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| The Christian Right (Wrong)
Priests dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight. –Thomas Jefferson (here) Repressed gay, meth
snorting preachers would really go for a hot stud-Jesus, eh? Can you prove that Zeus does not exist? Of course not. And yet, just imagine if we lived in a society where people spent tens of billions of dollars proclaiming the gods of Mount Olympus, where the government spent billions more in tax subsidies for pagan temples, where elected officials did their best to impede medical research out of deference to The Iliad and The Odyssey. This would be a horrific misappropriation of our material, moral, and intellectual resources. And yet that is exactly the society we are living in. -Sam Harris in "Letter to a Christian Nation." (here)
How can you vote Republican AND be a Christian? You'd have to be in favor of torture, incarceration without charge or trial, wars started under false pretenses, stuffing the pockets of the rich, and causing suffering to the poor. Is that what you want? None of that bears much resemblance to Jesus' teachings, does it? I just don't get it, Christians. Do you ever open your Bibles and read them, or is it just too much trouble? Too busy worshipping in your mega-churches? Maybe you can clue me in to the truth of
your ways. Then, get your nose out of Leviticus and read this
article: Christian Republican Values? This is what
Christian Republican "values" look like: torture
and sexual
perversion.
Dear Christians: time to take your religion back. It's being run by people that would make Jesus throw up. Like the morons in Kansas who asked that the definition of science in their science books NOT include these words: "...a search for natural explanations of observable phenomena." Hide your head in the sand. (here) "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics
are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of
doubts." These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did
not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found
in cathedrals or behind altars--neither were they searched for with
hold candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer,
nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They
are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and
experience--and for them all, man is indebted to man." Real Family Values:
A letter to the Minneapolis Star/Tribune 10/04/06 "The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country.We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press--in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past few years." (more here) Read how Noah got dinosaurs on the Ark! (here) (OK, here's your choice: Heaven or Hell. Heaven, right?
Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian. He was a Deist. John
Adams proclaimed the United States Government a secular one
in the "Treaty of Tripoli" signed in 1797. "The United
States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or
a Mohammedan nation." Arnold Guyot, a nineteenth-century scientist and professor of geology
at Princeton University, noted that God had arranged the structure
of the earth to assure that the Chain of Christianity would move
not south into Africa or east into Asia but westward into Europe.
That which originated in Asian and developed in Europe has had its
greatest fulfillment in America. Now, in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries, travel and climatic barriers are being conquered by air
travel and air-conditioning. It appears that the internal preparation
is taking place so that the Chain of Liberty and all its external
blessings might continue their westward march from America around
the globe. (here) John Debney, composer of the music for Mel Gibson's "Passion
of the Christ said that Satan kept appearing on his computer screen
while he was writing the score for the film. "I got really
mad and I told Satan to manifest himself and I said, 'Let's go our
into the parking lot and let's go...' I knew that this was war."
(here)
Two preachers grounded a flight leaving Buffalo, New York, after
they frightened passengers by declaring the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
were a good reason to pray, officials said. "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas."" (Republican Governer Ma Ferguson of Texas regarding bilingual education initiatives) (here) Pat Robertson asks his good buddy God to remove 3 (unnamed) members
of the U.S. Supreme Court so they can be replaced by conservatives.
"We ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court,"
Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The
700 Club." (here)
It didn't work. Robertson also said the widespread practice of homosexuality "will
bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes
and possibly a meteor.'' "Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity." Pat Buchanan (more here) "I hope to see the day when, as in the early days in our country,
we won't have any public schools. The churches will ha be taken
them over again and Christians will be running them. We must never
allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation." "Well you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his.
I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol." --Evangelical
Christian Lieutenant-General William G Boykin, recalling speaking
to a Muslim fighter in Somalia, addressing church congregations
in full uniform. (here) The religious pop culture question "What would Jesus do?"
has been pressed into service for so many causes, and has yielded
so many predictable answers, that many of us long ago grew tired
of it. Don't Pray? Get Lost! NY Times Armageddon! Hurray! Heifers for the End-time U.S. Christian fundamentalists are attempting to breed a "red
heifer" to sacrifice in order to hasten the Apocalypse
and return of Jesus. (here) Minneapolis Star/Tribune -- The Bush administration asked Jerry Thacker, a Pennsylvania marketing consultant who has characterized AIDS as the "gay plague," to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS. Thacker, a former Bob Jones University employee, has described
homosexuality as a "deathstyle" rather than a lifestyle
and asserted that "Christ can rescue the homosexual."
(here) (Molly Ivins) Ken Adelman, a member of Bush's Defense Policy Board announced "The more you examine Islam, the more militaristic it seems. After all, its founder, Mohammed, was a warrior, not a peace advocate like Jesus." Another member of the Pentagon advisory board, Eliot Cohen, says, "Nobody would like to think that a major world religion has a deeply aggressive and dangerous strain in it." Rev. Jerry Falwell called Mohammed "a terrorist," Rev. Franklin Graham said Islam is "evil" and so forth. Let's see, where does that leave Christianity, the religion of peace and love, founded by the Prince of Peace? Among the more notable Christian crimes were the unbearably bloody Crusades, the Thirty Years War, the Inquisition, innumerable pogroms, regular slaughter of Protestants, counter-slaughter by Protestants, genocide against Native Americans (featuring biological warfare), slavery, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, Northern Ireland ... and the list goes on and on and on. (here) God/Government House job training bill would allow religion to be reason
for not hiring The media were shocked, shocked to discover that prominent Republicans have a soft spot for segregation — something that was obvious long before Mr. Lott inserted his foot in his mouth. One of these years they'll be equally shocked to discover that prominent Republicans have a soft spot for theocracy. Last spring Tom DeLay told a church group that: "Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world — only Christianity." He also said he was on a mission from God to promote a "biblical worldview" in American politics. By the way, one piece of that biblical worldview involves scientific education. After the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay suggested that the tragedy had occurred "because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud." (here) Guns don't kill people; Charles Darwin kills people.
(full
article here) New York Times At an international conference on population that was held in Thailand, the United States said it would withhold $34 million for United Nations programs because some promote birth control. (here) Amount the U.S. withheld from the U.N. Population Fund last year, citing links to forced abortions in China: $34,000,000. Months after the State Department had cleared the U.N. of such connections that the funds were withheld nonetheless:3 (here) The Secret War on Condoms I first noticed this campaign last year, when I began to get e-mails from evangelical Christians insisting that condoms have pores about 10 microns in diameter, while the AIDS virus measures only about 0.1 micron. This is junk science (electron microscopes haven't found these pores), but the disinformation campaign turns out to be a far-reaching effort to discredit condoms, squelch any mention of them in schools and discourage their use abroad. "The only absolutely guaranteed, permanent contraception is castration," one Catholic site suggests helpfully. Hmmmm. You first. Then there are the radio spots in Texas: "Condoms will not
protect people from many sexually transmitted diseases." Last month at an international conference in Bangkok, U.S. officials demanded the deletion of a reference to "consistent condom use" to fight AIDS and sexual diseases. So what does this administration stand for? Inconsistent condom use? Then there was the Condom Caper on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control. A fact sheet on condoms was removed and, eventually, replaced by one that emphasized that they may not work. "The Bush administration position basically condemns people to death by H.I.V./AIDS," said Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health Coalition. "And we're talking about tens of millions of people." One study by the University of California at Berkeley found condom distribution to be astonishingly cost-effective, costing just $3.50 per year of life saved. In contrast, antiretroviral therapy cost almost $1,050. Yet the U.S. is now donating only 300 million condoms annually, down from about 800 million at the end of the first President Bush's term. Consider Botswana, which has the highest rate of H.I.V. infection in the world — 39 percent of adults. According to figures in a report on condoms by Population Action International, the average man in Botswana gets less than one condom per year from international donors. In the time it has taken to read this column, 28 people have died
of AIDS, including 5 children. An additional 49 people have become
infected. It's imperative that we get over our squeamishness, accept
that condoms are flawed but far better than nothing, recognize that
condoms no more cause sex than umbrellas cause rain, and ensure
that couples in places like Botswana get more than one condom per
year. (here) U.S.
Raises Abortion Issue At Conference On Families The United States has threatened to withdraw its support for a 1994 family-planning agreement reached in Cairo that called for bringing population growth under control by improving the legal rights and economic status of women, as well as broadly expanding access to health care. Administration officials contend that some phrases in the Cairo agreement--including "reproductive health services" and "reproductive rights"--can be construed as promoting abortion. The battle in Bangkok began on Wednesday, the first day, when some delegations moved for a consensus reaffirmation the Cairo agreement--as United Nations conferences have done at least seven times in the past. When the United States objected, a heated debate over the meaning of consensus ensued, with delegates searching for competing definitions in separate dictionaries. Over the next two days, American officials objected repeatedly to any efforts to move the discussion away from their concerns, and spoke at length about the dangers of abortion and the effectiveness of "natural" family planning methods, participants said. (article here) U.S. Revises Sex Information, and a Fight Goes On New York Times A Web page of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used to say studies showed that education about condom use did not lead to earlier or increased sexual activity. That statement, which contradicts the view of "abstinence only" advocates, is omitted from a revised version of the page. Critics say those changes, far below the political radar screen, illustrate how the Bush administration can satisfy conservative constituents with relatively little exposure to the kind of attack that a legislative proposal or a White House statement would invite. Fourteen House Democrats, including Henry A. Waxman of California, senior minority member of the House Government Reform Committee, have written to Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, charging that the new versions "distort and suppress scientific information for ideological purposes." Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the new statement on abortion and breast cancer "simply doesn't track the best available science." "Scientific and medical misinformation jeopardizes peoples' lives," Ms. Feldt said, adding that any suggestion of a connection between abortion and cancer was "bogus." The earlier statement, which the National Cancer Institute removed from the Web in June after anti-abortion congressmen objected to it, noted that "recent large studies" showed no connection. In particular, it approvingly cited a study of 1.5 million Danish women that was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1997. That study, the cancer institute said, found that "induced abortions have no overall effect on the risk of breast cancer." The Danish research, praised by the American Cancer Society as "the largest, and probably the most reliable, study of this topic," is not mentioned in the government's recent posting, which says the cancer institute will hold a conference next year to plan further research. Dorie Hightower, a press officer at the cancer institute, attributed the revision to the institute's periodic review of fact sheets "for accuracy and scientific relevance." Asked whether the institute now thought that the Danish study failed on either count, Ms. Hightower said no. But she said there was no scientist available to explain the change. The new site also omits a passage on sex education and condom use that appeared in the earlier document. "Studies of specific sex education programs," the earlier version said, "have shown that H.I.V. education and sex education that included condom information either had no effect upon the initiation of intercourse or resulted in delayed onset of intercourse." In an interview, Dr. David Fleming, the disease control centers' deputy director for science, defended the new version. "We try as hard as possible," Dr. Fleming said, "to state objectively what is known about condom efficacy without nuancing language beyond what is supported by the science." The letter to Secretary Thompson from House Democrats said that by alteration and deletion, the disease control agency "is now censoring the scientific information about condoms it makes available to the public" in order to suit abstinence-only advocates. And it said the breast cancer document amounted to nothing more than "the political creation of scientific uncertainty." "Information that used to be based on science," the lawmakers said, "is being systematically removed from the public when it conflicts with the administration's political agenda." (full article here)
(His take on the Almighty Father) "...the portrait is substantially that of a man--if one can imagine a man charged and overcharged with evil impulses far beyond the human limit; a personage whom no one, perhaps, would desire to associate with now that Nero and Caligula are dead. In the Old Testament His acts expose His vindictive, unjust, ungenerous, pitiless and vengeful nature constantly. He is always punishing--punishing trifling misdeeds with thousand fold severity; punishing innocent children for the misdeeds of their parents; punishing unoffending populations for the misdeeds of their rulers; even descending to wreak bloody vengeance upon harmless calves and lambs and sheep and bullocks as punishment for inconsequential trespasses committed by their proprietors. It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere." Women's Rights "...it is not permitted unto your women to speak; but they
are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And
if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home." "...let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. But
I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man,
to be in silence." "..ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands..while
they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." (1
Peter 3:1-7) Women and Children's Rights "...withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest
him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the
rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." "...and Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou
shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my
house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon,
shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering...and
Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter
came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances...and her father
did with her according to his vow. Gay Rights Slave's Rights Then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise. (Deuteronomy 15:17) No Comment There she lusted after her lovers, who's genitals were like those of donkeys, and who's emission were like those of horses. (Ezekiel 23:20) My beloved put in is hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. (Song of Solomon 5:4)
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