Christian pop culture through the eyes of a radical housewife and part time atheist, Miss Poppy Hussein Dixon. Online since 1995. Stop by every day for the latest in Christian crime, intimidation, fraud, and foolishness.
Cornell West's Hope on a Tightrope is on my Christmas wishlist. I'm looking forward to reading it and found a suggested reading list that West has posted at Amazon. One suggestion is Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver. I've never read it, though I have an old copy, so I picked it up today. It's really good.
I especially liked the part where Cleaver was trying to be a good Catholic and explain the mystery of the trinity to his priest.
Up shot my hand, my heart throbbing with piety (pride) for this chance to demonstrate my knowledge of the Word. To my great shock and embarrassment, the Father announced, and it sounded like a thunderclap, that I was lying, that no one, not even the Pope, undestood the Godhead, and why else did I think they called it the mystery of the Holy Trinity? I saw in a flash, stung to the quick by the jeers of my fellow catechumens, that I had been used, that the Father had been lying in wait for the chance to drop that thunderbolt, in order to drive home the point that the Holy Trinity was not to be taken lightly.
I had intended to explain the Trinity with an analogy to 3-in-1 oil, so it was probably just as well.
I had long ago read and reviewed Cleaver's Ice and Fire and was more familiar with the checkered nature of his Christian past (see the awkward photo above of Cleaver and his wife Kathleen with Pat Boone and his wife). Believe me, Soul on Ice is a much better read.
From Smitty, Filled with the Spirit, from the album The Walls of Jericho. I understand the video was produced for Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life Seminar in 2006. Warren is the religious guy who interviewed McCain and Obama. Remember? Yeah, me neither.
Ohhhhhh, I'm filled with the Spirit; come gather round so all ya'll can hear it. Ohhhhh, I feel so amazing; can't stop the music, got my hands raising. Ohhhh, I feel this divinity; stronger than Samson; it is the Trinity. Calm me down I need the tranquility; Satan try to stop me; you got to be kiddin' me. Uuhhhhh, now break it down ya'll; uuhhhhh, now break it down ya'll; uuhhhh, uuhhhhh, now break it down, now break it down, Old Testament style. Do the burning bush, do the burning bush, now everybody in the crowd do the burning bush. The walls of Jericho, the walls of Jericho, make the booty drop like the walls of Jericho [the rapper turns around and shakes his backside to the camera]...
Afghan police have arrested 10 men for throwing battery acid on 15 girls and teachers as punishment for attending school. Several girls suffered serious burns on their faces.
The men were described as Afghan Taliban militants who came to Kandahar from Pakistan to carry out the attack, the provincial governor said.
The basis for the attacks was religious. The attackers believed Allah does not want women educated.
I'm not a violent person and I must question myself heartily when I find myself empathizing with statements like this, of General Mattis.
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling.
When I see pictures of these schoolgirls I wish for a few minutes alone with the fellows that did this to them. Yet I know that violence is not the answer. The answer is for those girls and their families and communities to find and create their own solutions, and for us to support them in every way we can. These young women are not helpless. They are continuing to go to school.
Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.
The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.
Does your cell phone weigh the same as a duck? If not, according to the Vatican, your soul may be in danger, girl!
Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope’s spokesman, said.
In the age of the cell phone and the internet it is probably more difficult than before to protect silence and to nourish the interior dimension of life.It is difficult but necessary.
There is an interior and spiritual dimension of life that must be guarded and nourished. If it is not, it can become barren to the point of drying up and, indeed, dying. Today, this is a very grave threat, and it is the most irreparable misfortune.
Artist Mark Cline's installation at Natural Bridge, Virginia.
It's 1863, While digging for dinosaur bones in the LOST CAVERNS, The Garrison Family has discovered an entire valley on the other side filled with LIVING DINOSAURS. Unfortunatly, so has the NORTHERN Army who seeks to use the dinos as WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION against the South. Can the Garrisons and their pet monkey "BLINKY" Stop them before it is too late to ESCAPE FROM DINOSAUR KINGDOM
Mark Cline's "Escape From Dinosaur Kingdom", Natural Bridge, Virginia.
Rejoice although this world will devastate you And rejoice although this world will penetrate you And rejoice although you will not survive Rejoice you'll never make it out alive
This scuzzy doggie door, that I guess kind of looks like Jesus, is being auctioned on Ebay. The starting bid is $990.00. I'd get it but they're charging an extra $15.00 for shipping. That's where they get you.
This one may be the real deal.
I believe the dog door image to be superior to most naturally-occurring Jesus likenesses, commonly known as pareidolia, because of two factors: the face itself is more distinct than past images such as those found on toast, tortillas and x-rays, and because of the coincidence of finding the image on an item of the dogs at a moment I was contemplating getting rid of them. Hence it is far more defensible as an actual divine manifestation than a random occurrence with no underlying context.
MissionaryGathering Christian Church is sorry for the narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, manipulative actions of those who took away the rights & equality of so many in the name of God. Our hearts are with you. Christianity for all.
Now, we folks at Bob Jones University believe that whatever the Bible says is so; and we believe it says certain fundamental things that all Bible-believing Christians accept; but when the Bible speaks clearly about any subject, that settles it. Men do not always agree, because some are dumb-some people are spiritually dumb; but when the Bible is clear, there is not any reason why everybody should not accept it. (page 1)
I want you folks to listen-you white and you colored folks. Do not let these Satanic propagandist fool you. This agitation is not of God. It is of the devil. Do not let people slander God Almighty. God made it plain. God meant for Christian people to treat each other right... Yes, Paul said, ‘God... hath made of one blood all nations of men...' All men, to whatever race they may belong, have immortal souls; but all men have mortal bodies, and God fixed the boundaries of the races of the world. Let me repeat that it is no accident that most of the Chinese live in China. It is not an accident that most Japanese live in Japan; and the Africans should have been left in Africa, and the Gospel should have been taken to them as God command His people to do." (page 13 - 14)
These Bible-believing Christians were certain that segregation was ordained by God, that the scripture clearly commanded the races to live separately. Now they are admitting that they were wrong.
Doesn't this suggest there is a chance that they could be wrong about same sex marriage?
Painting by Georgia O'Keefe and a Virgin of Guadalupe, both images with a motif reminiscent of female genitals.
The Justice Foundation announced today the "airing" of "Beyond the Dark Valley," a documentary about women who don't want to have babies.
Why can't women have cute euphemisms for their privates, like "Acorn Andy," "trouser trout," or even "John Thomas", instead of the Biblically gloomy ones like "dark valley," or "the valley of the shadow of death"?
Come on, fellas, don't be skeered. Our penises didn't fall off. We were born this way. Believe me, our parts are at LEAST as much fun as yours.
Police had to escort Fred Phelps and his minions from Dodge Street where they were protesting, as the police were unable to protect them from a crowd of high school students. The students threw hamburgers, and cartons of orange juice and milk at the members of Phelps' virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church.
Students chanted "Diversity," "Obama" and "Gay is OK." At one point, they broke into a chant of the Pledge of Allegiance, yelling, "Liberty and justice for all."
One student held a sign that said, "This Jew is not afraid of you." Fliers found on the ground read, "Zona libre de odio", Spanish for "Hate-free zone."
For the 23% of Texans who still believe that Obama is a secret Muslim, it turns out that he's actually not a very good one. Obama hasn't been to church (or mosque) since he won the election - hanging out in the gym on Sundays instead.
Hey, everybody, so WHAT!
Church is boring. It's a waste of time. It's counter to the whole idea of a day of rest. And that water that they use - it burns, it BURNS!
Politico.com noted that, "Both President-elect George W. Bush and President-elect Bill Clinton managed to attend church in the weeks after they were elected."
Although the godless Clintons DID attend church almost every Sunday Bill served as president, the pious Bushes are much less faithful about their attendance, the Reagans never attended, and don't even BOTHER asking what the McCains do on Sunday mornings. You DON'T want to know.
I'm a normal Midwestern housewife. I believe in the basic teachings of the Bible and the church. Divorce is forbidden. A woman is to be an obedient subordinate to the male head of the household. If a man lieth down with another man, they shall be taken out and killed. Things everybody can agree on, like the miracle of glossolalia that occurred during Pentecost, when the Apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit, who took the form of cloven tongues of fire hovering just above their heads. You know, basic common sense stuff.
The Vatican's newspaper has finally forgiven John Lennon for declaring that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, calling the remark a "boast" by a young man grappling with sudden fame. The comment by Lennon to a London newspaper in 1966 infuriated Christians, particularly in the United States, some of whom burned Beatles' albums in huge pyres.
Last Tuesday Republican Congressmen Joe Pitts and Chris Smith issued a news release regarding Arzigul Tursun, an Uyghur Chinese woman rescued in the nick of time by their efforts from the forced abortion of her third child by Chinese authorities.
Excuse me for being skeptical.
First, Arzigul Tursun is the name of "one of the leading Uyghur pop musicians from Kashgar, Xinjiang." You can watch the video from her latest album, Gulyarla, on the YouTube.
Second, we've been down this road before. In 1995 Representative Chris Smith testified before Congress.
Not only do these human rights problems get worse every single month that we continue to truckle to China, but they keep discovering new horrors. ...there are even some credible reports that late-term unborn children are actually being consumed as a new health food.
At the time Congressman Chris Smith was Co-Chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus.
If [capital punishment] isn't enough to turn one's stomach, consider this: According to World... human fetuses have begun to appear on menus of Chinese restaurants as a delicacy and health tonic.
The sensational story of Arzigul Tarsun shares many of the same elements of the Chinese fetus eating story. Though at least one report lists its source as the AP, searches at the AP site yield no results. The only other source is a Radio Free Asia report.
According to Wikipedia, Radio Free Asia "is a private radio station funded by the United States Congress that broadcasts in nine Asian languages." Radio Free Asia is Representative Chris Smith's baby, so to speak. According to a report on Smith's site, he "authored the law to authorize Radio Free Asia to broadcast 24 hours daily." Criticism of Radio Free Asia includes the following, from Wikipedia.
Catharin Dalpino of the Brookings Institution, who served in the Clinton State Department as a deputy assistant secretary deputy for human rights, has called Radio Free Asia "a waste of money." "Wherever we feel there is an ideological enemy, we're going to have a Radio Free Something," she says. Dalpino said she has reviewed scripts of Radio Free Asia's broadcasts and views the station's reporting as unbalanced. "They lean very heavily on reports by and about dissidents in exile. It doesn't sound like reporting about what's going in a country. Often, it reads like a textbook on democracy, which is fine, but even to an American it's rather propagandistic."
Christian conservatives are swallowing the Chinese forced abortion story in the same way they swallowed the Chinese fetus eating story - whole. The Family Research Council, World Magazine, The Christian Post, and a host of others have reprinted the story.
In 1995 Chris Smith and his anti-abortion minions were going after the gals getting together in China, for the Fourth World Conference on Women. Today they're going after UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. According to its site, UNFPA is
an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
The Bush administration withheld funds from UNPFA and in 2003 diverted $34 million from China due to claims of forced abortions. Greg Barnes, of Australia's Mercury wrote,
Bush justified his cruel decision on the fact that China would use the funds for coercive abortion and forced sterilization, despite his own fact-finding mission turning up no evidence that the UN had ever participated in such programs.
The Bush administration had withheld funds from any organization that counseled abortion as an alternative to women. The Washington Post recently reported that,
The new president is also expected to lift a so-called global gag rule barring international family planning groups that receive U.S. aid from counseling women about the availability of abortion, even in countries where the procedure is legal, said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he rescinded the Reagan-era regulation, known as the Mexico City policy, but Bush reimposed it.
Newspapers from cities as far away as Melbourne, Australia are anxiously awaiting word on a Uyghur woman in China, six months pregnant with her third child. According to local reports, government officials tracked Arzigul Tursun down in her village and escorted her to a hospital where authorities ordered her to abort the baby against her will. Although guards had been stationed at the hospital, Arzigul managed to escape. After the police interrogated her family, the mother-to-be was recaptured yesterday in the home of some relatives. Her plight has sparked outrage in the international community, which is demanding her release.
In the past, the U.S. government -- at President Bush's insistence -- has withheld funding from groups like the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) for its supporting role in these coercive abortion policies. President-elect Obama has said he will restore U.S. funding to UNFPA. America will no longer be an innocent bystander of tragedies like this one. Instead, the U.S. will be knowingly funding forced abortions like Arzigul's with millions of taxpayer dollars. In an interview with the Obama campaign before the election, RH Reality check asked, "If elected President, would Sen. Obama, overturn the Global Gag Rule or reinstate funding for UNFPA?" A spokesman for the campaign responded, "Yes, Senator Obama would overturn the global gag rule and reinstate funding for UNFPA."
The new administration plans to funnel millions of dollars to UNFPA despite its support of China's savage one-child policy. Contact your leaders and tell them that terrorizing pregnant women is not the "change" America voted for. Urge them to oppose Obama's anti-woman agenda.
What better way to engender sympathy for an issue than to give it a human face - especially one that cannot be verified. Make it a face from a Kazakhstani border town, add an arrest and a dramatic escape, a government hunt and two courageous, old, white congressmen saving the day. Parts of the story might be true, but chances are we'll never hear of Arzigul Tursun again, unless she releases another single on YouTube.
The most grisly verses have been collected from the King James Bible and made into a musical directed by Jeff Barker with music by Joseph Barker and Heather Josselyn-Cranson.
Barker explains,
These mysterious, dark stories of the Old Testament, they bring us face-to-face with the suffering of the world. It says we are capable of great evil and we must not forget these stories and we have some serious things to be accountable for in our own lives as a group and individually.
If we can perform it as a work of art, believing that it is artistic and it's an artistic genre that has a tremendous artistic power, that people will be drawn back to it in new and renewing ways that would be valuable to them whether they consider themselves a religious person or not.
The show was originally produced by the Northwestern College Theatre Department in February of 2008.
A Catholic woman in Florida complained about a baby shirt on sale at Nordstrom's. The shirt was fashioned after a depiction of the Madonna and Christ child, but the Madonna had been replaced with a winged skeleton.
Nazis were referenced in the woman's complaint.
As a Catholic and a Christian, it was offensive all the way around. We consider her holy. If you were Jewish, you wouldn't want to see a swastika on a shirt. If you were African-American, you wouldn't want to see anything that was derogatory towards you.
However from what I see ti is promoting the gay and lesbian lifestyle and abortion.
The Bible is VERY clear about how God feels about both. He destroyed Sodom and Gormorra because of homosexuality and then there is the commnadment "Thou shalt not kill." He didn't day "Thou shalt not kill anybody but babies - born or unborn."
If you are going to promote your site as Christian then you need to cleanse the site of references to this kind of activities or remove references to Christianity. The two do not go hand in hand.
It's official. You cannot be Christian if you do not worship the golden fetus, or if you love your gay neighbors.
Rev. Dr. (or is it Dr. Rev.?) James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, spent so much money to defeat California's Proposition 8 against gay marriage - half a million dollars - that they're now having to lay off more than 200 of their employees.
Focus on the Family could have paid those workers' salaries with that money. The organization is so concerned about same-sex marriages breaking up families but how many families will they hurt with these layoffs?
...works year-round to preserve and protect our religious liberties, including the right to...
...sing Christmas carols at school ...pass out candy canes to classmates ...call it "Christmas vacation" ...sponsor a nativity scene on public property ...say "Merry Christmas"
Perhaps the people Dobson laid off can stay in one of the many mangers that Dobson's Alliance Defense Fund is sponsoring. Let them eat some of Jesus' birthday cake.
Convicted felon Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska has finally lost his bid to keep his senate seat to his Democratic opponent Mark Begich.
Some had speculated that had Stevens won, he might have somehow been replaced by Sarah Palin. Palin had recently told reporters,
Putting my life in my creator's hands -- this is what I always do. I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door ... And if there is an open door in '12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door.
The marquee outside the Spirit One Christian Church reads, "America, we have a Muslim president. This is sin against the Lord." Pastor Mark Holick believes America has sinned by electing Obama and refuses to remove the sign.
Just in time for Xmas - something the whole family can enjoy -The Blasphemy Game!
Blasphemy® is a board game of fun, action, and adventure in the Holy Land for 2 to 4 players who can read. Playing time is 90 to 120 minutes.
In Blasphemy® you take part in the fate of a would-be Messiah. Your aim is to convince your compatriots that your Jesus, and your Jesus alone, is the genuine article.
To accomplish this, your Jesus must cut as impressive a figure as possible. He must give stirring sermons, perform miracles, attract devoted followers, and generally carry on in a Messiah-like fashion. Your Jesus must make every effort to discredit his rivals, and in the end, he must get himself killed. Yes, alas, the price of fame was dear in those days. It was clearly written that the Messiah would come to a sticky end. Accordingly, you win the game if you're the first player to get your Jesus nailed up.
Republican Representative Michele Bachmann is now insisting that she did not say that the "...news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they're pro or anti America." Bachmann now claims that it is all just an "urban legend."
Yes, an urban legend complete with video of her actually saying these things.
The American Family Association, of Tupelo, Mississippi, is offering a lighted yard cross to help keep the Christ in Xmas.
Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season to honor our Lord Jesus? Now you can... with the "Original Christmas Cross" yard decoration.
Light up your front yard, porch, patio, driveway, business, organization or church this holiday season with a stunning Christmas cross.
This beautiful Christmas Cross is 5.5 feet tall, with 210 individual ultra bright lights.
Take a look at Strange Maps and notice how the cotton production map of 1860 mirrors almost exactly the blue Obama votes through the South.
The link between these two maps is not causal, but correlational, and the correlation is African-Americans. Once they were the slaves on whom the cotton economy had to rely for harvesting. Despite an outward migration towards the Northern cities, their settlement pattern now still closely corresponds to that of those days.
Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Center sent me a tearful newsletter this morning titled The GOP's Social Insecurity. Mr. Perkins tries to calm a jittery GOP ready to dump the albatross of conservative Christians, like the loon in the video above. Tony wrote,
With the exception of Gov. Sarah Palin and some hollow overtures by the Democratic Party, the 20 percent of voters who cited "moral values" as their first or second priority in this election had no real horse in this race. Maybe that explains why believers were less active in this election cycle. More than four million Americans who go to church more than once a week and voted in 2004 stayed home on November 4. Those voters would have made up half the difference between McCain and Obama.
So even if all the churchgoers had voted the GOP still would have lost.
Tony, you and your hate mongering minions are increasingly irrelevant, as you have astutely admitted. You abandoned God and she returned the favor.
As I was placing an order yesterday for fetal models at Heritage House, my favorite pro life megamart, I found this on my shopping cart page. It seems that if I changed my mind about the fetuses I'd ordered, if, for instance, I'd found them inconvenient, or that they interfered with my lifestyle, I could just toss the "young ones" in the trash can and be on my merry way.
But seriously, I wanted them, and they're safely winging their way to me as you read this.
Panicked Christians and conservatives and conservative Christians are ratcheting up the rhetoric trying to move Americans happily anticipating the inaugeration of President-elect Barack Obama. Proving unmoved by William Ayers and deaf to complaints about Jeremiah Wright the fear mongers have unabashedly moved onto Hitler and the Nazis. Yesterday Christian Compares Humanists to Nazis and today right-wing talk radio host Michael Savage unearths the "former German member of the Hitler Youth, Hilmar von Campe" to draw parallels between Obama and Hitler.
Every day brings this nation closer to a Nazi-style totalitarian abyss. Today in America we are witnessing a repeat performance of the tragedy of 1933 when an entire nation let itself be led like a lamb to the Socialist slaughterhouse. This time, the end of freedom is inevitable unless America rises to her mission and destiny.
He continues,
Obama knows nothing about Germany. The national Socialists, called Nazis, come from the same Marxist/Socialist/Communist tree as he himself.
Comparing an opponent to Hitler and the Nazis is known as Godwin's Law, or reductio at Hitlerum, and anticipates the loss of the argument.
No, this isn't a Photoshop Disaster, Sasha and Malia's new dog only has three legs.
The above photo shows Obama with "Baby," a three-legged dog that lost its fourth limb following years of mistreatment at a California puppy mill. The toy poodle spent much of its life locked in a small wire cage. The breeders cut out Baby's vocal chords so that they would not have to hear her cries. In cages next to her, other dogs literally went insane, spinning repetitively with blank stares. Still others were gravely ill, maimed and had filthy, matted coats. A number was tattooed on the inside of Baby's ear, marking her as just one of many dogs at the mill.
As an animal lover and rescuer myself, and one who cannot bear to hear Sarah McLachlan singing over photos of shelter dogs, this story mad me cry my own tears into my coffee.
Michael Browne's creation has the late Manchester United player, [George Best] famous for his drinking and womanising as well as his skill as a footballer, as a Christ-like figure standing outside the gates of Heaven.
The artist has previously courted controversy with a painting showing former Manchester United player Eric Cantona as Christ and an image of current players Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney standing shoulder to shoulder with Winston Churchill.
Chris Edmundson, the Bishop of Bolton, protested. Of course, he did.
There are only two possible sources for morality: God or human beings. If, as the American Humanist Association claims, morality is grounded in human beings and their experience, then some very serious problems arise. The first problem is that it justifies societies that are clearly morally wrong, such as Nazi Germany. If morality is "a set of values embraced by society based on empathy, fairness, and experience," then Nazi Germany did nothing wrong. Being empathetic does not mean doing good to someone, only understanding their feelings. And the Nazis were fair - all Jews were sent to concentration camps. The morality of their society cannot be condemned by our society since their society simply embraced values that differ from ours.
Oh. Who knew that being good could lead to killing Jews? Powell continues,
This leads to the second problem, that morality can change or be something different than what it is. Thus, the grounds for morality become arbitrary and therefore loose (sic) their force. What is morally acceptable now may not be later. Or what is okay here may not be okay somewhere else. This system of morality is based on the will of the majority - might makes right.
Like religion in America which decided that blacks couldn't marry - until the Emancipation Proclamation? And then blacks and whites couldn't marry - until Loving v. Virginia? Or women can't own property or vote?
The sound of a quartz watch ticking in the living room can keep me awake in the bedroom. So when my mother bought our son a little case of Mexican jumping beans I was certain the sound they make would drive me nuts. But it didn't. The sound is random, and somehow calming and I can sleep with that weird little tumbling noise just inches from my head.
My husband mentioned that he found it calming, too. So I've taken to soaking them in pond water every other week to keep them alive. They'll eventually hatch and the moth will live for a couple of days if it's lucky.
Ignore Aston Kuther at the end. Yeah, he's pretty.
Newsweek editor Jon Meacham was on Bill Maher last night and gave one of the best arguments that I've heard against Prop 8. The idea is that marriage is a religious sacrament and the people have voted on who can give that sacrament and to whom.
That looks an awful lot like the legislative establishment of religion.
I hate even acknowledging Sarah Palin's sorry existence but couldn't pass this up, from Planet Stas, written by a seven-year-old.
Governor Palin believes the world is 6000 years old. This is absurd. This is not a rational belief. This is a mistake. Scientists, experiments and evidence have shown this to be completely false. Therefore, she is not rational. If she is not rational, she should not be allowed to be President or Vice President.
Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.
Shaken by the media attention his pronouncement received, Newman tried to mitigate the damage by claiming his words were taken out of context and then sought to avoid repercussions by depreciating himself,
In truth, I am but a useless servant of the Lord Jesus trying, despite my frailty, to be a faithful witness to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Nevertheless, if you're planning on attending this church I suggest you grab a bite before you go.
I was especially impressed by the comments made by Georgia Representative John Lewis in 1996, which he read into the Congressional Record at the time that DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) was being debated,
Let me say to the gentleman that when I was growing up in the south during the 1940s and the 1950s, the great majority of the people in that region believed that black people should not be able to enter places of public accommodation, and they felt that black people should not be able to register to vote, and many people felt that was right but that was wrong. I think as politicians, as elected officials, we should not only follow but we must lead, lead our districts, not put our fingers into the wind to see which way the air is blowing but be leaders.
Mr. Chairman, this is a mean bill. It is cruel. This bill seeks to divide our nation, turn Americans against Americans, sew the seeds of fear, hatred and intolerance. Let us remember the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths self-evident that all people are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This bill is a slap in the face of the Declaration of Independence. It denies gay men and women the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Marriage is a basic human right. You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to say when people talked about interracial marriage and I quote, "Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married."
Why do you not want your fellow men and women, your fellow Americans to be happy? Why do you attack them? Why do you want to destroy the love they hold in their hearts? Why do you want to crush their hopes, their dreams, their longings, their aspirations?
We are talking about human beings, people like you, people who want to get married, buy a house, and spend their lives with the one they love. They have done no wrong.
I will not turn my back on another American. I will not oppress my fellow human being. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Mr. Chairman, I have known racism. I have known bigotry. This bill stinks of the same fear, hatred and intolerance. It should not be called the Defense of Marriage Act. It should be called the defense of mean-spirited bigots act.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, to have the courage to do what is right. This bill appeals to our worst fears and emotions. It encourages hatred of our fellow Americans for political advantage. Every word, every purpose, every message is wrong. It is not the right thing to do, to divide Americans.
We are moving toward the 21st century. Let us come together and create one nation, one people, one family, one house, the American house, the American family, the American nation.
THESE Are the people that voted against gay marriage? The sad thing is that Mormons believe by joining Dobson and Perkins in their hate fest that they'll finally be accepted as "real" Christians. They won't be. They're on Dobson's list, maybe a little farther down, but believe me, they're there.
Longtime Alas community member Jake Squid sent me this. Jake’s workplace recently installed hand scanners, which replace the old punch-card system for workers checking in and out of work. (The advantage for the company is, you can’t ask a friend to scan your hand for you).
The company that manufactures the hand-scanning system gave Jake’s employer this letter, to reproduce and distribute to their employees.
These ads are a deliberate attack on American traditions, beliefs and customs by a United Nation's affiliated group that espouses a radical anti-American agenda and is funded by a zealot who believes that the U.S. is a backwards nation full of imbeciles.
That's right. Christians are not backwards nor are they imbeciles.
"..will an Obama Administration allow these big-boned men in female clothing to use ladies' restrooms in federal buildings? What will a President Obama do to protect the right to privacy of female federal workers who don't want men wearing dresses - with male genitalia - sharing their women's restroom?" LaBarbera said.
LaBarbera is so busy constructing scenarios of "big-boned" men scandalizing women in restrooms that he does not have time to garner any related facts, or to look on the bright side.
C.S. Lovett, pictured above left, may now be able to double his bathroom ministry's impact now that he can don a dress and visit the ladies room, too.
LaBarbera and all you ladies out there, don't worry. It won't be any worse than when you had to share your bathrooms with people of other races.
In case you're wondering why I'm not blogging as much, blame it on my latest body modification - four pins sticking out of my dominent (broken) pinkie. I made it to the polls BEFORE I had the surgery.
A Much More Beautiful and Complicated View of Ourselves
Like a phoenix rising.
M. E. J. Newman, Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan, writes,
As this map makes clear, large portions of the country are quite evenly divided, appearing in various shades of purple, although a number of strongly Democratic (blue) areas are visible too, mostly in the larger cities. There are also some strongly Republican areas, but most of them have relatively small populations and hence appear quite small on this map.
Lu 23:34Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.?
Miss Poppy, I don't desire to attack you or tell you you deserve to rot in Hell- I'm sure you already know that. Seriously ma'am, you need to be saved if you aren't. Your website though is just awful. How can a Christian sell and believe all those things that you do? You are mocking God with that and you get that from your father the devil. I honestly pray that God will convict you and get a hold of your heart because the direction you're headed is Hell. By the way, sex is God's ordinace for reproduction, so when you get pregnant, He doesn't want you to kill the baby. If you entered the lottery EXPECTING to win, and when you did win, would you burn the money? No, you wouldn't. So why would you kill something that was given to you according to your actions?
You are really blinded to what God lays out so plainly in the King James Authorized Version, so I pray that you will wake up and realize the position you're in. I care that you may burn in Hell for all Eternity and remember the words that I'm telling you now, so please email me if you have questions because I'm fully persuaded that God can saved even the most vile sinners.
I broke my finger the day before the election and had it pinned yesterday. It will be very difficult to post for awhile and I am wondering if, among my readers, there may be someone who would like to guest post. Please contact me and we'll discuss. Don't be shy. =)
anthony in salt lake city, utah was a little perplexed when the new lady sharing his cubicle put this little number up. odder still, he says, "is the fact that this particular wall was originally my half - she took everything i had on that end and moved it to the other side."
says anthony: "apparently she thinks i'm going to poke the messiah's high school yearbook picture all day - or maybe the note is what he's thinking?"
The mural by artist Ron English on Harrison Avenue features composite portraits of Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln, their faces melded in a rainbow of colors.
For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12
Watch the ad, which is factual, if dramatic. While missionaries would not tear up the wedding license, the law the Mormons promote would make it null and void - same thing.
Said Larry Pegram with the Values Advocacy Council,
[We] strongly condemn the ad being promulgated showing two young LDS missionaries perpetrating a 'Home Invasion.' The ad is unscrupulous, misleading, and maligns a group of very dedicated, hard working individuals exercising their constitutional rights to free speech in their support of Prop. 8. I urge all thinking individuals and organizations to condemn this ad as hateful, bigoted, and intolerant.
Pastor Miles McPherson, of the Rock Church in San Diego called the ad "shameful," a "smear tactic," and "an alarming offense to the Mormon church."
Hateful, bigoted, and intolerant? A shameful smear tactic? Did you really think you could throw your feces and not get any on you?
My family - my husband, son, and I - walked to the polls shortly after 7:00am. The line wrapped around the parking lot. In 2000 the line was less than half that long and there had been a big drive to defeat George Bush, so turnout had been high. It was even higher today.
The mood was one of determination and cautious excitement. I loved seeing the crowd - so incredibly diverse. One of my neighbors is white and works for a high-end auction house. Another, a citizen born in Columbia, works for a university. Both had voted. This was not a McCain Palin crowd.
Everyone was snapping photos. People were asking joggers to stop and take their picture. There is a feeling that everyone wants to remember everything about today.
The people coming out of the building all had smiles on their faces.
It took us about an hour to get through the line. My thirteen-year-old son joined me in the booth. When I voted for Obama my son put his hand on top of mine. He did the same thing when we voted no on Proposition 8. He was late for school, but I can't think of a better reason.
Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12
A University of Texas poll found that 23% of Texans believe Obama is a Muslim. This is most likely due to emails like the one quoted below, sent from a cousin of mine from Texas. Actually, it probably wasn't TO me as the subject line was Calling All True Believers. I'd asked her politely, months ago, to stop sending me political forwards as I did not share her views and she agreed. I don't know if she sent this one to be by accident, or out of frustration, but I received it just the same on Saturday.
The email harps on flag pins, and mosques in America supported by Saudi terrorists, the loss of public prayer and ten commandment idols, and whips up to the ultimate destruction of America. What can the good Christian do?
We are great at passing stories and pictures around the internet, but where are our prayers and prayer warriors praying to stop this tide of Barak Obama? We can bring our country back to its Christian roots and stop the undermining of our country by Muslims. We can stop our country from being 'under Allah' but we must begin to pray; to pray as [if] our country and our lives depended on it because they do. We can stop all these atrocities against God's commandments that have taken root in our country through something as simple as sincere prayer, a call to God to deliver us, to protect us from the evil that is upon us.
Well, excuse me all over the place. In addition to making another financial donation to Obama's campaign my husband and I went to a call center and spent the afternoon calling undecideds in Indiana and North Carolina. Somehow, in my godless atheism, I expect this to be more fruitful than prayer. Oh, and I replied to my cousin:
You know I love you, but what you are sending out to others in these emails is not true. You are bearing false witness against your neighbor. Our God is a God of Truth and lying is a sin. This email you're forwarding to others is of the father of all lies. You cannot lie for God and call it a good thing.
Kevin Anderton of 9in10.org produced two very funny pro-gay-marriage ads to help support gay rights and to defeat Proposition 8 in CA and Amendment 2 in FLA. These two won the audience award at the Boston Comedy Festival.
It's the sex, isn't it? Gotta be. That penis in the anus thing. Dudes blowing dudes... yucky! Really yucky. You need them to stop doing that. And what better way than to let them marry. Give them a family, joint debt. Tie them down... with debt, nothing kinky. Let them marry. They'll be lucky if they're having sex once a month.
California's Proposition 8 would eliminate the right to marry for same sex couples. Christians say that this is to preserve marriage and protect children, though it would do neither. If you want to protect marriage, eliminate the right to divorce, for Christians divorce in far greater numbers than do unbelievers. As far as children are concerned these Christians are denying family to children, now and in the future.
What these Christians really want is power. They want God's rules to apply to what they believe is our Christian nation. In the choice between following Christ's commandments to feed the hungry, take in the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit those sick and in prison (Matthew 25) and the acquistion of raw political power - the ability to impose religious law on everyone - these Christians have chosen the latter.
Jesus had the same choice given him, and here was his response.
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Matthew 4:8-10
These Christians are making faith in Christ a truly repulsive prospect. The secular and unchurched rebel against attempts of the self-righteous to impose faith upon them, as well they should. Jesus never suggested this as a viable option. He called these Christians "unprofitable servants" to be cast into "outer darkness" where "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 25:20)
These Christians believe that they can lie for God. But a lie is the opposite of God and these lies come from Satan, or for those who don't believe, from the vanity in the heart of the believer. They corrupt the Christian's efforts to share Christ with the world.
Jesus said,
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:36
The cover depicts two tow-headed white children watching a sinister black man, Barack Obama, on television. Can you say RACISM? Written by Christian mother Kaelyn Hart, Day of Perdition: We Almost Stopped Him, is a fictional work about Obama, peppered throughout with newspaper snippits and quotes.
Then on to the subject of Barack Obama: his voting record, vision for the future, his heritage, the smear campaign aka inconvenient truths regarding the questions the American people have asked on his Muslim, socialism and black liberation theology ties. Those "pesky" friends that keep popping up, his character, his attempts to silence the critics, the eerie similarities to Adolf Hitler, his spirituality, the adoration from celebrities, media and the world and the phenomenon of his "messiah-like" qualities.
Read the entire press release for a glimpse into the dark heart of Christian paranoia.
California's Proposition 8 would eliminate the right to marry for same sex couples. Christians say that this is to preserve marriage and protect children, though it would do neither. If you want to protect marriage, eliminate the right to divorce, for Christians divorce in far greater numbers than do unbelievers. As far as children are concerned these Christians are denying family to children, now and in the future.
