Mr. Dawkens is wrong in the right way.

Do please watch this video in which Richard Dawkens (The God Delusion) affirms that his sect of Athiesm does indeed reject the idea of an "absolute morality" and is, indeed, rather alarmed by the whole thing. 


He then goes on to establish that most people of faith reject many "moral standards" and social norms that are stated in the Bible - slavery and stoning adulterers, for example. He's entirely correct, so far as he goes... Please watch the video, and I'll get into the "however" of it after the jump.

Rape, Incest "All Part of God's Plan," Angle Says

Sharon Angle, the Cristo-Republican Senate candadate in Nevada, said this. Out loud.



Um... Sharon, dear. You just said out loud that child rape and incest are all parts of your god's plan.


Via the Huffington Post:

In an segment that has gone unnoticed since it first aired, the Tea Party-backed candidate told the Bill Manders show -- a favorable platform for Republican candidates -- that she opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest. A pregnancy under those circumstances, she said, was "God's plan."

Manders: I, too, am pro life but I'm also pro choice, do you understand what I mean when I say that.

Angle: I'm pro responsible choice. There is choice to abstain choice to do contraception. There are all kind of good choices.

Manders: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?

Angle: Not in my book.
 

Manders: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?

Angle: You know, I'm a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.


I'm not sure what god that would be, but in Christian tradition, degredation, the torment and exploition of the innocent, the screams and terrors of children, and being impregnated by some personification of loathomeness is the domain of the Red Guy with Horns.

You call yourself a "christian," but untold millions of Christians would disagree.

But let's set "God's Plan" aside for a moment, because clearly that god's morals aren't helping you do anything remotely ethical.

My plan is to help make YOUR words go viral, and tie you like the stinking albatross you are around the necks of the vicious, small minded evil people you so capably and honestly represent.

Graphictruth makes the front page of Forbes.com

There it is, at the bottom, with it's Graphictruth style titling, my post about the significance of The Pickens Plan and the economic foolishness of staying wedded to a petroleum economy.

This isn't actually the first time Forbe's scrapers have found one of my stories, it's merely the first time it struck me how significant it is. Consider the odds, under ordinary circumstances, of anyone who would read Forbes magazine stumbling across anything I'd ever write.

Now, it's still up to me to "make the sale," to have a story that is significant and worth reading that's actually relevant to the keywords that Forbes seeks out. As it happens, the piece I wrote is relevant - and written from a perspective that I hope appeals to a broad spectrum of people that are genuinely Conservative in their approach to life and economics.

And it points out that the world wide web is a broad net that is the ultimate antitude to "common wisdoms" that can exist only when we religiously avoid exposure to ideas of unapproved origins. I assure you, no social conservative nor Neoconservative would approve of me in any sense I have the slightest ability to change.

It's the ETHICS, Stupid! by webcarve

There are many principles of genuine Conservatism that I strongly adhere to; prudence, fiscal conservatism and a well-developed sense that stench and smoke points to waste that is polluting the commons - waste which could be transformed into wealth by someone with the wit to do so, instead of corrupting some pliable elected idiot to permit the waste to continue.

Don't tell me it's "the smell of money" or that it's ok because it's "always been that way." It ain't, neither one.

Real conservatives are not wedded to the status quo when it's a mere historical hiccup, dating as it does from the acendency of Thatcherism and Reaganomics or even the Industrial Revolution; real conservatism is about the conservation of real wealth, things, ideals and structures of provable and enduring value on all levels, from the entirely personal to the global, by means of robust, traditional wisdom that has been proven over long stretches of history with wide variations of circumstance.

Furthermore, ever time new understandings evolve from application of wisdom to reality, the practical Conservative adds to the body of wisdom, while the ideologue contrives elaborate excuses for failure in practice.

Why? Well, Society and culture is built upon ideas and ideals that once were seen to be astonishing, radical, offensive - things that very much argued against the common wisdom of the day and have yet come to be understood to be expressing some aspect of fundamental, practical truth. John Donne was speaking such a visceral truth to entrenched powers when he wrote this immortal poem, capturing in very few words the importance of a wider vision of wealth in context.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

The true Conservative does not oppose liberalism, or even radicalism. The true Conservative applauds them - from a prudent distance. The difference was summed up for me today on Mythbusters, when Adam observed to Jaime: "You know the difference between us and 14 year old pyromaniacs?" To answer that, he raps upon the acrylic blast shield, one which was probably over engineered by a factor of ten.

It is important to realize that the Neoconservatives and Social Conservatives are not new, not at all conservative and have very little faith in society. Worst of all, they prefer faith in their theories to the degree that they try them out without any sensible precautions in place.

Well, to quote a practical conservative rhetorical axiom - "And How's That Workin' Out For You?"

Let's look at that.

A culture that has a large number of very rich people may yet be steeped in intellectual, spiritual and even literal poverty, and in that context, money does not actually translate into genuine wealth.

That is to say, the sort of place where the most visible form of status is the ability to expend resources in service to the end of keeping other ring-tailed sonsofbitches like yourself taking it away from you is not wealthy or much of a society, not if you cannot translate cash into comfort and personal security at a reasonable rate of exchange.

Consider what sort of practical, personal liberties even the richest person has in countries with greater divides between rich and poor in nations like, oh, Bangladesh or Pakistan. Consider the practical risks and rewards of being of the "privileged" class in Mexico and Central America, where some significant proportion of your assets must be diverted toward not being kidnapped or murdered. Consider the consequential issues of living in nations where every interaction with a government official - from the highest to the lowest - must be lubricated with a bribe. Consider the practical difficulties in getting anything done in nations where even building codes are regarded as optional, because all laws are seen by the average persons as existing primarily as a means of extortion, and not there to promote an inherent good - like not taking a sledge-hammer to a load-bearing wall.

It is certainly an indicator of status to be in a position to afford a combat-trained driver capable of taking you safely from A to B in your electrified armored and flame-thrower equipped SUV. It definitely is a "shiny thing" - until you realize the implications of being told by your insurance agent that you absolutely MUST have such a thing and use it faithfully in order for them to insure your life and safety at all. In this light, consider that gout was also once an indicator of social status.

Meditate upon that thought for a moment. If you don't come out with a prolonged mental expletive, I'll be stunned.

Now consider all the very smart and skilled people involved in various aspects of security and personal protection that could be doing something else that actually contributed to the economy in a positive sense, and you start realizing that not only is that tax on wealth very high indeed, it's also regressive as all hell. It manages to penalize poverty and poor people (after all, they are the most likely to want to steal your stuff) even more than it taxes wealth. We see a very high costs arising when large segments of society cannot afford to rationally trust one another.

When one factors in the consequential stress and limitations on liberty with the direct out of pocket costs, they amount to extraordinarily high taxes on wealth.

Frankly, one wonders how many people capable of generating large piles of wealth choose to use that skill to the end of relocating themselves and their families elsewhere. When even the dirt-poor are bailing on your society, trying to find some place, any place where they can have some hope of building real, generational wealth - clearly there is a need to address the real issues, for ordinarily, people will put up with adverse circumstances rather than rupture the bonds of family and place.

While these societies and governments are arguably much to blame for many of the structural and social problems that lead to these issues and unarguably responsible for the situation by definition, the Neoconservative movement, which has gained control of the banking and finance system for the world has acted in ways that have made the situation very much worse. They have done this as a matter of ideological policy that, in order to exist at all, must absolutely discount the significance of human suffering, or at least see it as a measure of some perverted success. Consider how much suffering has been inflicted in the name of this vision upon the world in just the last eight years.

I think of this as wrong - actually, I prefer the term "evil" when the attitude is expressed by one individual in regard to another. But that is an moral and ethical opinion - and we need not consider that when we have far too many stinking piles of effect that point straight back to that ideology as causative agent.

Neoconservatism has severely undermined the social structures that make it generally unacceptable to shoot people and take their stuff, and have done it with very little distance between cause and effect in a very short period of historical time. If it's acceptable to shoot people and take their stuff, the advantage of shooting rich people becomes obvious. They have better stuff and more of it. If they won't tell you where their stuff is - you can crush the testicles of their firstborn in order to change their minds. The precedent has been set. The example has been made and said to be good.

If it is acceptable in the name of an abstract good, such as patriotism or National Security, it's surely acceptable if you, personally, are hungry and unable to feed your own children.

History is littered with the remains of those who governed by such example. They do make interesting history, but as any historian will tell you, the less interesting history there is, the better off people were at the time.

The key to opening a new chapter of history is contained in the negative example of Mexico City, the positive and venerable advice of John Donne and the happy accident in which Forbes's algorithm stumbled across my own iconoclastic view of energy policy.

I'm not claiming any particularly original vision or revolutionary philosophy. On the contrary. I do tend to find things in diverse-seeming places and assemble them in unusual ways - an artifact of unusual brain wiring that, along with the fallout of somewhat-well-meaning abuse intended to turn me into a "productive citizen" would under ordinary circumstances make what I thought about anything irrelevant to anyone who matters.

And yet, through no fault or virtue of my own - there is what I wrote on Forbes.com. Not because of who I am, but because of what I know and what I said. Something that was considered to have a high probability of relevance to anyone interested in investing in petroleum infrastructure.

Now, here's the profit to me that someone takes those ideas and sees a path to a large personal fortune they can found a dynasty upon. If they do it in a way that advantages the other ideas in there, MY idea of wealth is advanced.

But that's beside the interesting point. The interesting point is that the conventional wisdom - as expressed by Neocons and Social Conservatives - is at variance with actual wisdom. I'm not claiming a great deal of personal wisdom, though I hope I'm doing a workmanlike job of expressing it. My only claim to fame in this regard is being widely read and having been exposed to the writing of people considered to be wise over a far wider span of time than is common.

You may attach significant blame for my contrian predilections to the Jesuits who endured me during Ninth Grade, where I infamously applied Occam's Razor to the doctrine of the Virgin birth, exactly as I was taught by the man who had taught me to use Occam's Razor - and who was trying to teach me the foundation of this great mystery of faith.

"Surely, Fr. Kieran," I said, "there must be a more plausible explanation?"

It is somewhat disturbing that I got an A in both courses. And a recruitment offer.

I was gifted during that year with a fine appreciation for the practical value of a faith that is unashamed of ruthless contact with reality and which celebrates many extremely practical outcomes over a long period of time - and which also is willing to embrace and record an equally long litany of error, so that those errors may inform both faith and reason.

We cannot afford to tolerate leaders who hold other people in contempt, that see humanity in general as irredeemably evil, in need of harsh punishments and severe restrictions upon their choices and liberties.

I state that not merely from a position grounded in ethics, but from a deeply practical point of view. Real wealth seems to explode when placed in the presence of practical and economic freedom. Wherever and whenever the heavy hand of social conservatives is lifted, by whatever means, civilizations grow, become more civilized, advance rapidly and make great piles of stuff worth having and remarkable public places people wish to be. Why is this true?

Well, at bottom, it's an extraordinary simple insight, one I would think would be far more obvious to far more people. Civilization and all the things that make it possible - government, the money supply, various churches, charities associations and groups - are all trust networks, and they all work in much the same way. What they do is make it more possible for people to engage in economic and social transactions by reducing the risk of having trusted unwisely.

The foundational assumption of Social Conservatism in Western culture, and it's intellectual fathers; Augustine, Calvin and the Apostle Paul, is that nobody can be trusted without the direct intervention of Authority operating with the direct and unquestionable mandate of God.

We have spent the last thirty years or so in which that view of human nature has become increasingly dominant, in no small part to the rise of the Evangelical and Reconstructionist brands of "Christianity."

It has reached the point where people are being educated in business and law with that as a foundational premise - that really, nobody cannot be trusted, that all persons are inherently corrupt without direct and ongoing spiritual intervention of the specific brand one is currently addicted to.

The ONLY way in which this assumption about the inherent corrupt nature of humanity could possibly work is if we could develop an infallible, objective test for the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and some objective theory as to how that changes the human dynamic. In the absence of such a test, the advantage always goes to the best liar in the room. Consider how many people still consider George Bush to be a "good Christian," in the very teeth of the Blindingly Obvious.

Matthew 7:18-20 (New International Version)

¹⁸A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

It's difficult for me to understand how common sense that blatant has to be accorded divine inerrance to be taken seriously. It's even more astonishment that, when given that level of "pay attention, this is God talking" how little practical application we see it being given by so-called Christians.

It's not difficult to see how human nature works in this environment. Rather than advantaging the most honest person, it leverages the sociopath, for the absolutely most reliable path to power is the willingness to say, Trust Me, since I'm blessed by Authority to be an Exception to this flaw. Oh, and, since you are inherently corrupt, you must of course distrust your gut when it tells you to distrust me.

This circularity of unreasoning conformity to an authority that accepts it's own untrustworthy nature as inherent to it's own core ideology is best visualized by walking into the bathroom and flushing the toilet. If you like, you can empty your wallet into the bowl first to underline the profit you may expect from participating in that system without absolute control over it. You will be exploited to the exact degree that you rely on this counterfeit trust network. What point is there in participating in a trust network that cannot be trusted?

Any economic or social philosophy that would argue that paying higher taxes in exchange for smaller personal and social benefits is obvious lunacy. This is, nonetheless, exactly the effective outcome of NeoConservative economic philosopy. The proof is in the pudding, as it were.

There can only be a very few Pat Robinsons and Bernie Maddoffs, and the social conservatism of each relys far more upon the philosophy of P.T. Barnum than Jesus of Nazereth.

Liveshirting the Election: No Fishy Whining....

I have been dying to put this shirt up. I should have a post to hang it on, but by this point .... well, if I have to, what hope is there? My hope is, this shirt says everything that needs to be said.

For at least two decades!

No Fishy Whining by webcarve Make Custom Tshirts At www.zazzle.com See more Virtues T-Shirts

An Letter to Sarah Palin, self-annointed Chromefishtian Leader from a former member of her religious cult.

From the t-shirt boilerplate:

A brutally truthful reminder that a chrome fish is simply a void - and that void will be filled by something. What that something is depends on who you are and what you choose to do as informed by faith and conscience.

Live the words and you won't need to prove anything - or the excuses provided (at a modest price) by the salesmen of chrome fish and glow in the dark Fatimas.

Wow. BTW, never mind the source, per se; more information about the author is below the quote.

The Atheist's Way: An Open Letter to Sarah Palin: "Dear Sarah,

As a former fundamentalist, I'd like to call you on what you are doing. The media has called you “opaque” about your religion, but some of us can connect the dots.

This is not about disrespecting your private beliefs. However, your religion matters to us because it matters to you. You have done and said things that indicate you are a born-again, literal Bible-believing, fundamentalist Christian. This is the most important thing about you and you have not been honest about it.


Most people who have never been entrenched in the subculture of fundamentalist Christianity may not understand what this really means, but I do. Like you, I was raised in the Assemblies of God and I was a zealous part of the Jesus Movement. Like you, my life was consumed with seeking God's will for my life and awaiting the imminent return of Jesus.

It's clear to me that you want to do the Lord's will, as a true believer would be in your position. You talk of the “spirit of prophecy.” You are on a mission from God. If that is not true, then I challenge you to deny it."

There's more...

Marlene Winell, Ph.D.
October 21, 2008

Marlene Winell is a Bay Area psychologist who specializes in recovery from fundamentalist religion. She is author of Leaving the Fold: A guide for former fundamentalists and others leaving their religion. She is the daughter of Assemblies of God missionaries. A longer article about Sarah Palin's religion is on Dr. Winell's website: www.marlenewinell.net

I figured it would be reasonable to examine the source. Well, she seems to be what she states herself to be, speaking from both personal and professional experience, and has written a much longer piece that addresses some very specific and important questions. Furthermore, I will personally attest that these questions and conclusions about mindset are entirely within the scope of my own experience. I, for what that is worth, am willing to go on record stating that I find her concerns to be, if anything, understated.

The reality of Palin’s religion

The media has remarked that when it comes to her faith, Palin has been “opaque.” They have said it’s hard to tell how much influence her religious beliefs would have on her governing. They have not asked direct, hard questions about her religion, perhaps because it seems too personal or they are trying to respect a separation of church and state. But the truth is, the impact of this particular religion would be huge and we need to recognize it. Her religion matters to us because it matters to her. It’s not too personal when a leader is most of all concerned with enacting the will of God and claims to have direct access to God. Journalists need to ask Palin if she believes the Bible is the word of God, because all else follows.

Palin claims not to be Pentecostal any more but still goes to bible-believing evangelical churches and has active ties to the Wasilla Assembly of God Church. Their “non-negotiable tenets of faith” can be seen on their website and should be required viewing for every voter (http://wasillaag.org/index.php?s=au&nid=3734). We’ve heard about her belief in creationism and Jesus’ return, and seen her denial of human cause in global warming. She has not denied any of the fundamental beliefs that define evangelical Christianity.

Note that she is not speaking against Palin's religion. She's assuming that Palin is in fact a sincere member of that particular faith and that therefore she will be properly guided and informed by that religion in an entirely orthodox way. That is what churches do, that is what they are supposed to do. It therefore becomes quite important to ask - will this faith permit a person of sincere faith to faithfully discharge the duties of their office or (in the case of the VP) the potential duties of President? Can they honestly put their hand upon the Bible and swear faithfully to uphold and defend the constitution of the united states, even when the Constitution and their faith come into genuine conflict?

And of course those of us who are not actually athiests; indeed, those of us who think the Bible worthwhile on it's own merits without any supernatural endorsement have to consider it's council in this matter. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Has Sarah Palin, in her previous offices, acted more in line with her faith, or more in line with the duties of her office?



I think that her policy of charging rape victims for the cost of proving their rape, her well known views on birth control and her absolutely extreme positions on abortion demonstrate that she is, in fact, more influenced by religous doctrine than by concern for the health and welfare of people under her authority.

I have deep objections to the validity of AOG Doctrines and it's "nonnegotiable articles of faith."

Further, I've even more serious concerns about her particular home church, it's practices and it's influence upon her and the people of Wasillia. I consider it an authoritarian cult; it's doctrine Unbiblical, it's practices and professions unethical, immoral with patches of evil.

Tolerance must end at the point where one is tolerating intentional evil in the name of allowing for "differing interpretations" of spiritual truth. This is not because it's "wrong" to tolerate evil. This is because that which is evil wishes to eat you and use your living corpse as a meat puppet. Friends, that would be one of the better outcomes.

The place where you know you have crossed that line of tolerance is when those you are tolerating publicly state they wish to kill you both spiritually and literally and turn all you have made and treasure into the sort of wasteland in which only that which those such as themselves can live within.

NO valid system of morality can be predictably unethical. The core issue for an ethicist discernment; specifically, the risk involved in any particular human action leading to harm to others.

Ethics does not care about alleged consequences in an arguable hereafter - it speaks to specific outcomes in the here and now; real harm to real people.

A religious belief used to justifying the denial of birth control, morning after pills, or even a proper investigation of a rape allegation, such a belief that it is legitimate to over-ride individual judgment of self interest or impose onerous costs - that would obviously, predictably and unavoidably lead to the actual, inarguable harm of real, existing, human beings. That would be unethical; dismissing the importance of the outcome as punishment for sin is, frankly, evil.

The foreign policy implications of a Millienialist mindset - as Dr. Winell points out in passages I have not quoted - are exceedingly troubling. Those who look forward to a "final conflict" in the middle east featuring an atomic Holocaust that requires divine intervention to preserve remaining life - and who look forward to a magical intervention to preserve their own pink assets from the quite literal fallout - should never, ever be permitted to make significant foreign policy decisions or even speak to the issues from a position of secular authority. I think that should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer; there are some beliefs that simply have obvious, inevitable and toxic outcomes.

Whatever the degree of sincerity; a sincere delusion that evil is good is simply a more effective delusion. Sarah Palin must be considered to be dangerously deluded about matters of real, legitimate concern to all human beings.

The most dangerous presumption is - quite literally - an article of faith for Sarah Palin, if we are to take her word for her beliefs; that all people are inherently and willfully evil and that unless they prove otherwise by belonging to a church that believes the exact same things and acts in precise accordance to those doctrines, subsuming their conscience and common sense to the dictates of "anointed leadership" - then they are sinners worthy of death. Clearly the ethical calculus is that harm to a sinner worthy of death is moot; only consequences to "the saved" matter.

And if that is true of human beings, how much less does it matter that animals suffer, that air is polluted or that the oceans rise, drowning people, depleting fisheries and disrupting the world wide ecology? What matter famine, plague, starvation and death, if they be harbingers of Jesus?

Speaking as a committed and mindful follower of the words and deeds of Jesus Christ, one who takes the clear warnings of the Commandments quite seriously as ethical precepts and statements of natural laws as implacable and quantifiable as those regarding thermodynamics - I stand repulsed and condemn any faith that would so transparently act against such a weight of words and the clear evidence of cause and effect while taking the name of Jesus in vain.

No real Christian that believes that faith to be defined by the words of Jesus can possibly endorse acting upon the assumption that such a worldwide disaster as is predicted by end-times cults could ever be a good thing. Period. It requires looking forward to and praying for (a conscious, mindful act with intent, regardless of it's real world effect) an end that will be harmful to every living human being if it occurs.

And that, to me, is a non-negotiable statement of ethical fact. No faith-based band-aid can trump fact. No amount of willful disregard can trump that consequences arising from actions rooted more in faith than in fact are real and do real harm. No amount of alleged benefit in a believed hereafter can justify inarguable inhumane and callus decisions in the here and now.

It's not the size of your fish... T-Shirt by webcarve
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Thanks for the Song, Mr. Cohen

It's not the size of your fish... T-Shirt by webcarve Create a Customized Tee Shirt At Zazzle Browse more Religion T-Shirts A brutally truthful reminder that a chrome fish is simply a void - and that void will be filled by something. What that something is depends on who you are and what you choose to do as informed by faith and conscience. Live the words and you won't need to prove anything - or the excuses provided (at a modest price) by the salesmen of chrome fish and glow in the dark Fatimas.

When it seems like trying to talk sense to people simply brings on yet another plague of trolls, when you can honestly say that we are in the midst of a disaster of Biblical proportions, when you open the newspaper and wonder why this is all familiar, only to recall that it's been seemingly badly cribbed from Ezekiel, Daniel, Exodus and Revelations, well, a Cohen has to do what a Cohen is named for doing.

Heck of a tradition to live up to, but there are at least two in this generation. The Former Linked Cohen, Richard Cohen Spake in the New York Times, and lo, it rocketh.

Behold, so it was in the seventh year, and it seemed that America was doubly smitten, from without and within.

And, lo, a strange thing did come to pass. For as surely as the seasons do alternate, so the ruler and party that have brought woe to a nation must give way to others who can lead their people to plenty. How can the weary, flogged ass bear honey and balm and almonds and myrrh?

Yet many Americans believed the exhausted beast could still provide bounty. They did hold that a people called the French was to blame. They did accuse a creation called the United Nations. They did curse the ungodly sophisticates of Gotham and Hollywood and sinful Chicago; and, lo, they proclaimed God was on their side, and carried a gun, and Darwin was bunk, and truth resided in Alaska.

Of course, you might wonder if there could be something pointing to the "or else," the smiting of the self rightious, etc.

Sadly, the problem is not finding examples. It's choosing examples. I finally settled on just this single one, because it exemplifies karma in action, as well as the entertaining idea that angels may indeed walk an undercover beat among us, on karma enforcement detail.

"Is it so wrong to pray for rain?"

You've seen the video, asking "is it so wrong to pray for rain?"

Focus on the Family guy Stuart Shepard is asking people, in a video he made, to pray for rain on the day Barack Obama gives his speech in Denver during the Democratic National Convention. Shepard, a one-time TV meteorologist according to KOAA, wants it to start raining two minutes before Obama's speech starts, and he wants that rain to be so hard that it will block out network TV coverage so no one will be able to see or hear Obama's speech during the DNC.

Did you happen to pray for an answer to that question? Could be that's why you are here.

Should you be a person of faith who prayed about whether it would be "so wrong" and then, according to the various traditional teachings, turned to Google as a means to let God/ess provide you a clue to what the answer is, well, don't you just LOVE Her sense of humor?

Yeah, I'm messin' witcha. But then, that's pretty much what Prophets of the Lord do. Read your Bible.

Am I CLAIMING to be a prophet of The Lord? Heavens Forfend! I just suspect that from time to time, anything that anyone might say will contain the right nugget of truth, and the more practiced one is in extracting them and the ruder and more conspicuously one points it out, the more likely it is that the right nugget will bonk enough noggins for people to think that.

I disclaim all desire to be seen as a Prophet.

You see, I view being involved in legitimate prophecy as being an occupational hazard, not a spiritual reward or a particular blessing. And being seen as a Bringer Of Truth Worthy of Following would be, to me, a personal nightmare.

But this smug little Pharasee thinks that asking "would it be wrong to pray for rain" insulates him from the moral consequences of him suggesting a course of action that is prohibited to us in the Big Ten.

Whether or not I can be considered a Christian is a matter of some personal debate. But I do take the words of Christ very seriously indeed and I take the Ten Commandments even more seriously; to the point that understanding their essential meaning, the idea behind the prohibition has been a life-long quest.

Some of of them are difficult to figure out, but this one is not difficult at all. You just need a good translation of the Bible and concordance.

Here's the essence of it; "Thou shalt not take the Lord's Name in vain" is not a prohibition against cussin', its a prohibition of throwing curses at people you do not like and trying to give other people the impression that God is lending their aid and approval. He doesn't, She won't, it's in vain - and if you are giving other folks the impression that it is not, YOU are a liar and they are fools.

So the answer to the question, "would it be wrong to pray for rain" in this case, is real clear and real simple. Yes. And so was asking the question in such a way that it is highly likely that you misled others.

God is not mocked, nor does God parse contracts. What part of your own theology do you not comprehend? Omnipotent, omnipresent, knows the contents of your heart, and therefore your intent.

Do you think God is bound by the rules shown on "I Dream of Jeannie?"

No, fella me lad, all lore and tradition points to that sort of tricksy legalistic triangulation being an attribute of the Bad Guys.

So, which God did you say you were prayin' to, again? I don't recall you mentionin' that.

Regular readers may wonder why I'm not loudly mocking this. Well, first, because despite the question being asked in such a coy and deceptive way, it is a fundimantal issue of ethics, and it has an absolutely straightforward answer that can be put in bulletproof biblical terms.

And second, because Jesus's General did it first, better and shorter. (HT, Pam of Pam's House Blend.)

Bailing out of the Handbasket...

I got an email from OpEd news, telling me all their news, and this headline leaped at my face.

Why is Bush So Interested in Our Vaginas?

A really awful pun connected to what I presumed (correctly) to be an important essay on reproductive choice is always worth reading, even if one can only nod. Which is what I do, in passing.

Even though I had nothing to add but a nod, this was not true of others. I was struck by a comment to the thread consisted of a whole-page excerpt from this site: What IS the World Coming To? Seriously.

It's a very well-written discussion of the ethics and consequences of the clash between pro-choice and anti-choice movements.

I use the term anti-choice for two reasons; first, because it's factually accurate and the term "pro-life" is not. Second, because I do not wish to imply that I'm impartial. No person with a decent respect for individual liberty, privacy and the sanctity of informed, conscientious choice can be.

My position on abortion is simple - if you do not like the idea of abortion, which is inarguably an ugly option at best, work to address the things that make so many people get to that choice-point.

In a perfect world, the outcome of a woman getting pregnant would be that a baby would be born and raised in a loving, caring, comfortable family. I think we all can agree on that.

Um... I would agree. I think most sane people would agree. I thing that most people that study the Bible and take it as a serious source of ethical and moral instruction would agree, even as I believe that most humanists would. I'm not so sure about the loudest assholes farting their way to the forefront of our current "culture war."

I think that in their perfect world, they will define what loving, caring and comfortable are. They will define who gets pregnant, by whom, and when - and those are pre-requisites for ANY consequent love, caring and comfort.

In order to reinforce that view, they will do their best to ensure that those who are born outside of those strictures are an intolerable misery to those that bore them, that they bear the brunt of social disapproval, and that all their pleas for help and compassion are denied as "whining," as "laziness" or "greed."

Their mothers will be characterized as "welfare queens," and all ills they and their families and their neighborhoods will be attributed to "sin" and "rebellion against god" - who's words are of course easily found by tuning your tee-vee to the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Yes, there is a culture war. But it was started by those who say that "Christians are being persecuted." In fact, no actual Christianity is involved, and those real Christians who happen to be on the wrong side of the line on this had best pull their heads out of the churches and compare what should be going on - according to what you are being told - with what IS going on, and most critically, what promised, prophetic consequences are coming down upon whom.

I mean, if you don't want to be collateral damage.

Clearly there is a God in Heaven - Because the Athiests Won

You know, I cannot think of a clearer example of the deliberate "establishment of religion" than the clear and obvious attempt to make public compliance with and participation in a Christian prayer a pre-condition of participation in school, school activities, or indeed, within the social matrix of the town itself, a small pimple on the panhandle of Oklahoma.

The behavior you clearly see in the video is of course, unconstitutional, prima facia, and I delight that the matter was taken to court - and on even better grounds than this rather old video clearly shows.

The Smalkowski case attracted national attention after Nicole Smalkowski was kicked off of the girls' basketball team after refusing to stand in a circle with her teammates on the gymnasium floor of the Hardesty public High School and recite the "Lord's Prayer." After school officials learned that she and her family were Atheists, lies were created about her as grounds to take her off of the team.

When her father Chuck discovered conclusively that public school and law enforcement officials had lied to him about his 15 year old daughter, he and Nicole and her mother Nadia went to the home of principal Lloyd Buckley to attempt to discuss the matter with him. Outside of his front fence, the principal struck Chuck, who blocked the blow. Both men fell to the ground and Buckley sustained minor injuries, the provable origins of which were strikingly contrary to his under oath trial testimony. Buckley then took out misdemeanor criminal assault charges against Chuck. After Smalkowski rejected the offer to drop the charges if he and his Atheist family left the state, the charges were raised to a felony. Chuck called American Atheists for help.

Chuck won his day in court - despite the room being packed by people literally praying for his conviction. I presume this is one case where the answer is "What part of 'I am a God of Justice' escaped you all these years?"

The school district will lose and I say that with the unstated but sincere underline - "if there is a God in heaven."

There is a specific reason I say that. And it is a reason that is absolutely critical to persons of all faiths - but most especially to Christians, inasmuch as these points were raised, exemplified and made to be conditions of faith by the example and words of Jesus. In other words, if you think as a Christian paster that what you see here is an example of what "good Christian kids do" than you are are in contention with the words in red and unqualified to lead a Christian church of ANY denomination.

You see, Christians may well dispute the positive meaning or the exact expression of those words in a positive sense - but when one is cheer-leading exactly the sort of thing that sent Jesus himself off on a snorting tirade of righteous indignation - that would be outside the bounds of sectarian variation, or even schism.

Indeed, in Christian theological definition that goes back to the earliest days of the church, one teaching in direct disputation of the direct words of Christ would be...

Oh, I'm sure you know this one. It's on the lips of every odious little thumper out there.

Yep. That's it: "ANTIChrist."

Now I state this, with absolute confidence that I can support it biblically, in depth - but all I really need to do is to point you to a decent concordance and council you to study the concepts of hospitality and to read what Jesus had to say about practitioners of public piety, such as the Pharisees.

But having said that, I'm going to further state that there is a much greater point at issue having nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not whether honest observers should quotes around the word Christian when referring to you.

The point is this - if you have to establish your religion by force and maintain it by indoctrination and immersion, if it cannot sustain itself in the face of one little teen-aged atheist who respects both her moral position and your own enough to not commit an act of dishonest piety for your town's comfort - you don't have a faith. Or rather more to the point, you clearly have no faith in your faith.

So, that would be a Vente Grande of What's the Point with whipped nonsense and bullshit, wouldn't it?

And since it is all that, and you are indeed using force to sustain it against utter collapse in the name of preserving social order and of course the social rank of it's most visibly pious practitioners, it really wouldn't actually be wrong for another church to come to town with a dutiful and militant congregation and practice exactly as you preach?

Would it?

Be careful how you argue against that, for that's pretty much exactly what has happened in many churches, due to leadership from various "Christian" organizations - the takeover of entire parishes by outsiders; takeovers that amount to theft on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, an honest person and a good Christian wouldn't want to be seen arguing in favor of theft or covetous behavior. Those things are generally considered to be, what's the word again?

Oh, yes. Sins.

If practiced by the smugly unrepentant, it's rather conventional theology to assume that would be pretty much "go to hell, go directly to hell; do not pass through Purgatory."

But again, compelling as that argument is for both it's instructive and entertainment values, it does not stand particularly well in the public square. Especially when this is not a question of what Christian doctrine one may believe to be superior, or convenient or publicly acceptable, but a far more fundamental one; one critical, as I said, to all our freedoms; the right to hold opinions that many may disagree with.

Including the opinion that there is no god, and your religion is a crock.

I happen to agree with the young lady on the latter point, and tend to assume on the first that whatever God there may be (and I happen to believe there is Someone,) you wouldn't recognize Them if they set your personal bush burning - even though that would be entirely within the realm of the sense of humor associated with the Divine.

Look up "emroods."

But nonetheless, no matter how little regard I hold for the evident quality of your faith, o Citizens of Hardesty, you have the right to it. So long as and only to the extent that you do not use tactics like this to enforce and defend it.

Speaking purely for myself, though, and based on my understanding of ethics and of the Ten Commandments, if I were a Fundamentalist Christian, I would find the fact that Hardesty, Oklahoma has apparently not yet evaporated under a hail of fire and brimstone to be a challenge to my faith.

Fortunately, I am not, and I do not bother my God with such stray thoughts. Though, in all honesty - I must say that it would be far beyond my capacity for charity or tolerance to show much compassion at all should any disaster happen - and as I am an experienced believer in Karma, I 'spect it will. And as tempting as the idea of being able to own such a spread as the Smalkowski's did; I consider living downwind of that much bad juju to be unwise.

Is there any point to another election?

I read the blogs, of course. I'm not going to cite anyone, because that would tend to assign blessing or blame where none is due. I will only say that this rant has been provoked by my dear blogfriend and contrary inspiration, Echidne. I will not reveal what particular post, because that would suggest that her pebble implies approval with the direction of this avalanche, and I see no good reason to assume that.

But I will state that Echidne seems to be one of the few, left or right, that seems to give a crap about the fate of those on "the other side," a virtue that I am finding it difficult to claim, even as the "right " shoots at me as if I were wearing a Leftists' red cap.

Well, it IS called a Liberty Cap.

Still, even from the more aloof and not entirely unbalanced perspective I generally try to maintain, it's almost impossible to notice the radical hatred on the "right" and the nearly delusional wishful thinking on the "left." To the extent there IS anything on the "left" of course. From MY perspective, Hillary Clinton is a moderate Republican, and the fact that she's an Ovarian American is one of the few things in her favor.

Liberals love to think she's as liberal as they are, feminists would like to think that her gyno-Americanism would override her wardrobe of scarlet ambition - but I tend to think that of all the candidates, it's probably John Edwards who wears the skirt in the family.

And I'm not saying that as an insult. There is a yin and a yang, and from my perspective, Hillary's yang hangs to her knees, and anyone who's yang is shorter, or who's yin is wider is probably more welcome in polite company.

But "Polite Comany" and "world leader" don't usually go hand in hand, so don't think I'm saying this as a put down. I respect Hill enourmously. I'm just not sure she deserves (in either the usual or the ironic sense) to be President.

A big, long, knobby Yang ain't a bad thing for a US President - unless you are betting on her to act according to your particular preconceptions of gender-based solidarity. And I personally think it would be better in some larger and less immediate sense if she were assured enough in her own gender to not try to counter-program her own femininity.

On the other hand, I bet you would get your ears most righteously pinned back should you even imply she "owes the movement" anything much more than a polite nod and a handshake. Hell, I'd probably do it on her behalf.

But still and all, there is a mess that needs cleaning up, and women are mentally better at sorting messes into useful piles. That's a vast generalization of course, but ask any woman and she'll tell you. Hell, just observe the distintions between men and women in the wild - and then try to act on the assumption that these distintcions are mere social artifiacts.

No, wait. I've got a better example. TRY do things the opposite gender is famous for doing effortlessly in the same way they do it. You may be able to get the job done just as well - but you won't be able to do it just as well if you try to do it the same way. There are some things no amount of enlightenment and social awareness can transcend. And that is why I'm concerned, not about what game she plays, or to what end, so much, but if she is allowing herself a home-gender advantage, when the world situation is positively screaming for it.

I AM impressed by how she handled Bill's messes without undermining the good Bill is capable of, OR doing anything to enable him in his folly beyond that expected of a proper partner and spouse. That speaks to me of a sharp focus on the relative importance of various things. But I am as yet unconvinced.

I should also mention that of the very great female leaders in history, all of them seemed to come to power at times of great social change, where the masculine approach of sudden violent action would be about as smart as lighting a match in a powder shack.

For that very reason alone, I am predisposed to a woman president. Not because they are "just as good" as any male; but because women and men are non-interchangeable. We have different inherent advantages and deficits, and those of us who unabashedly exploit the former while ruthlessly compensating for the latter are worthy of anyone's vote. And I do think B and H do compensate well for each other's lacks. Politically. I'm just not sure if they see a larger advantage than their own careers.

So if she is elected, I do hope she can rise to the example of Elizabeth the First and transcend the example of Cleopatra. But, well-endowed as she is, I'm not sure it's Motherwit she's endowed with. Still, Bill does have some of that.

Personally I think power is what makes HER nipples hard and I think that's how she should be judged - how well she will use the very thing she wants in the worst way** and how much we should charge her for the pleasure.

As opposed to, well, the other way around, how much we will be charged for the pleasure of her leadership.

This, by the way, is an arrogance and folly that seems endemic of all the "first tier" candidates and the pundits that shill for them; that we should somehow take pride in our support of one or another, rather than the fact that they should be personally thanking each and every one of us willing to part with five minutes or a spare dollar to help them along the way.

I'm Not Leftist at all (I keep protesting) but in some respects, Hillary is still to the right of me. Not because she wants to be, I think, but because she and her husband have made political expediency into an art form. In other words, she's just as Liberal as any Canadian Liberal. She says what she has to to get elected, then she will do what she needs to do to stay in power.

But what I do know is that she shares something in common with all of those on the other side of the asile - the idea that there ought to be people in charge, that without the Rule of Authority, Chaos Will Ensue, and that she is qualified to rule.

The last point is for all of us to determine, but I observe that the first two assumptions are fallacious - but very convenient to those born with access to power and the ambition to secure more of it.

If this were Canada, with Canada's particular ways of applying pressure to the powerful, I'd vote for Miz Clinton in a heartbeat, believing as I do of her as I do, because in Canada, there is the understanding that you elect a politician that would like to be honest* - and then help them keep their promises. She's every bit the man - and woman - that Jean Chretien ever was. And she probably has a better command of both French and English.

Honestly, I don't much care for her personally - but the history of US politics shows that likable people are either too squeamish for the job - Jimmy Carter - or are simply panderers to those they want to be liked by, like Regan and Bush. I'd rather have a president I was personally disappointed by, but respected for their sheer brilliance. Nixon and Bill Clinton come to mind for very different reasons.

I don't need a leader, personally - but this country and the great bulk of the population does, so it's a critical issue, that quality of "leadership."

Both panderers and idealists are lousy leaders. I will state up front that Hillary is obviously neither; but she IS is a third thing - the sign of a leader that many will follow to hell, and that might well lead us there just to prove she's got the power to do so.

Furthermore, my gut says that Hillary won't do the right thing if it gets in the way of the politically expedient thing, which means no radical departure from the last fifty years of stupid. I say that even as I remind myself that "politics is the art of the possible." I believe that Hillary is enamored of power itself, and will do whatever it takes to keep it.

Again, if this were Canada.. but it is not, and those that most need a good leader and a champion, those who most deserve a light on a narrow path toward a brighter future are, I think, likely to be disappointed.

I simply cannot forget, nor easily forgive the fact that both Bill and Hillary were quite upbeat about "welfare reform" here in the US - possibly the single most mean-spirited piece of social legislation short of the Enclosure Acts that brought many of our forebears to North America. At the very best, they held their noses as it passed, and took some credit for it to gain points with the wealthy and powerful.

For myself, I have a more workaday perspective on such folks.

"The Gangs of New York" documents what they found, coming here in search of a better life. The full scope of the tragedy is encompassed in the observation that they actually DID find a better life, one well worth engaging in gang warfare to defend - even as Boss Tweed, who reminds me rather a lot of both of a slightly imprudent Bill Clinton and a somewhat better and more intelligent George Bush callously remarked that "you can always hire half of the poor to kill the other half."

Think on that, as the repugnant wing of the Republican party tries to squeeze more out of the poor to enrich (and please) the sort of rich person that thinks their wealth is degraded somehow by the lack of sufficient abject, humiliating, exploitable poverty.

I don't call myself a Progressive - but both Shit and Progress Happens. I happen to believe that the essential difference between shit and progress is pretty much where it gets dumped, and to who's advantage.

My belief in progress begins and ends at the sincere belief that no person and no institution that wishes to survive should try and stand in it's way. Both social conservatives and so-called progressives tend to do this. One wishes to stop it, the other to "guide it." I think the first to be suicidally futile, the other hilariously futile, with the preditive and practical value of a Hal Linsay novel.

Yeah, I know, he doesn't think they are fiction. And he shares that touching conceit with those who Envision A Better Future For Humanity - a future most often envisioned without any broad or significant human contact.

I prefer to watch the splendor of the great leaderless parade from a safe vantage, knowing that altering the path of progress is like playing traffic cop in a cattle stampede.

My obvious cynicism is not because I do not care about individuals. I care about little else; I see both church and state as barely tolerable institutions that exist only for the aid and comfort they give to individuals, and only to the degree they serve individuals humbly and impartially. I see these institutions as being powerful only to the extent that people see no choice in giving power to them. I, personally, see that donation of power as a great mistake, even though I admit that pretending otherwise would have shown me greater personal profit.

My goodness, even in the last decade, had it been within me to hold my nose and speak as Coulter or Limbaugh have - and honestly, I could do better, were I unburdened by conscience or the perception of the individual consequences of people taking me seriously - I could have become rather well-off. Certainly well-off enough to relocate to a country where the poor are agreeably and institutionally oppressed for the benefit of the sort of people I would have become and likely to stay that way long enough to die smugly of old age.

But I do not see it as "better" that one be a hammer than a nail. Given that dichotomy, I prefer to be the light fixture in the workshop. This light shows me clearly that those who think only in terms of hammers and nails are utterly screwed.

I do not champion any particular ideology. I've tried out various ideologies, and all of them, to one degree or another, tend to justify the need to break eggs in order to make a omelets for whatever group or segment of the population they most value.

I value the individual - but not as an expendable resource. That is why I'm a Libertarian. I'm an individualist first, last and always, and it's as good a label as any for those who need labels, though I could be just as accurately called a disciple of the Eight Immortals.

At base, I do think that every individual is connected with every other, and that John Donne was correct in saying "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

I just don't happen to think that being connected to all gives me the right to pro-actively act in "their own interest," when really it's my comfort and security that I seek to defend.

Consider the ever-so-pious liberal attempts to ban smoking.

At the root of it, it's disrespectful of the needs and desires of individuals, which are considered far less important than the mild preferences of any group of like-bleating sheep. Side-stream smoke, at least when banished to separate rooms or outdoors is far less of a threat than, say, automotive exaust.

But that sort of Liberal is very dependant upon their Limosines - where they will likely light up in private, even as their conservative counterparts indulge themselves in the joys of non reciprocal oral sex.

With Illegal immagrant male minors of African descent.

Yes, I do prefer the hypocrisies of liberals, being a white citizen of legal age. But they are hypocracies, nonetheless, and I DO smoke.

Moreover, I enjoy it.

Anyhoo; I harbor no illusions that all individuals are equal, much less equivalent, much less interchangeable. Indeed, it's the very most dear topic of the bloggers who's critical insight I value most - that women and minorities are considered as groups, with group characteristics that devalue and degrade any particular individual. I find their arguments to the contrary both effective and persuasive, for their arguments match my experience.

I have known many individuals, of all genders and races, and I've never met one person who fit any particular stereotype unless that was their individual goal in life.

Pretty much, the only people I know who celebrate and revere stereotypes as their personal ideals are drag queens, Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christians and Anne Coulter who somehow manages to maintain an improbably high heel in both camps.

Though I don't doubt her XX credentials (or even consider claiming the right to demand a blood test) , she portrays femininity more than just being female, somewhat in the way a successful trannie does, which probably explains the wide perception that she is one.

Personally, I much prefer Ru Paul, who is twice the woman Anne is, and a far more credible actor. Genuine Drag Queens and Kings are a lot more fun to be around, which is really how you tell the difference. They know they are sacred clowns. Ann just thinks she is sacred and justified - which makes her a self-nominated sacred cow, all ready to be tipped.

Even Ru Paul know there is a time to be in drag, and a time to NOT be in drag, and that each has different standards of virtue and fabulousness. The comparable Christianists seem to believe they can't properly revere their stereotypes without forcing everyone else to dress and speak just as they do.

Now imagine how truly Unspectacular it would be, how very UN-festive it would seem, if Mardi Gras was compelled by law, 24/7, 365, and if "certain people" were compelled by law to be mostly naked save for feathers and beads. Yeah, I'm talking about you and your pale, flabby, wrinkly self. It takes a lot of work to be fablulous, and frankly, I have better things to do, and I imagine you think you do too.

As well we might, given a social matrix that allows us to clothe our shortcomings. :P But if it were compulsary (eithier legally or just in a practical sense, as it was in ancient Greece, )

It would be as small-minded, as proscribed and as essentially dull and vapid as any Christianist social matrix. Take "Antigone."

Please.

Of course, we would all get used to it - much like we have gotten used to excusing other intuitively stupid things, like supply-side economics, or the inherent benevolence of human nature, and we would excuse it with shared fairy tales as to how awful things would be if we did not choose to sacrifice some of our freedom to stave off the evil day.

Thus is it now, and so it was in the days of Sophocles and FDR. Different fables, pretty much the same rectal burning the fables are supposed to distract us from. Could be worse, they say; it could be SQUARE, like the OTHER people want to use on you.

And so each individual is imposed upon by the groups purporting to represent their interests; whether it's Hoffa or Bush, and as one mexican peasant put it, after being "liberated" once again, this time by General Pershing; "What does it matter? You ALL steal my chickens."

And in "stealing those chickens" from the Masses, in order to Properly Feed the Great Struggle , my feminist and "racially aware" compadres tend to miss an essential point - in exactly the same way that Dominionists, Patriarchs and white racists do.

There is a great amount of value in individual variation; culture and genetics count for some large part in this; far more than either racists or their ideological foes would care to admit.

I oppose oppression based on any perception that any particular distinction is sufficient to indicate social or biological superiority or inferiority. Certainly there ARE individuals that are, I'm afraid, somewhat overall less capable in general than others. I'm one of those; though I do choose to believe that my greater needs for support are matched by my unusual, if narrow ranges of skill. What I am good at, I'm VERY good at, and there are enough that value what I can do that I've never had to be seriously concerned about what I cannot. And yet, I cannot honestly pretend that the greatest of my advantages are the result of practice. I was born with them - and some of what are my greatest advantages kinda suck for me in a slightly different light.

Due to having my nose rubbed in the matter, I have an intimate appreciation of the variation and value of humanity. I've come to hold nothing but amused disdain for those who think that any particular description of how people should be is preferable to the simple idea that, so long as you mind your own business to the extent you can, and to the extent that you cannot, honestly render value for value, you and yours will be safe and warm in the sort of community that best suits them.

What more does anyone really need?

This vision is inclusive of those who are excellent at making money. Most people are not, it's a rare and valuable skill - for after all, the very activity of gaining great wealth increases general prosperity. Or at least it does when those skilled in making wealth remember that they would not have been able to apply those skills without help, encouragement and the investment of both cash and sweat.

They should know, understand and appreciate that their talent is rare and very much appreciated by those who do not share it - even as they appreciate, use and celebrate abilities that would never truly flower without their support and patronage.

It takes a largish village to raise a child, in part because there is no guarantee that any particular set of parents has all the insight and experience that any particular child will need to be their best - nor is there any way to predict what it will be ahead of time.

That is why I absolutely reject ANY faith or culture as inherently inhuman, obviously unethical, deeply un Christian and inarguably stupid that excludes any choice or life-path that is not directly and provably harmful to others - and I specifically spurn those who base the sum of their faith not on what they are and what they do, but on who they are not, and what they do NOT do.

Note that I abstain from calling social champions of exclusionary faith - such as Huckabee, Bin Ladin, Pat Robertson or Orthodox Druidry by the name they would arrogate to themselves, or referring to their refuges from reality as Churches, Temples, Ashrams or Faith Groups.

Conformity is not faith, and a conformity so insecure that it cannot exist without forcing public obedience to overt exhibitions of that that faith on everyone else is utterly, totally fucking worthless. It has not even the significance of a drag review. It hasn't the social importance of a Folsom Day Parade. It doesn't have the spiritual significance enjoyed by Our Ladies of Perpetual Indulgance. All these things, after all, challenge conventional assuptions and therefore promote the testing and examination of valid spiritual and social truths.

Christianist fetishism celebrates the ideal of eliminating fun for themselves and everyone they can intimidate, in order to eliminate anything that might test their shallow, bitter and pointless faith in their own moral superiority.

Any faith that regularly encourages it 's members to cause (or at least excuse) harm to others, even family members, in the here in now, in the name of "saving their souls" shows an arrogance and indifference toward the very words of Christ that disqualifies them from ANY valid observation of the Numinous.

Unfuck them, say I; they might not appreciate it; but far more significantly, they certainly don't deserve it, much less the right to any genetic payoff.

Perhaps I can sum this up in one or two more graphs and keep it all within the bounds of reason. I have come to think that it may not be reasonable to expect that the vast problems of this great, inept and debtor nation may even be addressed by a federal election. It may be time to admit that we are not one great culture, but at LEAST two, with incompatible ideas as to what "great" means. I am starting to believe that we should each of us declare for the outcome we prefer - or abandon the right to a preference.

There seems to be a huge discordance between the coasts and the interior states, the cities and the countryside; the sophisticates and the viciously ignorant Siberian peasantry who indulge in religiosity as a hangover cure for their own workaday brutality.

Yes, clearly I have my own value judgments going on here. I will unabashedly admit that I'd rather trip over any number of "commies", "niggers," "faggots" "feminazis" and "preverts" on the way to a well-stocked library. None of them ever beat the crap out of me for reading books for fun. Hell, many of them handed me books to read and lived lives worth remembering.

I'm predisposed to forgive many putative faults in those who hand me mental chocolate!

I will delightedly admit that I would rather put up with all of the downsides of a civilized, coastal culture than the inbred, small minded, dead-end reflexes of a long-gone inland agrarian culture that I doubt was worth the powder to blow it to hell at the hight of the family farm.

Certainly I know of few social stories that elevate the life on a farm over the opportunity to successfully escape it.

Now, I don't mind if you find my choices repugnant nor will I even say that I honestly reject all that is middle America. Frankly, given the Internet, it SHOULD be possible to have and value both, if Middle America would allow it.

However, I know that it will not, and that many Middle Americans would love to see me dangling from a lamp-post, along with all the others they call "Liberals".

I cannot help but take that personally. So, forgive me, or not, but if it comes down to a choice between me and mine living, and all the people who would like to see me and mine dangling from lamp-posts dead, I know what I will choose. I know who uses "diversity" and "tolerance" as bad words - and how little I need their continued existence as a cultural, religious or selection of like-minded individuals.

Tolerance has limits even among the tolerant. Tolerating those who would kill you or worse because you are forgiving, tolerant and therefore "weak" is suicidally foolish.

Increasingly, I see the difficulty of governing a nation divided so, on the cusp of ignorance and enlightenment, between those who hope and strive for a better future for themselves and others, and those who fear any change that might possibly affect what little they are and what small prizes they have gained at the expense of "lusers" they despise.

I know which side of the balance I am on - for being who and what I am, I have little choice in the matter. I've not been able to "go along to get along" any time in my memory, so I must go with all the other liberals, faggots, artists, dykes, feminists, intellectuals, geniuses and mentally handicapped that do not fit the mold of "good Midwestern stock."

And frankly, after seeing what has come of following your fears and prejudices these last years, the blowback of your bleating conformity and unreasoning panic; the spiritual rewards of your sacrifice of anyone but your own - well, I have to say that if napalm and cluster bombs MUST be pissed upon someone from a great height, why NOT you? How have you in any way earned a justifiable moral exception to the violence you have empowered and affirmed?

You certainly have earned it as much as any Iraqi, and FAR more than the average Iranian - even as your churches and dear leaders cheer the idea of paving Iran in green glass.

Oddly, you seem confused that those who live downwind might object to such an obvious national security imperative. (That would be sarcasm.)

You demanded it be done to others - and their children. You would wish it done to even more. Have we not all heard calls for bombing the Madrases? Madrases are indeed evil places - but they are evil places filled with children who are slaves to that evil. You would rather kill them than save them, for the outcome of one is cheap and sure, while the outcome of the other requires effort, heart, and not a little heartbreak - and you don't even consider your own noncompliant offspring worth a moment's sorrow.

Of these children - those of others and those you choose to reject - you either said, or silently assented with the idea that "nits breed lice."

Indeed they do.

One sort of bloodsucking oppressive patriarchal religious dictatorship is pretty much the same as any other, and "nits" raised in either result in lice distinguishable only by other lice.
Speaking for humanity in general, I think we would all love to see a war of extermination between the crab lice and the head lice ... if only, of course, it were not our human heads and pubes as a battlefield.

But having that wistful vision, it's difficult to pass the products in the supermarket aisle designed to remove lice from one's follicles without wondering what tempting products are available to our long-suffering planet.

So, you in the Midwest have a choice. You can either do as generations of your smarter and less compliant offspring have done; allow the scales to fall from your eyes, regard the consequences of your social and religious indoctrination and move to a civilized state, or you can face the just wrath of the world, perhaps including those civilized states.

Should you MANAGE to cheat your way to another electoral victory, do NOT expect those of us who share more worldly values with most of the world to spend many drops of blood or any large number of tears for the fate of you and yours.

I know that if I see black helicopters flying cover for white tanks heading east on I-80, I will wave that UN flag like a madman. I will of course take sensible precautions as well; hiding a few things in undisclosed locations - but a rational paranoia does not preclude a certain schadenfreud at the rewards of irrational and vicious paranoid revenge fantasies acted out upon innocents thought to be safely powerless.

Fuck you all to death, with the sharp and unwelcome objects you made for profit and intended to inflict upon others, you and the religious leaders who told you Haliburton and Exxon belonged in your Ethical Fund.

May you rot in the various hells you would wish upon others, after no more painful and humiliating a death than the god you worship would consider the due of sinners such as yourselves working for the OTHER god you worship even more faithfully.
---
*An honest politician is one who stays bought.

**Better than many, not as well as some, at least as well as any serious competitor.

If your husband told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?

Salto sobrius: Jim Benton on Fundies vs. Gay Marriage

A very interesting article on why gay marriage upsets the fundie applecart. Turns out said apple cart is hauling horseapples anyhow - the rationale for opposing gay marriage hinges on the despicable abomination of a man submitting to another man.

a heterosexual marriage that deviates from "God's plan" can be condemned as such, and there is always hope that through "good Christian example" teaching, preaching, and prayer, these "misguided sinners" can be shown the proper path. (And the true dominionists can hope they will have the power of the state at least to teach students properly, and even have laws that will correct the poor, deluded "equalitarians".)

But there is no way that a gay couple can choose to conform to these teachings. The roles, in the minds of the radical Christians are biologically and theologically based. The question of which gender should be submissive is not a matter of choice. It is rooted in the idea that "man was created first and woman sinned first" in Eden. Yes, a woman may (and should, according to voices like Stormy Omartian's) freely choose to submit to her husband and act according to God's plan. But that is because she is a woman. A man who should choose to submit to his wife, in the same way, would be an unnatural abomination.

And, obviously, same-sex marriages either do not have a woman to "willingly submit to whomever it is we need to be submitted to", or they lack a man to be submitted to. No amount of preaching can change this, no amount of Christian example will change this. Any gay marriage, by existing, challenges this idea of a proper, "traditional" marriage.

Well, you know MY methods, Watson. Not only should gay marriage of all sorts be recognized - to the extent that I admit that the state has any business recognizing any relationship at all - but more heterosexual couples should make a point of giving the horselaugh to this nonsense:

For a similar view let's look at the Southern Baptists. In an article on subjugation of women in that denomination, Dr. Bruce Prescott & Dr. Rick McClatchy (who have become "Mainstream Baptists", a group which split from the Southern Baptists as a protest against the emergence of extreme and rigid conservatism in the older group) write in Baptist Faith and Message, a Baptist "Confession of faith"):

"subjugation of women extended to the privacy of Baptist homes when a statement on the family was added to the BF&M. In line with the chain of command made explicit in the 1984 resolution, the 1998 family amendment advised wives that they must ‘graciously submit' to their husbands."

"The unconditional nature of the wife's subjugation became clear at the official press conference following the statement's adoption. Dorothy Patterson, wife of Paige Patterson and a member of the committee that drafted the family statement, said, ‘When it comes to submitting to my husband even when he is wrong, I just do it. He is accountable to God.'"

But these groups are relatively liberal. I could go on and on -- oh, you've noticed -- but I'll end this by requoting Tedd Tripp, from my article on baby beating.

"You must provide examples of submission for your children. Dads can do this through biblical authority over their wives, and Moms through biblical submission to their husbands." p. 142

"Don't waste time trying to sugarcoat submission to make it palatable. Obeying when you see the sense in it is not submission; it is agreement. Submission necessarily means doing what you do not wish to do. It is never easy or painless." p. 145

"Your children [and by implication, your wife] must understand that when you speak for the first time, you have spoken for the last time." p. 151

Yep. Funnymentalism; the last refuge of the bull asshole - and those to weak and stupid to lead a household without violence. But nonetheless, I support the right of those who wish such relationships and are above the age of consent to enter into them.

However, raising children to behave this way is, I think, child abuse. Not to put too fine a point on it, I think that the widespread abuse of children by people who loudly adhere to such beliefs is all the force this argument against it being either Christian OR American needs.

Spiritual Deceptions - My first GraphicTruth.

`Gospel of wealth' facing scrutiny - Yahoo! News Annotated

The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material riches.

And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Fla., area pledged $500 a year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose frank talk about recovering from childhood sexual abuse was so inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer Benny Hinnand a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.

Only the blessings didn't come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the explanation given on television: Her faith wasn't strong enough.

By their fruits you will know them.

• There isn't any reason why a Christian can't be prosperous, of course, but there's nothing in the Bible - or any other spiritual text - that highlights wealth as a special and particular blessing of faith.
  
  As for those preachers who are enjoying the fruits of their ministry to the extent of living lavish lifestyles and hob-nobbing with presidents and powerful business leaders who love to think that their aquissitive nature is a spiritual gift - "Behold, they have their reward."
  
  - post by graphictruth

The probe by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has brought new scrutiny to the underlying belief that brings in millions of dollars and fills churches from Atlanta to Los Angeles — the "Gospel of Prosperity," or the notion that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches.

This story is very personal to me - and the connection to Oral Roberts is direct.

You see, my mother - a religious addict by any reasonable use of the term - was much taken with Oral Robert's ministry, back when I was ten or twelve, and on days when she didn't feel up to driving the thirty-odd miles it would take to get us to church, she'd watch his show.

And usually, she'd stuff whatever "love offering" he requested for whatever trinket he was selling that day.

Now, our usual church was Episcopal. Being a dutiful and very aspy child, I took my mother's obvious wish that I become "saved" and conversant with the words and works of Jesus very seriously indeed. And as it happened, that church had a very advanced Sunday school, where we really got our teeth into the word, and chewed it with the help of concordances, interlinear bibles, and various translations. I had my own Amplified Bible, which I found very useful.

To make a long story short, I was quite the little deacon at that point, although I had by that time also learned that in regards to my parents, "hiding my light under a bushel" was by far the best course.

However, when Oral Roberts pulled a "prayer cloth" with his holy blessed hand-print upon it, stated that he'd personally prayed over each and every one of these objects, and because of that, they would by some twisted transubstantiation personally connect him to you via the Holy Idiot Box if you placed your hand over his as he prayed with his own hand raised on Teevee...

Well, this little deacon exploded, and while I didn't speak in tongues - as mother really thought any believer should - for once I did not hold it. Nor was it a "word of knowledge." You don't need that when scriptural first principles are being raped before your eyes.

I pointed out that it was idolatry - both of an object and a man, and as graphic an example of a man placing himself before God, as a god-substitute as you would ever see. It still angers me to this day, that a man professing to be a Christian minister could not even get through the FIRST commandment without pissing all over it.

I say that deliberately, as a graphic and visceral illustration of the clear and mindful insult to both his followers and to the God he pretended to serve.

I was actually rather surprised the roof didn't fall in on him right then. It took a few more years, and the "fall" was metaphorical, but rather satisfying, nonetheless.

But in any case, that one time my mother listened to me and did not actually put twenty bucks in an envelope. But it didn't keep her from sending it off to Bob Schuller. Indeed, she sent hundreds, if not thousands to him. One Christmas, my major gift was a window in the Chrystal Cathedral.

Imagine my joy.



As far as I'm concerned, nothing says "transparent fraud" better than the Crystal cathedral. Although these days it's far from the worst such church. Rev. Bob Schuller was a sincere advocate of an inoffensive ministry that was based more on his blandly optimistic self-help pep-talks than on the Bible.

It was a dose of weekly feelgood that came with no strings of personal obligation, other than to buy his books and be optimistic - and all you needed to do in order to progress spiritually was just that - buy his books and be optimistic.

It wasn't nearly as offensive as the "name it - claim it" theology of Oral Roberts, and that is what my mother fell back into later on.

And just like the bitter woman in this article, my mother ended up bitter and unfulfilled, having sacrificed pretty much everything in a futile quest for sanctity and moral superiority without doing the heavy lifting involved involved in discerning Right Action.

Yes, I am informed by other religious traditions. As should you be, if you are moved toward a quest for spiritual insight. If you merely wish to belong to a church that offers a community of belief at a reasonable price, and puts some effort into doing a good job of it, though, I would recommend either a Catholic or Anglican Communion congregation, depending upon your need for governing authorities.

The important thing in my mind is that neither faith is one that encourages self-righteousness and self-involvement to the same degree as the evangelical, "prosperity gospel" mega-churches.

And that, of course, brings us back into the secular world. Indeed, since we are speaking of Oral Roberts and his Mega-church legacy of sanctified greed and the elevation of
moralism
over actual moral virtue, we have never left the secular realm!

If you have not yet grasped the thrust of my words, let me be blunt - I consider none of these televangelists, with their politicalmaneuverings and highly profitable enterprises to be anything other than entirely secular con-men, or, for the very best of a bad lot, no better than any other motivational speaker.

But the worst of them - Benny Hinn leaps to mind - are fully in the tradition of Marjoe Gortner and P.T. Barnum, but blessed with even less conscience than either of those.

Now, I have studied the Bible from front to back and back to front over the years, searching for the context and intent of the words of Christ. For the most part, I consider what I've learned to be highly personal, and not at all something I feel either comfortable or qualified to preach toward - though it would be easy to argue that my scruples are rather unusual in that regard.

One truth is obvious enough to me to share with you in context. In the times of Jesus, sheep were a vital part of the economy, and nobody could possibly have missed the subtext of Christ saying to his Disciples, "feed my sheep."

It's not a complementary metaphor. There are few animals that make a collie or Irish setter seem bright in comparison, and sheep are at the top of the list. They have been bred over thousands and thousands of years to be meek, inoffensive, biddable, stupid creatures who are incapable of finding food for themselves. They NEED to be "led to green pastures" and "to lie beside still waters."

So when Christ said "feed my sheep," nobody thought it was anything other than a thankless chore involving inherently stupid creatures who needed to gently and compassionately cared for. Jesus cared about his stupid, bleating, sheep like followers, who could as easily be led to war against the Romans as "beside the still waters."

What he did NOT say was "fleece my sheep." And that is what these mega-churches do, with their for profit banks that will helpfully accept direct deposits from your place of work and deduct a thirty percent tithe.

Oh yes. Thirty percent. Some actually take that much.

Tax free, for them. Not for you, of course. Since even if you are able to deduct all the thirty percent, you will still be paying the differential on property and other municipal taxes to allow for that corporate monstrosity.

That's not just fleecing the sheep, it's skinning them alive, and then slaughtering their lambs in front of their bleeding, soon to be corpses.

That metaphor applies to the Evangelically sanctified "war on terror."

Meanwhile, these massive edifices exist without paying property tax or any other fees to the "godless" community they take advantage of, even though the impact is similar to a large stadium in terms of traffic and environmental impact.

All of this is in return for a promise that you will get into heaven eventually, and meanwhile, due to your faith, deserve all kinds of rewards in the here and now.

Some of these churches actually take a step toward making that happen, with an entire "grey" economy wherein all the members essentially agree to do business only with other members of that church - so an illusion of prosperity, and even perhaps a little actual prosperity may occur - but of course, only for a few, who are held up as exemplars of Christian virtue, even though scandal after scandal seems to reveal intentional patterns of fraud, abuse and the worst sorts of sexual and political corruption.

I think we have all suffered enough at the hands of such "virtuous" Christian shepherds, and shoveled all the crap left behind them that we need to grasp the point that they cannot be trusted with the lives and prosperity of those foolish enough to take them at their word. We need to "shake the dust from our feet."

Matthew, Chapter Ten is pretty much the definitive instruction set and doctrinal basis for Evangelism. Inasmuch as it contradicts just about everything mega church, prosperity gospel "evangelists" say and do, you can, and SHOULD take it as Gospel.

After all, it IS Gospel. Believe it, or do not, but if you believe the Bible is true, then you must admit that such creatures are false to the core - and how much more obviously true this must be if you consider the gospels to be a variety of fable.

And as this "prosperity gospel" with it's emotional and authoritarian appeals are so deeply entwined with our current administration and it's political appointees that there is effectively no difference, I suggest that no distinction need be made. We should impeach and convict the lot of them. The righteous need to retake the churches, while those who believe in ethical, constitutional, professional and accountable leadership must retake all three branches of government.

Please do what you can to encourage Sen. Grassley toward Right Action in this regard, that in service to this action of cleansing our body politic of the pernicious influence of corrupt and deceptive churches, he should become a co-sponsor of Dennis Kucinich's Impeachment resolution, if he has not already.

After all, it's the same lot of corrupt bastards, all scratching each other's backs, swapping their private planes and fleecing the gullible sheep.

The goats need to take back their flocks.

tag: Sen. Charles Grassley, religious addiction, tax fraud, prosperity gospel, religious fraud, , Christianists, Shadow Economy, Greed, cultural warfare, Corruption, abuse of power, religous abuse, religous fraud, Cindy Fleenor, Benny Hinn