yayyyyyy God

[Deeps]

I like the theory that Phelps is practicing an extreme form of performance art. His wikipedia entry is pretty interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_phelps

Note the 13 children - 4 estranged section on the side.

Only 4?

I also like the 60 of ~75 followers are related through blood or marriage.

This guy must essentially never be happy.

Thanks for the link Ollie.

Deeps

[ollie]

I can't believe Phelps protested 300 military funerals without someone putting a cap in his ass.

[allison]

Great post back up there a bit Deeps.

A question...most people in this thread seem to have made some sort of conscious decision..or maybe just have an atavistic aversion to organized religion...and for the bulk of us that signifies Christianity.Maybe because of those choices...our backgrounds...our temperaments, whatever, we all still seem to be fairly transfixed with religion.

When do people accept parts/all of it back in and be comfortable with it?

Christianity has always presented a lure (for me)..while at the same time being untenable with who I thought I was, what I was raised to believe I was or would be,the liberal minded,forward thinking,book learning,experiential, organism of the critical left(!!).

I heard an interview with an author(I can't recall her name)on CBC who had written a book/story about that experience...of living her life as someone who viewed themselves as unconducive to the practice of Christianity and then one day waking up and feeling that it was part of who she was..yet struggling to reconcile herself with that new knowledge/instinct.

Why is faith such a bad word?Why is our collective instinct to be surprised at the faith Deeps admired in KaeSun? Doesn't that mark a weakness in US?

[allison]

Ok that was many questions...one of those nights

[d_rawk]

When do people accept parts/all of it back in and be comfortable with it?

I suspect that'll happen when the bullies stand down and after it has all been marginalized to the extent to which it no longer holds de-facto social and political sway. ie., when you can no longer trump an opponent with an opposing view by playing the 'yes, but I'm a Christian' card. I think we're pretty close to all of that, taking a wide-lens sort of view.

[Kanada Kev]

Just listen to Lil' Markie ... he's got the answers (wait until it really kicks in at the 1:07 mark ):

Edited November 2, 2007 by Guest

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

:D :D !!

- I mean, ow!! Ok, that was nauseating .

I'm still open to religious language as metaphor, and that's what keeps me in conversation with people from any given religious background. If they start confusing metaphor with fact, then that gives us something to wrestle with.

I found a beautiful Tapestry (CBC) show from a while back with a couple of Rumi scholars (it's Rumi's 800th birthday this year), who I think really hit what I find of value in religious language. Scroll down to the end for the mp3.

Interview with Coleman Barks and Andrew Harvey

[Esau.]

God will fuck you up

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Check this out: George Carlin on Countdown

“Don’t these professional Christians have something to do during the day? I mean, isn’t there - didn’t Jesus leave instructions on how to plan your day with something constructive?â€

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I should really stop reading the news; it keeps making me mad and depressed. I think with this one of the connection between Blackwater and Focus on the Family.

Not So Fast, Christian Soldiers

The Pentagon has a disturbing relationship with private evangelical groups.

By Michael L. Weinstein and Reza Aslan

August 22, 2007

Maybe what the war in Iraq needs is not more troops but more religion. At least that's the message the Department of Defense seems to be sending.

Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.

What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.

The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU. Headed by former kickboxer Jonathan Spinks, OSU is an official member of the Defense Department's "America Supports You" program. The group has staged a number of Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin. But thanks in part to the support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last week), it planned an entertainment tour called the "Military Crusade."

Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to bristle at the word "crusade" and thought that what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology.

In the end, the Defense Department realized the folly of participating in any Operation Straight Up crusade. But the episode is just another example of increasingly disturbing, and indeed unconstitutional, relationships being forged between the U.S. military and private evangelical groups.

Take, for instance, the recent scandal involving Christian Embassy, a group whose expressed purpose is to proselytize to military personnel, diplomats, Capitol Hill staffers and political appointees. In a shocking breach of security, Defense Department officials allowed a Christian Embassy film crew to roam the corridors of the Pentagon unescorted while making a promotional video featuring high-ranking officers and political appointees. (Christian Embassy, which holds prayer meetings weekly at the Pentagon, is so entrenched that Air Force Maj. Gen. John J. Catton Jr. said he'd assumed the organization was a "quasi-federal entity.")

The Pentagon's inspector general recently released a report recommending unspecified "corrective action" for those officers who appeared in the video for violating Defense Department regulations. But, in a telling gesture, the report avoided any discussion of how allowing an evangelical group to function within the Defense Department is an obvious violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment.

The extent to which such relationships have damaged international goodwill toward the U.S. is beyond measure. As the inspector general noted, a leading Turkish newspaper, Sabah, published an article on Air Force Maj. Gen. Peter Sutton, who is the U.S. liaison to the Turkish military -- and who appeared in the Christian Embassy video. The article described Christian Embassy as a "radical fundamentalist sect," perhaps irreparably damaging Sutton's primary job objective of building closer ties to the Turkish General Staff, which has expressed alarm at the influence of fundamentalist Christian groups inside the U.S. military.

Our military personnel swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not the Bible. Yet by turning a blind eye to OSU and Christian Embassy activities, the Pentagon is, in essence, endorsing their proselytizing. And sometimes it's more explicit than that.

That certainly was the case with Army Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. The Pentagon put him in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in 2003. The same year, Boykin was found to be touring American churches, where he gave speeches -- in uniform -- casting the Iraq war in end-times terms. "We're in is a spiritual battle," he told one congregation in Oregon. "Satan wants to destroy this nation . . . and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army." The story wound up in newspapers, magazines and on "60 Minutes." And, of course, it was reported all over the Muslim world. The Pentagon reacted with a collective shrug.

American military and political officials must, at the very least, have the foresight not to promote crusade rhetoric in the midst of an already religion-tinged war. Many of our enemies in the Mideast already believe that the world is locked in a contest between Christianity and Islam. Why are our military officials validating this ludicrous claim with their own fiery religious rhetoric?

It's time to actively strip the so-called war on terror of its religious connotations, not add to them. Because religious wars are not just ugly, they are unwinnable. And despite what Operation Straight Up and its supporters in the Pentagon may think is taking place in Iraq, the Rapture is not a viable exit strategy.

Michael L. Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, wrote "With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military." Reza Aslan, author of "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," is on the MRFF advisory board.

[hamilton]

[Birdy]

Why is faith such a bad word?Why is our collective instinct to be surprised at the faith Deeps admired in KaeSun? Doesn't that mark a weakness in US?

I think so. It's too easy to be marred by experience and to allow ourselves to become jaded by it all... to let single circumstances stand for the whole. It's weird though... I think this way but i don't find fault in the participants as there are just too many... it's too collective. It's a sad reality, really, and the reason why i barely ever click into this thread. People fear what fundamentalists can achieve, but don't fear what those vehemently against can and do, do.

[djmelbatoast]

You said do do.

[hamilton]

People fear what fundamentalists can achieve, but don't fear what those vehemently against can and do, do.

Like what?

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Just to anticipate a response - Marxism has every bit of potential to become a fundamentalist doctrine in its own right.

Maybe I'm offbase with that, though. But that said, it is a tough thing to generalise around .When, e.g. governments put lots of effort into repressing groups like the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt, for one), what's the result? Further radicalisation, but also some measure of stability.

fwiw, I trust neither governments nor radical religious groups, but I do tend to think that the latter need to be granted a certain amount of empathy if they're to be understood and dealt with in anything other than a hamfisted, violent way. I think of the Branch Davidians, who were, imo, pretty far out there, but the gov't response was nothing short of pathological; similarly, I wonder if the Egyptians had responded to people like Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb with more intelligent engagement (and pursued with them goals like taking care of disenfranchised people), we might not have people like al-Qaeda responding as died-in-the-wool combatants against state power.

[Birdy]

People fear what fundamentalists can achieve, but don't fear what those vehemently against can and do, do.

Like what?

Create momentum in promoting a misunderstanding of religion, creating stereotypes and inciting hate.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Create momentum in promoting a misunderstanding of religion, creating stereotypes and inciting hate.

Misunderstanding and stereotypes? Sure - it's easy enough to see contempt and ridicule. Hate, though, is another level I don't see, especially to a level of organisation that goes on between religious conservatives (e.g. in the West Bank), or directed at "secular" groups by religious conservative (e.g. Focus on the Family's campaigns against homosexuality).

The only case that I can think of with someone attacking evangelicals with a highly stoked hatred happened eight years ago; it was one pretty whacked guy behind it, and he seemed to have no association with any identifiable, anti-religious organisations.

Gunman Kills Seven at Texas Church

Christian Century, Sept 22, 1999

Seven teenagers and adults gathered at a Southern Baptist church in Fort Worth, Texas, were killed and another seven were injured September 15 when a gunman entered the sanctuary with a semiautomatic weapon. Authorities said Larry Gene Ashbrook, 47, killed himself in a pew of the Wedgwood Baptist Church after he came in shouting obscenities and antireligious comments and spraying the church with gunfire.

The shootings occurred at a service for teens at the church, located about ten minutes from Ashbrook's home. More than 150 people were inside the sanctuary, where the Christian rock group Forty Days was. performing after the annual "See You at the Pole" gathering at local schools. Students had affirmed their faith and concern for their communities on school campuses earlier in the day.

Teens reported their shock at the violence inside the church. "It looked like a skit, it looked like something out of a movie," said Bethany Williams, 16, whose purse was splattered with blood. "And I thought it was a fake gun making fake noises." Herb Hollinger, vice-president for convention news of the Southern Baptist Convention, said three of the adults who were killed were connected to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a Southern Baptist school located about five miles from the church. Two were current students and a third was a recent graduate and the director of the children's choir at the church.

Authorities searched Ashbrook's home but did not know what motivated the shooting. "I don't know that we'll ever know the answer to the question of why it happened," said Robert Garrity, the FBI's special agent in charge. "It may be an enigma for a long time." Garrity said Ashbrook apparently wrecked his house before approaching the church, leaving family photos shredded. "This has the appearance of being a very troubled man who, for whatever reason in his own mind, sought to quiet whatever demons that bothered him," he said.

Police Chief Ralph Mendoza said there was no indication that Ashbrook knew anyone at the Southern Baptist church. Pastor Al Meredith described the victims as "Sunday school teachers and one of the favored soloists in the church, the children's choir director, kids, youth members, some active, some just getting active, some just beginning to find God."

The pastor said he hoped to have the church cleared for use as soon as possible. "Our heart's desire is that the king of darkness will not prevail over the kingdom of light." --RNS

[Birdy]

Sorry, i just think it's taken for granted that our audiences are as liberally minded as ourselves. And I was speaking under the wider context of religion, not just evangelicalism.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I just defaulted to evangelicalism because that's the biggest religious "noise" in our piece of the world. Truth be told, we have more religious tolerance here than most places around the globe, and that's something to treasure and cultivate.

I think that part of cultivating that tolerance involved calling to task people, religious or otherwise, who demonstrate intolerance. I wouldn't say, though, that that kind of criticism is intolerance - frustration, yes, but the sort I can put up with myself.

The idea of "excommunication" works for me to sum up how intolerance works - no longer being open to dialogue.

[hamilton]

People fear what fundamentalists can achieve' date=' but don't fear what those vehemently against can and do, do.[/quote']

Like what?

Create momentum in promoting a misunderstanding of religion, creating stereotypes and inciting hate.

The reason that there is no fear of the people who do the things that you are describing is that they are generally just *individuals* with little or no power to have a large effect on the general populace.

Fundamentalist groups, on the other hand, are organized and powerful, and because of this they do a much better job at doing the exact same things - create momentum in promoting a misunderstanding of anyone who belongs to a different religion (or no religion at all), create stereotypes and incite hatred.

[Birdy]

I just defaulted to evangelicalism because that's the biggest religious "noise" in our piece of the world. Truth be told, we have more religious tolerance here than most places around the globe, and that's something to treasure and cultivate.

I think that part of cultivating that tolerance involved calling to task people, religious or otherwise, who demonstrate intolerance. I wouldn't say, though, that that kind of criticism is intolerance - frustration, yes, but the sort I can put up with myself.

I guess my question then is how are you being tolerant when you call to task people whose religion dictates intolerance? Even if it's just frustration? Frustration leads to intolerance, and while i respect that you can put up with it, i wouldn't venture to say everyone can.

The reason that there is no fear of the people who do the things that you are describing is that they are generally just *individuals* with little or no power to have a large effect on the general populace.

I disagree. Not to sound too 'focus on the family'ish, but it all starts in the home with the parents, influencing their childrens ways of thought... or in the schools or from friends. Individuals have more power than you attribute them. They're just a step away from organization.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I just defaulted to evangelicalism because that's the biggest religious "noise" in our piece of the world. Truth be told' date=' we have more religious tolerance here than most places around the globe, and that's something to treasure and cultivate.

I think that part of cultivating that tolerance involved calling to task people, religious or otherwise, who demonstrate intolerance. I wouldn't say, though, that that kind of criticism is intolerance - frustration, yes, but the sort I can put up with myself.

[/quote']

I guess my question then is how are you being tolerant when you call to task people whose religion dictates intolerance? Even if it's just frustration? Frustration leads to intolerance, and while i respect that you can put up with it, i wouldn't venture to say everyone can.

I suppose because I'm calling them to account, rationally, and with logical consistency, within the possibilities offered within the tradition from which they draw their authority, as far as I'm familiar with it.

Let's keep in mind some handy bits of trivia, such as the fact that Southern Baptists only apologised for their support of slavery in 1995; since then, though, they've made formal declarations around the necessity of subordinating women. Now, if I run into a Southern Baptist, if he/she comes out swinging in favour of that kind of position, I'm not going to go all intolerant on him/her, but I won't sit put and say, "Well, that's just your worldview, so I suppose I have to accept that." (That would be, among other things, way too postmodern for my tastes.)

I have a friend, now teaching at U Manitoba, who has his students, when they write essays, go through with the Find/Replace feature on Word to replace "I believe that..." with "I argue that...," and see if the claims in the paper hold up as well. People use faith like a trump card in argument; that doesn't fly in a pluralistic society, where we're supposed to be using our powers of reasons (God-given, or naturally-endowed, who's to say) to sort through the difficult questions.

It's also reassuring to know that there's no homogeneity within any religious community, but there's always tension, as people try to figure out the norms. Evangelicals, e.g., can't agree across the board what constitutes "evangelical", and you find people - socially-conscious folks like Tony Campolo and Ron Sider - challenging that self-definition very effectively. I couldn't imagine calling them intolerant, though they might say that of themselves - that they love their community so much that they can't tolerate the abuses within it any longer and have to speak out.

Edited November 5, 2007 by Guest
goofy html coding

[Kanada Kev]

RIGHT CLICK and VIEW IMAGE to see larger to read the print:

Edited November 9, 2007 by Guest

[Kanada Kev]

Great video. Two Mormons bike messengers approach a group of guys in a Burger King parking lot to try to spread the word. One of the guys they approach drops some real knowledge and makes them look like complete fools.

Christian Guy Totally Owns Mormons - Watch more free videos

[Kanada Kev]

Looks like they've pulled some of the really fun verses out of the old testament. There's tons of great ones over on http://www.evilbible.com

http://www.cracked.com/article_15699_9-most-badass-bible-verses.html

The 9 most badass Bible verses

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, November 28, 2007 9:32 AM |

Funny Cracked article about nine "badass" parts of the Bible.

(When did Sylvester P. Smythe's humor magazine start using such naughty words?)

We've all been there. You're walking along, minding your own business, when a gang of cocky, young bastards start hurling abuse at you. Most of us would just keep walking, or maybe, yell some insults back or flip them the bird. Elisha (commonly regarded as the Luke Skywalker to the Prophet Elijah's Obi-Wan Kenobi), however, decides to take it one step further. Invoking the name of God, he summons motherfucking bears to come and claw the shit out of them.

Christians are constantly asking for prayer in schools to help get today's kids in line, but we beg to differ. We need bears in schools. If every teacher had the power to summon a pair of child-maiming grizzly avengers, you can bet that schoolchildren nowadays would be the most well-behaved, polite children, ever. It's a simple choice: listen to the biology lesson, or get first-hand knowledge of the digestive system of Ursus horribilis.