Category Archives: Religion

The attack machine?

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No, Michele Bachmann doesn’t deserve the abuse her detractors are heaping on her in the wake of the tragic shooting in Wisconsin. It’s not like she’s spent the past few weeks spreading misinformation about a nonexistent threat from Muslims “infiltrating” our government. It’s not as though, as a duly elected Representative from the great state of Minnesota, she is honor bound to represent *all* of the people in her district and not cast aspersions on her minority constituents. And it’s not like she accused her Democratic colleague, who happens to be a Muslim, of having “a long record of association” with terrorist groups, without offering up a shred of evidence.

You know, you’d have to be crazy to believe that the Sikhs, who are mandated by their religion to wear turbans and beards, are similar to their Muslim brothers. But when people like Michele turn the volume knob on the crazy amp up to eleven, anything is possible. If you *were* a crazy person, you might start to see any group of brown-skinned, turban wearing folks as “the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S.” Since Michele began her high-profile Muslim witch hunt, the papers and Internet have been filled with her specious lies – but Michele knows it’s really all about her!

“The attack machine has been turned on myself and the other members of Congress who have been asking these questions, that somehow we’re the Muslim haters, we’re the witch hunters, we’re the new Joe McCarthyites because we’re asking these questions.”

It’s not as though Michele has one iota of shame in then repeating her baseless charges, Jeopardy-style, in the form of a question. Because the threat that exists “at the highest levels” is “truly breathless.” Perhaps that’s because all the air has been sucked out of her arguments and every time she begins “asking these questions” we should really stop and understand *exactly* what she’s doing.

Michele is blowing the dog whistle of racism for every “Obama is a Muslim” voter in her district. When Rep. Bachmann says there is “influence” by known terrorist sympathizers “at the highest levels,” you and I both know what that means. We’ve heard this song before, in 2008, when Obama was “palling around with the terrorists.” Remember? That was right before he started hunting them down and killing them indiscriminately.

And just in case Michele wasn’t clear enough, she wants you to imagine that all of these scary, brown-skinned, beard wearing terrorists are currently eating away at the very fabric of our very freedoms “from the White House, to the Pentagon, to the FBI, even to our United States military…”

Someday, and I hope it’s soon, Michele Bachmann will offer up some kind of justification for her fear mongering and xenophobia. Until then, she’ll have to endure the slings and arrows of “the attack machine.” I hope and pray we won’t have to endure another actual attack by another madmen that Michele’s outrageous conspiracy theories inspire.

 

Thank you, Google.

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I was looking for some picture of the Minnesota Congresswoman, but this works out just as well.

Michele Bachmann is a paranoid lunatic who, offered the right counseling and pharmacological help, might someday live a happy, healthy and productive life.  As it is, she’s an embarrassment to herself and the state she represents.

Did you know that Huma Abedin, a top advisor to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, is actually a secret agent for the Muslim Brotherhood? Neither did she… or the FBI … or the CIA, or the United States Secret Service. Thank goodness Michele was there to sound the alarm, huh?

She also fired off letters to the Department of Defense (who failed to “characterize accurately the jihadist motivations” of Maj. Nidal Hassan, (it’s because he’s Muslim, you see – not that he’s crazy), the Department of Homeland Security (who is covering up the “deep penetration” of the Muslim threat to our American way of life), the US Department of Justice (where officials are being duped by “fronts” for the Brotherhood) AND to the Office of Director of National Intelligence, requesting “your office conduct a formal investigation or evaluation into the extent to which Muslim-Brotherhood tied individuals (read ‘any Muslim’) and entities (read ‘Mosques and schools’) were involved in” something or other that makes her nervous. Like loud noises – or getting on you knees to pray (but only if you use a rug).

Did you get all that? ‘There are Muslims in America and they want to take away our freedoms.’ Wait, what? You think I am oversimplifying Rep. Bachmann’s message? Okay then, let’s hear it directly from the horse’s mouth, in her response letter to Rep. Keith Ellison (who essentially told her to stop being a reactionary zealot).

“So, the danger of the Muslim Brotherhood is not just encouraging terrorism through their ideology but also trying to take over governments so everyone has to succumb and live under their ideology.”

You know, like self-righteous Christian theocrats who stray from the church into politics. But I digress.

You see, our law enforcement personnel and intelligence and judicial employees are just rubes and easy prey for these sinister plots. According to Ms. Bachmann: “Considering that many U.S. Government agencies, including some of those in the intelligence and law enforcement community, have engaged in outreach programs with organizations and their leaders identified by the U.S. Government as Muslim Brotherhood members and fronts, it is entirely reasonable to… ” ask these agencies to spend millions of dollars on a witch hunt. Right?

Not to put too fine a point on the matter, but when Congressman Ellison noted that Bachmann and others said “the mother, brother and deceased father of Huma Abedin, Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood…” and this makes her actions suspect, Michele Bachmann was quick to note how WRONG Mr. Ellison was.

Said Ms. Bachmann in her reply: “In fact, what we wrote was that: “…the Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, has three family members – her late father, her mother and her brother – connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations. Her position provides her with routine access to the Secretary and to policy making.”

Potato, potahto.

And now that the sane people in the room are taking note of just how far out on the lunatic fringe she really is, she’s doubled-down on her attack on Huma Abedin (perhaps because she’s married to disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner). I mean, doesn’t the woman have enough troubles, without this?

Abedin’s late father, Professor Syed Z. Abedin wrote an article in 2002 for the Brigham Young University Law Review. In it, he acknowledged the former director of the Muslim World League was a supporter of one of his charities. The Muslim World League was connected to the Muslim Brotherhood – in Europe – between the 70s and the 90s. Aha! A “smoking gun.” But wait – what does the very next paragraph in the article written by Huma Abedin’s father say?  Syed Abedin concludes that the Koran calls for, “multiple ways of life … i.e. religious and cultural plurality among mankind.” Be afraid, Michele. That’s some dark, “take over governments so everyone has to succumb and live under their ideology” Islamo-fascist rhetoric.

What a maroon. Can we please vote this woman out of office this time? I mean, really? Please?

 

Natural selection: how it works.

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A snake-handling preacher in West Virginia, Mark “Mack” Wolford, believed Christians should handle snakes to test their faith. Past tense. Mack died after a rattlesnake bit him this past weekend. He had just turned 44 on Saturday.

Mack watched his father die of a snakebite when he was in his teens. After Mack was bitten, he waited over eight hours before he sought medical attention. I’m guessing Mark 16:17-18 wasn’t meant to taken literally, either.

Please, no jokes about “laying hands on” himself.

Mitten’s Mormon Moment

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Willard “Mittens” Romney is a good and decent man who accepts Joseph Smith as a prophet and the book of Mormon (translated from the Nephi Plates) as an inspired message from God. If it makes him happy, God bless.

Now I know there are some (I’m looking at you, evangelical Christians), who believe that Mormonism is a ‘fake religion’ created in upstate New York in 1830 when the founder was caught in an adulterous affair and tried to explain it away as “God’s will.” This is why polygamy was both condoned (Mitt’s grandpa lived on a polygamous commune in Mexico), and condemned by Mormon teachings. It’s Sunday – let’s study us some old-time religion!

Who am I to say that some guy, working in secret to translate ancient Egyptian scriptures on golden plates buried in a stone box by an angel got it wrong? So far, there are only 3913 changes in the book of Mormon from the original that I know of, so clearly lamp oil was in short supply in the Smith household. I know, I know … there are no men dressed like Quakers living on the moon who live to be 1000-years-old. Joe made a simple mistake, really – it could’ve happened to anyone (hiding behind a bed sheet, translating mystical tablets no other human being was allowed to see, except in a religious “vision”).

I’m guessing the whole moon-based Quaker colony theory was translated during the period when Joseph Smith kept his “seer stone” inside his black top hat, thus muting the magical powers of the visions the brown rock produced for him. Today we call this schizophrenia. Or grifting. It might explain Mormon’s magic underwear. Probably not.

But I really think this bit that follows from the Book of Mormon was merely a product of the biases that existed during the pre-civil war period (when Joseph translated his magical plates of gold), don’t you? From the Book of Nephi, comes this gem:

“… wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.”

So what? God gave them a melanoma? Freckles?

“And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities.”

Oh, you’re talking about *race.* Sure, sure – that’s fine – the Bible has some things that don’t hold up well over time, too. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?

“And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing.”

Okay, now you’re talking about the president – and that is *not* cool, man … not cool at all. Of course, to be fair, these passages make about as much sense as anything from the book of Leviticus in today’s society – but now I’m just going to enrage anyone who uses the word “inerrant” and Bible in the same sentence and doesn’t smirk.

I’m going straight to Hell, right? Well not before I make a road trip to Salt Lake City to see what the Mormons have done to the place.  Because God has instructed his people to build shopping centers – and the Mormons are just putting the finishing touches on their City Creek Project – to the tune of FIVE BILLION DOLLARS! Newt Gingrich will feel right at home!

I wonder how many hungry people $5,000,000,000.00 would have fed? I know, I know … straight to Hell. If the flying saucers  from Kolob (the planet where Mormons believe the creator lives) get here before November, I think Mitt’s got a shot. Because it’s going to take divine intervention for him to win.

UPDATE: Just to put things in perspective, they have announced a new Harry Potter theme park in Japan, set to open sometime in 2014. Total price tag? $500 million. That’s got to be one HELL of a mall, Mormons.

Savage Commentary

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Everyone has probably heard about the brouhaha Dan Savage caused when he questioned the hypocrisy of Christians who selectively quote the Bible to reinforce their intolerance of homosexuals (and justify their campaign to deny them equal rights).

It probably wouldn’t have been much of a controversy if he didn’t swear quite so much. Having high school students get up and walk out was bad enough. Calling them out on their “pansy-assed” attitude about the “bullshit in the Bible” did exactly what it was supposed to do – it got the speech noticed (and talked about). Some now compare his incendiary comments to be as harmful to the LGBT community as any uttered by former Pennsylvania Senator and failed presidential candidate, Rick Santorum. Um, no.

The best comment (so far) belongs to Dave Holmes at American Aquarium Drinker.

I guess it comes down to what you find more offensive:

1) Using profanity to point out that there are plenty of things in the Bible we all ignore, or

2) Calling the Bible the absolute, unerring, infallible word of God, and then only obeying the chunks that let you feel superior to other human beings.

I say #2.

I agree.

“Dan Savage is not “insisting that the Bible be interpreted selectively,” he is pointing out that it already is, in literally every single case, interpreted selectively. Unless you are stoning adulterers, you are interpreting the Bible selectively. By this definition, all such communities have “abandoned their faith.” His question was: why must the verse condemning gay people in Leviticus be followed to the letter, while almost none of the other ones are?”