ELI!
Dunno what spirit he has in him but I don’t think it can be described as “holy”. Maybe assholey…

MARGARET!

~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ self moderated in the interest of tolerance….

Where do they learn this stuff? Let alone some idea about separation of church and state…..Hate to think you have to be a Christian in order to live in his state of Alabama, let alone have full and equal rights. I thought that battle had been fought.

ELI!

How surprising! Not.

KELLY!

I reckon he does not consider Teh Ghey his brothers and sisters either.

“I’m a divider, not a uniter.”

This is one of the biggest reasons why the religious right is so infuriating: their sense of compassion is ridiculously narrow.

So is their biblical literacy. From Matthew, chapter 25:

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

Brotherhood and sisterhood, by this story from Jesus, is not about “do you believe in me?” but rather “are you in need?”

Jesus said a whole lot more about having what you termed “a ridiculously narrow” sense of compassion than he ever did about sex.

Don’t think you would want to live there anyway. It’s obviously not a tolerant place full of kind, caring people.

Eli!

Back in, oh, 2002 or so, stuff was so fucked up that I decided to check out a church.

I kinda dug it, the people were pretty nice (at least until they found out it was me that was writing those Letters To the Editor), but anyway, I was pretty much ok with it.

Then the minister started on a series of sermons meant to explain the basics of other religions. I was thinking – cool !! – this might actually be interesting. But I noticed pretty damn quick that every sermon ended up with “…and here’s why they’re wrong…” (and we’re right).

dammit – isn’t there such a thing (outside of our own peterr) of a man of the cloth who doesn’t think he knows every goddamn thing?

The Republican Bible consists of Genesis, Leviticus, the more misogynistic letters of Paul, and the Book of Revelation. As interpreted by the likes of John Hagee.

I am perpetually amazed at the religious right’s total inability to recognize that they *are* the Pharisees.

speak of the devil…

oh my – that doesn’t work.

I feel excluded, and I don’t even live in Alabama.

Neil:

Oh Alabama.
Can I see you and shake your hand.
Make friends down in Alabama.
I’m from a new land
I come to you and see all this ruin
What are you doing Alabama?
You got the rest of the union to help you along
What’s going wrong?

Well, Hagee has a very big job to be sure there are no more Jews…what does he call them? All waiting to be converted. Not much respect there, Id say.

Wonder what he would consider me?

A demon. From hell.

Hey, at least I’d have a job…

and by the way, 2002 was the last time I set foot in a church.

I guess i don’t really need Sundays to air my latent superiority complex.

/kidding

(pretty much)

I have it on good authority that there are no unions allowed in R-controlled Hell.

Maybe ya got a job – maybe not.

Depends on what time it is…

well, the Lord had better provide, because their vision of government won’t.

Not a problem. All you have to do is give up that “first fruits offering.”

That little slogan, by the by, is the current meme being pedaled on Jeebuz TeeVee. Gettin’ in on that New Year’s Cash while the gettin’ is good. Take Paula White, for example, a Grade-A, World-Class Fraud, if ever there was one. I quote redundantly: “Maybe it’s a month’s pay, or a week’s pay or even a day’s pay, but it has to be the whole amount…” (The girl’s got expenses, doncha know…)

Next month it will be some other bullshit. Whatever it takes to keep that cash register ringing.

LMAO! I think the last time I set foot in church to attend anything but a funeral or wedding was about 1973. My parents got tired of dragging me there when I started to smuggle in my cassette player and blasting “The Black Sabbath” during the sermon.

On edit: Of course there was the famous incident in 2005 when a bunch of us dressed up as zombies and invaded a Catholic church on Easter. Does that count?

…and blasting “The Black Sabbath” during the sermon.

yeah, that never goes well.

On edit: Of course there was the famous incident in 2005 when a bunch of us dressed up as zombies and invaded a Catholic church on Easter. Does that count?

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that counts. In fact, it might even be a bonus-type situation…

The Catholics hated it. You’d think I was trying to be disruptive or something.

I am so not part of this religious America it’s frightening.

I’ll take that over “the Peter Principle” of elevating someone to the level of their incompetence.

The wingers have spoiled religion for many people. I can’t see things their way and for them there’s only their way.

LOL! I got detention at Jesuit High School once for playing Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage” (solo piano) as the meditation piece pre-communion during Friday Mass.

(We had to go to Mass on Fridays, dress in school colors and pray for the football team or something.)

Only a few students snickered. The Priests had no idea. One asked me afterward, in the rectory what piece that was that I played, and before I COULD LIE, this little twit said “Brain Damage, you know from Pink Floyd.”

I was SOOO pissed at that little dweeb I dated him 3 years later. Showed him. Hah!

I was raised Catholic.

No sense of ha-ha whatsoever.

Except for Irish-Catholic.

Now there’s the kind of folk I’d like to hang out with (well – at least for the wakes).

Unfortunately, they don’t exist in Indiana, and I figure it would be a long drive home from Boston….

The New Testament’s message is very appealing, much more so than the Old.

Revenge is a dish best served…with SEX! ;)

I read the New Testament quite often – it’s beautiful. The Old doesn’t appeal – too much begetting and anger.

Sure does appeal to some people, though. No accounting for taste.

I got detention at Jesuit High School once for playing Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage” (solo piano) as the meditation piece pre-communion during Friday Mass.

I salute you, sir.

They talk about Jesus all the time but I think they would really like to go back to stoning people. Jesus was a liberal to them.

Or, in the (approximate) words of Lewis Black, the God of the Old Testament was a dick – never has anyone been so mellowed out by the birth of a kid.

Pretty sure Jesus wouldn’t recognize them. Not as Christians, anyway. (“What book were you people reading???”)

The Jesuit smokes the grass,
The Jesuit smokes the grass,
You twist the joint,
You spark it up
You smoke until you’re fucked up…

This should help to clear up the debate on evolution…

Going to say something completely rude, and on purpose.

Biblical literacy is as useful as Urantia Book literacy.

There are exactly 3 relatively nice books chronicling a nice activist and philosopher ; Matthew, Mark and Luke. There are some fibs in them, like the virgin birth, the raising of the dead, and so on.

The rest of the books are insane and control-freaky tribal guides.

~~~ModNote: Your comment, containing drug brand names, is now viable in the diary you mentioned.~~~

Not rude. A bit unruly maybe but totally true.

The rest of the books are insane and control-freaky tribal guides.

Kinda makes ya wish for even today’s minimally fact-checking media, huh?

on edit:

I pretty much don’t believe in any of it, although I find myself pretty much in favor of the sentiments expressed in – say – The Sermon On The Mount.

…and some other stuff.

There’s no debate. That ended long ago. Debating evolution today is like debating the shape of the planet. The only questions left are some very minor details and changing measurements.

Love Black. Thanks

To cite one of my favorite Woody Allen lines, from “Hannah and Her Sisters”: If Jesus came back now, He’d never stop throwing up.”

My late, beloved best friend, was very fond of the bumper stick that said the Religious Right was neither. That sums up my feeling about that wing of Christianity quite well. They’re really scary, as they’re totally convinced that they, and only they know the truth.

It’s almost enough to put me totally off religion.

Yeah. There are some damn fine philosophies in it. There are also some really abominable ones. It’s not like you can separate them out. The bad is inextricably entwined with the good. The superstition is irrevocably wed to the philosophy.

”But if you have been adopted in God’s family like I have, and like you have if you’re a Christian and if you’re saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.”

No, this blather only makes you delusional and demonstrably less attuned to the actual world than, say, my cat Livingston is.

And don’t call me “sister.” We know that means “highly interested in your slutty vadge” in fundiespeak.

Fucking shmuck. Jesus!

I have a bumper sticker that gets a lot of comments, both good and bad. It says “Stop using Jesus as an excuse for being an intolerant, bigoted asshole”. Only the bible thumper type like this douche in Alabama don;t realize that it’s not insulting Jesus or their religion. People of genuine faith see it for what it is.

It’s not like you can separate them out. The bad is inextricably entwined with the good.

Did I mention that I was raised Catholic?

We didn’t read much….

onward, Christian scolders.

I was too… I’m well aware of their practices and the way they hypocritically gloss over the sticky parts.

Excellent !

Biblical literacy is as useful as Urantia Book literacy.

Must respectfully disagree. Whether one is a believer or not, one must recognize the enormous influence on Western civilization of the Bible specifically and Christianity in general. They remain very powerful in both the cultural and political spheres, and, as such, literacy in the subject is a very useful tool in both analysis and propagation of the statements of both proponents and opponents, imvho. Your mileage may vary.
‘evenin,’ all-

there are sticky parts?

hunh – who’d a thunk it?

I was the little show stopper in Sunday school. In total innocence, “Who is Mrs. Cain?”. Didn’t go over well. I never got a sincere answer, ever, from a Christian.

That is the question that stops everything cold. Never have gotten an answer either.

Where can I get one of those bumper stickers?

That happened to me too! The answer I got was, “Stop disrupting my class!”

You perhaps, assume that I found the Urantia Book useless. :) That’s not what I wrote.

My Greek and Latin scholarship are sound, (Aramaic only a smidge) and I am probably more literate in the Bible than most Christians.

I don’t deny the Bible’s power. I deny it’s purported legitimate purpose, regardless of its influence.

Try online Peterr. I got it for my birthday from a friend.

I think the last time I was in a church was the memorial for my father. I think the last time I went to church for church was … around 1973. Can’t say that I miss it; we’d pretty much stopped going some years before that. (The local Methodist church seemed to have a lot of people more interested in being seen than in actually doing anything useful.)

I don’t deny the Bible’s power. I deny it’s purported legitimate purpose, regardless of its influence.

Well put.

HA! We held my dad’s memorial service in a Holiday Inn. My sister was appalled. :-D

Think about it from a purely human perspective:

Abraham. First thing is a voice demands the sacrifice of his son. The proper response would be “Piss off – that’s my kid!”

Likewise with Jesus. Message is “kid must die, regardless of how nice, and in fact, especially because of the nice-ness.”

That’s just fucked up from my POV.

Ah.It sounded as if you were denying it as a worthwhile object of study, and my point is that it is very worthwhile as that, regardless of one’s belief. Your statement about “control-freaky tribal guides” and comparison to the Urantia Book may perhaps be seen as an implication that the Urantia Book is also easily dismissed. The undiluted, unerring Word of God? Please. But certainly worthy of study, as your own level of literacy demonstrates. It’s strange…some of the people I know who know the Bible the most thoroughly are atheists and/or agnostics. No assumption about you-just an observation.

Agreed.

LOL I wanted to pursue the question, because my friend got 2 baby bunnies that were supposed to be sisters. But one was a brother and they had babies and he ATE them!! The grownups said it was for the best because brothers and sisters shouldn’t have babies together. It made for weak bunnies.
*g* fucking amazing thing, surviving childhood.

Trust me, I’m familiar with the contents. What I could never put together was how god loves everybody unconditionally, (except these, these, these and those…), and therefore makes everybody as miserable as possible to “prove” that love. WTF…?

I also asked the same guy about that “there were giants in the earth in those days…” reference in Genesis, and he told me they were the dinosaurs. Later the same day, his boss told me there were no dinosaurs, that those fossils had been put there by Satan to trick the unwary and steer them away from God.
Seriously.

And the funny thing is that if one were to ask Gov. Bentley (or any religious fundamentalist Christian, or for that matter, anyone of any other monotheistic religion) if their God (or Allah) is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, then I bet they’d say yes.

And yet, if anyone does answer yes, then they face a logic trap, especially if they answer yes to their God (or Allah) being holy, sinless, innocent, and loving (according to what Jesus taught, Prodigal Son parable, etc) as well as being omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.

It’s that omnipresent aspect of God (or Allah) that trips them up. Either omnipresent means exactly what it indicates, that God (or Allah) is everywhere and in everything…or it doesn’t, meaning that God (or Allah) isn’t omnipresent, therefore absent from some parts of everywhere and everything, that gaps exist. This idea of gaps existing in the omnipresent God (or Allah) is from which the idea of hell, sin, and guilt arises. Both cannot be true. If one is true, then the other is false. This is what trips up religious folks, no matter what monotheistic religion (I’m not sure how someone from a polytheistic religion would respond. I haven’t asked.)

Note: anyone can ask this question. It doesn’t matter if one is a believer or non-believer in whatever. An atheist can even ask this question. It is just interesting to listen to the response. When I asked a couple of Christian religious fundamentalist guys (similar to Gov. Bentley) if they believed that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, holy, sinless, innocent and loving (per Jesus), they emphatically said yes. I then asked them if there are gaps in the omnipresent God? They then started defending guilt, sin and hell just as emphatically, never budging, not realizing that they were holding in their minds two totally opposite ideas, the former literally being overwhelmed by the latter in their insistence that hell, guilt and sin are real, and that anyone who doesn’t believe as they believe will be eternally damned and punished. I definitely had hit a sore spot. So which is it? I know an atheist will deny this concept emphatically, but based on the idea of an all-encompassing, loving, omnipresent God (or Allah), then the Holy Spirit (being one with the omnipresent God) must be somewhere in the mind of even an atheist, or anyone else for that matter, religious or otherwise, as well as the seeming gap that exists between minds. Everywhere is everywhere…no exceptions. Or the opposite is true, God (or Allah) is absent, gaps do exist, hell, sin and guilt do exist. So which is it? Not to belabor the point, but I feel this is the difference between the Resurrection versus the Crucifixion, between spiritual awakening and whatever seems to be its opposite. So which is it?

This is exactly how it happened.

Geez, no wonder any kind of science scares them. People choose to be ignorant.

One of my big complaints…if so many male children had to die in the advance of Jesus’s coming, why don’t Christians hold a moment of silence for them? Where is the compassion for the innocent victims?
Maybe there is a prayer and I’m ignorant of it.

I wish I’d had the knowledge and sophistication back then to ask them to explain why, if the universe was only 6,000 years old, we could see stars many hundreds of thousands of light years away and galaxies many billions of light years away. They probably would have fallen back on the ultra lame “it’s one of god’s mysteries” excuse.

“So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior”
___

That is just stupid shit.

No. They fucking celebrate it. Like it was a good and proper thing.

God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61”

Robert Zimmerman, 1965.

I really came in late to this one. Whatever happened to the brotherhood of man, or the Patriotic duty of ALL Americans, or even ALL residents of this state, or..

Heck, we can’t seem to elect people that are really into the whole patriotic theme.

ROTFLMAO!

Yes. An abject refusal to see any possible conflict or inconsistency was seen as both proof of devotion and simple good manners.

Here is an example of bad spin control…

“…He’s the Governor of all the people going to heaven and hell…”

…bad spin control…

primitive life – no fax machines and no R talking points.

Just perfect.

LOL!! Very funny.

Oh, I tried that one too! The answer was, “The star may be a million light years away, but that doesn’t conflict with the reality of the Young Earth, because that light was already on the way here when the Earth was created!”
Sure. I see-it now all makes perfect sense. /s

I’m not all that surprised at the governor’s narrow view of Christian philosophy. He has a lot of company there. What is astounding is that he just went and picked a completely useless fight like this. Many non-believers I’ve met over the years are libertarians, who generally vote Republican these days. Jews aren’t completely in the Democratic orbit, either. He just picked a fight with a substantial portion of his constituency.

Come to think of it, he’s acting just like a Democrat.

Heh!

So… Young Earth, Old Universe?

These wingers are not very smart. They open their mouths and the true feelings come flying forth. Then they send out an aide to try to walk it back. Insane.

Improvisational Religious Cosmology should be seen as performance art.

It wasn’t even a walkback, really. Saying that he’s the governor of everyone is not really mutually contradictory with saying that non-Christians aren’t his brothers and sisters. “You’re godless heathens who are going to Hell, but I’m still your governor.”

True! I was raised Christian and taught that I was not to boast or use the words in the good Book as a battering ram.

Now that I am older and wiser, I can see that is has been used that way since the beginning.

Except that the heavens were created after the Earth was, of course.

Except that if god created the heavens just a few days before he created the Earth then the light wouldn’t have had much of a head start, would it? If you think of the time god supposedly created light, then it was only two days before he created the Earth and if you judge from the time he created the firmament, then it was only the day before. Either way, light wouldn’t even cross the solar system in that time.

Maybe He picked it up and moved it.

“So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”

The real question is who will save us from perverters of genuine spirituality like Bentley, who is a fraud and charlatan. And I have no desire to be a “brother” to a dysfunctional cult member who refuses to remove the log out of his eye so he can see the speck in others.

Ah, Men.

Religious faith based on personal piety is shallow and narrow. Religious faith based on love and an open heart changes everyone it touches. The problem with fundamentalism is it constrained by judgment and intolerance, hardly Christian at all.

I’m not saying the answers were good–just that I asked the questions. Taking the questions at all was a remarkable indulgence…an attempt to debate them on my part would not have ended well for me.

So, I’ll take it as a given that Governor Bentley wasn’t elected on a platform of strict church/state separation…

Certainly not “Christian” by any standards they claim to hold.

Their “logic” is so transparent and hollow that I questioned it as a very young child and I was (and in some cases still am) extremely…persuadable. When I was a child, I always thought everybody was honest and good and that nobody would bullshit me purposefully or otherwise. Losing my religion was the first example of me questioning what the adults around me were selling as reality.

I’m assuming he was elected on the usual platform – the Lesser Evil plank in particular.

I have at least one post on the exact topic of how the supposedly Christian GOP is really the exact opposite.

There is no lesser evil in the deep south.

They only use the soul saving admonitions of Christianity to justify their hatreds.

I’d have a difficult time coming up with a useful metric, that’s for sure.

The thought of these nitwits being put in positions of power had me longing for comic relief in the form of some really good snark. I went over to Jesus General and then remembered this guy and his easter play email exchange. If anyone hasn’t read this guy’s stuff already and is in need of a laugh, enjoy. Massanutten is good too.

a fellow Christian conservative who doesn’t have a decent job

You’re not a good Christian, or you’d have a job. Unemployment is a sign of God’s disfavor.

Thanks, Hotdog! Really good laugh. :]

That Zimmerman guy stole the words from Bob Dylan!

Obviously light was slower back in the day. It has been picking up steam ever since, though. In another six thousand years it’ll be as fast as a Hemi.

I think those of you who believe in reading a text and thinking about its application to living in the here and now might actually be decent Yeshuaists. Tom Sheehan has a really interesting book about how Jesus became “the Christ” and it might be useful to read. However, if you believe Christians believe in reading a text and using it as a guide to living now (are you an “originalist” re: Scalia/Thomas or a “revisionist”?) you’re likely very mistaken.

The Governor’s position is logical regarding salvation…Christians all have to believe non-Christians are irrelevant to them; it’s the very real error at the heart of the idea of heaven as a members-only club. It makes all other theological and social ideas within that frame somewhat, well, insignificant. Also, in some (many? most?) sects Christians are supposed to proselytize/evangelize as a means to “spread the Word” but also as a way to check you off the list as someone who’s had the chance for salvation and if you don’t take it that’s your fault and they can wash their hands of you.

Jesus, really, is irrelevant too as a “leader” or “wise man”. He is just a bridge to glory and his teaching is meaningless BECAUSE he is this bridge. Believing in “HIM” obviates the need to study his message which is radical and it’s inclusive–not an easy path to tread and so folks choose not to.

No, this man can’t be fair to non-Christians. It would be a stroke of luck if he can tolerate them.

A republican that’s actually tells you what he believes. Must be a record for betraying your office in the shortest time.

His ‘family” is even more limited than Christians. If you look at his speech he used a lot of buzz words from the born again tribe. So, its not even all Christians that he calls brothers, just those who are born again, so its not just Jews, Muslims, and Hindi and Buddhists that he would not call his brother, its also Christians, Mormons, Protestants, Episcopalians, etc etc.

Alabama specializes in electing these pecker woods to high office. If the religious right can elect Gov’s why can’t we? Progressives need to learn how to wrap our positions in palatable morsels for public consumption. The right has it down to an art form.

I think perhaps it’s important to possibly play the Jesus card in the way that it was actually meant. How do you argue against a candidate who understands and quotes Jesus on every progressive issue–directly quoting the “savior” for every thing will be incontrovertible. You’d likely not even have to do much in the way of interpreting.

Play the Jesus card with vigor and take it to their doorstep.

Here is my template:

Governor:

News for you not so good. You are now on “no fly list” for heavenly afterlife. Acquire sunscreen for your rendezvous with eternal damnation.

Correct Christian answer is:
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Matthew 25:45

Warning: Soul Unsaved.
Abort, Retry, Delete?

Nice…and to my mind utterly viable in this political climate. I think I may have decided on a career-change…Progressive Jesus Party candidate (with a dash of Gandhi and Thoreau). Who’ll sign my petition to run?