Religious Extremism
stcynic | August 24, 2005Much has been written about Pat Robertson's latest bit of insanity, suggesting on the 700 Club that we should assassinate the president of Venezuela. The only thing I have to add is this: if this were a Muslim cleric rather than a Christian one advocating the murder of a head of state, he might well find himself in Gitmo. Especially since this same nutball just a few short months ago was saying that we should drop a bomb on the State Department. If he was Muslim, he'd be on a terrorist watch list by now at the very least, and quite possibly in custody. But he's a Christian, and a loyal…
stcynic | July 23, 2005Jason Kuznicki spotted this at Farkleberries and it's hilarious. This woman named Veronica Lueken, who claims to be in regular contact with Jesus and his mother, has interspersed quotes from the two of them along with quotes from and pictures of Robert Bork about the evils of homosexuality. It includes this juicy "quote" from the big JC himself:
"And the great issue now of homosexuality in your country, that shall be on the balance that Michael holds. Unless this balance is evened by removing this evil from your country and bringing in just laws to prevent the spread of homosexuality, you…
stcynic | June 16, 2005Fans of political absurdity, rejoice! Defrocked judge Roy Moore may be running for governor of the great state of Alabama. And that may cause quite a national stir:
Moore, a Republican who enjoys widespread support in his home state, is poised to run against a vulnerable Republican governor. If he wins, some party strategists speculate, he could defy a federal court order again by erecting a religious monument outside the Alabama state Capitol building. With the 2008 presidential race looming, President Bush would then face a no-win decision: either call out the National Guard to enforce a…
stcynic | June 10, 2005Via our pals at StopTheACLU.org, I came across this ridiculous brief from the National Legal Foundation in the McCreary Ten Commandments case. The NLF says it is an organization "dedicated to the defense of First Amendment liberties and to the restoration of the moral and religious foundation on which America was built." And in this brief, they argue that the Ten Commandments has had a huge impact on American law. To prove this point, they cite dozens of laws from the British colonies that predate our constitution:
The third commandment, "Honor God's name," has impacted America law and…
stcynic | May 10, 2005This story of the Baptist minister in North Carolina throwing out any church member who didn't vote for Bush last year just keeps getting funnier and funnier. The pastor says it was all a misunderstanding, but given the audio of his sermons that have come out, that's an obvious lie. This statement, for instance:
"The question then comes in the Baptist Church, how do I vote? Let me just say this right now. If you vote for John Kerry this year, you need to repent or resign. You have been holding back God's church way too long. And I know I may get in trouble for saying that, but just pour it…
stcynic | May 7, 2005Radley Balko saw the Family Research Council's insane statement about the new HPV vaccine too. And he riffed on it pretty hard:
So to prevent theoretical additional occurences of premarital sex, Maher's okay with unnecessarily subjecting young women to fucking cancer? Holy moral rectitude, Bridget. You have to wonder, would the Family Research Council oppose distribution of an AIDS vaccine, too -- because it might spark an increase in gay sex?
Well yes, I imagine they might. Because they truly are dangerously fanatical.
stcynic | May 5, 2005Bill Ware sent me a link to this article about religious right groups opposing vaccinations against sexually transmitted diseases because it might promote sex, and as well all know, sex is evil. Most cases of cervical cancer are caused by Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which is sexually transmitted. Scientists have now developed a vaccine for HPV, which should be approved soon, but naturally the "pro-life" forces are gearing up to oppose:
In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their…
stcynic | April 19, 2005As everyone knows by now, we have a new pope. Not being Catholic, the identity of the pope has little to do with me (though I'm glad we finally have one - since John Paul II died, I've borne the burden of being the only infallible person on the planet, and I just don't need that kind of stress). Still, I can't be the only one who finds it disturbing that the man who held the title of Grand Inquisitioner would be named Pope. Been down that road a few hundred years ago, didn't turn out too well. And it seems that some more liberal Catholics are a tad bit upset by this turn of events. Andrew…
stcynic | March 12, 2005If any of you are not regularly reading Bartholomew's Notes on Religion, I highly recommend you begin doing so. In a comment on my post about the Jerusalem Prayer Team, he points to this post, which details the sheer lunacy that exists in the head of Mike Evans, leader of that group. He also has an interesting post up about Doug Giles and his ties to the insane Christian Reconstructionist movement, which I write about often.
stcynic | February 25, 2005Mark Butterworth stopped by and commented on a thread below after googling his name and finding a post I'd written in response to something he wrote on his blog almost a year ago. I thought I'd move it up here so we can carry on a public conversation about it in the comments. The gist of his post, which I replied to, was that the culture wars in the US will either lead to a real civil war here, or totalitarianism, or the dissolution of the country:
The day is coming when this nation shall again convulse in spilt blood. To deny it is folly and ignorance. In fact, if this nation does not go to…
stcynic | February 23, 2005From Scott Jonas at a website called jesus-is-savior.com comes this little ditty:
"For those of us who believe we should train our daughters according to Titus 2, 1 Peter 3, and other Biblical passages, my answer is "Yes, it is not good." I propose that sports greatly hinders the development of godly, Biblical, feminine character. Parents today expend extraordinary amounts of time and energy taking their daughters from one sports event to another, week after week, even to the point where it exhausts the family and family resources. The fruits we see are that today's Christian women are often…
stcynic | February 16, 2005On the 16th anniversary of the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa, calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie, the Iranian government has publicly stated that the death penalty remains in force:
"Muslims have never accepted insults against their sacred values," the guards said two days before the anniversary of the fatwa, or religious decree, which disrupted Iran's relations with the European Union through the 1990s.
"The day will come when they will punish the apostate Rushdie for his scandalous acts and insults against the Koran and the Prophet (Mohammed)," they said in reference to his book…
stcynic | January 27, 2005In following up on yesterday's post, I thought it would be fun to go back in time to 1999 to see what the Worldnutdaily was saying about the issue of Wiccans in the military when the big stink over the issue was going on and Christian groups were telling their followers not to join the military as a result of it. It was even more idiotic than I expected. In a "Worldnetdaily exclusive commentary" (which, as previously stated, means that no other outlet would publish anything so monumentally stupid), Jon Dougherty declared that allowing Wiccans to practice their religion the same way that…
stcynic | January 26, 2005The Worldnutdaily has an article up entitled Wiccans Meeting on Air Force Base. Now this would hardly seem to be newsworthy. There are over a million people in the US military, any logical person would assume that at least a small percentage of them are Wiccan or belong to any number of other smaller minority religions. One would also think that given the Constitutional guarantee of free exercise of religion, they might even have the right to meet together to practice their religion just as every other religious faith does. But for some prominent religious right groups, well, that kind of…
stcynic | January 7, 2005Dru Stevenson, an associate professor at the South Texas School of Law in Houston, has linked to my post on the ACLU defending the rights of Christians. He also left a comment in response to the post that preceeded that one, which was about John Scalzi's attempt to find Christian lawyers who did work for the ACLU. First, I want to thank Mr. Stevenson for the link and for the kind words about the post. But I also want to take issue with one thing he said while linking to it. He writes:
Disclaimer: I don't care for the overheated tone of this site. I also think its personal attacks on Pat…
stcynic | January 6, 2005Reading the writings of Christian reconstructionists can be an unsettling activity. Try this on for scary. Would you believe, someone who thinks that Alan Keyes, of all people, doesn't want to impose his religious faith on people enough? Yep, I found one - Andrew Sandlin, director of the National Reform Association, the Center for Cultural Leadership, and sometimes columnist for the Worldnutdaily. I've written about Sandlin before, as he is quite an interesting case. The man is capable, on the one hand, of writing a column saying that John Kerry should be ashamed of himself for his "…
stcynic | December 20, 2004Kevin Drum has a post up at the Washington Monthly about the new meme going around to the effect that saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" is some sort of anti-Christian conspiracy. I wrote about it a few days ago with Pat Buchanan's inane blustering about it. He quotes a religious rightie from North Carolina saying that Christians are undergoing "apartheid" just like the blacks did in South Africa, and Drum says:
Apartheid in reverse! Hell, why not just compare the plight of besieged, persecuted Christians in America to the Holocaust and be done with it?
But that's not what…
stcynic | December 4, 2004Jason Kuznicki has a fascinating post about the Rapture Index, a webpage that chronicles all the things they think might foretell of the coming of the rapture. The premillenialists in Christianity believe that Christians will be whisked away before the shit hits the fan in the end times. The funniest thing about it? It's not a parody. These people actually believe such nonsense. And Jason is right, it's really more of a measure of the political stress felt by the So Cons that has little to do with the bible or Christianity as such.
stcynic | December 4, 2004In response to a report put out by Rep. Henry Waxman that detailed a wide range of innacuracies and falsehoods in many of the abstinence-only curricula being used in states around the country, and being heavily funded by the Bush administration, the so-cons are furiously trying to defend such programs, leaving a trail of bad arguments in their wake. Naturally, the Worldnutdaily is leading the way with this column by our old pal Jerry Falwell. After describing what the report says, he offers the ubiquitous but absurd "he disagrees with me so he is biased" argument:
It is important that…
stcynic | November 30, 2004Media Matters has a report on the many lies told by Jerry Falwell in his appearance last weekend on Meet the Press. It's just baffling to me that he continues to lie about his incredible statement on the 700 Club after 9/11, where he said, "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the…