... all the news that's fit to print runs out! (OMG! What am I saying? I'll be sick of him within a week. And the stories may run for months! For Years! Sheesh!)
More to the point: this site has been very very popular with the "What next, Rick Warren?" set. Page loads have picked up enormously! But this site is (he writes, with a guilt-stricken face) not strictly Rick Warren (crash!) This is a site covering (sometimes with roses, most times with manure) religion and politics.So those of you who have come because of Rick Warren - you're very, very welcome.
But please STAY! Please include this site in your rss feeds. You won't regret it (O.K., you might if your a masochistic Christofascist or a right wingnut politician who thinks Sarah Palin is God's gift to America and the Republican party).
And if you like the irreverent take on current affairs, use one of the icons to spread the word.I am also on Twitter and Facebook. So please feel free to connect!
PSSSSST: Easter is coming up and with it the most BLASPHEMOUS, IRREVERENT, SACRILIGIOUS series about Christianity and Entertainment. Starts Easter Sunday, the most blasphemous day of the year!
Typical of Rick Warren to latch on to a phrase and milk it for what it's worth (hey, "Whatever It Takes") even if it's not true.Not in the slightest.
"This is one thing, friends, that all politicians tend to agree on. Both Barack Obama and John McCain, I flat-out asked both of them: what is your definition of marriage? And they both said the same thing -- it is the traditional, historic, universal definition of marriage: one man and one woman, for life. And every culture for 5,000 years, and every religion for 5,000 years, has said the definition of marriage is between one man and a woman.
"One man one woman ... and every culture for 5,000 years, and every religion for 5,000 years." First of all, let's get a stupid error out of the way: if Warren believes in creationism as much as he says he does, it's 6000 years, not 5000. Actually - as of this writing - 6012 years, 167 days. Back in the 17th century a Bishop James Ussher calculated the age of the earth by totaling all "begats" from Adam through Christ and beyond. And he was VERY specific: it was October 23, 4004 BCE (AM - Ussher didn't have a Rolex so he couldn't tell us hours, minutes and seconds, but he did know it was sometime in the morning!)
Now let's go on to the more obvious error: "One man one woman." Not "one man, 300 women" or one man, 150 concubines." If Warren is such an inerrantist (he professes to be) he totally negates polygamy. Totally. According to Jewish law and the stories of the Bible, polygamy was legal and, for Israelite leaders, even necessary. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
Now let's get to the "every society in history." Of the 1250 societies studied by various archeological and anthropological entities, only about 400 were heterosexual and/or monogamous. Four were actually polyandrous (women could have more than one man - the guys had to share!)
From wikipedia:
Polygamy may be polygyny (one man having more than one wife at the same time) or polyandry (one woman having more than one husband at the same time) and it has been practiced throughout history in almost all cultures and sanctioned by various religions where necessary to meet population or economic needs.
What about love? Yeah, so what about it. It wasn't until several hundred years ago that love began to be recognized as a basis for marriage. The two didn't "go together like horse and carriage" simply because marriage was looked upon as a legal expedient: dowry and legitimacy of offspring were really the only two reasons for marriage. The ancient Greeks (always the front runners to good breeding), did not even have the same concept of marriage as we have today: a woman was considered more of a "sister" to the husband than a "wife" and taken in as such by the husband's family.
So is Rick Warren openly lying about marriage? Yes. Why? Because he would have had to learn SOMETHING in his 5th rate Baptist College about marriage. Anyway, all he had to do was read the Bible to know that "one man one woman" would have been a joke to ancient societies. With "One man one woman for 5000 years in every culture, every religion", Warren depends heavily on the fact that Americans have always hated history in the classroom and not much of it ever sank in. Yeah, Americans really suck when it comes to knowing history - theirs or anyone else's.
But taking advantage of the historigraphical illiterati is WRONG. Warren knows it. Dobson knows it. Robertson knows it. Parsley knows it. Hagee knows it. Copeland knows it. Even Hinn knows it (but doesn't care - at least not when he's choreographing 20 people to fall down in sequence!).
So every one of Rick Warren's pronouncements should come with a disclaimer:
"All statements subject to fact-checking. Consult your local historian."
Fox Believes in Evolution? Boy, Will Their Viewer Base Be Pissed!
Fox News always seems to surpass itself when "newsworthy" items present themselves. The "Fair and Balanced" is always at the lowered end of the seesaw, heavy with brilliantly awful commentary ...and not much else. So it is with immense surprise that I noted this article. While Dan Savage invited comments about the article's topic, I latched on to the fact that the premise of it doesn't rest in the fact that primates barter for sex, but that it presents evolution as a fact, if a little misogynistic.
Forwarded from Dan Savage's site with SLOG:
Chimps Exchange Meat for Sex, Study Finds
Wednesday, April 08, 2009 By Clara Moskowitz
The oldest profession isn't restricted to humans. A new study found that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex.
By stealthily following a group of about 20 adult chimpanzees in Côte d’Ivoire's Taï National Park, behavioral ecologists Cristina Gomes and Christophe Boesch of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany carefully noted which male chimpanzees copulated with which females. The researchers found that she-chimps put out more often for males that shared food with them at least once, compared to stingy males who never offered meat. Apparently, buying dinner is a good way to improve the chances of getting lucky on a date, even if you're a chimp. The primates' food-for-sex barter occurs indirectly, over the course of weeks or months, with males seeming to accrue credit with the ladies by plying them with meat killed on a hunt.
Forget the fact that Fox News is normally prurient about sex (even of the animal kind), but to state the findings of an evolutionary anthropologist! Now THAT'S news!
Has Fox turned completely atheist? Is Rupert Murdoch going senile? If the Southern Baptist Convention gets wind of this, will they boycott Fox News? (Problematic: what, then, would they watch for news?). Will chimpanzees boycott Fox News because it implicates them in prostitution? Will chimpanzee hookers tell their stories on "Fox & Friends"?
The Spin Will Make You Dizzy For A Long, Long Time!
Thus did the Iowa court -- as my colleague at the National Organization for Marriage, Brian Brown, said -- "misuse the law to impose an untruth on unwilling Iowans. Same-sex unions are not marriages, and Iowans should not be forced to treat them as such by law."
The Christian Right (aka "social conservatives" or "Christofascists) is scrambling to plaster over the state of Vermont with righteousness.
The Democratic Party has now thrown its lot against the principles and priorities of the majority of Americans in favor of its richly endowed base of gay supporters. Democrats are the party of gay marriage -- a position opposed by 55 percent of the American people in the latest polls.
But the Vermont same-sex marriage bill was a breakthrough in another way which has received zero attention in the press. For the very first time, a legislature has formally acknowledged that gay marriage poses a serious threat to the religious liberties of Vermonters who disagree with the government's new definition of marriage.
"Richly endowed base" "party of gay marriage" "zero attention in the press" "poses a serious threat to religious liberties"Oh, brother! I have a feeling that the Christians vs Lions debate will be raging for some time. All of the above phrases are patently false, but the "threat to religious liberties" one piece of fiction Christofascists refuse to let go of. (Warning: I don't go for the "social conservatives" label. It's too late and too limp. Christians who scream "religious liberty" yet are totally intolerant of other religions are Christofascists).
Witness Rev. Rick Warren, who on "Larry King Live" this week came very close to recanting his support for Proposition 8. Rick did not quite do so. What he did, instead, is what many good people will do in the face of the massive campaign of intimidation and harassment designed to silence Christians and others of good will who support marriage: He dodged. Rick said, more or less: I am not now and never have been an anti-gay marriage "activist."
Warren also said "I never never endorsed Proposition 8" You can view here what Warren thinks is NOT an endorsement. He has a funny way of viewing things to suit his convenience.
Is Vermont the beginning of a new willingness on the part of the powerful gay-marriage movement to let Christians be Christians? Or is Rick Warren the future of Christians in America?
Letting true and sincere Christians be Christians is one thing. Letting Christians be Christofascist is another. And since Warren lied so boldly and vehemently, I can only hope Rick Warren is not the future of Christians in America.
Is Rick Warren living in some parallel universe which is not totally in sync with ours? Or did he have certain memories removed from his brain?
People have chided Barack Obama for "living" with a teleprompter, but perhaps Warren does: it seems that he makes public declarations so often that he can't remember all of the ideologies he spouted in front of one.
Sorry, Rick. I think I'd remember that one.
NOTE: Some of his statements are quite dimwitted: unless you're a "young earther" and never read a history book let alone one on sociology, the "5000 years" and "every society/civilization" comment is so bogus as to be irrational. Of 1200 societies in the last 10,000 years, only 150 espoused one-man-one-woman marriage. Neither David nor Solomon believed in it if you want Biblical examples. The "2% of the population" is bogus as well.
Go to the Saddleback Church's statements on homosexuality. For some reason the links are screwed up. Notice also: the page has changed from text to audio. Why? Warren likes to use 2, 3 or 4 DIFFERENT versions of the Bible (one of which, by the way, was never intended to be a Bible but a paraphrased version), and with audio, citation of chapter and version makes the listener believe that all citations are from the same bible version.
Rick Warren on Larry King. I caught a snippet (Yes, I will view the whole program tomorrow!). King was asking him about the Iowa Supreme Court Decision on gay marriage.
Did Warren say what I heard him say? Re: Prop 8: "I sent letters apologizing to my gay friends."
HUH???
"I know gay leaders who know me a know that I would NEVER say things like homosexuality is the same as pedophilia and bestiality."
WHAT??
We may not be able to point to the spot where that statement was EDITED OUT OF YOUR WEBSITE, but it WAS THERE!!
His bad dye job must have affected his brain!
WHAT GAY FRIENDS? WHAT GAY LEADERS? LET'S HAVE SOME PROOF, WARREN!And for God's sake, don't hire the awful actors the Mormon Church got for their Utah Boys Ranch commercials!
In my post of 3/29 titled I Hope Rick Warren Fails, I voiced my fear of the man. Today, I am declaring myself to be an official enemy of Rick Warren. Unless someone can produce evidence to the contrary, I believe Rick Warren to be a key leader of Christofascism who wishes the total annihilation of homosexuals worldwide.
Alright, I'm a crackpot. But hear me out, please.
First, there's a sequence of events:
Back in August, when I wrote about the lack of compassion people like Rick Warren had towards gays during the early Age of AIDS in a post titled An Open Letter To The Mrs. Rick Warrens of America.I sent a link to Kay Warren's CAO (Chief AIDS Officer) Elizabeth Styffe. I received a warm response letter that now looks like too much BS.
I hear you and hurt for the terrible ways that people have suffered alone. Meeting you, a person living with HIV, is what I love to do everyday. And you're right, churches with an HIV ministry are tragically rare and were horrifically absent early on in the Pandemic. (my emphasis)
We're trying to change that reality and are giving our lives to help mobilize the church...and people everywhere to care and act and engage.
Then after a dozen mea culpas:
As a member of the Orange Country HIV Planning Council, I am constantly learning and working with Kay to make an impact and care and engage others in doing the same. We want your feedback...people living with HIV are our passion.
After I received this fatuous email, I then requested if I could post a copy for my blog.Surprise! Never heard from her again.I posted it anyway.
Then came the '08 campaign, the "Forum" bringing together Obama and McCain, the war over Prop 8 and Warren's endorsement. Any semblence of tolerance for this man began to errode. Of course, the invocation at Obama's inauguration fueled more suspicions, but what really sent me on the trail of this post's subject was Warren's statements about homosexuality in his website - the ones that are still there as well as the ones that were yanked out. No matter what he said about "gay friends" he stuck to his Purpose Driven motto: "Whatever it takes."
And now an indication (to me) that he supports homosexual genocide.
To start this form of genocide, he has enlisted two African brutes: President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda. In both republics, homosexual acts are illegal, with Uganda's penalty being life imprisonment.
So this is the serious question: just how much influence does Warren have on these two countries? Listen to Ann Garrison's interview on KPFA last January. It certainly casts a shadow over "I have gay friends! I've been to their houses for dinner!" Both Rwanda and Uganda were declared the world's first "Purpose Driven" nations. BFD. Warren's influence has suppressed HIV prevention funds, giving only to those agencies who stress "abstinence only."
The way the two nations are going, however, it might not be long before homosexuality is declared punishable by death.
(Kampala) The Ugandan government vowed to move forward with a bill that would toughen the country’s already harsh punishment of homosexuality.
Sex between two people of the same sex already is a criminal offense in Uganda - punishable by life imprisonment - although there are no records of any recent convictions.
Now the government is prepared to expand the law, making it a criminal offense to be gay. The legislation would make any public display of being gay a crime.
International human rights and LGBT groups have called on Kampala to drop the bill and repeal the sodomy law.
Last month the Obama administration formally endorsed a U.N. declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.
To the Rick Warrens of the world, an act like that will never do. As a prime example of their hatred, Uganda’s leading Muslim cleric called for gays to be rounded up and marooned on an island in Lake Victoria until they die. Yep, that's Uganda, The Purpose Driven Nation.
So, has Warren set his sights on any other nations as "Purpose Driven?" How about these countries where the penalty for being gay is death:
SomaliaSudan Mauritania Nigeria Iran Iraq Jordan Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates Yemen
Or where homosexuality is illegal:
Comoros Djibouti Eritrea Ethiopia Kenya Malawi Mauritius Mozambique Seychelles Tanzania Zambia Zimbabwe Angola Cameroon Principe Algeria Egypt Libya Morocco Tunisia Botswana Lesotho Nambia Swaziland Benin Burkina Faso The Gambia Ghana Guinea Liberia Mali Niger Senegal Sierra Leone Togo
That makes THIRTY-NINE African countries Rick Warren can play God in. Thirty-nine potential "Purpose Driven" nations.Thirty-nine areas where gays will be beaten, imprisoned and (possibly) executed. You'll never hear Warren applauding Obama's endorsement of the U.N. declaration.
But you might hear is "Go ahead. Whatever it takes."
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Mark Twain
American, Author Quotes
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PSSSSST: Easter is coming up and with it the most BLASPHEMOUS, IRREVERENT, SACRILIGIOUS series about Christianity and Entertainment. Starts Easter Sunday, the most blasphemous day of the year!
PSSSSST: Easter is coming up and with it the most BLASPHEMOUS, IRREVERENT, SACRILIGIOUS series about Christianity and Entertainment. Starts Easter Sunday, the most blasphemous day of the year!
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