Oh I Love Me Some Good Advice

Tags

1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, flag, fundamentalists, gun control, Humor, right wing evangelicals, satire, women's rights

You know, I was sitting around the other day, wondering, “what is wrong with me?”, a game I engage in all the time, since I am so very aware that most everything that is wrong with the world is because of me.

Lil ol’ me. WOMAN. Ever since that snake thing in the garden, I have been the scourge of humanity, always leading men astray. And everything that is wrong with a man–well just hunt up the thread on clothes and you can unwind that baby and I guarantee it will lead DIRECTLY to the cause of his wrongness–A WOMAN.

So, naturally, as I was spending my daily “how am I to blame” time, I went DIRECTLY to the man who can tell me exactly wherein I fail.

That man would be the perfect Christian pastor, one PAT ROBERTSON. I mean, he is legendary in his ability to nail a cause down to its basics. Hurricanes, terrorism? Oh they are usually caused by HOMOSEXUALS, but of course, when you follow the thread, you will find that the core cause is the MOTHER of a homosexual.

So, anyway, I am always sure to check in with him, and to look for his Ann Landerish advice nuggets. So, if your husband is spending a lot of time playing video games on the computer?

Now you know! So get that lipstick on, and those pearls adjusted, and those sling-backs polished girls. Your man awaits the girl he dreamed of. And you know better than to say a word about his torn Packer’s t-shirt, his funkie toe-jammy feet, and his belching bad breath. That’s a MAN! Which is always better than a sharp stick in the eye.

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Just a tiny thought. Like 80+% of all folks in the US approve of universal background checks for anyone wanting to buy a guy. So why exactly does the NRA oppose it and subsequently strangle off any agreement by the GOP? Me thinks it may have to do with terrorist watch lists. I’m thinking that being a member of a group designated as a terrorist group might, just might be a black mark against you on an application. And of course there are a few right-wing crazy groups out there that might well earn that designation. The Survivalist/WhitePower/Militia/Obamaisadictator groups? And does this strike a tad too close to home to the NRA, who depend upon these groups to buy all those crazy weapons.

So, background checks could nip at the heels of their membership and affect their corporate masters, the gun makers and sellers.

Am I off base here? Or have I struck on something?

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While I was seeking advice about what the Frook is wrong with me, I realized that I should get a little more advice about my lady parts. One can never have too much of that I can tell you, and as we all know, the GOP incoming freshmen Phil Gingrey from GA, proports to be a OB-GYN so he feels it best to advise that old Todd Akin was “partially right” in his “legitimate rape” claims. Gingrey tells me that a traumatic event can cause a woman not to ovulate and it’s right and good to distinguish between a “legitimate rape” and those other kinds–you know, the liars.

No word from Phil how best a woman can protect herself by no going forth into the world only when she is on the verge of ovulating, just in case she is “legitimately raped”.

Somebody get me a hammer.

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Something I ran across on Facebook the other day that just tickled me. The post was one of those “mock horror” posts about some teacher in South Carolina who had, to make a point, taken down an American flag and stepped on it, remarking that it was only a symbol, no different from a cross or other similar things. It represented an idea which we might well believe it, but the thing itself was just a thing. The teacher was suspended pending an investigation.

Now, of course, flag mistreatment is by and large constitutionally protected as speech. Burning, attaching other items to it, and presumably stepping on it to make a political point are universally upheld unless the state can prove a legitimate governmental objective, unrelated to the 1st Amendment, and the law is reasonably designed to effect that objective. In other words, don’t bother.

Still among the Christianist poster and her tiny band of followers the following was stated in response to the horror of such an unpatriotic” act.

One commenter suggested the teacher should be deported. First Amendment rights are  of no merit to this “freedom lover”, who of course had no clue where a citizen would be deported to. I doubt he doesn’t know that you can’t deport a citizen.

Another commenter suggested the event was tragic, but this post would get little traction because this page is “full of lefties”.

Something like 63% of the American public is against making it a crime to burn the flag. I rather think that the only places who would want such a law would be repressive regimes who are trying to stomp down public criticism. Oh, I guess that would be the opposite of what the “protecting our freedoms” folks would espouse, but. . . .stupid people generally can’t follow a logical train of thought.

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Make it a safe day out there!

Related articles

• Another Republican explains how ‘legitimate rape’ is sort of a thing. And he’s a doctor! (dailykos.com)
• Rep. Gingrey: Todd Akin ‘partly right’ about rape and pregnancy (thehill.com)
• How The NRA Became The Gun Industry Lobby (huffingtonpost.com)
• Was Hitler Really a Fan of Gun Control? (motherjones.com)

 

There Oughta Be a Law!

Tags

Commerce Clause, Congress, gay rights, GOProud, Gore Vidal, health care act, Iowa, language, Michele Bachmann, physics, right wing evangelicals, spirituality, Steve King

Okay, I’m hanging on by a thread. My brains are slowly seeping out of my ears, nose and eyes. I am as paranoid as a mouse in a cat house. I am so sure that I’ve once again been transported to a new universe, that I’m ready to explore my new possibilities of flying by flapping my arms.

Can you guess why? Yes! STEVEN KING (R-IA) has opened his mouth once more and the black hole of insanity has spewed forth to cover the land. Plug your ears, cover your eyes, wrap yourself in saran wrap, and foil your brain. IDIOT MAN has struck again.

The Reaction has named him CRD (Craziest Republican of the Day). He has won this award now six times, a phenomenal feat. And what has the braincase without contents said now?

It seems our stupid one (I don’t believe he has more than a high school education) has determined that the Affordable Health Care Act is unconstitutional. Why you purr? Because, dummy, requiring people to buy insurance, based on the commerce clause, is tomfoolery. How you mutter?

“There have always been and likely will always be, babies that were born, lived and died within the jurisdictions of the individual states,” he said, “who never cross a state line, access no health care and therefore do not impact interstate commerce. Therefore, to compel someone who fits that category to buy an insurance policy” does not fit under the interstate commerce clause.

When Democratic House member Jared Polis (D-CO) invited King to produce such a person:

“You find the baby that was not born in a hospital or with a midwife, who did not receive inoculations,” Polis said. “You find that baby and identify them and I’ll be happy to have that discussion.”

King replied nonplussed:

“I hate to tell you but they show up in garbage cans around this country, sir,” he said.

I rest my case. We are no longer in the Universe we knew. We have been transported to Xanadu. Iowa has pulled its borders unto itself and seeped into a hole, never to raise its head again in civilized society. We somehow have bred the most lame-brained-still-walking- moron on what was planet Earth.

Calls to his office are unanswered as all his staff, claim they do not know him. The cock confirmed that no one in Washington has ever heard of him.

***

Meanwhile on the extreeeeeeeeeeeeeme right, the lemmings continue to go over the cliff. You may have heard that WND and various other way-way crazy right wingers decided they would boycott CPAC,  that original bastion of conservative groupings. Remember how all GOPer Presidential hopefuls made sure to attend in the past. The reason for the boycott? Why because CPAC has continued to support GOProud as one of its participating organizations, and worse they refuse to sanction a “birther” panel.  Now everyone is bailing, afraid not to look “conservative” enough. Heritage Foundation is the latest added to the list of no.

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Okay, here’s one for ya. Do you like verbing? Ben Franklin didn’t. I confess I do a fair amount of it. I did it  the other day, quite deliberately. I said that so-and-so “portraits” so-and-so. It’s turning nouns into verbs. We “parent”. We fact-mine. Get it?

Intelligent Life discusses the issue. See what you think. Psst! Shakespeare did it.

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You recall the piece a few days ago wherein Ms. Michele Bachmann advised that upon reading Gore Vidal’s Burr she was blinded by an epiphany of GOP logic that turned her from a flaming liberal to a crazy GOPer. Well, Mr. Vidal was asked to respond:

She is too stupid to deserve an answer.

Enuf said.

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I’m having an awful time on some blogs these days getting it downloaded and to leave a comment. Time and again, after 15-20 minutes, I’ve just had to give up. My apologies to Lisa at That’s Why . I’ve tried twice with no success on two different days. It just never stops loading! I’ve had the same problem at WhateverWorks. Sorry to you too Mo. It’s this awful dial-up sometimes, that simply won’t work worth a damn. Now I’m having terrible troubles getting my drafts updated and saved, and when the inevitable lock-ups occur, half my work goes down the drain. Such is life.

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To all those atheists who insist that that one is either a realist (meaning them) dependent upon evidentiary facts as the only basis of reality, or a theist who believes for no rational reason, well, it seems that there may be reason to combine the two. Most of us theists actually have believed that for a good long time, actually.

Big Questions Online asks the question: is there a quantum spirituality?

 “Physicists explore levels of matter, mystics levels of mind. What their explorations have in common is that these levels, in both cases, lie beyond ordinary sense perception.”

I find this kind of speculation most fascinating. If you do as well, then follow the link to read more.

Related Articles

• Steve King Wants To Find Dead Babies In Dumpsters With Jared Polis (queerty.com)
• Steve King: Health reform unconstitutional because of garbage can babies (dailykos.com)
• The best reason ever for unconstitutionality of health care reform. Ever. (maureenholland.wordpress.com)
• Christopher Galtenberg: The conservative coalition is tearing apart (washingtontimes.com)
• Rep. Steve King uses ‘Babies Born in Dumpsters’ to argue that Affordable Care Act Unconstitutional (crooksandliars.com)
• Peeved Righties Boycott CPAC Over Gay Invite (newser.com)

Jesus Was Just Wondering

Tags

Catholic, Christianity, faith traditions, progressives, right wing evangelicals, social justice issues, theology

I assume that Jesus understands us better than we understand him. At least I hope that’s true. Otherwise, . . . well, I’d rather not think about it.

Still, I imagine sometimes that even Jesus picks up the phone after watching his super HD TV, dialed in on Fox or the Chinese equivalent for state-supported “news.” Dialing 4-6-3 (G O D), I over-hear this:

“Yo, Dad, how goes it? Say, have you been watching channel 3845? (E V I L)

“No?”

“Well, let me tell you and maybe you can explain why. . . .”

I figure a lot of stuff down here just befuddles even Jesus.

I read the other day that Marko Rubio was a Catholic but went to a Baptist church most of the time. That seems weird. Then I read that the NOM’s (National Organization for Marriage) main man, Brian Brown, is a former Quaker turned Catholic. That seems even weirder.

I noted, when I was a frequenter of Catholic Answers Forum, that some of the most vociferous “orthodox” types were former Baptists and Seven-Day Adventists. Now converts are more orthodox than the mainstream, that’s clear, but this goes beyond being orthodox, this goes to a self-righteously expressed proclamation against the poor, gays, women, and other marginalized groups.  I daresay most of them don’t like the Catholic position regarding immigration one bit. They are for war and for the death penalty. They consider social justice issues the heresy of the modernist lefty Cafeteria Catholic.

The only difference between themselves and the self-styled unchurched interpreter of “what the bible says,” is that  these Catholics mine the bible and encyclicals and Vatican documents for sentences and paragraphs to justify their arguments.

Frankly, what we find is that the right-wing of the Roman Church is most simpatico with the general home of fundamentalists–Southern Baptists. It seems that those who are “teaching” these new converts turn a blind eye mostly to their propensity to embrace biblical literalism and a failure to embrace things like universal health care, global warming, and even evolution. It seems more, that anyone who will sign on the dotted line, is okay. Just don’t ask too many questions.

I don’t know how other denominations are doing with this. I know the The Episcopal Church has been painfully working through a growing split between the left and right. And Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Methodists all have, are, or will be, doing the same.

The truth is, that most members in all these denominations are moderates. Most that leave their churches do so for no church, or another,  because they are tired of the warring they see.

I frequent NCR a lot, and read a significant number of the articles there. The comments are always the same, mostly supportive of the article or writer, but always with a few who warn of dire consequences if we continue to listen to voices of the progressive left. The Church is either on the perfectly right track and needs to go further, or is dangerously off track and in need of a rescue if it is to survive.

Indeed, many on the far right of the Roman church openly wish that we progressives would leave, even if it means that their church is drastically reduced in numbers. Is this true of other denominations? I have no clue. But I wonder.

Is it the right who cannot stomach “others” in their midst because it makes them uncomfortable in their well-ordered theology? Or is it the left that finds the right an unacceptable drag on the business of getting on with the Kingdom’s agenda of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned? It’s hard to know.

Are there as many “new” conservative churches as there are “new” Catholic denominations. or new Methodists? Are well equally running away from each other?

If we are, they we are both to blame. This hardly comports with “loving neighbor” as Jesus for saw it. I mean Jesus scandalized his world by consistently eating and drinking with all the “wrong” people, all the “others” of his land.

It seems to me that it’s not supposed to be easy. If it were, humans would have realized the efficacy of it long ago and done it. It’s hard to work with those who continually threaten to throw a monkey wrench into the works. Ask any congress person and they will be happy to tell you about gridlock.

Compromise forces us to release our own desires and focus on incremental progress as being marginally better than no progress at all. Not something to throw a party about, but something to feel some satisfaction about.

Are there those in your congregations whom you find embarrassing for their views? How do you deal with them? I know that these Catholics whose political and social views I frankly abhor, are most difficult for me to embrace even in prayer.

 I frankly cringe when I read that some awful hatemongering right-winger like Bill Donahue or Brian Brown is a Catholic. They model Catholicism to an unknowing spectrum of America and the world. A lousy model, but a model nonetheless.

Do you find some “spokespeople” in your faith tradition embarrassing? Do they make you cringe? If you don’t, then need you ask if you are in a tradition that has become lazily easy for you? Is that bad?

I think Jesus wants to know what we think. Have you talked to him lately? I think he wonders about us, and perhaps it means we should wonder about ourselves.

Related Articles

• Marco Rubio tries to still debate over his religion (telegraph.co.uk)

Strangers Passing in the Night

Tags

biblical interpretation, fundamentalism, Jesus, Matthew 25, peace issues, right wing evangelicals, social justice

From time to time, usually as criticism, I’m asked why I have such “issues” with fundamentalism. I’ve answered many a time, and what it boils down to is simply this:

When atheists and other non-believers decide there is reason to take pot shots at religion, it is always the lowest common denominator that they choose–fundamentalism. We all get lumped into the amorphous category of “Christian” based on this model, and excoriated.

The problem is, that often, I agree completely with their criticism. Yet, they refuse to agree or admit, that there are other Christians, mostly the majority, who adhere to none of these bizarre notions that are part and parcel of the fundie mind. (I know this is deliberate on their part–easier to kick a dead horse than argue with a healthy one and all, but that’s another post.)

I like to think of myself as a rational, critical thinker. I don’t appreciate being lumped in with bizarre non-thinking that leads to the distortions in “interpretation” that are common among our fundamentalist brethren.

Although I’ve often given my opinion as to why fundies are such (deeply ingrained psychological imperatives that overcome common sense, I would argue), I am still always confounded when a so-called Christian angrily tells me and others that universal health care is not a priority, and that climate change is not reality. I have documented before my utter shock that Roman Catholics would espouse creationism and deny the obvious age of the universe and this earth.

A hugely great post was brought to my attention yesterday by Professor James McGrath of Butler University. I recommend you read it in full as well as look for the part two which hopefully is coming soon. It’s focus is why do evangelicals, who are largely biblical literalists (fundamentalists), refuse to believe that peace and social justice issues are the primary “work” of Christians.   This comes on the heels of another story that has been traveling around the media, both mainstream and Internet.

Glenn Beck, (alas, a favorite of the fundie right), has encouraged all “Christians” to look into their churches and if they see evidence of “social justice” ministries, they should “run for the hills.” Such churches, Beck argues, are merely socialist/communist sympathizers, and will ultimately destroy the US.

I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes.

Professor Richard T. Hughes, the author of the first piece linked to, tells an amazing story that I think illustrates the problem we face within the Christian community. We are definitely of two minds, and it seems that our worldviews are so diametrically in opposition, that I wonder if there is a solution.

It’s important to relate the story, however as I said, do read the post.

Dr. Hughes teaches at Messiah College, clearly a religiously oriented school. For first year students, the faculty decided to use a text about Dr. Paul Farmer, who left a lucrative medical practice to devote his life to ministering to the Haitians. All felt the book perfectly illustrated the ministry the college hoped to engender in its students.

Hughes reports that a young student approached and complained that the book was an improper choice, since it was clear that “Farmer was no Christian.” Hughes is dumbfounded, since Dr. Farmer is a life long Catholic, and has spend years treating tens of thousands of poor Haitians, following the call of Jesus himself in Matthew 25.

Dr. Hughes asks for elucidation. The student replies. Having read the book, the student claims that there was NO reference to any efforts on Farmer’s part to teach the gospel and convert the “heathens.” Thus, in her mind, he could not be a Christian.

This sets the tone, I would suggest, of the problem. How do biblical literalists ignore the utter clear directive of Jesus to “love one’s enemies,” to “turn the other cheek,” and to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, minister to the sick, and so forth, because in doing so, they are caring for Jesus himself. What can be more powerful than this?

Yet, somehow, this message is ignored, explained away, or perverted into something unintelligible, simply because all this “ministering” is worthless if the soul is lost and not converted to a “personal” relationship with Jesus. In other words, our primary and overriding ministry is to preach Jesus as savior. All else is but window dressing.

Of course, to most of us, this is breathtakingly wrong. It is missing the point. It is denying the tenor of Jesus’ message. While Jesus did send out his disciples to “preach the Good News,” they were empowered to cast out demons and to heal the sick. Time and time again, he told us that the peacemakers would inherit the Kingdom. The poor would have good things. And of course Matthew 25 lays out the strongest of all orders to “feed the sheep” and not by way of theology, but in concrete ways, with food, housing, clothing, medical care.

How do we reach accord when we are at such odds? I have no clue frankly. I’m hoping that Dr. Hughes will offer some suggestions in Part II. And that may lead to Part II here as well. Ponder it friends.