Barmy Bible Study - Show Them No Mercy

Crusader doing God's Holy Work

It's that time of the week again - the night we all look forward to: Wednesday Night Barmy Bible Study!
Yes, I know we missed our bi-monthly Bible Study last Wednesday, but sometimes it takes a little time to recover from the horror  properly appreciate the goodness in holy scripture. Let's just get down to the business of wondering at the awesomeness of the Lord, shall we?

In honor of this week's Good News, we will depart a little from the usual Bible class structure of choosing a specific story and discussing it. Let's study a small sampling of the dozens of passages in the Bible wherein God/Yahweh/Jehovah promises his worshippers land, riches and all sort of success, and orders them to utterly destroy anyone and anything which gets in their way.

Deuteronomy 7: 1-6  Driving Out the Nations
1When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— 2and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. 6For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

Joshua - "saintly man and great leader"
doing God's holy work.

Deuteronomy 20: 10-18
10When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
16However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.

1 Samuel 15: 3
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"

Joshua 10: 40-41
40So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded. 41Joshua subdued them from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from the whole region of Goshen to Gibeon. 42All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because the Lord, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.

Joshua fought the battle of Jericho,
And the walls came tumbling down!
God is good!

Study Questions for Show Them No Mercy

1. What did Yahweh/Jehovah/God command the Israelites to do?

2. Why did God order them to do this?

3. How does the Bible teach us that the Israelites reacted to these commands and what does their reaction teach us?

Something that believers all know - but which those who do not believe that the Bible is the inerrant, literal word of God fail to understand - is that God chose one small group of people, out of all His creation, to be his especially chosen favorite people.  Just as the Hebrews had chosen Yahweh out of all the gods in the ancient pantheon of the desert region to be their one special God, the Bible says that Yahweh returned the favor. The Bible doesn't say that the other peoples in the region were privy to this unilateral decision by the Hebrews until the Hebrews descended upon them en masse expecting to take over their lands, their possessions and their women, as they believed their god had promised they could do. When the Amalekites, Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, et al continued to faithfully worship the gods of their ancestors equally to Yahweh - and in some case, with even greater fervor than they had worshipped Yahweh who was to them, after all, only a minor war god in the ancient pantheon - the newly promoted Lord, God of Israel was angered.

So, scripture says that the God of Israel commanded the Israelites to invade these lands, kill all the people and livestock, destroy everything that is sacred to these ill-favored wretches and then claim the lands for themselves. One might think that an all-loving, all-powerful god could be expected to love all of the people He created equally - or at least would be able to hand over the Promised Lands to his Chosen people without harming the other people who did not make the "favored people"  cut (rapture them? uncreate them? surely nothing would be impossible for the omnipotent One?) - but one would be wrong.

Nobody can see, hear, touch or feel God
but we know in our hearts that 
He wants exactly what we want!
The _?_ god is an awesome god!

The Lord, God of Israel was a jealous god. Just because those other
people had not received the memo that the Hebrews had chosen Yahweh for special One True God™ status, they unwittingly had signed their own death warrants. It was their own fault! Nothing would do but that they be wiped from the face of the earth and the Hebrews were just the people to do it! Amazingly, not only did the Hebrews know in their hearts what God wanted them to do, but they also managed to do every bit of the invading, killing, raping and plundering by themselves, too!  Of course, they knew in their hearts that they had the Lord, God of Israel rooting for them, but they did it all themselves - with His silent, invisible blessing. Praise God!

This is one of the great things about the Bible to which non-believers should really pay more attention. Of all the peoples on the planet, God decided to elevate one group over all the others for no particular reason. That happily blessed group just happens to be Christians!  Well, at first it was the Jews, but now Christians have their own Testament which clearly teaches that there is a New Covenant and in this new deal, Christians are the ones! Well, God is the One and Only, of course (and He is very, very powerful, so don't cross Christians Him if you know what is good for you!), but since He cannot be seen nor heard nor felt nor...well, Christians are His ambassadors on earth and speak for Him - they know in their hearts what God wants, so whatever Christians say, goes. Capice?

Christians doing God's holy work.
(Sabra-Shatila Massacre)

Of course, since Christians co-opted the Jewish Bible Old Testament, too, they still politely refer to the Jews as the "chosen people"... for now. Besides, Christians need the cooperation of the Jews in order to take over the Promised Land in time for the second coming of Christ!  Shhh, no, that is not shamelessly using the Jewish people for Christian ends.  God has clearly given the OK to any means necessary to bring about the glorious destiny of His Chosen People - lying, stealing, cheating, murdering - everything is permitted, even ordered, by God within the sacred pages of the Good Book™. When Christians have total dominion over the earth - as they believe that God has promised - then the Jews will have the same chance as everyone else to fall on their knees and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Then, they will truly be the chosen people...because they will be Christians!  You see? The Christian god is an awesome god!  Of course, if they refuse to bow down to the true Chosen people (Christians), well then one only has to read Deuteronomy 20 to know what God commands Christians to do with people who refuse to accept their His holy word, submit humbly to forced labor and hand over everything they love and value.

Jews doing God's holy work.
(Gaza Massacre, December 2008)

Some people may argue that just as the Christians cobbled together a New Testament to justify their claim to the status of the newly chosen people of God through the blood of Jesus Christ, so did other religious groups. Mohammed dictated the sacred Koran which clearly shows that Islam is the one true faith and Muslims are the chosen people of God. Likewise, the Mormons produced a sacred Testament - the Book of Mormon - which establishes that they are the chosen people of God.  Indeed, just as the Jewish Bible justified the ancient invasions, massacres, rapes and plundering by God's chosen people - the Israelites, and the Old and New Testaments justified the invasions, massacres*, rapes and plundering by God's chosen people - the Christians, so the Koran justifies invasions, massacres, rapes and plundering by God's chosen people - the Muslims and the Book of Mormon justifies violence, massacres, rapes and plundering by God's chosen people - the Mormons.

Muslims doing God's holy work
(Nigeria, Christmas Day Massacre)

Except that all of those other religions and all their made-up "sacred scriptures" are simply dead wrong. Christians believe they are commanded by God to take righteous dominion over the world. They believe they are commanded by God to utterly destroy any and all who stand in the way of them in fulfilling this Great Commission. Non-believers will get one chance to accept the Christian dogma and submit to life under Christian rule, but if they refuse to submit, Bible-believing Christians will have no choice but to annihilate them all. Christians always want others to choose life, but if non-believers refuse to bow down to Christian supremacy, then unfortunately yet inescapably the non-believers will have chosen death.


How do we know this?  The Bible tells us so.

Class dismissed.

       ----------------------------------------------

* Bonus points for the use of "I came like a thief!" a favorite self-referential passage of dominionist Christians when describing their long-term stealth strategy to infiltrate every avenue of world power.

Oh, Wisconsin!

Money rules, AMIRITE?

Last night's results have left me too dispirited to write much today. Instead, I will throw out a bunch of links to decent coverage and a few which can help fill in the history which has led to this outcome.

Walker Survives Wisconsin Recall Election, Central Wisconsin hub.

Wisconsin Recall Vote Exit Polls: How Different Groups Voted, The New York Times.

On Wisconsin, The Conventional Wisdom is Mostly Wrong, Jamelle Bouie, The Washington Post.

Three Reasons Why the Left Lost Wisconsin, Andy Kroll, Mother Jones.

The Dark Money Behind the Wisconsin Recall Election.  Gavin Aronsen, Mother Jones.

Turning Our Backs on Unions, Joe Nocera, The New York Times.

"The result is that today unions represent 12 percent of the work force. “Draw one line on a graph charting the decline in union membership, then superimpose a second line charting the decline in middle-class income share,” writes Noah, “and you will find that the two lines are nearly identical.” Richard Freeman, a Harvard economist, has estimated that the decline of unions explains about 20 percent of the income gap.
This makes perfect sense, of course. Company managements don’t pay workers any more than they have to — look, for instance, at Walmart, one of the most virulently antiunion companies in the country. In their heyday, unions represented a countervailing force that could extract money for its workers that helped keep them in the middle class. Noah notes that a JPMorgan economist calculated that the majority of increased corporate profits between 2000 and 2007 were the result of “reductions in wages and benefits.” That makes sense, too. At the same time labor has been in decline, the power of shareholders has been on the rise."

When Unions are Strong, Americans Enjoy the Fruits of Their Labor, David Morris, Defending The Public Good.  A good, brief history of the labor union movement, and discussion of how the decline of the movement has not only harmed American workers, but there is now a targeted effort being made to erase the history of labor unionism and the kind of gross social, economic and political inequities which made it necessary:

"Republicans are not only targeting labor studies professors.  They are attempting to expunge the already regrettably rare places in the United States where labor history and unions are viewed in a positive light.  The New York Times reports that Maine’s Republican Governor Paul LePage has demanded a 36 foot-wide mural on the Department of Labor’s building be removed.  “The three-year-old mural has 11 panels showing scenes of Maine workers, including colonial-era shoemaking apprentices, lumberjacks, a “Rosie the Riveter” in a shipyard and a 1986 paper mill strike. Taken together, his administration deems these scenes too one-sided in favor of unions.”  Reporter Steven Greenhouse adds, “Mr. LePage has also ordered that the Labor Department’s seven conference rooms be renamed. One is named after César Chávez, the farmworkers’ leader; one after Rose Schneiderman, a leader of the New York Women’s Trade Union League a century ago; and one after Frances Perkins, who became the nation’s first female labor secretary in 1933 and is buried in Maine.”

Three Big Reasons For the Decline of Labor Unions, David Macaray, counterpunch:

"Many businesses manage to keep unions out by providing their employees with comparable wages and benefits. Even though union wages are still significantly higher, across the board, than non-union wages, many companies are able to keep out unions by providing compensation and benefits (vacations, pensions, health insurance) that compare favorably to those of union shops, thus obviating the need for organizing.
What hurts most in these cases is that the people ("free riders") receiving these comparable wages and benefits think they’re making it on their own, without having to rely on a union. In truth, without the existence of unions, there’s no telling how low base wages for unskilled blue-collar work would fall, with nothing to prop them up except the federal minimum wage."**

Growing Economic Inequality Endangers Our Future, NPR interview with Joseph E. Stiglitz, author of The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future.

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?  Paul Grugman, The New York Times:

"So here’s what I think economists have to do. First, they have to face up to the inconvenient reality that financial markets fall far short of perfection, that they are subject to extraordinary delusions and the madness of crowds. Second, they have to admit — and this will be very hard for the people who giggled and whispered over Keynes — that Keynesian economics remains the best framework we have for making sense of recessions and depressions. Third, they’ll have to do their best to incorporate the realities of finance into macroeconomics."

Plutocracy, Paralysis, Perplexity, Paul Grugman, The New York Times:

"For the past century, political polarization has closely tracked income inequality, and there’s every reason to believe that the relationship is causal. Specifically, money buys power, and the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties, in the process destroying any prospect for cooperation."

Wisconsin, You Blew It. Greg Laden, (the X Blog), doesn't pull any punches. He is angry:

"A while back, about the time protesters were occupying the Wisconsin State House, I mentioned that while I fully supported the recall of Walker, I also thought the voters of Wisconsin had to take a certain amount of responsibility. They did elect the guy, after all. It was their fault, collectively, that he was in office.
People got mad at me and told me I should say things like that. The people of Wisconsin were victims, they didn’t mean to put an evil Democracy-hating crook in the state house. They needed our support, not our admonition.
But guess what. I was right."

**Apparently, Cheeseheads were too busy playing "Screw your neighbor" to realize they have been had. 

Teach Your Children Well

A little girl at "Jesus Camp" expresses her "joy" in the Christian gospel while other children look on uncertainly.

Two recent FreeThoughtBlogs posts reminded me that I haven't posted often enough recently about the improper use of public schools by religious groups to indoctrinate children into their terrifying "faiths". One would think that the public discussions of Jesus Camp, and the disturbing videos which came out about it, would have alerted concerned parents to the danger of letting religion have a free pass to indoctrinate their youngsters, but apparently not.  Religion is given a pass once more.  Actually, religion is not just given a pass but is still presumed to be, on the whole, a positive and good thing for children, even by parents who would be horrified if they knew the true intentions of religious proselytizers who have targeted their children for training as warriors for Jesus.

Both Ophelia Benson and PZ Myers posted this morning about the Good News Club, an explicitly Christian evangelical initiative of a group which calls itself the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), whose number and influence in schools and communities has been growing at an alarming rate.  A recent article in the Guardian by Katherine Stewart (author of The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children) has broken the story that the clubs, emboldened by the protection of a bad 2001 Supreme Court decision, are no longer bothering to even pretend that their real agenda is not proselytizing and grooming Christian warriors:

The CEF has been teaching the story of the Amalekites at least since 1973. In its earlier curriculum materials, CEF was euphemistic about the bloodshed, saying simply that "the Amalekites were completely defeated." In the most recent version of the curriculum, however, the group is quite eager to drive the message home to its elementary school students. The first thing the curriculum makes clear is that if God gives instructions to kill a group of people, you must kill every last one:

"You are to go and completely destroy the Amalekites (AM-uh-leck-ites) – people, animals, every living thing. Nothing shall be left."

"That was pretty clear, wasn't it?" the manual tells the teachers to say to the kids.

The Slaughter of the Amalekites

Asking if Saul would "pass the test" of obedience, the text points to Saul's failure to annihilate every last Amalekite, posing the rhetorical question:

"If you are asked to do something, how much of it do you need to do before you can say, 'I did it!'?"

"If only Saul had been willing to seek God for strength to obey!" the lesson concludes.

Even more important, the Good News Club wants the children to know, the Amalakites were targeted for destruction on account of their religion, or lack of it. The instruction manual reads:

"The Amalekites had heard about Israel's true and living God many years before, but they refused to believe in him. The Amalekites refused to believe in God and God had promised punishment." Katherine Stewart, The Guardian.

These fundamentalist Christian proselytizing vehicles won the right to insert themselves into public schools under the deceptive and insidious ruling (one of the few majority opinions authored by the conservative Clarence Thomas) in 2001. In that decision (Good News Club vs Milford Central School), the Supreme Court Justice disingenuously agreed with the CEF defense that the clubs were not religious in nature at all, but were merely clubs performing the laudable function of “teaching of morals and character development from a particular viewpoint”. Nothing to worry about there, right? But, wait. Here is the CEF viewpoint, straight from their "About Us" webpage:

Jesus Camps and Good News Clubs:
nothing but good, harmless fun!

"Child Evangelism Fellowship® (CEF®) is a Bible-centered, worldwide organization that is dedicated to seeing every child reached with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, discipled and established in a local church."

Many parents uncritically accept these clubs as being harmlessly what their deliberately kid-friendly name implies: a club for fun and belonging, in the spirit of the Good News Bears. They either do not realise or do not want to realise that the raison d'être of Good News Clubs is to convert children and turn them into Christian evangelicals.  These clubs are designed to pull in children under false pretenses (in many cases offering after-school care which is almost irresistible to parents who are struggling with poorly paid jobs and a lack of affordable child-care which is becoming a national crisis) and then convert them to fundamentalist Christianity. The benign-sounding name, the lure of a fun-sounding "club" and the fact that the children are often strongly encouraged to join by respected authorities (the schools) are all part of an insidious strategy to gain access to children without the truly informed consent of their parents and, obviously, of the children themselves. School acceptance of these clubs, mandated by the Supreme Court, means that both children and their parents are deceived into thinking that the secular, public schools endorse these religious clubs - and that there is no deeper agenda - which is one of the main reasons why the CEF fought so hard and so dishonestly to get them into public schools in the first place.

The Christian church has long used childhood indoctrination to ensure that obedient and thoroughly cowed legions of believers continue to swell their ranks, providing them with the power of numbers, financial wealth and, of course, warriors willing to die for their god/church/divinely appointed rulers. It has always been in the interest of those who hold power to have a large faith following, and religion has provided both the means and the ends.

"Knock down all doors, all the barriers,
to all 65,000 public elementary schools in America
 and take the Gospel to this open mission field now!
Not later, now!"
(CEF  national convention keynote speech, 2010)

There was empirical evidence behind the oft-quoted assertion of St. Francis Xavier (one of the first Jesuits, a Catholic order of priests famed as educators): "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man (alternatively: "and I care not who has him thereafter"). The well-educated, observant and intelligent Jesuits had noticed that people who are thoroughly indoctrinated in religious dogma in early childhood retain those beliefs throughout life, while people in whom religious belief has not been inculcated early are more difficult to convert - and to control. They realized, though they did not have the language to describe it yet, that the psychological impact of early indoctrination - particularly indoctrination based upon fear and confusion - usually lasts a lifetime.

Young children have no defenses against deliberate indoctrination. When they are taught to fear a god through stories which illustrate the god's relentlessly violent and implacably unforgiving reaction - not to lying, stealing and murdering which the Biblical god often condones and even orders, but to disbelief and disobedience - they learn the lesson through fear and they learn it well.  The Biblical god is a terrifyingly powerful "awesome" god and the one "sin" He will never forgive is lack of belief. The children are primed first with the "fun" and then the stories are told, gradually leading to the point when the children are tearfully, fearfully professing "belief".

Research has shown that one of the most powerful human motivators is fear, and one of the most difficult psychological challenges to overcome is irrational fear, especially fear that has taken root in the mind at an early age. Religious proselytizers know this, and this is why they are so insistent upon childhood indoctrination. Children are vulnerable to lifelong damage from the powerful emotional appeal of fear and guilt-based religious proselytizing.  They cannot "unthink" terrible thoughts which have been planted in their minds early. They cannot "unfeel" the horror and the fear that is elicited in their psyches through early Bible instruction.

Religious eschatology - and the terrifying images it evokes - is nothing less than psychological abuse of children. Yet, not only are parents permitted to subject their own children to these horrors, but religious groups are being permitted to sneak their fundamentalist religious indoctrination into public and private schools where they can prey on other peoples' children as well. In fact, gaining access to the children of parents who would not voluntarily subject their children to this violent, misanthropic and destructive theology is precisely the purpose of the Good News Club.

What we don't want to know
may seriously harm the USA.

The CEF is an explicitly evangelical, explicitly fundamentalist, explicitly and unapologetically Christian group and by continuing to be willfully blind to their purpose, parents are participating in the indoctrination of their children into extremist religion, whether they want to admit it to themselves or not. It is vital that more people speak out about this strategy of the religious right. They have already insinuated themselves into thousands of public schools in the USA and around the world, and they do not intend to stop until they have converted everyone.

Telling ourselves that one powerful religious group really cannot take over like that; kidding ourselves that the first amendment will protect people from religious tyranny is being willfully blind, deaf and dumb. As we have seen with the concurrent (and not coincidental) strategy of powerful groups to get issues affecting minorities' Constitutional rights onto ballots so that they can be put to a majority vote, the longterm objectives of the conservative right wing have been carefully and patiently planned. There is a real danger that the majority can use its power and clout to force their view on the minority until the power is so nearly total that complete annihilation of opposing viewpoints is achieved. That is where the freedom from religion part should have come in – if the court had not also been swayed by the power of the Christian majority. The issue is now urgent.

PZ's post    Ophelia's post, Kill Them All, Children.

Violence In The Bible

There is just so much of it, sometimes you just have to find a source to run through the roll.

The tonic in this Tuesday Tonic is the sublime rendition of the Schindler's List theme.

(via Paprikazz  and Religious Tolerance.Org  God's Genocides)

Isn't That Just Ducky!

Hello there, purple ball!  Do you want to play?

You are nodding and bobbing, but do you want to play?

I like this purple ball. I like this fluffy, fragrant purple ball.

You are nodding and bobbing, but why you don't play?

Hello there, fluffy purple ball!

Isn't that just Ducky!

A Lifeboat For Humanity?

Hank Fox's post Lifeboat of Knowledge, Dinghy of Power will give you much to think about. Like this:

"A lifeboat as in: A conveyance that rescues or gathers something valuable from an area of danger, a place where it will be drowned or sunk, and brings it to safe harbor.
  But THE Lifeboat as in: The thing that saved the knowledge and techniques of Science.
  Now I can make my argument as: We may have had flashes of science as far back at the third millennium B.C., but we didn’t have The Lifeboat until about 350 years ago."

And this:

" So: The Catholic Church’s 2,000-year-old Dinghy of Power goes on. But also, the dinghies of all those younger religions — Islam, and the Mormon Church, and even that mind-control turd Scientology, recently crapped out by SF writer L. Ron Hubbard.
  How? Just this: They found an interesting new way to convince people to fall under their sway. Rather than terrorizing them directly – “Obey me or I’ll burn you and your whole family to death in a fire!” (which works only as long as you’re willing to actually follow through and burn some people, and only as long as you live) …
  … they discovered you could terrorize people indirectly. Very different from scaring them with direct physical threats, this was scaring them and then posing as the friend who could save them.
  Hey, *I* won’t burn you and your whole family to death in a fire, but This Other Guy will. This huge, dangerous guy that you can’t hope to avoid … because he gets you after you die. He can see in the dark, follow you everywhere. He knows everything and he can hear your thoughts. Plus, almost everything you’re doing pisses him off, and you don’t have a chance in Hell of knowing the good things from the bad … without me."

And this, in response to the frequent derailing rebuttal to the "Dark Ages" argument that Wait! Islam produced science and mathematics during the "Dark Ages" (leaving aside for the moment the obvious point that most people refer to them as the "Christian" dark ages for that very reason):

" For much of human history, Knowledge served as a threat to Power. What do you do when individuals rise up and say “Hey, Candy-Titties doesn’t even make sense! Besides, I just discovered that the Earth isn’t the center of the universe!” For it to be a true Dinghy of Power, you have to squash that individual — and his discovery — right away.
  So for most of human history, religion (and, yes, superstition) was the choppy sea on which each new discovery attempted to bob and float, but was instead swamped and sunk out of sight.
  Doesn’t mean there weren’t fantastic inventions and discoveries in past eras. Does mean they were continually lost or suppressed.
  For instance: Kudos for the early intellectual advances of the Arabs — astronomy! mathematics! — and for those of so many other peoples over the earth. But where did they all go? Those discoveries remained virtual secrets as far as larger humanity was concerned. They vanished. Something sank them.
  It was only after we cobbled together the Lifeboat of Knowledge that such discoveries had a place of rescue. A place where one piece could be placed on another, and something built with it."

The threat that the resurgence of fundamentalist religion in the world poses to humanity cannot be over-emphasized. Hank's post is a great way for me to start working on posts about education and the suppression of knowledge which have been beating against the wall of my brain for months, but which just seemed too darn huge to get down on paper. Maybe I will try to break them up into smaller bits.  The trouble with the power and reach of religion is...it's power and reach. Religious influence has always been ubiquitous in society, but its power and ability to control the future of humankind has reached renewed ascendency.

I really am convinced that we have reached a point where the level of power that religious fundamentalism holds has achieved critical mass. Either we act now to reduce that power, or we face the dawning of another dark age.

Thank Gods It's FreyaDay!

Good Day, Humans.

It is the first of June, but it feels like the first of October.

It is cool outside, but I am warm inside this patch of sunbeam. I may just dozzzzzzzz...

It is the first of June, but it feels like the first day of autumn.

Thank gods it's FreyaDay!

J C Penney: Fair And Square

First Pals: What makes Dad so cool? 

He’s the swim coach, tent maker, 

best friend, bike fixer and hug giver — 

all rolled into one. Or two.

Earlier this year, there was a hue and cry from the Christian right over the decision by J C Penney to hire Ellen De Generes as their new spokesperson. A group of Christian women, apparently outraged that any openly gay human being should be employed, launched a boycott campaign against the retailer. The public response was thankfully less than encouraging for the "millions of moms" who just want LGBTQ people to shut up, sit down and have the decency to be ashamed enough of their sexual orientation to keep it secret. The Christian hate group whose site I will not link to (sorry, but I won't contribute to the visitor count for a hate group), campaigned hard to get Ellen DeGeneres fired, and they failed.  J C Penney stood unequivocally with their popular spokesperson.

Today's news reveals that J C Penney's commitment to equality is even deeper and more solid than the earlier events might have indicated. I was impressed when J C Penney backed Ellen, but I also had to admit that she is a very popular and well-liked celebrity in her own right. J C Penney may only have calculated that it was a good business decision to stick with their hiring decision after the controversy blew up, especially in light of the huge pushback from supporters and fans of the TV talk show host and actor. Still, I wrote them a letter of approval and got a very nice one back from their customer service department.

So, how good to read this story, today, then!  J C Penney seems to have decided to take a far more risky - and therefore more principled and admirable - stand on GLBTQ rights. The company has produced a new Father's Day ad featuring a real life gay couple and their children. There is no famous face with a proven reputation for appealing to a wide market. There is no way to take the position that this ad only happens to suggest acceptance of GLBTQ people tangentially as in the Ellen ads (her ads were about the store and the products and her own bubbly personality - not about her sexual identity - which was of course all they should have been). This ad is about fatherhood and the central figures in the ad are a gay couple who are fathers to the two children in the ad. The ad is openly accepting not only of the sexuality of LGBTQ people, but of their right to marriage, families and openly loving and respected lives.

J C Penney probably did not intend to bring up a hot social issue when it hired Ellen De Generes last year, but the company has had to deal with it because of Christian bigotry anyway.  In a way, the Ellen ad was the opening line in a conversation that has picked up both participants and listeners over the past few months with astonishing speed and intensity. Following so closely on the heels of the recent examples of Christian bigotry in North Carolina and elsewhere, this ad - and the corporate commitment to equality and social justice that it seems to represent - give me hope.

Now get out there and shop at J C Penney!!  Companies who put themselves out there like this deserve our support!

Take That, DOMA!

CNN is reporting that a federal appeals court has upheld an earlier ruling (2010) that DOMA is unconstitutional:

"The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has ruled the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, discriminates against gay couples."

Full story here.

The Wandering God

Quote for the win:  "If God exists everywhere, then evil shouldn't exist anywhere."

Via the rational warrior, Tombstone Da Deadman.

Also, great question, why don't agnostics argue for the suspending judgement about the possible existence of any other gods besides the currently popular ones? (first few seconds part of a rap, followed by the actual talk).

The Faith Cake

via QualiaSoup.

Isn't That Just Ducky!

Hello, Everybody! Happy Memorial Day!

My humans are still in bed! Why you still in bed, Human?

The sun is shining! It is time to go outside! It is time to play!

Let's play! Can we play? Can I haz playtime with you?

Happy Memorial Day! Let's play!

Isn't that just Ducky!

Carl Sagan: The Reassuring Fable

(via LibertarianSara)

The humble, inspiring and timelessly apropros words of Carl Sagan narrate this brief (3:45minutes) video incorporating recent historical images.

"The significance of our lives - and our fragile planet - is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance; better by far to embrace the truth, than a reassuring fable. 

Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Our common-sense intuitions can be mistaken. Our preferences don't count. We do not live in a privileged reference frame. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal."  Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot.

Thank Gods It's FreyaDay!

Good day, Humans. I am stirring from a nap to greet you.

The sun is shining, the wood floor is warm and I am content.

Back away now and go do human things. I will let you know if I need anything.

The sun is shining, the wood floor is warm and I am content.

Thank gods it's FreyaDay!

Next Thing You Know, They'll Want Man-Mouse Marriage!

Fun and Family-Friendly!

Just in case anyone is still clinging to the false notion that aggressive Christianity is a non-issue in countries other than the Jesus-soaked USA, consider a recent situation in Japan.

A lesbian couple approached the Tokyo Disneyland to request permission to hold a ceremony to mark their union as a couple. Japan does not allow same-sex marriage, so it could only be an unofficial "wedding".  Happily, Tokyo Disney agreed to the request. Chalk one up for Tokyo Disney!  However, the couple were barred from exchanging any vows because of "Christian teachings". Wait, what? Christian teachings? Wasn't there a lot of talk recently about how religion for the Japanese, if they had any at all, was some form of vague, spiritual Shintoism? What is that I hear people saying about Japan's enviable secular society? No, it's not. (Cue the "but this is an isolated incident" prevarication).

Warning: Christians, shield your
eyes from this terrifying image!

Anyway, after a brief kerfuffle over "an employee's" dictate that the ceremony must have one participant dressed in groom attire and one dressed in bride attire so as not to "offend" park visitors (an outcry on Twitter and other social media brought about a hasty retraction from Disney, thankfully), the theme park seems to have embraced a position of acceptance, setting the stage for future ceremonies so that same-sex couples can celebrate their union there with family and friends. Considering the cultural pressure against it - not to mention the powerful worldwide Christian lobby - my hat is off to Tokyo Disney for doing the right thing.

In the larger Japanese society, however, same-sex marriage continues to be the same thorny subject that it is in the USA:

"There needs to be more pressure for legal unions between gay people in Japan," said Taiga Ishikawa, one of only a handful of openly gay politicians in the country. "This is only a guess, but I'd say there are more people now who are in long-term relationships and want that to be recognized in the form of a civil partnership."

And of course, there are the usual homophobic and hateful tropes raised by prominent public figures equating marriage between two loving human beings to bestiality, pedophilia and general immorality. In this case, a film celebrity:

Commenting on TV on President Barack Obama's recent declaration of support for gay marriages in the US, the film director and comedian Takeshi Kitano told a fellow guest: "Obama supports gay marriage. You would support marriage between humanoid and animals eventually, then," before questioning the ability of gay couples to raise children.

These vicious and hateful slurs questioning the humanity and morality of GLBT people are one of the most repugnant weapons that Christians use in their bigoted campaign to marginalize and oppress. The "slippery slope" trope is particularly ironic coming from a group constantly balancing on the edge of a slimy slope of their own.  David Barton, Christian apologist and professional liar demonstrates (If you prefer text, read this transcript of a right-wing radio talk show interview with Barton for an even clearer insight into the way these people think, and to understand what they would gladly do once they have the power to do it):


"I don't care what the Supreme Court says". Yes, that's right. He is saying that Christians are above the law.

Christians are adamant in their "righteous" zeal and open about their intention to force everyone in this country to submit to Biblical law and, in due course, to force every country in the world to convert and/or submit to the brand of Christianity that they are aggressively spreading via the modern Christian "missions" movement. Anderson Cooper's interview (CNN) of a defender of the pastor whose horrific anti-gay rant I linked here underlines just where that slimy slope would dump us.

Bible-based law in action.

Christians want the US Constitution subordinated to or replaced by "Yahweh's Law". They are proud about this - don't forget: they truly believe that they are doing what is best for all of us, even if they have to lie, cheat and trick the rest of us to achieve their goal - and they are actively, tirelessly working to bring it about. This Christian version of sharia would reduce women to the status of domestic animals or chattel, would criminalize inborn human sexual orientations and would demand the death penalty for dozens of offenses which our modern morality recognizes are not only not capital offenses but in many cases are not offenses at all. But true Bible-believers honestly believe that is what God wants for us, though we may not understand and resist. Just as they see indoctrinating children with fear of hell before children are old enough to defend themselves against the often permanent psychological impact, they see it as their job to lead those who disagree with them out of "sin" by forcing their religious belief system on them "for their own good".

So, following the logic of Christian antagonists - who hate and revile GLBT people so much they call for their punishment, persecution and even deaths - we should take a closer look at their proposed "improvements" of current laws; laws agreed upon by elected human beings to whom they already believe they are not answerable.  Citizens who value the rule of law which protects our secular society for all citizens need to pay attention to what these Christians say and believe. They believe that their god's law supercedes the rule of civil law - including the Constitution of the United States and the Constitutions of all countries. When pressed on the question of who gets to say what "god's law" actually is, Christians point to the Bible as the final and inerrant authority.

This reality, following the Christians' own logic, begs the question of just where following "Yahweh's Law" will lead us. Conservative Christians have already succeeded in gaining enough power to roll back secular law to deprive women of most of their hard-won reproductive and equal pay rights. Christians have succeeded in denying GLBT people of the right to marry, their right to protection from bullying and a host of other forms of discrimination. Christians have succeeded in circumventing the legal separation of church and state in so many ways that their religion, their calendar and their privileges have become ubiquitous in the culture, and their power continues to grow.

If and when they succeed in changing enough laws that their continued power is assured, what then will stop Christians from imposing every jot and tittle of the Biblical laws upon all people? They already treat women and LGBT people as less than fully human. How soon before they will return us to the Biblical days of stonings for adultery and theft?  Forget "training up a child"; the Bible is clear that a rebellious child must be stoned to death.  What will stop the Christian majority from imposing these and similarly horrific laws on us?

"I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." Matthew:5:18 (NIV)

Christians insist that the Bible is literally, unerringly the word of God.  Those of us who have been avoiding the issue - telling ourselves that Christians just mean some of the Bible is to be followed to the letter, or only the New Testament or only the "red text" of Jesus' words - need to start paying closer attention. There is no way around the fact that the entire Bible is sacred truth to Christians and, in the New Testament, Jesus himself affirmed that the Mosaic laws must not be discarded.

Any doubts people might have about the determination of Christians to enshrine Biblical "truth" into this culture while they push out secular knowledge which threatens their religious beliefs - or threatens the justification of Biblical foundations for their ascension to authoritarian power - must be dispelled. This belief in absolute Biblical "truth" is the foundation of their efforts to force educators to teach Biblical creationism as science. This determination is the source of their push to deny global climate change. It is the impetus behind their efforts to undermine scientific research, to defund public education and to gut the public social safety net.

The Christian accusations against GLBT people have no foundation in fact, unlike my concerns about the slippery slope from Christian influence on secular laws to a return to the brutality and conservatism of a Bible-based legal structure.  There is ample evidence which unequivocally proves that the homophobic Christian hypotheses about the people they hate and fear are false, while there is no evidence that Christians would not persecute non-Christians, LGBTs and women should they gain enough power to do so, and plenty of evidence that they have begun to do exactly that. Indeed, we have a long history that shows just how viciously oppressive, immoral and evil unfettered Christian power can be.

Here is the true slippery slope: If Christians manage to impose any more "Bible-based" law onto the citizens of the United States (and in Canada, and in the UK, and in continental Europe, and in Australia, and in ...), it will only be a matter of time before women lose what remaining human rights they have not yet lost to religious conservatism (including the right to vote), children will be abused and even killed if they do not conform to Biblical strictures, and our dreams of a secular, free and open society of peaceful coexistence will be shattered for generations to come.

It has happened before. I hope we are wise enough to recognise that it could happen again, if we do not take steps to defend our freedom from religion.

Thorsday Tonic - Anti-Science

A refreshing dose of rationality on a Thorsday morning. Sit back and enjoy, "Anti-Science", another excellent rap created by the inimitable Tombstone Da Deadman.

Watch it! This song will stay in your head all day!

Time For A Little Color!

I'll take that cerise-colored house, please!

We are having a very dry spring here, after an extremely dry and mild winter.  I noticed the other day that the pine tree in our yard is showing signs of stress, it's needles faded and slightly rusty looking.  Today I saw that the grass in the local parks is dry and yellow like the end of July in a hot summer! Our spring flowers were forced out too early by the unseasonable heat in March and their colors faded within days - sometimes hours - of first blooming. When I was planting some summer annuals this weekend, the earth in some places was so dry it collapsed like gravely sand. I've never seen anything like it here before.

I hope we get rain soon and plenty of it!

Anyway, all of this dryness and wonky weather made me long for spring showers, the soft caress of cool damp fog on the cheeks and the sweet, clean fresh air heavy with the fragrance of lilacs after a late spring rain.  I am longing for deep, bright colors and cool refreshing damp air. And I know just the place to find that!
(via Newfoundland on facebook)

Some houses are wide.
Some houses are thin.
Some are so thin
you can hardly get in.


But wherever you go,
you will hear someone say,
"Come over to my house.
Come over and play!"






Come over to my house.
The fishing is great!
They bite all the time
and you don't have to wait.


Come over some day
and bring plenty of bait.






You can play on my roof, 
but my house is so tall,
it's a long way downstairs
to go after a ball.


My house is bright pink
and it's happy and gay.
Our streets are wet water.
We like it that way.




Every house in the world
has a ceiling and floor.
But the ones you'll like best
have a wide-open door.


Some houses are rich
full of silver and gold.
And some are quite poor,
sort of empty and old.

Some houses are marble
and some are just tin.
But they're all, all alike
when a friend asks you in.


There are so many houses
you'll meet on your way.
And wherever you go,
you will hear someone say  . . .
"Come over to my house!
Come over and play!"
From Come Over to My House, Theo.LeSieg (Theo. Geisel)


And, just for good measure - one last dose of color and glory - and an iceberg!
You're welcome!

Isn't That Just Ducky?

Hello, People!  I am on the road again!

I love driving with my human. I am her co-pilot!

Me and my human are on a roadtrip! I love to watch the world whizzing by.

I love to watch my human driving and she loves to be with me. I am her co-pilot!

We are on the road again!

Isn't that just Ducky!

(click to play!)        


(Willie Nelson - On the Road Again)

This Won't Hurt A Bit!

Amber Cooper with her son Jaden

On NPR this morning, an interview with Amber Cooper - a wife, mother, worker and liver transplant recipient - reminded me to get cracking on a healthcare series. 

Amber Cooper had a successful liver transplant when she was ten years old. She grew up, married, had a child, bought a house and holds down a job. She is a great success story for liver transplantation. She is a great success story full stop.

Life-preserving drugs for transplant
patients, as well as for heart disease
and other chronic life-threatening
conditions cost hundreds, even
thousands, per month.

Ms. Cooper requires expensive medications every day of her life to prevent her body from rejecting the transplanted organ that keeps her alive.  Because of her pre-existing condition, health insurance was always going to be a challenge, but Amber had insurance prescription coverage with her employer - until recently. 

At an all-employee meeting, Amber learned that her company was changing their health insurance coverage and the new "coverage" would not cover any of her most urgent healthcare needs.  You can read or listen to the story.

This story is only one of thousands of stories of Americans who literally face life or death decisions every day because they have no access to affordable healthcare services.  Millions of other Americans have no or not enough coverage, and their stories will join these sooner or later. The richest country in the world has made a huge business out of health, life and death. And Republicans fight tooth and nail to preserve it.

I think it is time that people honestly ask themselves: is this morally defensible?

A group called Physicians For a National Health Program put up an excellent webpage with questions and answers that people might have about the relative merits of a single-payer healthcare system compared to the current for-profit system. While I do not agree with everything they have written (more in future posts), overall this page is an excellent source of information to help people form clear and concise responses to the common concerns that many people have about socialized healthcare.

I will end this brief post with one quote from the site linked above, which is, I think, the fundamental reality of our situation in the USA:

"Q. Won’t this result in rationing like in Canada?  A. The U.S. already rations care. Rationing in U.S. health care is based on income: if you can afford care, you get it; if you can’t, you don’t. A recent study found that 45,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance. Many more skip treatments that their insurance company refuses to cover. That’s rationing. Other countries do not ration in this way." PNHP FAQs.

"If you can afford care, you get it; if you can't, you don't."  Words to ponder.

In a just society, should decent healthcare be a privilege reserved for the wealthy?

transition to atheism

In just over eight minutes, TheraminTrees lays out exactly how a young atheist might feel and think on the journey out of theism.

(I could have done without the weird eyes bit, but that's just me. Everything he says is excellent. Clear and concise.)

Tuesday Tonic - Beyond Reason

Sit back and enjoy another rap inspiration on this Tuessday morning.

Tombstone da Deadman:  Beyond Reason

(Facebook)

TAX These Christian Haters, NOW!

The YouTube version of this has been cut to remove the damning evidence of Christian hatred, illegal political influence and the most fetid and revolting inhuman bigotry. Obviously, someone from their ranks wanted to erase the evidence which shows the depth of their bigotry. Luckily, Left Hemispheres posted this uncut version.

This pastor openly tells his congregation of his awesome "solution" to the "problem" of homosexuality - herd lesbians into an enclosure surrounded by an electric fence, and herd the "queers" into another fenced enclosure. And "in a few years, they'll die.'

"I figured a way out — a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. But I couldn’t get it passed through Congress. Build a great big large fence, 150 or 100 miles long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. Have that fence electrified so they can’t get out. Feed ‘em, and– And you know what? In a few years they’ll die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce." Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, NC.

Voices shout "Amen!"

He polishes off his remarks by asking his audience to imagine a same-sex kiss -  which "about makes him puke" don't you know. The poor guy!  Don't make him imagine it!  The horror!

There is so much real horror in this video, I hardly know where to start.  Is it the homophobia? The hatred of gays and lesbians - even to sharing a plan for their extermination? Is it the blatant violation of church and state as he tells the congregation how to vote?  It's a toss up right now what is the worst part in the video. But what is truly the worst part about this window into the bloodthirsty wishes of people like this is the reality that this is not a minority view in the Christian church in the USA right now. This is happening right now all over the country. If these people manage to gain any more power, they really will use it to harm other people - starting with gays and lesbians and anyone else who does not conform to the narrow gender roles that are acceptable to Christians.

Please watch and please SHARE!

And oh yeah: TAX CHURCHES!!!

How Much Would You Pay For The Universe?

It's the weekend, People, and I have a yard to whip into shape!

Nevertheless, I am nothing if not a font of inspirational material for my readers.  Take a five minute break from your Sunday leisure - or if you are a productive person like Yours Truly, from your Sunday achievements - and listen to Neil DeGrasse Tyson's rousing words in defense of NASA research.

Let's reach for the stars!

Prom Night

Tonight is prom night for my sons and all their friends. 

Enjoy the evening of dining, dancing and the company of friends!

We Are Stardust

3 minutes of musical inspiration for a beautiful Saturday morning. We are stardust, in the highest exalted way. Stand in the middle and enjoy everything both ways; the tininess of us; the enormity of the universe.


Lyrics:

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]
We are part of this universe
We are in this universe
The universe is in us
Yes, the universe is in us

[Lawrence Krauss]
Every atom in your body
Came from a star that exploded
You are all star dust
From a star that exploded

[Tyson]
Look up at the night sky
We are part of that
The universe itself
Exists within us

We are star dust
In the highest exalted way
Called by the universe
Reaching out to the universe

We are star dust
In the highest exalted way
Reaching out to the universe
With these methods and tools of science

[Richard Feynman]
Stand in the middle and enjoy everything both ways
The tininess of us;
The enormity of the universe

[Tyson]
The atoms that make up the human body
Are traceable to the crucibles
That cooked light elements
Into heavy elements

These stars went unstable in their later years
And then exploded
Scattering their enriched guts
Across the galaxy

[Refrain]

[Tyson]
We are part of this universe
We are in this universe
The universe is in us
Yes, the universe is in us

Thank Gods It's FreyaDay!

Good Morning, Humans.

It is a sunny, warm May FreyaDay, and I am sitting under the table.

My perch on the window is not restful. There is too much going on in the streets of city below.

Chicago is full of noisy Humans right now. I am sitting under the table until they all go home.

It is a warm, May FreyaDay, but I am sitting under the table.

Thank gods it's FreyaDay!