WTF Thursday: When “Catchers” Don’t Catch

Man falls while receiving the Holy Spirit, sues church

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, AlterNet

A Tennessee man is suing his church for dropping him when he swooned at the altar, under the influence of the Holy Spirit. He alleges that the church “catchers” failed to protect him when he fell under the influence of the Holy Spirit:

JUNE 5–Last June, Matthew Lincoln was attending an evening service at his nondenominational Tennessee church when he approached the altar where a visiting minister was offering individual prayers for parishioners. Assigned “catchers” were present on the altar in case congregants fainted, fell, or otherwise lost control. When the minister, Robert Lavala, slightly touched his forehead, the Knoxville-area man “received the spirit and fell backwards.” Except nobody was there to catch him, Lincoln charges in a $2.5 million lawsuit filed yesterday against Lakewind Church and its pastors. Lincoln, 58, claims that he fell backwards, striking his head against the “carpet-covered cement floor,” according to the Circuit Court complaint, which was first reported by Courthouse News Service. A copy of Lincoln’s lawsuit can be found below. Since he already suffered from a “degenerative disc disease of his neck and back,” Lincoln, a former church board member, contends the fall exacerbated the pre-existing condition and has caused him “severe and permanent” injuries. As a result of the fall, Lincoln, a recording engineer, claims that he is no longer able to care for his disabled daughter. Lincoln alleges that Lakewind and its pastors were “negligent in not supervising the catchers to be sure that they stood behind the person being prayed for…should they have a dizzying, fainting, or falling in the spirit as had occurred on many occasions before.” Lincoln’s lawyer, J.D. Lee, told TSG that the church’s insurer, Zurich of North America, rejected an insurance claim, asserting that Lincoln should have realized that no catchers were situated behind him. [The Smoking Gun]

B’Man: OK, when I was involved with these style churches, I was always amazed at how God was able to protect these droppers from head injuries. Then, one night after a service where a friend fell and lashed about on the ground for 20 minutes after being “prayed” for, we talked outside and he told me how his neck was hurting after being prayed for.

He didn’t sue, but it sure showed me a few things about God’s lack of protection during prayers.

B’Man’s Sabbath Watch: Commercianity

Think of Christianity in any way you see fit, but this guy is holding Big Religion’s feet to the fire. In that, I appreciate what he has to say.

Now what many may not know about me is that I was once heavily involved with Christianity and was a “Methodist Music Director”, a “Praise Team Leader”, a “Sunday School” teacher and became an “Assistant Pastor” (whatever that is).

I have stood at a pulpit many, many times (hundreds) and have “preached” 100 sermons or more (still have notes from them all).

I use quotes because I always felt uncomfortable with the positions and never called myself that. If anything, I considered myself a teacher of what I learned about the Bible (especially relating to the original languages). The more I became involved with the religiosity of Methodism, the more I saw man and little God. The more I studied and learned, the more I realized that the very basic tenants of Christianity varied from the mainline definition of what I was expected to tell Methodist members. In turn, I became disillusioned with Methodism and wanted more.

We moved on to much more Charismatic churches and everywhere we went, we were approached to become “leaders” within those organizations. The one thing I saw was that the more and more “leader” I became, the more and more things became about business and the less and less I saw benefit for church members.

Coffee shops, book stores, music sold… Money from the members, arguments among the various “boards” for their share. A preacher that quit because the church couldn’t afford the normal $4,000 Christmas bonus and gave him $2K (on top of the house and utilities paid + a $40K/year salary).

Christianity has become Commercianity, as this dude in the video explains.

The guy says that those who are selling “The Word” are selling stolen property. I disagree. They simply become “peddlers of the word” for profit which is insincere and smells like shit.

2 Corinthians 2:14-17 (New International Version)

14But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. 15For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? 17Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.

Real Preachers don’t peddle their wares for money.

Did you notice that one can “smell” whether one is real or not.

Yep. If it stinks like shit.

It is.

B’Man’s Sabbath Watch: US Military’s Middle East Crusade for Christ

B’Man: Everyone has heard of the Marine caught trying to convert Muslims to Christianity with some sort of coin. Proselyting is nothing new to Bush supporters and the Christian right win , but to endorse its usage by service members in the middle of Iraq, who questions our every motive is beyond stupid.

Callous and foolish.

From The Smirking Chimp, worthy of a late Sabbath Watch post:

U.S. Military’s Middle East Crusade for Christ

by Robert Weitzel

“They are proselytizing not on behalf of the Constitution of the United States . . . but rather on behalf of some sort of fanatical view of end times. And they are using our army to affect that.”
 -Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson-

Last August the watchdog group, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, foiled a Pentagon plan that would have allowed the shipment of “freedom packages” to soldiers and Marines in Iraq. The parcels were put together by the fundamentalist Christian ministry, Straight Up, and contained Bibles, proselytizing tracts in English and Arabic, and the apocalyptic “Left Behind” computer game, in which Christian Tribulation forces convert or kill infidels—nonbelievers, Muslims and Jews.

On May 1 the Senate approved the promotion of Brigadier General Robert L. Caslen Jr. to Major General. Currently the commandant of cadets at West Point, he will become the commander of the 25th Infantry Division. He is also president of the stridently fundamentalist Officer’s Christian Fellowship, whose vision is a “spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit”

General Caslen was promoted despise the Defense Department’s recommended disciplinary action against him and several other senior military leaders because they had “improperly endorsed and participated with a nonfederal entity while in uniform” by participating in a promotional video for the Campus Crusade For Christ’s Christian Embassy, an evangelical organization that ministers to Beltway politicians and sponsors weekly Bible studies at the Pentagon.

According to the DoD Inspector General’s report, one of the generals involved “asserted that Christian Embassy was treated as an instrumentality of the Pentagon Chaplain’s office for over 25 years, and had effectively become a ‘quasi federal entity.’” Arguably, he believed his participation in the video was in the line of duty.

Considering both the Pentagon’s evangelical proclivity and a 2006 Pew survey which found that of the major religious groups in America, evangelicals have the most negative views of Islam and Muslims, the U.S. sniper who was recently caught using the Quran for target practice in the Baghdad neighborhood of Radhwaniya might be excused for thinking the book was a legitimate target upon which to perfect his craft . . . excused for thinking he was acting in the line duty.

And is it any wonder that with evangelicals and fundamentalists at the very top of the military’s officer corps —to say nothing of their Commander in Chief—that an enlisted Marine was passing out Christian “witnessing coins” inscribed in Arabic at a checkpoint in Fallujah? One side of the coin asked, “Where will you spend eternity?” An evangelical favorite, John 3:16, was on the flip side.

Sheik Adul-Rahman al-Zubaie, a tribal leader in Fallujah who was outraged by the Marine’s proselytizing said, “This event did not happen by chance, but it was planned and done intentionally.”

While the Marine’s proselytizing is not the official policy of the predominately Christian force occupying the predominately Islamic Iraq, it was done “in the line of duty” with a wink and a nod from his chain of command. Think Abu Ghraib!

From Fort Jackson, the Army’s largest basic training facility, where trainees are encouraged to attend Campus Crusade’s weekly “God’s Basic Training” programs, to the U.S. Air Force Academy where students are pressured to attend the Crusade’s weekly “cru” (short for crusade) Bible study, American military personnel are, as Campus Crusade’s Scot Blom gloats, “government paid missionaries” when they complete their training.

As the demands of fighting a perpetual war against “radical Islam” begins to strain both the military’s resources and the country’s resolve, the Pentagon has begun outsourcing larger chunks of the war to private contractors. Predictably, our “government paid missionaries” have become more expensive and much less controllable or accountable.

The Bush administration’s favorite contractor, Blackwater, is the most powerful private army in the world. It commands thousands of mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, has over a billion dollars in government contracts, and enjoys complete immunity from prosecution for its theater of operations’ conduct.

Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, a staunchly conservative Catholic, has also served on the board of directors of Christian Freedom International, a crusading missionary organization operating in the overwhelmingly Islamic countries of Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Prince envisions an evangelical “end time” role for his warriors, “Everybody carries guns, just like Jeremiah rebuilding the temple in Israel—a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other.”

No one in the last decade has contributed more to end time, apocalyptic evangelism than John Hagee, a televangelist seen by millions of viewers weekly and pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church. Hagee preaches that in order to bring about the Second Coming of Christ and the Rapture of true believers, Islam first has to be destroyed.

In a 2006 interview with National Public Radio’s Terry Gross, Hagee told her, “Those who live by the Quran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.” He went on to claim that there are 200 million Muslims waiting for the chance to attack Israel and the United States. From his pulpit, Hagee makes it clear to his congregation and the radio and television audience what they can expect from American Muslims if such an attack ever took place, “While American Muslims live in America, 82 percent are not loyal to America and are not willing to fight and defend America.”

In his book, “Jerusalem Countdown - A Warning to the World,” Hagee warns that the war between Islam and the West “is a war that Islam cannot and must not win.”

John Hagee is not just a mad evangelizing prophet. He is “the” mad evangelizing prophet who is courted by a war president, a hawkish presidential candidate and members of Congress from both parties. His Islamophobic bilge has trickled down from Capital Hill, through the labyrinthine corridors of the Pentagon, and into the chamber of a sniper’s rifle and the hand of a Marine guarding a checkpoint in Fallujah.

Officers in the military are expected to lead by example. Enlisted personnel are expected to follow that example. If the recent incidents at Radhwaniya and Fallujah are not just the acts of renegades, then the chain of command seems to be working the way it was designed.

I see God in George W Bush’s Eyes

When you read that, you immediately thought I was crazy, didn’t you? Since today is Sunday and my day for watching the crazies on B’Man’s Sabbath Watch, I began to think about God and a comment that Bush made about the Pope.

Just prior to the Pope’s visit to the US, W was interviewed by ‘Eternal Word Television Network’:

WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 13, 2008 (Zenit.org).- U.S. President George Bush said that when he looks into Benedict XVI’s eyes, he sees God.

The president made this affirmation Friday when he answered the last question posed him during an interview with Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) anchor Raymond Arroyo.

When he looks into his eyes, he sees God. Now, normally, when demons see God I would assume they run scared or melt like throwing water on a wicked witch.

So, either George is not a demon or he is lying about seeing God in the Pope’s eyes.

Of course, this country knows that George would never lie, but, to be on the safe side of evil, I decided to review all the times that God has spoken or reveled something to George in the past and ask you to decide if you rednecks still think old George is a “Godly Man”.

But before we reminisce, there are a few more ‘nuggets” of bullshit we should see from that interview.

Human rights

The EWTN anchor noted that the Pope will probably bring up the issue of the war in Iraq, asking what the U.S. government is doing to protect the Christian minority there.

Bush said that “something we have been doing all along, is urging the government to understand that minority rights are a vital part of any democratic society. And by the way, my concern isn’t just for minority rights in Iraq; it’s for minority rights throughout the Middle East.”

Well there you have it. W is concerned about the rights of minorities everywhere in the ME. GAG!

And Bush affirmed: “I feel like it was the right decision then, and obviously the data has now shown that — I hope it shows to people it’s the right decision. [...] By the way, I think this is the beginning of what is a very interesting debate that future presidents are going to have to deal with, and that is science versus ethics, the value of life versus saving life — supposedly. [...] I’ve obviously drawn the line in the sand that honoring life in all forms is a touchstone for good science.

“I think it’s important for people to understand that a culture of life is in our national interests and that — it’s also important to understand that the politics of abortion isn’t going to change until people’s hearts change, and fully understand the meaning of life and what it means for a society to value life in all forms — whether it be the life of the unborn, or the life of the elderly; whether it be the life of the less fortunate among us, or the life of the rich guy. I mean, it’s a moral touchstone, I think, that will speak to a healthy society in the long run.”

Damn, rednecks, did you know that this country and our president respects life and wants a culture of life (as long as they haven’t been born yet, that is). For when it comes to bombing those minorities and their children, he has no compunction whatsoever. I almost think that he revels in the bombs.

Finally, Arroyo asked him, “You said, famously, when you looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes you saw his soul. [...] When you look into Benedict XVI’s eyes what do you see?”

And Bush answered immediately, “God.”

Jesus Christ. He wouldn’t know God if God came down from ‘on-high’ and slapped the fake Texan dumbass out of him.

B’Man’s Sabbath Watch: Obama, Osama, hmmm: Are They Brothers?

If there was ever a time to shut down the politics in church, especially after the idiots that were brainwashed into believing that Bush was a “Godly Man” launched a full scale political movement of churches to get the “Maniac-in-Chief” elected the last time and then use their stacked Judges to stop the recounts… the time is NOW.

Here it is for all to indulge… the church and those that run it are simply politically motivated for power and influence. A simple cursory look at their actions and how they force themselves into the political arena, even though it is against the law, and to the devastation of this country and others in the world, proves their intent.

The hypocrisy doesn’t fool me, people. One cannot rail and preach against abortion, yet cheer lead on bombing Muslims. What does fool me is how you can live with yourselves after having such a view. How you can claim to honor and mimic the “Prince of Peace” and still want to bomb thousands of others.

Did the early martyrs become martyrs by fighting and Killing? Or did they do precisely what Jesus told them to do?

I am not telling Americans to sit idly by and allow anyone to hurt us. But, to do what we have done is the height of hypocrisy and I will be the first to point it out to any brainwashed fools who don’t seem to notice their stupid assed allegiance to ruining this country and Christianity while at it.

From Jonathon Turley:

Osama and Obama: Church Fuels Obama Muslim Rumors

As Hillary Clinton is being criticized for running a commercial against Barach Obama featuring Osama Bin Laden, a church in South Carolina has put up a sign “Obama, Osama, hmmm, are they brothers?” It is only the latest intervention of a church in the election in violation of federal law and perhaps the most moronic. Pastor Roger Byrd of the Jonesville Church of God insists that he will not take down the sign, which is less of a problem. It is the tax-supported church behind the sign that need to be changed.

In Jonesville, S.C., this passes for provocative thinking. Byrd says that he just wants to get people thinking. Thinking about what? “It’s simply to cause people to realize and to see what possibly could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ,” he said.

Of course, Obama has denied the rumor. But Byrd insists that a lifetime of church going, baptisms, and a controversial minister is not enough. “I don’t know. See it asks a question: Are they brothers? In other words, is he Muslim ? I don’t know. He says he’s not. I hope he’s not. But I don’t know. And it’s just something to try to stir people’s minds. It was never intended to hurt feelings or to offend anybody.”

Never intended to offend anybody. I am less concerned that this man is the spiritual leader of people in South Carolina than I am that he actually gets to vote.

Yet, after years of faith based politics, discussed here, ministers are now openly campaigning in their churches in direct violation of the federal tax code, here and here.

For the full story, click here.

To some a traitor, to reTHUGlicans, a Hero

Hat tip to Jack Large, the poet laureate of the Redstate Revolt who saw this at the Huffington Post and without any B’Man rants:

Obama’s Minister Committed “Treason” But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero

When Senator Obama’s preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father — Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer — denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father’s footsteps) rail against America’s sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the “murder of the unborn,” has become “Sodom” by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, “under the judgment of God.” They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama’s minister’s shouted “controversial” comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

Dad and I were amongst the founders of the Religious right. In the 1970s and 1980s, while Dad and I crisscrossed America denouncing our nation’s sins instead of getting in trouble we became darlings of the Republican Party. (This was while I was my father’s sidekick before I dropped out of the evangelical movement altogether.) We were rewarded for our “stand” by people such as Congressman Jack Kemp, the Fords, Reagan and the Bush family. The top Republican leadership depended on preachers and agitators like us to energize their rank and file. No one called us un-American.

Consider a few passages from my father’s immensely influential America-bashing book A Christian Manifesto. It sailed under the radar of the major media who, back when it was published in 1980, were not paying particular attention to best-selling religious books. Nevertheless it sold more than a million copies.

Here’s Dad writing in his chapter on civil disobedience:

If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]… then at a certain point force is justifiable.

And this:

In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools… There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union….

Then this:

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate… A true Christian in Hitler’s Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion… It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God’s law it abrogates it’s authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation…

Was any conservative political leader associated with Dad running for cover? Far from it. Dad was a frequent guest of the Kemps, had lunch with the Fords, stayed in the White House as their guest, he met with Reagan, helped Dr. C. Everett Koop become Surgeon General. (I went on the 700 Club several times to generate support for Koop).

Dad became a hero to the evangelical community and a leading political instigator. When Dad died in 1984 everyone from Reagan to Kemp to Billy Graham lamented his passing publicly as the loss of a great American. Not one Republican leader was ever asked to denounce my dad or distanced himself from Dad’s statements.

Take Dad’s words and put them in the mouth of Obama’s preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words “godly” and “prophetic” and a “call to repentance.”

We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did.

My dad’s books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the “respectable” evangelical community and he’s still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he’d take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad’s Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler’s Germany.

The hypocrisy of the right denouncing Obama, because of his minister’s words, is staggering. They are the same people who argue for the right to “bear arms” as “insurance” to limit government power. They are the same people that (in the early 1980s roared and cheered when I called down damnation on America as “fallen away from God” at their national meetings where I was keynote speaker, including the annual meeting of the ultraconservative Southern Baptist convention, and the religious broadcasters that I addressed.

Today we have a marriage of convenience between the right wing fundamentalists who hate Obama, and the “progressive” Clintons who are playing the race card through their own smear machine. As Jane Smiley writes in the Huffington Post “[The Clinton's] are, indeed, now part of the ‘vast right wing conspiracy.’ (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/im-already-against-the-n_b_90628.html )

Both the far right Republicans and the stop-at-nothing Clintons are using the “scandal” of Obama’s preacher to undermine the first black American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency. Funny thing is, the racist Clinton/Far Right smear machine proves that Obama’s minister had a valid point. There is plenty to yell about these days.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of “CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back

B’Man’s Sabbath Watch: “Holy Ghost Machine Gun”

Wake Up, Rednecks!

Keep Your Jesus Off My Penis

and I’ll keep my penis off of you (if you want me to).

 

I am interested in knee-jerk reactions to this. Maybe, “Damn, B’Man is an atheist… heathen… hell-bound… whatever”?

I was immersed in the religiosity (some call it baptism) for many years. I have actually been an “Assistant Pastor” (altho I hated that name and title and refused to call myself that). I have been a “Praise and Worship Leader” and “Sunday School teacher”. I have studied the Greek and Hebrew (related to Scriptures) and have logged hundreds of hours of study in the Bible & ancient civilizations, especially regarding Biblical identities and places.

I have also experienced things that are seemingly “supernatural”, which I cannot explain to myself, much less explain to another (so I don’t really try). To shoe-horn me into a category, I suppose I would call myself a Deist, even though I have said and done all the things that technically would make me a Christian. Unfortunately, “Christianity” has been hijacked by those that are obviously anti-Christ (at least antithetical to His teachings, yet claim His name as their moniker… thieves and liars, I call them).

But after truly horrible experiences in church, perpetrated by “Christians” by belittling and attempting fear and control mechanisms over everyone, but preaching in the same breath about “freedom in Christ” etc, I came to the conclusion (and have told countless idiotic religious nutcases like my own mother) that “if being a Christian means being like you, I pass”.

What I am saying is that if I must be a judgmental, fear mongering, selfish and hypocritically self-righteous, brain-washed fool who cannot think for himself or be able to question and discuss belief and theology without threats and excommunication from the hypocritical “Men of God”, then I cannot be a “Christian”.

I cannot be what the Christ, Himself, taught against. I cannot be anti-Christ, as are most of Christendom, in my estimation, especially those who claim to be closest to Him and hold some “leadership” position (usually self-made).

It is YOU, false Christians, that are ruining The Message.

It is the rest of us who need to wake up to what they are doing, rednecks.

The Great Whore

Isn’t it amazing how this evil bastard is embraced and acknowledged as a “Man of God” by those on the right? Politicians have their dubious rationale, but people who listen to this man and agree simply are complicit in that evil, as well.

Funny how he considers the Catholic Church “The Great Whore” when he pimps his stuff just as much as any other religion (albeit far more sinister and evil).

What is he, “the lessor slut”?

The “Theory” of Christianity

Steve Benen at C&L postedabout the Florida decision and caused me to think about religion and why they are so unfaltering in their objections to the word/idea: “evolution”. The south is so backwards, that many of us think that Mr Preacher Man understands more about biology and how life “evolves” than those who have studied and immersed themselves in a life’s pursuit of truth (much like they claim to be doing with Christianity).

Evolutionists aren’t necessarily anti-religion, but when people make obvious, ignorant statements about “beliefs” as opposed to actual scientific FACT (for no one can honestly claim anything within the Bible as “FACT”, with the ability to withstand the scrutiny of scientific evaluation) it really makes the Christian opponent seem idiotic.

As Steve posts, Florida has decided that schools can now use the terminology, “Scientific theory of evolution”, for the first time, in their state science standards.

How…. 21st century of them.

Florida’s State Board of Education has voted to use the term “scientific theory of evolution” in new science standards, the first time the word “evolution” has been included.

Florida’s current standards require the teaching of evolution using code words like “change over time.”

Adding the term “scientific theory” before the term “evolution” was a modified proposal at least one board member called a compromise, not standards proposed originally to the committee. The option to include “scientific theory” was made late last week.

The board narrowly passed the proposed change, voting 4-3, after more than an hour of public comment and additional discussion by the board.

Now, just how much public comment and additional discussion does it take to appease the ignorant religious with nothing but a book, over hundreds of years of scientific evaluation and “theory”? Why does one have to explain (over and over and over) what “theory” is in the scientific community?

They say, “Evolution is ONLY a theory!”

Steve answers by quoting the WSJ’s James Q. Wilson from here:

People use “theory” when they mean a guess, a faith or an idea. A theory in this sense does not state a testable relationship between two or more things. It is a belief that may be true, but its truth cannot be tested by scientific inquiry. One such theory is that God exists and intervenes in human life in ways that affect the outcome of human life. God may well exist, and He may well help people overcome problems or even (if we believe certain athletes) determine the outcome of a game. But that theory cannot be tested. There is no way anyone has found that we can prove empirically that God exists or that His action has affected some human life. If such a test could be found, the scientist who executed it would overnight become a hero.

Evolution is a theory in the scientific sense. It has been tested repeatedly by examining the remains of now-extinct creatures to see how one species has emerged to replace another. Even today we can see some kinds of evolution at work, as when scholars watch how birds on the Galapagos Islands adapt their beak size from generation to generation to the food supplies they encounter.

“Theory” in religion and “scientific theory” aren’t even in the same scope of intelligent context/evaluation. Theory in religion cannot even be tested scientifically, because all you have is the book and “belief” that the book is truth. But in science, one can test, over and over again, their ideas. They can accumulate scientific fact to evaluate and compare. It is testable… provable… within scrutiny in evaluation.

In religion all you can observe is the thoughts of humans played out in their actions based on words from a book and some internal guiding process. This can never prove/disprove God or Christianity or any other religion.

So, I find it the height of ignorance that we have leaders in congress and “high places” who put more credence in their unprovable “beliefs” over scientific fact, tested over and over to provide us with the scientific theory.

It boils down to this, believers in the Bible (or any other religious text) feel like “theories” are just ideas some one craps out of their head, perhaps while even sitting on the shitter. Theories to these folks are no more than a dream or guess or a vain imagination.

But when they try to provide their “proof” of God, their ”theory” is even far less instructive and edifying, because all they have is the book (you choose which of the many hundreds of versions is the RIGHT one) and their personal story (which is never objective or helpful, as far as theories go).

Hence, altho I am a “believer”, it is my belief and I can not honestly tell you it is truth beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is because of my personal experiences and life learned lessons. I can not scientifically prove anything. Nor do I want to try to convince you one way or the other.

But when it comes to real world science, believers must be prepared to drop their idiotic, non-supportable religious “beliefs” as if they were truth for all men and embrace what science can prove with its “scientific theories”, which are provable.

One has to take a big nasty dummy pill to swallow the whole Christianity thing, when making it more “real” than science. But, somehow, the south especially, has taken the entire brain dead potion than the rest of the country, if you want all thinking people to go along with you… much like the Taliban insists in the ME.

Don’t expect this thinking man to just go along with those who are obviously lost, just because they use scare tactics to try to keep us (and successfully with most of you) in line.

Wake Up, Rednecks!

Jesus Kidnapped & Held For Ransom

(saw this at C&L… linked to BlueGal (nope, different Blue Girl in the BlogRoll)

Preachers and Politics Don’t Mix

I’m not even talking about the separation of church and state. I’m talking about the fact that virtually every preacher man I know personally is hardly any different than these unscrupulous, bought-and-paid-for religious”personalities”, such as Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar.

But even harder to understand are the people who support these rich assholes who thwart their riches and would rather spend a fortune fighting against paying taxes, etc, than EVER helping poor, needy people. Or support them no matter how much they endorse war and death over peace and life.

Amanda from Think Progress has a great post up about the subject and here is the RealClearPolitics Huckabee article that discusses Mike’s penchant for living a high life in the same elitist model that Kenneth does.

In Arkansas, Mr. Huckabee was investigated by the state ethics committee at least 14 times. Most of the complaints centered on what appears to be a serial disregard for government rules about gifts and outside financial compensation. He reported $112,000 worth of gifts in one year alone, nearly double his $67,000 salary.

$67,000? WHAT? The man’s got suits that cost that much.

Five of the 14 investigations resulted in admonishments: Two for failing to report gifts (one was later overturned), the other three for some $80,000 that Mr. Huckabee and his wife received but failed to initially report. One of these admonishments involved a $23,500 payment to Mr. Huckabee from an opaque organization called Action America that he helped found in 1994 while lieutenant governor, and that was designed to coordinate his speeches and supplement his income.

Mr. Huckabee caused an uproar when he used a $60,000 account intended to maintain the governor’s mansion for personal expenses, including restaurant meals, dry cleaning and boat supplies. He also faced a lawsuit over his assertion that $70,000 worth of furniture donated to the mansion was his to keep. Sprinkled among all this are complaints about the misuse of state planes and campaign funds, mistakes on financial disclosure forms, and fights over documents related to ethics investigations.

Any one of these episodes individually may appear penny ante, but they add up to a disturbing pattern. People I’ve spoken with who worked with Mr. Huckabee in Arkansas dispute the idea that he is “corrupt.” They instead ascribe his ethical mishaps to a “blind spot” rooted in his beginnings as a Baptist minister and a Southern culture of gift-giving; they suggest he never made the mental transition to public office.

A “blind spot”, huh? Make me laugh one time.

God’s President Has A Pole Affixation

Monsignor Pastor Reverend Bishop President Huckabee has now made it clear that he is a TRUE ReTHUGlican with their inherently normal latent pole affixations. Always need a pole shoved somewhere, don’t we, Mr Preacher Man?

Confederate Flag Takes Center Stage Once Again

By MICHAEL COOPER

Published: January 18, 2008

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Republican presidential candidates on Thursday moved to appeal to different types of conservative voters before the South Carolina primary, with Mike Huckabee using colorful language to declare the Confederate flag a states’ rights issue and Senator John McCain embracing a supply-side tax cut proposal.“You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag,” Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press.“In fact,” he said, “if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell them what to do with the pole; that’s what we’d do.”

When did Christians become the pole masters? Or, when did Christianity become so violent and loveless?

The last thing this country (world) needs is another religious idiot in charge… especially a preacher from Arkansas who will put Bible (his interpretation) over the Constitution every day. Don’t be fooled, fellow southern rednecks. He is dangerous.

I Pledge Allegiance To The Corporate Flag Of America…

I found this post at Opednews and found it enlightening since the author makes the claim to be a fundamentalist Christian. I believe that most “Christians” have no idea what Christ was actually like… what He would have endorsed in us… what He would have thought and said about the current situation this “Christian” nation has herself in.

I do know that those who speak the loudest and making the most ardent claims, proving their “Christianness” with the least amount of humility are the farthest from emulating Christ. Yet you hear them (people like Bush, Coulter, Hannity, etc) claim they are Christian and others aren’t, while also being some of the most cruel, viscious supporters of evil intent. The hypocrisy is glaringly LOUD.

So, when I read something like this, it warms my heart to know that there are a few Christians that see how far UN-Christlike we are as a country:

A New Pledge And Allegiance Are Needed

by Curt Day 

Currently the courts are determining whether our current Pledge Of Allegiance should be revised. The heart of the matter is whether or not the phrase “one nation under God” should be included. Those favoring traditional values want to keep what has become a controversial phrase while others either approve of removing the phrase or are apathetic.

But what is being missed is whether the current pledge, with our without the reference to God, is obsolete. In examining whether or not our pledge of allegiance is outdated, we need to decide if the Pledge Of Allegiance reflects where we are as a nation and where we want to be as people.

Where are we as a nation? I would summarize our current state with the flag I march with at protests. This flag resembles the “Stars and Stripes” except that it replaces the stars with corporate logos. It is called the Corporate Flag and I carry it because it is the flag of my government. From our defense budget and the war to our government’s response to the flooding of New Orleans to our government’s solution to health care for seniors, our government’s first concern has been the needs and requests of corporations. In essence, our government hopes that its benevolence to the corporate world trickles down to the general population to a sufficient degree so that the people remain complacent and disengaged.

In the meantime, the oil corporations hope to join the members of the military industrial complex as being the primary beneficiaries of the War on Iraq. Their success depends on the US forcing the benchmark requiring Iraq to open its oil reserves to control by foreign corporations. It was corporations that immediately followed Katrina in hoping to financially benefit from the tragedy in New Orleans. And the pharmaceutical companies are benefitting from the Medicare law that prohibits the government from negotiating for lower prices from these same companies.

And when our government is not searching for new ways to enrich the corporate world, it goes the extra mile to cover the backsides of the same corporations. This protection can be seen in the Bush Administration’s attempts to protect telecommunication companies that cooperate with the NSA in domestic surveillance from legal action. This protection could be seen in Paul Bremer’s CPA’s ordinance that made U.S. mercenaries exempt from legal action in Iraq regardless of their actions. This protection can be seen in our government’s impotency at making either the oil industry accountable for the prices it charges as it continues to make record profits or the health insurance companies responsible for denying or delaying services that people need.

Our current state of the union where corporations are counted as persons that are more equal than people could be summed up with the new pledge of allegiance below:

I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the corporate states of America.
And to the conglomeration,
for which it stands,
one nation, under many CEOs,
always divisible,
with liberty and privileges for some.

The question now becomes whether or not our current Pledge Of Allegiance commits us to what we want to be. In other words, how important is it to be loyal to a country that favors the rich with its domestic policies and violently breaks international law with its foreign policies?

In the past, repeating the Pledge Of Allegiance was considered an honorable action because it showed a commitment to a cause greater than oneself—that is the freedom of our neighbors and fellow citizens. But when loyalty to our country enables the oppression and abuse of others, particularly the poor, is reciting the Pledge Of Allegiance still honorable? For example, is it principled to salute the same flag that flies over a war based on false premises that not only kills up to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis but enables our government to write the laws of another country?

In my fundamentalist church, our minister, having warned us that operatives from both political parties are skilled at manipulation, told us that we are Christians first and Americans second. But how should those who are not Christian consider themselves? Should they count themselves as Americans first by default?

The Declaration of Independence answers this question. It clearly states that all men, now taken as all people, are created equal. If we take this declaration seriously, we should conclude that we are people before we are Americans. And thus our first allegiance should be to justice for people regardless of their nationality or ethnicity. So when our government’s policies do violence to such justice, regardless of the citizenship of the victims, a commitment to justice should trump our desire to appear patriotic. Thus a principled commitment to a cause greater to ourselves is not seen in reciting the current Pledge Of Allegiance to the American flag, but a pledge of allegiance to a cause that is greater than our country.