Resist!

Mood.

A post shared by Jen Hatmaker (@jenhatmaker) on May 6, 2017 at 10:28am PDT

The Christian Machine

This is a fascinating article about evangelical author and speaker Jen Hatmaker’s fall from favor. Her sin… she did not support Trump. It’s worth a few minutes just to see how the Christian Machine works.

“This year I became painfully aware of the machine, the Christian Machine,” she wrote in April on her blog. It was Good Friday, a somber day for Christians to observe the crucifixion of Jesus. Hatmaker wrote that she understood now the machine’s “systems and alliances and coded language and brand protection,” not as the insider she had long been, but “from the outside where I was no longer welcome.” During the election season, she added, the “Christian Machine malfunctioned.” It laid bare the civil war within her Christian community.
- via POLITICO Magazine

Horrifying.

Our comic books too?

Is nothing safe? Apparently Indonesian artist Adrian Syaf snuck some anti-Christian and Jew messages into X-Men Gold #1.

According the the Independent, the comic book contains numerous reference to Indonesian protests against the Christian governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.

I think the Independent got it wrong though. They characterize the protests as Indonesian when they should say Indonesian hard-line muslim protests. They don’t like the mayor because he’s a Christian. Seems a little bigoted and anti-democratic to me.

God said God love you

I found this Christian screed glued to a light pole near the Cerritos Promenade. Apparently, God said God love you very…

A pimple on the ass of history

Dr. James Dobson recently uttered these words about Donald Trump.

"I believe he really made a commitment," said the highly influential evangelical leader. "But he’s a baby Christian. We all need to be praying for him, especially if there’s a possibility of him being the next executive officer.” - via The Daily Wire

Trump has been making Christian notices since he started his run for President. It is official. In order to secure Dobson’s vote Trump uttered the magic phrase and is now one of the good guys in the eyes of our decrepit evangelical leadership. He just needs “our prayers.”

Dobson referred to Trump as a baby Christian, which means he does not know how to speak about his faith yet. Which is also an excuse to cover Trumps unable to speak the language of evangelical Christians. Don’t worry folks. He’s one of us. Go ahead and vote for him and… don’t forget Obama is a secret Muslim.

I use the term pimple on the ass of history. It refers to both men separately. Each has earned the title for different reasons. Dobson for an endless stream of hate masquerading as Christian values and Trump for daring to aspire to an office that is well above his capabilities.

Predisposed to believe in Jesus

As a skeptic, I work hard avoid lazy thinking. It’s not easy, especially when dealing with politics. Religion is easier. As a skeptic and atheist, my first thoughts are often, can you show me the proof?

When The Atlantic published a story by Ariel Sebar called The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife, my first thought was, why is Sebar predisposed to the existence of Jesus? The article is a long look at the authenticity of a scrap of 1,300-year-old papyrus with Coptic text referencing the wife of Jesus. Many people think it is a fraud…

King (Karen L.) called the business-card-size papyrus “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.” But even without that provocative title, it would have shaken the world of biblical scholarship. Centuries of Christian tradition are bound up in whether the scrap is authentic or, as a growing group of scholars contends, an outrageous modern fake: Jesus’s bachelorhood helps form the basis for priestly celibacy, and his all-male cast of apostles has long been cited to justify limits on women’s religious leadership.

Sebar is a skeptic too. There is no mention of Jesus. He focuses on the authenticity of the fragment. He digs and digs into the story. It was fascinating.

The story is a great read. The fragment is questionable.

A call for Dan Patrick to resign

The photo, tweeted by the Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick, in response to an act of terrorism at an Orlando nightclub, says it all.

Dan Patrick should resign. At least 50 of our citizens were murdered. It’s not the their fault they were gunned down. People do not deserve to die because they are gay.

Dan Patrick sounds like he belongs to the Christian version ISIS. He is saying that the those who were murdered derived to die. How is he different from ISIS?

His words encourage violence. He should be held accountable, but he’s from Texas, so they will probably throw him a parade.

Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

The United Nations warns that making children attend Christian school assemblies undermines humans rights. They are talking about Great Britain and its compulsory collective act of worship for children held each school day.

Britain must stop forcing children to attend Christian school assemblies because it undermines their human rights, a United Nations committee has said in a controversial new report. 

The authors called on ministers to repeal a law demanding a daily act of Christian worship at schools because it may contradict a child’s “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” -via The Telegraph.

The wording the recommendation from the report reads:

The Committee is concerned that pupils are required by law to take part in a daily religious worship which is “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character” in publicly funded schools in England and Wales, and that children do not have the right to withdraw from such worship without parental permission before entering the sixth form. In Northern Ireland and Scotland, children do not have right to withdraw from collective worship without parental permission.

The report was produced by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. It’s members are persons of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights. Let’s just hope there are not pastors on the team.

it seems like a great idea to me.

Shame on you Ali Jimenez-Hopper

Ali Jimenez-Hopper is a GOP candidate for the House of Representatives in Minnesota. She gave a speech where she beat her chest over her Christian values while at the same time bringing up the race and sexual orientation of her opponent, Erin Maye Quade.

More on the story and some commentary can be found in a column titled, GOP candidate criticizes opponents LGBT ‘lifestyle,’ family by Andy Birkey.

We should not care if a candidate is male for female, gay or straight, married or single, liberal or conservative, nor should we care about a candidate’s race or religion. What matters are ideas and character. Are Hopper’s ideas good or bad? We know one thing for sure, Hopper has failed the character test.

Hopper chose to highlight her Christianity and in her first act, threw stones. She has lowered our standards and should be held accountable by voters. Do what can to hold her accountable and to support Quade. Write about Hopper and Quade. Perhaps you can chip is a few bucks to Quade. Do what you can to offset the evil evoked by the Christian racist and bigot Ali Jimenez-Hopper. (Ouch… that tag line sounds horrible.)

Christian wtf car

I found this car in East Lakewood yesterday. I was afraid there might be a dead body inside. No! Just big piles of garbage.

Coach Jonathan Shawn Russell

I read about Little League baseball coach Jonathan Shawn Russell in a Rawstory post by Bethany Palma Markus on 03 Jun 2016. Apparently, Russell liked to give bare-bottomed spankings to 8 and 9 year old children on this team. The spankings were justified by a Christian tome, Shepherding a Child’s Heart, by Tedd Tripp.

One of the children told his mother he was spanked for saying “dang it.”

“I had no words for (my son) that would erase the fear and embarrassment that this man made him feel from this humiliating and sadistic manner,” she testified. “The acts of this man have left wounds that a Band-aid or doctors can’t heal.” - Via Rawstory

For some reason, this dumbass figured it was ok to spank his young charges because he spanked is own kids. Of course, this is the same kind of screwy thinking that causes Christians the world over to attempt to legislate morality and control our behavior.

I should also mention that this occurred in LGBT-hostile North Carolina and that the crime could have been prosecuted as a sex crime, but was not. I assume it is because they took into account his pure motives…

I’m not so sure. This quote, by one of his victims, paints a different story, “What happens at Coach Russell’s house stays at Coach Russell’s house.” Apparently, Coach Russell would take his victim into a bedroom, lock the door, pull down his victim’s pants and underwear and then spank his bare bottom. He would tell his victims that there was no need to tell their parents about the spanking. Why the secrets? Why the locked door? Why the spanking at all?

“If you fail to spank, you don’t take God seriously and don’t love your child enough,” - Coach Russell.

Nutball!

Using the bible to suppress wages

And Jesus say, “Don’t pay fieldworkers overtime because it will take food out of the mouths of fat farmers.” Wait… that might not be in the bible, but this verse is…

Luke 14:5: “Then he turned to them and said, which of you does not work on the Sabbath? If your son or your cow falls into a pit, don’t you rush to get him out?” - said by Assemblyman Devon Mathis, (R-Visalia) during deliberations.

And just like that, Jesus is used to justify not paying fair wages to a whole class of people. California Assembly Bill 2757 failed on a 37-35 vote.

The bill would have expanded upon that to bring agricultural overtime rules in line with other industries, eventually guaranteeing laborers 1 1/2 times their normal wages for every hour they work over eight in a day or 40 a week. Working more than 12 hours a day would have meant double pay. - via The Sacramento Bee

Is it Christian to buy cheap produce and wine while the people who pick our carrots and grapes cannot make a decent living? Not to mention the backbreaking manual labor that goes into each salad or bottle? Is it fair to deny these people overtime pay that someone who is driving or selling these same products get by law? I don’t think so and using the alleged words of Jesus to justify doing so is hypocrisy of the highest order.

Watching Ken Starr Lie

Hey Ken Starr, why do you need a crisis management consultant to tell you how to answer and re-answer a simple question? When my kids do it, it’s called lying. What is it called when a Christian does it?

Death by Jesus

When your child is dead and you pray for his resurrection, you are an idiot. Thanks Jesus.

Members of Alexandru Radita’s family’s church were told the teenager died and was brought back to life before paramedics arrived at his home to find him dead in his bed.

And one of those church members testified the boy’s father told him they believed doctors in B.C. had caused Alexandru’s diabetes and that’s why he wasn’t taken for medical help.

Marius Ciltan testified he went to the Radita’s Citadel Dr. N.W. home during the day on May 7, 2013, after being told by a friend about the resurrection claims.

Via - Parents on trial in son’s death blamed doctors for his sickness

Another young life lost to religion and another set of parents sent off to jail for murder.

If this were true…

If what this Muslim cleric says is true, California would have vanished beneath the waves of the Pacific a long time ago.

Malay Abass Mahmud said in an interview: “Allah gets annoyed when males engage in sexual encounter and such disgusting encounter causes earthquake.”

Via - The Independent

Very similar to our own Christian pastors who claim hurricanes are the result of various sins. Only, Christian pastors like to place blame after the event.

Does the bible have a place in Congress?

Every time I read a story about a Congressman or Senator using the bible to justify a moral position before a vote, I cringe. How are we different then an Islamic theocracy? Muslims use the Koran to deny progress and rights. We use the bible to the same end. It happened again just this week. Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA), a Methodist, read a passage from the bible during a Republican caucus meeting.

Rep. Rick Allen, a Georgia freshman, launched the GOP’s regular policy meeting in the Capitol basement by reading a Bible passage condemning homosexuality and suggesting that supporters of the LGBT provision, which passed the House the night before, were defying Christian tenets, attendees said. - via TPM GOPers Leave Meeting when Member Reads Bible Verse on Homosexuality.

The article goes on to state that some House members became upset and left the meeting, which I take as an encouraging sing, but the LGPT amendment was still voted down.

How is this different from a religious leader in Saudi Arabia issuing a fatwa against the morally reprehensible practice of taking photos with cats? Nothing really, and that’s why is so sad.

On Chris Kyle

Every time I hear news about Chris Kyle, my first question is, “Is he a Christian?” According to this story and many others, he is a veritable saint. Yet, I know at a fundamental level that being a sniper and being a Christian are mutually incompatible. 

I can just see that first conversation with Jesus.

Jesus says, “Hi Chris, what did you do for a living?”
Chris says, “I was a sniper.”
Jesus says, “The elevator to the basement is over there.”

Chris Kyle is in the news again today. This time because he exaggerated his military record by claiming Two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars, all for valor. Kyle actually won one Silver Star and three Bronze Stars. The truth is impressive enough. Why lie?

So… Chris Kyle is a Christian hero who tells lies. What next?

And let’s not forget this lie told about a fight that did not happen with Jesse Ventura. Why is he a hero?

Steve Wiles a.k.a. Miss Mona Sinclair

Conservative North Carolina State Senate candidate Steve Wiles used to work as an MC and performer at a drag queen show at Club Odyssey. When confronted about the inconstancy of supporting his state’s same sex marriage ban, he said the role was, “Just not something that I want to continue.”

Ok… I can buy that a conversion to christianity may drive behavior changes. In fact, it supports the whole redemption from sin mindset that’s popular with Christians these days. I have a problem with Steve Wiles’ position though. He’s lied about his past and he will not answer a basic question. “Are you gay?”

When confronted about working at the club, he initially denied it. That constitutes a lie, right? If he had gone through a religious conversion, would it not make more sense to proclaim that he was a form drag queen turned Christian and then use that to his advantage in the election? And why lie? My guess… being gay is an unforgivable sin in evangelical circles.

Steve Wiles qualifies as a hypocrite on several fronts. The one I find most disturbing is that he acts against his own community. How can anyone trust him?

I smell propaganda

I read, Courageous Christian on death bed asks mother to forgive Isis thugs who burned her alive via IBT.

A Christian child on her death bed used her final words to ask her mother to forgive the Islamic State (Isis) thugs who burned her alive in her home. The courageous child, believed to be around 12-years-old, was burned in the Daesh (Isis) stronghold of Mosul, in northern Iraq, after her family were shaken down by the jihadists for Jaziya — a religious tax.

I smell propaganda. The author, one William Watkinson, is reporting hearsay as fact and then goes on to describe how horrible it is to be a Christian in Iraq. He feeds the Christian forgiveness trope. The bias is obvious.

To be clear, I believe that Christians are persecuted in Iraq because there is ample evidence. Do I believe the burn victim used her last words to forgive ISIS? Not at all.

Christian and just crazy

Maverick Dean Bryan, a Christian activist who seems crazy, is sitting in jail after threatening to hang seven mayors unless they replaced Common Core books with the bible. He seems crazy, but may just be on the left tail of IQ bell curve.

People like Bryan set self-defeating traps by sending traceable letters and posting ads in local newspapers. They are not smart enough to hide their intentions. Acting out loud is an effective way to grab a moment in the news and become important. Did Bryan really think he could pull this off? He is dim and coupled with his delusional Christian lunacy, becomes the subject of jest.

What happens when the next Maverick Dean Bryan appears and instead of spouting insanity, he acts on it? What if the next guy is smart? What if he is organized and understands technology? What if he hangs mayors, gays or atheists? This kind of scenario keeps me up at night. What if the next guy is the equivalent of Islamic terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. What if he embraces terrorism?