What Does Her Witch-Hunter Say?

Maybe The Devil Made Her Do It! Quick Get An Exorcist!

Some people do crazy things to stay in the limelight, but cutting off your nose to spite your face is very stupid.

"I'm a fighter. I LOVE a challenge." Oh, right. She quit because...ah, she's thinking about Alaska! Too bad most of Alaska didn't feel that kind of concern from its governor for over a year. And when you give a press conference while looking as if you're on speed, then your REALLY stupid.

One pundit called her "brilliant." Being a non-governor for a year, then quitting before your term is up is not "brilliant." It's suspicious. It's grandstanding. It's insulting (to Alaska, a sort of in-your-face "F*ck You!.") It's cowardly.

It's Palin.

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Nate Beeler - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

Attack Of The 50-Foot Christian! Or...Honk If You Can't Take It Anymore!

And They Think THEY'RE Being Persecuted?

They're EVERYWHERE! Yelling at you! Tormenting you! They're on t-shirts. They're on jewelry. They're on candles at Walgreens. They're in the sky on the top of steeples. But worst of all, they're on the road.

The slogans, the symbols, the blond, blue-eyed Jesus staring at you, all the trappings of religion smother us, but nowhere is it more evident than on the side of the road: those preachy billboards promoting religion as if being sanctimonious inside of a church wasn't enough. It's a very disconcerting and ugly form of evangelism: roadside admonitions to repent because "you KNOW you're a SINNER!" They admonish you and insult you (in most cases, your intelligence). Like some righteous prizefighter, they keep pummeling you while you're driving.

And there' nothing you can do about their zealotry. If you close your eyes, you might crash the car, be killed and go to hell! There's nothing insidious about them: they're not as small as a bumper sticker, nor as campy as a glow-in-the-dark dashboard Jesus. They hit you with full force. Bam! Bam! Bam! And that's when you wish your car's guidance system could show you where they are by flashing big red arrows. "Danger, Danger, Will Robinson! Proselytizing ahead!"

Seriously, where does freedom of speech end and self-righteous arrogance begin?

Out From Underneath His Rock: Rick Warren To Speak (His mind?)To American Muslims

They Couldn't Get Rod Parsley?

Ever since his no-show on George Stephanopoulos' This Week on Easter Sunday (pulpit varnish fumes, you know) Rick Warren has been keeping a relatively low profile, but he's bound to catch some high profile publicity on Saturday. Okay, the "rock" comment in the post title is a bit crude, but the man does not deserve one iota of respect. (Following this are pieces of a debate between him and Sam Harris that I've annotated - the man cannot reason worth, ah...fecal matter!)

Pastor Rick Warren To Address American Muslims

By RACHEL ZOLL, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Times have changed for the Islamic Society of North America and for Sayd Syeed, who leads the group's interfaith outreach. In a sign of growing acceptance of U.S. Muslims, one of the most prominent religious leaders in the country, evangelical pastor Rick Warren, will speak at the Islamic Society's annual convention this weekend. Representatives from the two largest streams of American Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements, will also be there to highlight their recently formed partnerships with the Muslim group.

"The landscape of religion in America is changing," Syeed said. "America itself has reached a certain level of fulfillment in terms of diversity of faith."

Unfortunately, that "level of fulfillment" is still very, very low on the tolerance meter. There are people in this country who still think President Obama is a Muslim. Diversity is one thing, accepting diversity is another.

The Islamic Society, an umbrella association for tens of thousands of Muslims, has worked for years to persuade leaders of other faiths to attend its convention, a massive family reunion in its 46th year that draws about 30,000 people.

In recent years, the society has prominently denounced terrorism, including terror by Hamas, and has endorsed a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. The organization also elected its first female president, Ingrid Mattson, who participated in the National Cathedral service for President Barack Obama the day after his inaugural.

Syeed said that he and Warren, a Southern Baptist and author of "The Purpose Driven Life," have worked together on proj ects fighting malaria and advocating for people with HIV and AIDS.

But ONLY IN AFRICA - not the U.S. Look back on some of my posts here and here. Warren has yet to produce his stamp of approval on any AIDS agency in this country - at least one that accepts gays and its prevention program doesn't preach "abstinence only." Remember: AP's Rachel Zoll labeled Warren correctly when she wrote (as if in parenthesis) "a Southern Baptist."

The convention will not be the first time Warren has addressed an American Muslim group... But the Islamic Society gathering is by far his most dramatic display of friendship with U.S. Muslims. Warren would not comment ahead of the event.

That's because he's not prepared. What he REALLY wants to say and what he WILL say are two vastly different things. When he waddles up to that podium, he won't see Muslims. Instead, he'll envision a sea of (eventual) converts... with lots of money. And for a moment, he'll be nonplussed as to which speech he'll use. If he gets ballsy and insinuates that Islam is not as valid as his religion, he'll be mocked and scourged by the media. If he uses nothing but sweet unification phrases, then someone will eventually drag the bottom of the river for his hypocritical soul: calling for the assassination of Ahmadinejad would be a start, then working backwards from there it should be easy to find some slanderous quips a la Rod Parsley.

But let's wait and see how much innocuous pablum he can muster without looking totally stupid.

Remember bloggers: this Saturday may be the day when Warren's persona may be riddled with hypocritically inane statements. Make the most of it! Find out everything he's ever said about Islam - good, bad, ugly or just plain nuts.

This just in: Now right-wing WorldNewsDaily.com is castigating Warren:

Joseph Farah

While millions of other Americans will be celebrating Independence Day weekend, Rick Warren, often called "America's Pastor," will be serving as the keynote speaker for a Saudi-backed Muslim group that promotes a radical strain of Wahhabi Islam in about 80 percent of U.S. mosques.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of Rick Warren's bad judgments.

...

I don't know what Warren's agenda is. He would probably say he doesn't have one. But I can tell you the effect of his appearance – it is designed to disinfect and rehabilitate a group that is dangerous and subversive to U.S. national security.

But it should surprise no one, at this point, that Rick Warren will be there. One of the first times I ever wrote about Rick Warren was in 2006 when he took an equally misguided trip to Syria to meet with dictator Bashar Assad and praise him for his pleasant treatment of Christians. Syria was then and remains today one of the world's leading state sponsors of Islamic terrorism. Almost every terrorist group in the world maintains offices there. Nevertheless, Rick Warren said, while in Syria, that the country "does not allow extremism of any kind."

And in another article

What are we to make of such mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, namby-pamby hokum? It's a great illustration of America's most prominent church leader equivocating and backtracking and saying almost nothing coherent so that he will offend no one.

BEHOLD! HE SAITH THE TRUTH! ---NOT!

Below is my analysis (poor, but I'll own up to it) of Rick Warren's fuzzy, erratic, and totally dysfunctional reasoning.

The Way Warren Thinks (a discourse between Warren and Sam Harris moderated by Newsweek)

God Debate: Sam Harris vs. Rick Warren

At the Summit: On a cloudy California day, the atheist Sam Harris sat down with the Christian pastor Rick Warren to hash out Life's Biggest Question—Is God real? A NEWSWEEK exclusive.

Newsweek

April 9, 2007 issue - Rick Warren is as big as a bear, with a booming voice and easygoing charm. Sam Harris is compact, reserved and, despite the polemical tone of his books, friendly and mild. Warren, one of the best-known pastors in the world, started Saddleback in 1980; now 25,000 people attend the church each Sunday. Harris is softer-spoken; paragraphs pour out of him, complex and fact-filled—as befits a Ph.D. student in neuroscience. At NEWSWEEK's invitation, they met in Warren's office recently and chatted, mostly amiably, for four hours. Jon Meacham moderated. Excerpts follow.

JON MEACHAM: Rick, since you're the home team, we'll start with Sam. Sam, is there a God in the sense that most Americans think of him?

SAM HARRIS: There's no evidence for such a God, and it's instructive to notice that we're all atheists with respect to Zeus and the thousands of other dead gods whom now nobody worships.

MEACHAM: Rick, what is the evidence of the existence of the God of Abraham?

RICK WARREN: I see the fingerprints of God everywhere. I see them in culture. I see them in law. I see them in literature. I see them in nature. I see them in my own life. Trying to understand where God came from is like an ant trying to understand the Internet. Even the most brilliant scientist would agree that we only know a fraction of a percent of the knowledge of the universe.

Warren didn't answer the question. Meacham asked for EVIDENCE while Warren only told him about his own observations. And if we "know only a fraction of a percent" of the universe, who is Warren to say that his observations are true?

HARRIS: Any scientist must concede that we don't fully understand the universe. But neither the Bible nor the Qur'an represents our best understanding of the universe. That is exquisitely clear.

WARREN: To you.

And to others who have knowledge and faith both. Warren is trying to make it seem as if blind believers the only ones who know the truth.

HARRIS: There is so much about us that is not in the Bible. Every specific science from cosmology to psychology to economics has surpassed and superseded what the Bible tells us is true about our world.

MEACHAM: Sam, does the Christian you address in your books have to believe that God wrote the Bible and that it is literally true?

HARRIS: ...in my mind the Bible and the Qur'an are just books, written by human beings. There are sections of the Bible that I think are absolutely brilliant and poetically unrivaled, and there are sections of the Bible which are the sheerest barbarism, yet profess to prescribe a divinely mandated morality—where do I start? Books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Exodus and First and Second Kings and Second Samuel—half of the kings and prophets of Israel would be taken to The Hague and prosecuted for crimes against humanity if these events took place in our own time.

[To Warren] Is the Bible inerrant?

WARREN: I believe it's inerrant in what it claims to be. The Bible does not claim to be a scientific book in many areas.

He's distancing himself from the old Jerry Falwells. Falwell himself said that the Bible is absolutely inerrant in everything from start to finish! Furthermore, if the Bible does not claim to be a scientific book, why are people supposed to believe that Joshua actually made the sun stop in the sky? And what does the Bible claim to be? It claims to be the Word of God. So the Word of God does not claim to be scientific. Isn't God letting himself off the hook easily with that line of reasoning? If God is perfect, EVERYTHING he "says" must be perfect as well, even scientifically. If not, God is flawed.

Do you believe Creation happened in the way Genesis describes it?

WARREN: If you're asking me do I believe in evolution, the answer is no, I don't. I believe that God, at a moment, created man. I do believe Genesis is literal, but I do also know metaphorical terms are used. Did God come down and blow in man's nose? If you believe in God, you don't have a problem accepting miracles. So if God wants to do it that way, it's fine with me.

Another dodge. Meacham did not ask him about evolution. And, ah, how can something be literal but put in metaphorical terms? Believing something in the Bible as literal means taking the words, metaphorical and all - literally. "...it's fine with me." That is to say, "I'm a spiritually lazy person. Just tell me how God created man and the earth and I'll believe it."

HARRIS: I'm doing my Ph.D. in neuroscience; I'm very close to the literature on evolutionary biology. And the basic point is that evolution by natural selection is random genetic mutation over millions of years in the context of environmental pressure that selects for fitness.

WARREN: Who's doing the selecting?

HARRIS: The environment. You don't have to invoke an intelligent designer to explain the complexity we see.

WARREN: Sam makes all kinds of assertions based on his presuppositions. I'm willing to admit my presuppositions: there are clues to God. I talk to God every day. He talks to me.

Science is not a mass of presuppositions. Presupposition (according to wikipedia): an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Also, Warren is walking into Pat Robertson's territory with the "He talks to me" meme.

WARREN: ...A lot of atheists hide behind rationalism; when you start probing, you find their reactions are quite emotional. In fact, I've never met an atheist who wasn't angry.

HARRIS: Let me be the first.

WARREN: I think your books are quite angry.

Posing questions and attempting to answer them in a reasonable way is not anger. Questioning the Bible is something that is anathema to Warren and his ilk.

Later:

Rick, Christianity has conducted itself in an abjectly evil manner from time to time. How do you square that with the Christian Gospel of love?

WARREN: I don't feel duty-bound to defend stuff that's done in the name of God which I don't think God approved or advocated. Have things been done wrong in the name of Christianity? Yes. Sam makes the statement in his book that religion is bad for the world, but far more people have been killed through atheists than through all the religious wars put together. Thousands died in the Inquisition; millions died under Mao, and under Stalin and Pol Pot. There is a home for atheists in the world today—it's called North Korea.

I'll end this here by saying that Warren's bullsh*t shows a total lack of knowledge of world history as well as history of Christianity. TOTAL.

Points:

• The Crusades were the result of religion and greed and anti-Semitism. Jews were killed by knights ON THE WAY to Jerusalem. Knights were told that if they died in battle, they would immediately go to heaven. Pilgrims following the Crusades were told that they would have their souls wiped clean from sin. Jerusalem was knee-deep in blood.
• The first genocide of western civilization was the intentional eradication of Christian "heretics" called Cathars. Over 100,000 people perished in the span of ten years.
• Hundreds of thousands (perhaps up to a million) died during the Inquisition. Witch-burning lasted right up to the nineteenth century. As many as 100 hundred thousand people were burned as witches.
• The statistics of who killed who is actually reverse: "Religious wars" killed more than Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot put together. Almost all of Europe's 782 wars (in the last 800 years) involved religion and both sides of each war declared that "God is on our side."
• The great Tei Ping Rebellion in China was caused by a man who said that he was the brother of Christ. The total of lives lost was approximately 40 million.
• Before Cortez came to the shores of Mexico with his Catholic missionaries, there were approximately 25 million Meso-Americans. One hundred years later, there were only 1 million. Native American Indians were used as slave labor for the California Missions.
  

And last: "I don't feel duty-bound to defend stuff that's done in the name of God which I don't think God approved or advocated." If not ministers of Christianity, then who? There are a LOT of apologies to be made by Christianity for millions of deaths, but it is the arrogance of people like Rick Warren who absolve themselves of any sin simply because they say that they personally did not do it themselves.

Just a thought.

Should I Join In With All The Beatles... And Mae West, Too?

That's REVEREND Dan Vojir To You!

The last post about becoming a minister (or priest) got me thinking: why not? Why can't I become a card-carrying, legal (in most states) and revered "Reverend"? Why can't I have the authority to marry people and baptize them? Oh, and don't forget about exorcism!

From wikipedia:

The ULC’s ordinations are issued in the belief that all people are already ordained by God and that the ULC is merely recognizing this fact.

The ULC has no traditional doctrine, believing as an organization merely in doing "that which is right." Each individual has the privilege and responsibility to determine what is right for him or her as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. The Church does not stand between the member and their God.

The ULC’s stated beliefs are as follows:

• Objective: Eternal Progression.
• Goal: A Fuller Life for Everyone.
• Slogan: To Live and Help Live.
• Maxim: “We Are One."

I particularly like "To Live and HELP Live". That's compassion. "To Live and LET Live," is merely tolerance.

From their website:

Every person has the natural right (and the responsibility) to peacefully determine what is right. We are advocates of religious freedom.

The Universal Life Church wants you to pursue your spiritual beliefs without interference from any outside agency, including government or church authority.

Of course, ULC ministers can be crazy and as wily as con artists, but, as we have seen in the past, the snake oil salesmen of religion are mostly at the top of the food chain: Rod Parsley, Joel Osteen, John Hagee to name but a few.

I certainly believe in freedom of religion, but I also believe in freedom FROM religion! Any church that I would lead would have no proselytizing. NONE. The most we would do is to put it out there what we believe and that anyone who wants to join can join. You might call it an anti-church, but that sounds too close to anti-Christ. It would NOT be a Satanic cult. It would NOT involve rituals. It WOULD hold Internet forums focusing on people who are spiritual rather than "religious." It WOULD foster knowledge of comparative religions. It WOULD report misuse of religious titles. It WOULD report the abuse of any religious scripture for purposes of condemning people or gaining converts. It COULD be a watchdog service.

A possible name for the group: The Church of the Non Proselytizer.

Here are some notables who have been ordained by the Universal Life Church

Glenn Beck - Milton Berle - Mel Blanc - Ray Bolger - Richard Branson - Vikki Carr - Johnny Carson - Cyd Charisse - Tony Danza - Sammy Davis, Jr. - Doris Day - Wavy Gravy - Kathy Griffin - George Harrison - Goldie Hawn - Hugh Hefner - Wolfman Jack - Carson Kressley - John Lennon - Courtney Love - Paul McCartney - Alanis Morissette - Madalyn Murray O'Hair - Debbie Reynolds - Rosalind Russell - Tori Spelling - Ringo Starr - James Stewart - Sharon Stone - Barbra Streisand - Hunter S. Thompson - John Waters - Mae West

Good company, eh? Think of being baptized by Wolfman Jack! Or united in holy matrimony by Hunter S. Thompson! Imagine a funeral presided over by Johnny Carson! Okay, I could do without my name being mentioned in the same breath as Glenn Beck or Doris Day. Oh well, que sera, sera!

Seriously, if you're in a war (the culture war, of course), it wouldn't hurt to have some of the same weapons as the enemy. Christofascists are an arrogant lot simply because they think they have R.E.S.P.E.C.T. on their side. They do - but it's only a blind respect: never challenged, seldom earned.

So why not a church or religious group devoted to Freedom From Organized Religion? No, we wouldn't try to convert the Jehovah's Witnesses who ring our doorbells. Nor would we approach people with the assumption that they are sinners. That would be insulting!

My own credentials? The research for my upcoming book (Sacred Cows Make The Best Hamburgers) has over 110 books in its bibliography. I've witnessed religions in their prime and when they become irrelevent. As a student, I studied with Dominican scholars and know enough Latin to fake my way through the meanings of some very long words. I know about the historical/critical method of reading the Bible (applicable to other faiths as well). I have Faith in a God (not merely belief), I believe in humanity, compassion, scholarship, Karen Armstrong, John Boswell, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Morton Smith, Charles Freedman, Bart Ehrman (must reading) and Elaine Pagels.

And one more thing: I believe in looking great in a pair of Speedos.

So, to be ordained or not to be ordained?

Comments welcome!

Now You Don't Have To Eat 10,000 Boxes of Crackerjack To Be An Ordained Minister!

Unless You Still Want That Secret Decoder Ring!

WOW! I can become a minister of any faith (or maybe my own cult!) without going through all those tedious and boring seminary classes! All I have to do is to sign up with the Universal Life Church or its (heretical?) offshoot the Universal Life Church Monastery!

As a minister, you can officiate wedding ceremonies, baptisms, and other rituals. You can even start your own ministry. GET ORDAINED NOW. You don't have to purchase anything to gain the legal benefits and respect of being a minister.

We do, however, offer a variety of ministry and wedding ceremony supplies to assist you.

I particularly like the "over 20 million ordained" (sorta like "sold" or "eaten"). It sounds so... ESTABLISHED!

Ever wonder how some "ministers" have gotten that REV. in front their names? "...gain the legal benefits and respect of being a minister." Does REV. automatically elicit R.E.S.P.E.C.T. from you? And even if you've done "homework" for your soul have you ever stopped to question your pastor's credentials? If over 20 million people have been ordained, surely you've run into one of ULCM's graduates. Maybe James Dobson is one. After all, he does have an impressive array of honorary "Doctorates" displayed in the halls of Focus on the Family headquarters (no less than 19!). Maybe one of them is from the illustrious UCLM!

I just wikipedia(ed) T.D. Jakes: no mention of a seminary at all. Not in some of the articles I've read, either.

Ken Copeland - Oral Roberts University (Big F*ckin' Deal - read their catalog and see why)

Creflo Dollar's Doctorate of Divinity is HONORARY ONLY.

Joel Osteen? Oral Roberts (BFD)

Benny Hinn - NOTHING.

As far as these "men of God" taking a scholarly approach to the Bible - good luck! Ask them to name the Fathers of Christianity and they would turn red with embarrassment. Who was St. Augustine? ("Oh, you mean the guy who founded that city in Florida!") Were they given instruction in Bible history? Hebrew? Ancient Greek? Biblical Archeology? Hermeneutics? Theology? Comparative religions? Bible exegesis? Textual criticism? Apologetics? History of Christianity? Canon law? The Apocrypha?

Have they even claimed to have read the WHOLE Bible? Which version? And when they step up to the pulpit, do they even know what the f*ck they're talking about?

So it comes right down to it, do you know if your pastor really knows ANYTHING when he's preaching you, telling you how to live your life? Or is it all "God, God God, Bible, Bible, Bible, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, ungawa, ungawa, ungawa - now I'll call for donations."

R.E.S.P.E.C.T. does not necessarily come with an R.E.V.

However, C.O.N.T.R.O.L does.

Just a thought.

Celebrating Pride, Celebrating Love, Celebrating Life!

Some photos, thoughts and Flickr pics I'm reflecting upon today. I shouldn't get this personal, but in a way, Gay Pride Day is like a religious holy day and must be celebrated in a personal as well as communal way.

On the left are three pictures taken of a wedding (mine) in Oct, 1998. It was a BIG gay wedding. So much so, in fact, that it was used as a video backdrop during an election! That's Patricia Nell Warren (center, top) reading from her book, The Front Runner. The cake was cut in a reception for 160+ people at the Green Room of the War Memorial Building. That was light years ago. The man I married is now my "ex" and I'm now his caregiver (cancer). He has a wonderful, helping partner.

Love changes, mutates, evolves.

Happy Gay Pride Day!!

Pride in SF: It Sure Beats Being Exorcised of a Gay Demon!

Gay Pride Week in San Francisco. For one week, the city of San Francisco swells by more than a million people. They frolic, they attend the International Gay Film Festival at the Castro Theater, first-timers take millions of pictures. And if aren't gay? So what? The people and the parade will always be fun. Why is San Francisco so special to so many people? Why does it seem, in a way, like making a pilgrimage?

Why not New York? After all, that's where the Stonewall riots were that sparked the gay freedom movement. To me, the reason lies in one word: compassion. And true compassion means total, unequivocal acceptance.

When I first came to SF in the Stone Age (the '70s) I quickly realized why so many gay people were coming here: not for the cable cars, the beautiful views, the weather. They came here not because San Francisco was so good, but because most other places were so bad for them. SF was attractive, to be sure, but the real magnet to the city was the fact that people could come here and be accepted. Not questioned. Not pre-judged. Not merely "tolerated." Accepted.

Then the AIDS crisis hit and San Francisco's compassion went into much-needed over-drive. Within a year of the first diagnosis, San Francisco had developed several forerunners to today's AIDS agencies. By 1990, PWAs were coming to San Francisco from around the country. It was the same reason they came in the '70s: compassion. They came to be treated here. They came learn more about AIDS here.They came to die here with dignity.

So San Francisco is the place to celebrate Pride. It's also the place where we can stand back and look at the rest of the country. Most of the time, however, the picture we see is not very encouraging. Oh, we can see how far gay civil rights has come in the past 40 years, but take a closer look: see how many enemies have sprouted in 40 years, how many lies and how many speeches filled with hate we've had to endure. For every right we fight for, there's an organization eager to fight us. Mostly it's religious. Some just plain hatred of people who are "different". Gays are the convenient scapegoat for just about every ill that surfaces. They are the "alien," the "heathen," the "outcast."

A video just surfaced that encompasses all those words. In it, a gay teen is being "exorcised" of a "gay demon." According to reports, the teen writhed on the floor for a full twenty minutes, vomited and (possibly) had a seizure. Two videos about the exorcism. One could be embedded, but one couldn't. To see the one from CNN, click HERE. It's more telling. The interview with the church's "pastor" was a prime indication of how backward much of America truly is. It looks like the event is happening in the rural South. Surprise! It's in Connecticut! The pastor of a storefront church (congregation: 25) seems barely literate. I know that someone somewhere will cite me for racism here, but don't bother. I lived in the ghetto too long to go that route. This is purely a congregation led by a pastor who went to a Bible-Thumper college (if at all). A pastor who believes that a "spirit" lives in everything and that since homosexuality is a sin, the "Gay Spirit" is evil and will lead us to hell. It is a demon to be cast out.

This is what we are surrounded with. This is why we need protection. Scary, but true.

I'm not fear-mongering. In these days of the Family Research Council, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Rod Parsley, Paul Crouch, Fred Phelps, Concerned Women of America, and Pope Benedict XVI, we need to do more than just watch our backs.
We need to be more vigilant than ever.

Just a thought.