This Must Be The Home of “RAMBO JESUS”: Home School "Arsenal Sermon" On Newtown Hits New Low … For Christian Right Paranoia!

Just when we thought that the Newtown school shooting had finally brought out the worst in gun control rants and sermons, a pastor in Tennessee filled the heads of his congregation with thoughts that schools were government "mind-control centers" that taught "junk about evolution" and "how to be a homo.". The most egregious of the ideas, however, was that "home schools" were the safest because they did not have to have a police officer or metal detector and that " there's plenty of guns at my home school. Amen."

This Must Be The Home Of Rambo Jesus

In the annals of Newtown rants, Bryan Fischer turned up first and foremost by saying that "prayerless" schools were the cause of the massacre and that God did not protect the children because He was a "gentleman" who did not go where He was not wanted." It was a milder approach to the situation than the previous picture of Fischer's "Rambo Jesus" - the less than meek and mild firebrand who comes "with a sword", exhibiting a righteous cruelty.

Fischer's displacement of "meek and mild" with guns and ammo is not new, but with the backing of the NRA, far right elements of the Christian Right have made forays into the gun control war and have been more vocal in their support of paranoid sects like the Patriot movement.

Although the Rambo Jesus' Twitter account has been inactive for a year (and for what it's worth, a lampoon*), it is still evidence of a sub culture that believes more in the "come with a sword" words from Holy Scripture than "do good to those who defile you."

The Deepest Thoughts Of Religious Right ParanoiaLast Sunday, Pastor Morris (of Old Paths Baptist Church, Sparta, Tennessee) tried to evince the principles of his church:

"AN OLD-FASHIONED, UNAFFILIATED, UNREGISTERED, PRINCIPLED, HISTORIC BAPTIST CHURCH WHICH STILL HOLDS TO THE OLD-LINE FAITH OF THE WORD OF GOD AS OUR EARLY CHRISTIAN FOREFATHERS DID!"Unfortunately, the sermon was also unprincipled, uneducated and reeking of paranoia. His church's David Barton-esque take on the Second Amendment was lost in a sea of mind-controlling government and school education disconnects. Here are some points:

• Equal Rights: "It is a sham...As long as you're a prisoner, a murder, you can get equal rights"
• Adam Lance: "They need to string him up in public and set his body on fire."
• Gun control: Shootings only happened where guns are banned. (Ignoring the fact that the guns used in shootings are available where guns AREN'T banned). He also stated that there was "Never a mass gun shooting at a gun show"
• School security: "They talk about increasing security, but he shot through the security doors!"

He then posited five questions for the country:

• Why do you still send your kid to the governmental schools?
• Do you think that these shootings will continue?
• Does scoeity omehow share the blame?
• Who has the REAl authority over America's children?
• What is driving these mass shootings?

Morris' universal answer to these questions: Deception! - from the schools and the government: "...in 1963 the government and the schools kicked God out...and now they want Him back. ...It's too late"! He also stated that while practice and expression of religion was absolutely eradicated from schools, the schools are hell-bent on teaching humanism, that teaches your children that they are gods... teaches kids "to be homos" and that evolution teaches that you're an animal.

Bottom Line: "Pull 'Em Out!"

In Morris' plea to wrench children from the clutches of an evil, secular society controlled by the government, he uttered one one truism which, unfortunately, applied primarily to his own sermon: "lack of judgment brings on rage." Morris' rage of righteous arrogance rooted in ignorance and obscenely inept religious fervor transcended baffoonery and plunged into the depths of paranoia.


A dangerous paranoia the likes of which created Adam Lance.




*"It's important to love - if you don't, pray you don't meet @rambojesus.

The Irony Of Being Demonspawn

Today was the most gorgeous day in San Francisco: the air was crisp and clear - glowing from the SF Giants' sweep of the World Series. It was a day to remember, a day to cherish. I stopped by that gay mecca, the Castro, where some people strolled shirtless, men hand-in-hand, delighting in God's gift of the marvelous day.

As I gazed upon The City from the upper reaches of its infamous gay mecca, I though back to "prophet" Lou Engle's descriptive words of its local demizens: "...those people who embrace the darkness." I hoped Engle was somewhere - anywhere - on the East Coast.

For it was not a beautiful day anywhere along the East Coast, not in New York, Washington, Atlantic City, Baltimore, or even Virginia Beach. That's right, not even Pat Robertson's Virginia Beach escaped the wrath of Frankenstorm's  God. The almighty Pat Robertson who once boasted that he had prayed away a hurricane was powerless against Frankenstorm. Perhaps his encroaching senility had something to do with it. 

San Francisco has always been an anomaly to the Christian Right: the bastion of sin with the best of taste, sophistication and ...compassion. It is unconquerable in its fight for human dignity and rights. Many have tried to scale its walls of liberalism and failed, simply because the only kind of people it cannot tolerate is the intolerant. And while it will give succor to the lowest of the low, it will not harbor the highest purveyors of righteous arrogance.

It fairly glows amidst contempt by the radical Christian Right. 

Home to the only "Emperor of The United States", to washer-women-turned-society matrons, to drag queens, to political prostitutes, to architectural oddities and to porn shops, San Francisco is certainly a candidate for the ultimate disdainful sobriquet "demonspawn." It is a town of the devil and one which the Christian Right prays daily for two or three more shake-ups along the San Andreas (preferably more than 8.0 to be thorough). 

Maybe God Has Changed His Mind

If anyone is tired of the incessant carping by the Christian Right about San Francisco's sinful status, it might just be ... God. After all, after Colorado Springs (the Vatican of the West in Christian Right Circles), Virginia Beach is the cornerstone of morality, with Pat Robertson and his CBN empire at its center. Why, Pat Robertson is on a one-on-one basis with God every day, it seems. But God may be tired of having His name used in vain: against people instead of for them, as a weapon against enemies as opposed to a support for friends and neighbors. He might be tired of the incessant invocation of His name to do harm to people (ala imprecatory prayer). He might look at wickedness in a completely different light these days and might consider a prosperity pulpit pimp not quite the worthy proponent of the kind of righteousness He envisioned.

Mark Twain once said "God made Man because He was disappointed in the monkey." 

Maybe Frankenstorm is a demonstration of God's contempt for Pat Robertson and His admiration for those "people who embrace the darkness."

Just a thought.

   

Fighting The Righteous Right With 300 OpEdNews Articles: Was It Worth It?

There is something to be said about a passion for exposing hypocrisy.

"... and then Dr.Meade thundered, losing his temper: 'Our men have fought without shoes before and without food and won victories. And they will fight again and win!...Think of - think of Thermopylae!'

...'They died to the last man at Thermopylae didn't they, Doctor?' Rhett asked, and his lips twitched with suppressed laughter."

Articles on religion and politics are like warriors in the culture wars: they can attack or defend whenever necessary. So when my number for OpEdNews came to 300, I could only think of : Thermopylae...
and Rhett Butler.


I have a thing for Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, not only for the feisty character of Scarlett O'Hara, but for the wit and cynicism of Rhett Butler. A close examination of the characters reveals that Mitchell gives every character a certain amount of depth by revealing what their thoughts are, but not Rhett - he is observed in detail, but his inner self and motives are always mysteries left to the imagination of the reader. I like to think that his motives, his cynicism, his passion run too deep for analysis. Rhett Butler is passionate about life, people and beauty in the world, but he never lets on. He must be a tremendously frustrated, closeted writer.


That is one of his personality traits I differ with: I am certainly not reticent to write about my passion.


Passion. The culture wars do not lack for passion. OpEdNews makes a writer's work look serious and effortless in the same tome and at the same time. That's because there so much passion. Writers like Chris Hedges go about skewering the Right with an intensity and passion that seems almost inbred and the writing seems effortless. Would that were really so, at least with my own fare: an article can take me from 5 hours to three days.


Yes, every day writing about the culture wars can be said to be filled with passion, yet there's irony in that each day's writer's routine (at least mine) is frustrated by a tedium which must be endured to form the next soldier.


News Feeds: The Culture Warrior's Life's Blood and The Near Death Of His Soul. 


I often wonder if people realize how many news feeds a culture war writer has to go through each day to cull the best ideas - or how demoralizing news feeds are to someone who has to deal with the exigencies of the culture wars created by Rightwing politics and the Christian Right. They're a dream and a curse: emergencies on the screen occur as if they are there to personally frustrate writers like me. Yet each morning I wake up to a string of headlines for AP, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, LGBTQ Nation,  Firedog Lake, Crooks and Liars, Joe.My.God., Religion Dispatches, Right Wing Watch, Think Progress, The Daily Dish (Andrew Sullivan), OpEdNews and my own blog, The Devil and Dan Vojir (to prove to myself that I actually lived through yesterday). After perusing them with as much elation or rancor I can stomach, I can finally savor my morning coffee - usually my third cup.


News feeds can kill the creative spirit, however: the barrage of news is frightening and it often looks as if absolutely EVERYTHING has been written already. The soul is almost fatally challenged. I keep reminding myself that writers like Chris Hedges, Andrew Sullivan and Joe Jervis must also endure the same barrage of news, commentaries, trivia, anecdotes, and WTFs. They sift through it all to come up with ten, twenty posts a day. All original. God! Sometimes I hate their prolific, creative asses.


The State of Religion and Politics Today: The Rise Of Demonizers and The Fall Of Reason


One might think that writing on religion and politics presents a constant inner, suicidal struggle: to kill yourself now by means of sheer depression or to kill yourself later by means of uncontrollable laughter. Yeah, it's true. With the machinations of Cindy "Japan-is-shaped-like-a-dragon" Jacobs,  Anne Coulter(geist), Pat Robertson, Bryan Fischer, Rick Santorum, Pope Benedict XVI, Concerned Women of America, the NRA, the GOP and FOX/Faux News, it's a wonder that any progressive writer is still alive.


I chose the latter form of suicide: I figure that laughing AT them all while I'm going to my death can cause the most damage: "Against The Assault of Laughter, Nothing Can Stand" - Mark Twain. Yep, I'm going to take as many of them with me as I can.


And I have so many, many potential victims: the demonizers who feed their righteous arrogance by spouting hatred and fake morality are on the rise. Crouching behind the rise in hate groups is the growing number of what Andrew Sullivan calls "religionists" or "Christianists", those people for whom separation of church and state is the greatest biblical "abomination" outside of  homosexuality and women's reproductive rights. They are joined by coat-tail demonizers such as Tea Party Obama-haters.


And with their rise, comes the fall of reason: Kentucky's Creation Museum has spawned a $175 million Noah's Ark theme park (sans dinosaurs, of course). The State of Tennessee has flown in the face of reason by passing an "abstinence only" (non)sex education bill. The GOP denies that there's any war on women while BOTH parties pay their women staffers less than men. To the rest of the world, America has become one big WTF? and is now hiding its conservative and over-religionized head in the sand.

3 years - 300 articles - 250,000+ words - 464 comments - 410,000+ page views

All this begs the question: is any of it worth it? The long days and even longer hours. The frustrating feeling  that one is tilting at windmills. The never ending string of bigots and hypocrites. The constant nurturing of a snarky attitude.  Is there any encouragement? Is there any sense of accomplishment? Is there any sense of ... self?


The drive to communicate in some people (like me) is defeating in that we rarely stop for a response, so a venue like OpEdNews  let's us experience encouragement in many ways: thank God for OpEdNews readers. And as for my own  sense of accomplishment, to me, exposing hypocrisy is exhilarating to the point of orgasm.


You could say that exposing hypocrisy is its own reward.


Dealing With The Depths of Contempt and The Heights of The Orgasms


I have a small black named Katie Scarlett (of course). She has a special perch attached to my desk -a slideout topped with a pad from an old footstool. She routinely scratches at my shoulder to demand attention or treats. But most of the time she lays across the pad with her head slung slightly over the edge of her spot. It may not seem a taxing job for a writer's cat, yet she works tirelessly at being my guardian, my critic, the mirror of my tired soul. She is the innocence I lack. Her presence helps me deal with the highs and lows of writing against the Christofascist Right and Conservative Clowns. She sees me through the depths of contempt and the heights of those orgasms brought about by sadistically skewering hypocrites.


Thank you Katie. Thank you OpEdNews readers.

"We Hate Liberals, Buddhists And Muslims, But We Love Everyone!": Santorum Preacher Revises His Own "Get Out!" Diatribe

Barack Obama had his Jeremiah Wright. John McCain had his John Hagee (and Rod Parsley). Rick Perry had his... Rick Perry. Now Rick Santorum has his Dennis Terry.


In a diatribe against "liberals," Buddhists and Muslims (and by extension, all other political beliefs and religious faiths), Rev. Dennis Terry introduced Rick Santorum and told all of the imagined enemies of America to "Get out!" And while other religious leaders have voiced similar "Christian only" sentiments, it was Terry's vehemence that shook the country. It was a vehemence that laid raw hatred at everyone's feet.


Now Dennis Terry is trying to tell people that the video was "edited" and his comments "twisted." He is about love, after all, as all Christian are taught to love their brothers, even their enemies.


Right.


Just as David Barton revises American history to prove that America was founded as a totally Christian Nation, Terry is revising his own statements and actions right before our eyes (see both videos below). If it weren't so mind-numbingly disingenuous, his response to the blowback would be considered very low comedy.*


The hate-love back-peddling and specious reasoning is all around us, albeit in slightly different forms. Take, for example, Pastor Steven Anderson, who's strip mall church received national notoriety when he called for the death of Obama. When his Faithful Word Baptist Church was listed as a hate group by the SPLC (because of extreme homophobic sentiments), he retorted:


(Right Wing Watch)

"Am I all about hate? No I'm sure I'm more about love than I am hate," Anderson said. "I do hate homosexuals and if hating homosexuals makes our church a hate group then that's what we are."

The church leader, with a Bible in his hand during the interview, said he preaches his hatred for homosexuals and wishes death upon them.

Then there's classic Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association n the same subject: 

That’s the reason we oppose the normalization of homosexuality, it’s not because we don’t like homosexuals it’s because we love them. I mean listen to me, if you love people, if you care about people, if they matter to you, their well-being is important to you, do you want to encourage them, do you want to support a lifestyle, do you want to subsidize and reward and provide special legal protections for behavior that’s gonna make them more likely to experience depression, suicidal ideation, homelessness and domestic violence? 

Disseminating false information is one way to get you listed as a hate group by the SPLC: depression and suicide are caused by he pressures of moralizers like Bryan Fischer, homelessness exists mostly for gay teens kicked out of their homes and domestic violence in gay households is so far below the national average as to be comparatively non-existent. 


Assumptions, purposely skewed reasoning, and generalizations are the stock-in-trade of people like Anderson, Fischer...and Terry: 


1. People do not worship Buddha in the same sense they would worship God. Buddha is NOT a god. 
2.For all the pronouncements of David Barton, the America-was-founded-as-a-Christian-nation meme has never held water with reputable historians. 
3. Not all liberals are "naysayers" and unpatriotic. It has even been argued that people who criticize their own country are, in a sense, more patriotic than their flag-waving compatriots.
4. "Get Out!" means just that: Terry wants people to leave who disagree with him. 
5. Allah is the same God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That's why it is called an Abrahamic religion. Islam reveres the Old Testament of the Bible and Muslims are taught to respect Jesus as a prophet. 


Terry sounds as if he gets his material from the ridiculous Conservapedia.


In addition, Terry also negates the power of his own oratory: his apoplectic "Get Out!" fires hatred from ever pore. It is unqualified hatred, raw and primeval. He can discount his words, but not the tone. 


" 'Patriot' - The person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about."


- Mark Twain.










*Also worthy of note: Terry introduced Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in glowing terms: ""Tony Perkins is perhaps one of the godliest men I've ever known.". The FRC is listed as a hate group by the SPLC.

Tennessee Gets The Call: Slouching Towards Africa, The Lou Engle-Honored State Proudly Touts The Right To Bully

Over four year ago, the state of Tennessee made a proclamation raising "prophet" Lou Engle to genuine religious icon status:

On April 9th, 2007 the One Hundred Fifth General Assembly of the State of Tennessee and the House of Representatives passed a resolution recognizing and blessing TheCall and Lou Engle, passed by the Tennessee state legislature.
A resolution is a deeper legislative act than a "proclamation". A resolution carries more weight of authority, and goes through a more complicated legal process before passing.

And now, Tennessee - the state that never got over the Scopes trial* - is emulating Engle's work in Africa by pushing a bill that would definitely make it OK to bully gays in schools - for religious purposes, of course.

Harassment, intimidation, or bullying prevention task forces, programs, and other initiatives formed by school districts, including any curriculum adopted for such purposes, shall not include materials or training that explicitly or implicitly promote a political agenda, make the characteristics of the victim the focus rather than the conduct of the person engaged in harassment, intimidation, or bullying, or teach or suggest that certain beliefs or viewpoints are discriminatory when an act or practice based on such belief or viewpoint is not a discriminatory practice as defined in 4-21-102(4).

Last July, Gov. Bill Haslam signed into law a measure that prohibits local districts from passing and enforcing any anti-discrimination laws stricter than the ones set down by the state of Tennessee (hint: the state doesn't have any real anti-discrimination laws). The state legislature also created a firestorm in prohibiting educators from discussing homosexuality in schools with the infamous "Don't Say Gay" bill (see video below).

Tennessee has been known for years to house anti-gay hate-mongers ala Fred Phelps, people like Glynis Bethel who pepper-sprayed a woman who protested her anti-gay preaching, then pepper-sprayed the police who took her into custody. And the country made note of the gay bashing attacked instigated by one young man's own preacher father. But the latest attempt by the Tennessee legislature to allow anti-gay bullying is considered a step back in time and culture. Or in a lock-step with the likes of Uganda.

Too Close To Home


But while leaders of the anti-gay movement in Uganda were spurred on by the likes of Lou Engle and The Call (his ministry), the efforts of Engle and his followers in the U.S. have garnered attention mainly for their anti-Muslim attacks, side-lining their influence in local governments like the counties of Tennessee on issues of anti-gay discrimination.


So just who is supporting the bill?


FACT (?)

The leading proponent of the bill is the Family Action Council of Tennessee, a social conservative group linked to Focus On The Family and to the virulently anti-gay Family Research Council. And the leader of FACT is former Republican state senator, David Fowler who now admits that he has helped create a firestorm, but seems to be rather proud of it: In an interview, Fowler said, "the purpose is to stop bullying, not create special classes of people who are more important than others."

In the past, the denial of Fowler and FACT concerning anti-gay bullying in the suicide of teen Jacob Rogers demonstrated how uncompromising in its attitude towards teen sexual identity many people in Tennessee are:

The Nashville Scene reported that, according to FACT, Rogers' suicide was a result of "the rotten fruit of the all-about-me individualist culture that comes when we deny the existence of God and his image in us."

But for some people, the way to stop bullying is to yank the kids of FACT's families out of school: "You're going to hell" is a common bullying tactic too often heard by gay teens across the country and it is this particular tactic that FACT wants to preserve.

Because Tennessee has over 35 designated hate groups in the state, it ranks as one of the most serious outposts of hate in the country per capita.**

FACT will definitely make the total 36.

*Rhea county, where the Scopes Trial was held, celebrates Scopes' conviction annually. It is also the county that tried to get the state to pass a resolution allowing it to criminalize homosexuality.
**According to the Southern Poverty Law Center. There are 9 KKK affiliates in the state.

And finally, the rhetoric of Lou Engle:


If we’re struggling with a homosexual, same-sex desire, LET THE BIBLE KILL YOU, rather than make it easier for you, and say well, there must be a better scriptural answer to this …

GOOD Brain? BAD Brain?: Scientific Study Shows Gray Matter Differences In Political Views

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself

- Unless You're Republican

My parents were Republicans. They worried ...a lot. I often wondered what they worried about, but when I asked, the usual response was "Ya never know." They were children of the Depression and as such thought that another one was right around the corner. They also saved ...a lot. But a national catastrophe changed their party affiliation. It was called Vietnam. That and having a son on a fragile teacher's deferment. I never wound up going to Nam, and my parents never went back to being Republican, such was the legacy of Richard Nixon.

A new scientific study out of London has created a bit of a stir: for the first time, conservative and liberal brains were compared in physical terms with the emphasis on political thinking (not as much of an oxymoron as one would think). 

"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," lead author Ryota Kanai from University College London's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience said in a statement. "Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure."

"Individuals with a large amygdala are more sensitive to fear," and might therefore be "more inclined to integrate conservative views into their belief system," Kanai and colleagues wrote. "On the other hand, our finding of an association between anterior cingulate cortex volume and political attitudes may be linked with tolerance to uncertainty" -- which may allow people to "accept more liberal views."

Sensitivity To Fear vs. Tolerance To Uncertainty.

We can certainly see these hypotheses played out in today's Christian Right and it's relation to the Republican Party. The Party's raison d'etre is playing to financial fears: "Social Security will be broke," "Big Government is using YOUR money to finance abortions," or "Democrats always raise taxes to pay for someone else's problems." To some, playing on people's fears is what religion is all about. Together, religion and conservatism are a powerful proponent of the worst fear: fear of the unknown. 

Liberal minds, on the other hand, can process conflicting information easily and possess a more rational outlook: how can you fear something when you don't know what it is? Find out the details, work out the conflicts, leave an open mind and don't be so afraid of people or you pre-judge them without knowing them. 

And who gets the sobriquet of "fearmonger" the most? Sean Hannity or Alan Colmes? Michele Bachmann or Barney Frank? Ann Coulter(geist) or Bill Maher? Progressives are more open to the future so that they can concentrate more on the present.

One of the biggest fear mongers today is Tony Perkins of Family Research Council: gay activists are going to "control the government," Obamacare is full of "death panels" and Planned Parenthood is out to "destroy the American Family." In fact, if you peruse Perkins' writings, you will be hard pressed to see any positive or mitigating factors to today's morals/"homosexual agenda"/pro-choice/feminist-ridden society. Nearly every daily email from the FRC or FRC Action!, besides headlined with the most awful of puns (he thinks he's being witty), is an alert to something dastardly happening on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Even his "Christmas Card" was a political warning of doom and gloom.

Of course, the study doesn't exactly let liberals get off the hook, either, at least not emotionally speaking: liberals tend to be more conflicted about problems and an inability to take definitive steps can result: e.g. the Democratic Party's reluctance to capitalize on certain aspects and the shortcomings of the Republican Party. Also: President Obama's eagerness to compromise has been seen as a sign of weakness by Democrats.

I can't help but think, however, that being a conflicted liberal is much better (for the sake of humanity) than being a fearful conservative. Fear can result in bigotry and, on the part of the Christian Right, a strong tendency towards a reactionary righteous arrogance.  

And righteous arrogance kills.

A wish for simpler conclusions

The study is already being debated: the fact that one of the authors was Colin Firth (yes, THAT Colin Firth) has raised some eyebrows. To set matters straight, the Oscar-winning actor, commissioned the study but did not actually do the research or come up with the findings: an intellectual curiosity about political leanings and the brain simply morphed into a serious study. And while the correlation of political leanings to physical brain matter may exist, whether or not there is any causality is still open to question: does the brain develop according to political preferences or do the political preferences depend solely upon the brain's makeup? 

Ah, my liberal brain is certainly in conflict with the issue! After all, I just want it to be a matter of polar opposites: liberal brain intelligent, conservative brain, dumb, or liberal brain open, conservative brain locked up air-tight. Would that scientists could delve into Michele Bachmann's brain (or what passes for it!).

While I'm musing on that last, see what happens when brains get physically mixed up. Until then, don't be too afraid of anything, that's waaaay too Republican!

Because Gloating For God Is Soooo Good!: Jacobs, Joyner, Pierce and TamtamPam Delight in Japan's Tragedy

Righteous Indignation Update:


 - Cindy Jacobs thinks Japan's tragedy was warranted because it's shaped like a dragon.
 - Rick Joyner thinks that demonic forces have been unleashed by Japan's downfall.
 - Chuck Pierce simply says: "I told you so!"
...And TamtamPam comes clean, possibly too late.

I can't accuse Cindy Jacobs, Rick Joyner or Chuck Pierce (all prophets) of being what I call "God's Ambulance Chasers" simply because while insulting Japan during its recent tragedies they did not ask for donations of any kind in relief for Japan. They didn't rain Bibles upon the beleaguered country either. Instead, they cut right to the core of the matter and insulted Japan directly and without mercy by ... gloating.


They gloated about Japan not heeding warnings for its evil ways, its idolatry, its demonic Hello Kitty* They said that Japan's atheism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Shintoism, brought about the events in Japan just as surely as if Japan had directly asked for them from God.


Cindy Jacobs

I have personally felt that one of the reasons Japan was such a hard group for the gospel was the fact that they have had a direct link with the Imperial family and a direct link with the sun goddess, Amaterasu... this link with Amaterasu and sun worship was reinstated in a ceremony in which the new Emperor once again participated and "spent the night with the goddess" after eating the sacred rice.

On the other hand, if you look at it another way, this island, Hokkaido, looks like the head of a dragon with the body being the rest of Japan. The people of Asia have worshipped the dragon for 5,000 years.

This from a woman who sees herself as a latter-day Oracle of Delphi, babbling in "tongues" she can't interpret (and hopes no on else can either). 

What Jacobs doesn't seem to comprehend is that the Emperor of Japan's role in government is strictly symbolic and that the dragon symbolizes many things in Asia but has seldom been actually "worshiped."

Chuck Pierce went to Japan to put the fear of God into them in 2005 and God told him that Japan would be shaken and brought to its knees because it was a "stronghold of spiritism"** Nobody told Pierce that spiritism died out in Japan about 1920 although it was more plausible than, say, Scientology. 

Rick Joyner stated that the earthquake and tsunami will eventually unleash demonic Nazism in America, because in order to shore up its collapsed economy, Japan will call in America's debt and ruin America, catapulting the country into the talons of evil.

Joyner's visions (he once met with Jesus and the saints - although he couldn't tell which ones) have entertained people for years. He has not met with approval in Japan, however. 

People like Jacobs, Pierce and Joyner are not new to the nation-insulting scene: Pat Robertson capped a terrific career as an insulter with his - now iconic - Haiti-made-a-pact-with-the-devil statement. But at least he still requested aid for Haiti! These people don't even pretend to have any semblance of compassion for Japan. After God's Ambulance Chasers do their dirty work for them, they may deign to visit the Land of the Rising Sun and haughtily declare their august presence, ready to receive adulation as "prophets." 

Yes, we should send our apologies to Japan along with disaster relief. Just don't look for them in these unholy three.

TamtamPam

The video you're about to see below is one TamtamPam (screen name) who delights in "trolling" YouTube*** This video (as intended) riled a lot of people because: a. they thought the video was for real and hated the insults heaped upon Japan and its disasters and b. they found out it was a ruse to get them to feel that way. 

Parody is for the sake of laughter and comic release of tension. It is done with broad strokes to the character or situation. Sheer imitation, no matter how good, however, is not parody and should never think of itself as such. Pam's was a virtuoso performance in that she captured a person we knew could actually be like that: a dippy teenager so filled with righteous glee at the tragedy of others. She was like the offspring of people like Joyner, Jacobs, and Pierce. 

Had she properly labeled the video parody or done it in broader strokes (although one cannot see how much broader she could get in imitating such a dip), she might now be getting offers from Hollywood or Saturday Night Live. Her performance, however, backfired because the torrent of "flaming" she unleashed became too much. I don't know whether to applaud her or scold her for the video. I'll let you decide. A rather pertinent observation from one viewer:

If people ignored trolls, the trolls wouldn't get the attention. Without the attention there's no point in being a troll. I've riled people up for fun before and it is indeed fun. Seeing people rage over someone else's opinion, regardless of what it is, is amusing to almost no end. Rather crude to use this event to do it, but it worked; she's queen of the trolls now.

*Under the category of "I'm not making this sh*t up": Hello Kitty was believed to be created by a couple who made a contract with the Devil in order to save their daughter from cancer. 

**wikipedia: The main characteristic of Spiritism is its emphasis on the study and investigation of the Spiritist Doctrine in its triple aspects, scientific, philosophical and religious (moral).

*** wikipedia: Troll:  an internet term for a person who, through willful action, attempts to disrupt a community or garner attention and controversy through provocative messages