lord God Himself.  Therefore anyone who questions or criticizes is actually opposing God and will be dealt with harshly by the Allmighty.  If you weren't ever part of that subculture it may seem transparently ridiculous but trust me, it works better than you could ever imagine at making all dissenters submit to this so called "authority".  I used to be one of those.  I am not anymore.  So I'm calling Ronald out.  I think he is a false prophet, a fraud and a liar and if he's not then he can hit me with his best avada kedavra. I'll be right over here calling bullshit on his fake prophecy and feeling great doing it.

Look, I know that I'm a nobody with a small blog that pretty much no one actually reads.  But that is kind of the point.  Weindland and all the other spooky shamans of the world make all their followers cower with fear at their alleged authority from on high.  So if a nobody like me can challenge them without dire consequences from above that proves that these guys are just blowing smoke.  Besides, the somebodies of the world probably have better things to do with their time.  So, underachievers of the world unite!  If more of us can reveal to the followers of these charlatans that they are shooting blanks then soon they will lose all control they have over the minds and wallets of their flock.  Sometimes it takes a nobody to show that someone pretending to be someone is actually a nobody too.

Persecutor Envy

Some time ago I did a blog post on a Munchhausen syndrome type malady that plagues many Western Christians called "Persecution Envy".  Persecution Envy causes the sufferer to live with the deep need to feel persecuted at all times, causing them to go to ridiculous lengths to find ways to make themselves feel as such.  These ways tend to be so inanely pathetic that it's hard to believe they actually take themselves seriously but since these people are usually folks who have never known actual persecution in any form I guess it could be possible that they just don't really understand the term "persecution".

There is however another strain of envy, spreading amongst Christians* in the West that is related but significantly different namely "Persecutor Envy".  Persecutor Envy causes the sufferer to live with a deep seated jealousy of all religions that stifle criticism and satire through violence and terror, most notably Islam.  In fact, one would be perfectly correct in calling this condition "Fatwa Envy" or "Jihad Envy" I think.  It almost  always tends to manifest as passive aggressive statements on how no one who makes a joke or criticism regarding Christianity would dare make the same comment about Islam.  It will usually also be pointed out that this only happens because Christians (unlike the heathen) are sweet, gentle souls whose longsuffering nature allows them to silently** bear these vicious verbal assaults with grace and humility.  Despite that, I have to say it is rather difficult to listen to these statements and not get the feeling that they wish people would fear them the way they fear reprisals by radical Islam.  Whenever they wax on about how Muslims can do and say whatever they like while everyone gets to make fun of Christians without reprisal it's hard not to feel that they are dreaming of how wonderful the world would be if they could fire up the Inquisition again!

Now much like Persecution Envy, I'm not sure that Persecutor Envy can be cured but I nevertheless prescribe a healthy dose of truth.

Firstly, anyone who claims that the critics of Christianity are loathe to similarly criticize Islam is talking out of their ass.  I'm sorry, there is no diplomatic way to put it, a claim like that is absolute bovine excrement*** and only demonstrates one thing - that the person making this claim didn't even spend 5 seconds of fact checking before pulling this winner straight from their nether region.  Any critic of religion in general and Christianity in particular I can think of - from Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens to Myers, Brayton and Thunderf00t - have all spent plenty of time criticizing Islam.  Anyone who claims differently just never bothered to look.  If there is a difference in the amount of criticism leveled at Christianity compared to that leveled at Islam and other faiths then the reason is simply geographical.  Someone who lives in a majority Christian country would be dealing with Christianity for the majority of their time, I don't know why it should even be necessary to point that out.

To be fair, Persecutor Envy usually just responds to criticism in the form of "OK sure what we did was bad but did you see what that Muslim guy did?  It was super terrible!  Why don't you criticize him instead?".  What really gets the condition to flare up in full blown "Oh if only we could still burn people at the stake!" mode are jokes at the expense of Christians. I have a theory that your sense of humour is inversely proportional to how much of a fundamentalist you are. 

Just recently the Saturday Night Live cast did a sketch about Jesus visiting Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos and Pat Robertson did not care for it at all (for your convenience, you can check out both clips here).  Not only did he see this sketch as an example of bigotry against Christians, he also took a moment to reminisce on how high the death toll would be if SNL produced such a sketch featuring Mohammed.  What Pastor Pat and others like him do not grasp however is that "fear of bombing" isn't really the reason why comedians don't have much Islamic material.  Actually it's far more pragmatic than that.

It's simple really, if you don't understand something then jokes about it won't be funny to you.  I didn't find that Tebow sketch terribly funny because I don't follow American Football and I had to look up who Tim Tebow is.  Rule of thumb, the more reading you have to do to understand a joke the less you will laugh at it!  But don't take my word for it, here, listen to an actual comedian:



Get it?  We have fun with the things we are familiar with.  That's why I, having grown up a fundamentalist Christian, find blogs like Stuff Christian Culture Likes and Scotteriology really funny - they are written by fellow recovering fundamentalists talking about this particular Evangelical sub-culture I know all too well.  If I grew up Buddhist, I don't think I would find jokes about terrible Contemporary Christian Music acts all that funny.  We can hardly joke about things we know nothing about now can we?  Also, I think there is an unwritten rule that you don't joke about those outside your own group.  A poor person can tell jokes about being poor and it's funny - a rich person telling jokes about poor people just comes across as cruel.  Telling (and laughing at) cruel jokes about other groups you don't know or understand lessens you as a person.  Most people understand that.

So instead of wishing there was a way to make everyone who says things you don't like shut up forever, why not ask yourself why people are saying the things they do?  I know this isn't the easy way, Persecutor Envy will make you make that they're simply doing it because everyone is evil and controlled by Satan and therefore they hate you because you have the One True Faith.  Fight that impulse and try to see if there are other reasons.  Is that thing you're being criticized for maybe something you need to work on?  Perhaps you're being called an ignorant bigot because you're being ignorant and bigoted?  They could be wrong of course but what's the harm in reevaluating your position?  And those people laughing at you, any chance that maybe they're making fun of you because you're being ridiculous?  Look at that Tim Tebow sketch for instance.  Wouldn't you agree that believing in an all powerful Creator who cares so deeply about the outcome of a regional sporting event that He actually intervenes because of the prayers of one of the players is maybe an extremely ridiculous thing to believe?  Also, didn't Jesus have a lot to say about how He disapproved of public displays of piety?   Maybe no one is mocking Tim Tebow because he's a Christian, maybe they're mocking him because he didn't listen to Jesus!

Look, power is seductive.  Not the good kind or seductive either!  Historically the more power Christians have had to censor and control others, the worse it turned out for everyone.  So don't envy those who use their power to prevent others from laughing at them.  Take a moment and think about what that says about them.  Think about what that says about their beliefs.  Now think about what it says about you that you wish your world could look more like theirs. If you have to force people to respect you through fear and threat, can your beliefs even be considered remotely good?  Can you?  If people are laughing at you or critizising you because you are doing stupid things then you only have yourself to blame.  If they are mocking you for doing what is good, then they are the tools and they will be the ones who will end up looking stupid.  You don't have to take my advice, though it is in the Bible too:


"If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name."  1 Peter 4:14-16

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*I'm focusing on the manifestation of this disease amongst the religious but a good case can be made that you will find this amongst the members of any group losing their grip on absolute power over society and culture.
**It's worth noting that when Christians in the West suffer in silence, they do so rather loudly.  There is after all no point in bearing hardship if no one is going to admire you for it!
***I'm trying to class up my blog a little. Is it working for you?

Remedial Class Warfare

I stole this from Leaving Alex Jonestown.  Go read her Christmas countdown series , it's scary and hilarious!

I don't think I could work for Fox News.  It's not just because I'm not blonde a pretty enough either.  Having to constantly act outraged at the most trivial bullshit imaginable would just take too much of a toll on my general wellbeing, I don't think I could handle that.  If I had to spend my days acting like a new type of lightbulb is the worst thing in the history of anything I would have to fucking kill myself before the inevitable aneurysm puts me into a permanently vegetative state.  I don't know which is worse either, having to constantly pretend that the most trivial nonsense is worse than Hitler or having to ignore the genuinely terrible things out there because you're paid to pretend it's the best thing since the discovery of cheese.

In a season where many in the media are even more nonsensically outraged than usual, Fox has once again managed to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack with its current outrage at The Muppet Movie:



That's right, the fact that the bad guy in the movie is a rich oil tycoon means that the Muppets are teaching class warfare to kids.  Fox totally calls it like it is there, liberal Hollywood is  totally demonizing the rich!  It started way back when with classic movies like It's a wonderful life.  Basically every Bond movie ever along with all Superman movies that featured Lex Luthor had evil rich villains.  Of course there are also horror movies like Hostel where evil rich people pay to torture and kill young people and sci-fi movies like The Phantom Menace where the Trade Federation (a group of interplanetary job creators simply protesting a tax hike) are portrayed as the bad guys.  Also, when the A-Team got hired it was usually because some rich guy was trying to muscle out a smaller competitor.  In pretty much any period piece or Western I can think of the bad guy is almost always the rich landowner/tycoon trying to destroy the hard working poor.  Actually, come to think of it most villains tend to be rich and powerful people oppressing the poor and disenfranchised. It makes sense though, having the protagonist be richer and more powerful than the antagonist just wouldn't be good storytelling, why would anyone root for someone like that after all?  This is another reason I can't work for Fox, I don't think I can pretend that I think Ebenezer Scrooge should have been the hero while holding a straight face.

Of course while Fox I knows all about the infamous liberal bias of Hollywood, they may not realize that this evil liberal bias against the rich is everywhere.  Not just in movies and the media but also in books!  And not just in radical fringe works like The Communist Manifesto either, I'm talking about the world's favourite all time best seller - The Bible.

The Bible is just class warfare from cover to cover*.  Well by Fox standards anyway.  You have Jesus commanding a job creator to redistribute his wealth to the welfare cases.  There is the socialist setup of the original church which is portrayed in a positive light.  Jesus even told this one parable in which a rich man goes to hell because he was rich and a poor man goes to heaven because he was poor - not because of their creeds, dogma or belief systems, riches and poverty are the only things mentioned in the parable.  Also that whole thing about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven didn't seem very pro-capitalism at all!  It wasn't just Jesus being all hippie either.  As The Slacktivist pointed out recently, the prophet Nathan once used a story about an evil rich man who took from a man who had very little to illustrate to King David just how evil his actions have been.  In fact, demonizing the rich seems to be a running theme with the prophets.  The Bible has lots to say about money but it rarely has a good word for those who have a lot of it.  It has plenty of really bad things to say for those who make their money by exploiting others, those who don't pay their workers fair wages (promptly) and especially those who foreclose on widows (See Deut 24:15; Isa 58;  Mark 12:40 for but a few examples)

Clearly the Bible is one long piece of anti-capitalist propaganda and I bet Fox would be outraged that it is taught to children.  Of course they can't be outraged by it since they've clearly never read it.


*To be fair, Fox is also wall to wall class warfare but unlike the Bible, they side with wealthy.

Vindication Videos

Every once in a while I come across something that totally vindicates something I blogged about earlier.  I won't lie, it feels good to be right.  Sure, I always try to put my facts on the table when I post something so it's not like I just pull these posts out of my ass but still, it's nice when you find something that corroborates your original thesis.  Usually I resist the urge to do the "I told you so" dance but this is the season for giving is it not?  Now I could do a separate post on each one but that seems a little bit like cheating to get my post numbers up.  So instead of doing three separate short posts, here they are all rolled into one:

Most recent first.  In my previous post I talked about being a better person than the generations before you.  I found this old PSA that shows that we are indeed managing to do that.  Sure, there are still plenty of people out there who consider homosexuals to be mentally ill predators intent on infecting young people with gayness but those people are fast becoming a minority.  While they may still be a vocal minority they at least don't get to be as vocal as this anymore:



See?  It really does get better.

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.  When I blogged about Christians saving their first kiss for the wedding day I'd wager some people didn't think I was entirely serious.  Surely such a thing doesn't happen in real life, right?  Oh but it does and now I have video to back me up.  I did my best to describe the practice in my post but I don't think I could ever hope to accurately relay the awkwardness of it all the way this video does:



OK, so maybe that wasn't quite a thousand words.  More like three - Hard. To. Watch. (Especially that kiss.)

Finally, did you catch Lady Gaga's Thanksgiving special?  If you didn't then you missed out on something truly amazing - and I'm not just saying that because I'm a huge fan.  It was a thing of beauty, pure and simple.  If her talent didn't bowl you over then you are dead inside!  And the waffles!  ZOMG the waffles!!  But I digress.  Remember when I said that Lady Gaga was the last of the Nazirites?  If not, go back and read what I said there and then watch this video:



Did I nail it or what?

It's OK, you don't have to answer, we both know I totally nailed it.  Her speech at the 6:30 mark was exactly what I said being a Nazirite is all about.

Vindicated!

Waiting for no one

I recently discovered the blog Stuff Christian Culture Likes and I loved it so much I read the whole thing front to back!  Reading it was like taking a journey back to the weird and wonderful (but mostly weird) time in my teens and early 20's when I lived fully immersed in charismatic Christian culture.  One particular post on "Waiting to kiss until your wedding day" really stuck with me because it brought back a lot of memories about just how confusingly complex the church's view of physical intimacy is.

Having sex is the second worse sin anyone can commit (worst is having gay sex, obviously).  We use words like "dirty", "defiled" and "impure" to describe people who have been physically intimate.  You can lie cheat and steal all day long but the the only time anyone would tell you that you are "living in sin" is when you're having sex.  Sex is so bad you can't even have it by yourself!  Most congregations have groups for men that provide "accountability partners"* to help keep them from flogging the bishop.  They also help keep men from looking at the swimsuit issue of a sports magazine because sex isn't just a dirty sin when you actually commit it, it's even a sin when you just think these dirty and impure thoughts!

Sex is a wonderful gift from God and He want's His children to enjoy it.  Many churches have a several week long sermon series on Song of Solomon to teach congregations that physical intimacy is a blessing and that God intended it for their pleasure.  Churches therefore encourage Christian couples to have a lot of sex with programs like the 30 days of sex challenge.  In other words, Christians are supposed to have a lot of sex and they are supposed to enjoy it!

Confused?  You are not alone.  Yes, the Christian culture's views on sex sound a little bit like Schrodinger's petting.  It manages to be incredibly good and incredibly bad at the same time, the difference maker being marriage of course.  Marriage is the magic wand that turns the dirtiest, most sinful thing you can do into the most wonderful, holiest thing ever.  If you are unmarried then there is nothing more important to God than your purity, i.e. not defiling yourself with physical intimacy.  Get married and suddenly God no longer gives a hoot!  Purity shmurity!

It should be no surprise then that Christian young people tend to get married young and also tend to have very short engagements.  The problem is that it doesn't work out that well for everyone, mostly thanks to the unholy abomination that is Christian dating and courtship.

The first rule of Bible based dating is that dating is evil and immoral and should be avoided at all costs.  Since God has a perfect plan for your life, this includes the perfect marriage partner and you should let God be your matchmaker.  If you start dating different people you run the risk of stepping outside of His Perfect Will by following your own sinful desires, in which case: no perfect life partner for you!  Instead, a lot of churches teach "Biblical Courtship" which is a complex multidimensional system involving assorted small group leaders, accountability partners, the pastor and both sets of parents.  I would explain further but it would take a very long time and I'm not sure I understand most of it.  I wonder if anyone really does...  Anyway, the second rule of Bible based dating is no funny business before the wedding!  I'm not talking about sex, that should be a no brainer.  No, things that should be avoided are anything that could tempt you to slip and fall into the sinful morass of sexual impurity - so no kissing, no hanging out alone, no touching in the swimsuit areas (and this is Christian culture so I mean one piece, not bikini!) and preferably no hand holding (though it is grudgingly allowed).  After all, if everyone is destined for someone then you run the risk of getting frisky with someone elses spouse-to-be!  That would be sad and wrong because you would be robbing both your true future spouse as well as their true future spouse of something meant only for them.

Couple of problems with this.  First off, "Bible based dating" is not based on the Bible.  At all.  How could it?  There is no dating in the Bible!  People in Biblical times just married whoever their parents arranged for them to marry after all.  There may have been matchmaking involved but it certainly wasn't from God's side.  This is also why the Bible places such a premium on (female) virginity - women were property back then and their "purity" gave them value in marriage negotiations.  "Biblical courtship & dating" is probably based on Romeo & Juliet more than any other source material, only instead of "star crossed" lovers you have "God ordained" partners.  Secondly it places a lot of unrealistic expectations on libidinous young couples that they are often ill equipped to deal with, leading to downward spirals of (completely unnecessary) guilt and shame.  Thirdly, it clearly doesn't work for everyone.  If you look past all the engaged/married kids in their early 20's at church you are bound to see a smattering of lonely single people in their late 20's (and 30's and 40's) still desperately waiting on God to be their matchmaker.  Why do you think that is?  It's not that they are being punished for their impurity.  On the contrary, these folks are usually far better at "staying pure" than their married-at-20 counterparts.  I can think of three possible answers:

1 - God is a matchmaker but is also running an eugenics program.  Take a closer look, those singles are more often than not of the overweight, unattractive and/or socially awkward variety.  Matching them doesn't seem to be as high on God's to-do list as matching their attractive, vivacious counterparts.  Coincidence?

2 - God did in fact have a perfect life partner picked out for you but then said future spouse decided to obey the Word of God and chose to stay unmarried (as endorsed by both Jesus and the Apostle Paul).  Could God's perfect plan for you to get married be overruled by His own endorsement of life long celibacy?  That is a question for better theological minds than mine!  Alternatively maybe your perfect partner didn't go to a church that taught Biblical courtship and ended up marrying someone outside of God's perfect matchmaking plan.  OR perhaps your perfect partner did go to a church that taught Biblical courtship and dating and were so overcome by their sinful desire to have sinful intercourse that they married the first best person they could find just so their desires could stop being sinful! 

3 - Maybe it's none of the above.  Maybe God is not your matchmaker (good guess since as already pointed out, none of that is in the Bible) and the rules for finding love is exactly the same inside the church as it is on the outside.  Maybe you're supposed to do what you can to make yourself as attractive as possible, go out and meet some people, ask some of them out and find someone compatible.  Who knows, you may even find someone you get on with so well that you want to marry that person!  Could happen!

*This one time, at church camp, I met a guy whose mother (a Christian counselor) also doubled as his "accountability partner".  He would have to go to her every time he had "sinful thoughts" or masturbated and confess his sin to her.  I wish I was kidding about this!

How gay is the anti-gay movement?

Something extraordinary happened recently:  My cousin recently proposed to his girlfriend of three years.  Doesn't sound very extraordinary does it?  But it is.  Or at least, it's supposed to be.  See in this country gays have full marriage equality and if you have been listening to Christian Conservatives you would know that once same sex marriage becomes legal it will inevitably be followed by the destruction of the institution of marriage!  The Family will cease to exist!  People will marry horses and cows!  Slippery slopes will drag us all down to anarchy!  Civilization will cease!

Except none of that ever happened.  Civilization is still going (despite the best efforts of Greece), my cousin is getting married in a year and it turns out they have to wait that long for a venue because apparently a lot of other couples also plan on getting married it seems.  It's been years now since the legislation passed and despite all expectations heterosexuals are still getting married and starting families - which seems rather extraordinary considering the fact that gay marriage was supposed to destroy both marriage and the family!  Imagine that.  In yet another shocking turn of events, people are still not marrying their pets/toasters, pedophilia is not legal and "the gay agenda" somehow failed to turn us all gay.  So much for those slippery slopes...

The thing about all these demonstrably false claims about "the gays" is that, like a lot of the anti-gay movement's activities, they sound a little... well... gay!  Think about it:

Firstly there is the preoccupation with gay sex.  I'm a hetero male.  Do you care to guess how much time I spend imagining gay sex acts?  None.  I spend absolutely no part of my day picturing what gays get up to behind closed doors.  "None" is also the amount of homosexual pornography I look at.  Now I can't possibly speak for all straight people but I'll wager that for pretty much all of them the answer to the above questions would be somewhere between "very little" and "none at all".  You know who does spend a fair amount of time thinking about gay sex though?  Gay people, sure.  But also anti-gay activists.  How weird is that?  The people who act the most outraged by the very idea of gay sex spend hours of their day thinking about and talking about the details of gay sex.  They even check out a lot of gay porn - and not just any old porn, the hardcore S&M stuff - and then show it to other people who also claim to be very much against homosexuality.  They do this on a regular basis too. Yeah, that's totally not gay...

Secondly there is their need to make the lives of gay people as miserable as possible.  To the anti-gay brigade, the concept of "live and let live" is more abominable than socialism and secular humanism combined.  They don't believe in liberal hippie nonsense like "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".  Instead they go out of their way to oppose anti-bullying and hate crime legislation that would protect gay kids from being tormented to the point of suicide.  Yes, here you have "good" Christian folk being PRO-bully.  Their rationale seems to be that kids won't "choose the homosexual lifestyle" if they can make it unattractive enough.  The fact that countless kids still somehow "choose" a sexual orientation that will guarantee lifelong harassment, mistreatment not to mention verbal and physical abuse never makes them consider that perhaps choice has nothing to do with it.  Now I'm not saying that these pro-bully, anti-gay folks are themselves homosexuals who feel that since they are forced to live miserable, closeted lives by their beliefs then no other gay person should be allowed to be happy and openly gay because that would be slander.  All I'm saying is that it sure looks a lot like it.  The logical inference of their position is that being gay is so attractive that if it was a hassle free option then everyone would want to be gay!  Which makes very little sense because typically the only people wanting to be gay are people who actually are gay.  Just sayin'...

Thirdly there is the statement that same sex marriage will "destroy marriage".  I've never heard a particularly good argument as to why allowing more people to get married will somehow lead to less marriage though.  Like my cousin (and the millions of people like him and his girlfriend) demonstrate, the fact that same sex couples are getting married does not in any way diminish the desire for marriage among opposite sex couples.  Really the only scenario I can imagine where legalizing same sex marriage would end a hetero marriage is if say you're a gay person who entered into a straight marriage (due to religious or societal pressure) during a time when gay marriage was illegal but then when it became legal you decided to stop living a lie, get a divorce and finally marry your true love.  Again I'm not saying that when anti-gay activists are saying "same sex marriage will destroy marriage" they really mean "if it was legal it would probably be the end of my marriage".  Sort of sounds like it though...

Oh and apropos of nothing, here is a growing list of the top anti-gay crusaders who turned out to be gay.

Spellcasting for Christians 101

Thanks to the new Facebook layout I get to see a lot more of what my friends and acquaintances are up to.  So then whenever I see someone commenting on or "liking" an person that actually uses "Prophet" or "Apostle" as a title, I'm compelled to check it out.  I have to say, it rarely disappoints!  For instance I was checking out the Facebook wall of "Prophet Kobus van Rensburg" and I noticed that while every one of his status updates is a Bible verse, there was this one exception:

"...Today I put on the power of heaven, The light of the sun, The radiance of the moon, The splendor of fire, The fierceness of lightning, The swiftness of wind
The depth of the sea, The firmness of the earth and The hardness of rock
Today I put on God’s strength to steer me, God’s power to uphold me
God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye for my vision, God’s ear for my hearing
God’s word for my speech, God’s hand to protect me, God’s pathway before me
God’s shield for my shelter, God’s angel to guard me, From ambush of devils
From vice’s allurements, From traps of the flesh, From all who wish ill
Whether distant or close, Alone or in hosts, Christ-beside me, Christ- before me
Christ-behind me, Christ-within me, Christ-beneath me, Christ-above me
Christ-on my right hand, Christ-on my left, Christ-when I lie, Christ-when I sit
Christ-when I rise, Christ-in every heart who think of me
Christ- in the mouth of all who speak of me, Christ-in every eye that sees me
Christ-in every ear that hears me, Christ-guard me today, From poison, from burning, From drowning, from hurt, That I have my reward, Today I put on a terrible strength, Invoking the Trinity, Confessing the Three, With faith in the One, As I face my Maker."


Clearly this was no Bible verse.  In fact this looked exactly like a magical incantation.  Turns out it is (sort of) and it's rather old.  It's known as Saint Patrick's Breastplate, a prayer and hymn attributed to the patron saint of Ireland.  (Prophet van Rensburg here actually used the short version, you can check out the full version at the wiki link)  According to the Wikipedia article on it, "It is written in the style of a druidic incantation for protection on a journey".  So yes, it looks like a magical incantation because it's based on one!

You know, Charismatic Christians may buy into Jack Chick's claims that Catholics all work for the antichrist, but they sure do act pretty much exactly like medieval Catholics!

Before I forget, Happy Halloween to all who celebrate it!  Feel free to use this bit of Jesus magic to keep yourself safe from all the ghosts and ghouls out there!

The Libertarian and the Antichrist

While watching this week's Daily Show interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano, I was once again reminded of why I find Libertarians so fascinating.  As you may have guessed from the title of this blog, I do enjoy a good juxtaposition and Libertarians offer a particularly interesting one in that they claim to follow both Christ and an antichrist*.  Now I realize that I'm generalizing here and that this will not apply to every Libertarian, but hear me out at least because I do think it applies to a whole lot of them.

First off, I know that not all Libertarians are Christians and therefore would not claim to follow Christ - what follows does not apply to those.  A lot of Libertarians on the other hand are Christians.  All the Libertarians that I know are certainly Christians and I don't mean the nominal kind, these are all very serious Christians.  Not sure about Judge Napolitano's exact religious beliefs but in that interview he talks about "Judeo-Christian values" being foundational.  So then a lot of Libertarians claim to follow Christ.  Which makes it extremely strange that so many (again, not all) would also be such avid followers of an antichrist like Ayn Rand.

Again, I know that not all Libertarians worship Ayn Rand and that she herself wasn't a big fan of the Libertarian movement, but it's undeniable that Rand is idolized by a significant portion of Libertarians.  She famously authored "The Virtue of Selfishness" and in that interview, Judge Napolitano explicitly mentions that "selfishness is a virtue" - that is no coincidence.  Her works and words have clearly saturated the thinking of many in the movement. 

So how exactly do so many people see no contradiction in following both Rand, who advocated individualism over collectivism and egoism over altruism as well as Jesus, who preached pretty much the exact opposite?  Judge for yourself if you think I'm being too extreme:

 Ayn Rand said:
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: "I."

Jesus said:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

 Ayn Rand said:
“the first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men.”

Jesus said:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

 Ayn Rand said:
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Jesus said:
"whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

 Ayn Rand said:
"The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality -- the man who lives to serve others -- is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit. The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man, and he degrades the conception of love. But that is the essence of altruism."


Jesus said:
And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

"The greatest among you shall be your servant. "

"Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves."

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.”

"Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

From Common Sense Jesus

I could go on but you get the idea, Jesus and Ayn Rand had polar opposite worldviews.  These were just the words of Jesus mind you, if I started quoting from the rest of the "Judeo Christian tradition" (aka the Bible) this would have been a very long blog post indeed.  My point is that while anyone is free to read both the Bible and Atlas Shrugged, no one can reasonably base their beliefs on both.  You can follow the teachings of Jesus or the teachings of Ayn Rand but as far as I can see it would be a complete contradiction to claim to follow both.

"Contradictions do not exist". "Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises". "You will find that one of them is wrong".  Ayn Rand

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Jesus of Nazareth


Seems like Jesus and Rand do agree on some things...


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Please not that I'm using the term "an antichrist" here and not "THE Antichrist".  The Antichrist is what fans of the Left Behind books imagine will be the leader of the coming One World Government that will resemble Christ as far as the world is concerned but who will actually be a satanic imposter.  The Bible on the other hand does not refer to one single antichrist but instead uses the word as a plural, i.e. those people who live and operate as polar opposite to the life and teachings of the Christ.