Outright Sacrilege. Diabolical. Demonic.

I don’t do television these days, but even when I did, I didn’t watch SNL anymore, because I seldom found it funny. They do get it right now and then though, and the God Is A Boob Man sketch was one of those. (PZ has the video, but it is uStates-centric). Pat Boone (Do people younger than a dinosaur even know who he is?) is thoroughly riled up about it, and he’s certainly giving the skit a whole hell of a lot more power than it actually has.

 Pat Boone Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic/Getty Images


Pat Boone
Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic/Getty Images

Pat Boone is calling out NBC and Saturday Night Live for allegedly being anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, cowardly, “diabolical” and even demonic for a skit over the weekend that parodied God’s Not Dead 2, the actor-singer’s latest movie.

[…]

Boone called NBC and SNL cowardly because executives and creative talent know they can pick on Christians without fear of reprisal, whereas political correctness dictates that some other groups are off-limits.

“This skit was outright sacrilege. They know if they did this to Muslims they’d have to be put into the witness protection program,” he said. “There’s nothing sacred at SNL — except maybe the words ‘Mohammad’ or ‘Allah.’ They’d never take those names in vain, but when they called God a ‘boob man,’ they took his name in vain.”

There’s just the little problem of ‘God’ being a placeholder. It’s not the actual name of your god, so maybe it’s taking a placeholder in vain, but I don’t recall that being a specific no-no.

Oh my. We’ve never heard that line of reasoning before, oh no. Full rant here.

Atheist Scum Trying To Destroy National Day Of Prayer!

Atheists

Fox news got wind of the proposal for a National Day of Reason, and the stupid is on tap.

Two congressional representatives are sponsoring a resolution to create a secular alternative to the National Day of Prayer. No big deal right? Wrong! The nice Fox News Christians on Outnumbered say that this is another attempt, by “mean” atheists, TO DESTROY OUR CHRISTIAN AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE!

Sandra Smith continued to pimp the patented Fox anti-atheist agitprop: “Can’t they just leave our National Day of Prayer alone?” Doing some concern trolling, Harris Faulkner that her “biggest problem” is that this “causes a day of judgment” because it causes folks to ask others “why aren’t you into the Day of Prayer, why are you only into the Day of Reason.”

When Baker quipped that he liked her idea of a day for judging, Andrea Tantaros, with her comment about how “every day is a day for judging,” actually described Fox News! She “joked” that it is “rich” that those in Washington are calling for reason. Devout Christian Tantaros worked in the propaganda coup-de grace: “I think atheists in our culture have caused this culture to become so secular, so coarsened, and so godless. I think the atheists have won a lot of battles and they get most days in this country. Let the Christians have the National Day of Prayer, I mean really.”

Full Column Here.

The Faith of Christopher Hitchens

the-faith-of-hitchensjpg-27668f5ecedfbb7c

Larry Taunton, a Christian author in Birmingham, has recently made TV appearances on the right-leaning Fox News and on the left-leaning MSNBC.

Taunton’s new book on famous atheist Christopher Hitchens, who died in 2011, has gotten rave reviews from prominent atheists, and prominent Christians.

I hadn’t even heard of this book, and I doubt it will go on my reading list. I don’t care for books that are going to make me want to toss them out a window.

Their friendship became so close they went on two long road trips together, with Hitchens reading aloud from the Gospel of John on one of them.

As Hitchens suffered and died from esophageal cancer, Taunton believes he was giving Christianity a kind of final review. Hitchens, who was baptized as a child in the Church of England but declared himself an atheist and burned his Bible at 15, never recanted his atheism.

But Taunton believes Hitchens gained a new appreciation for evangelical Christians who actually believe the Bible. “For the first time in his life, he was engaging evangelical Christians,” Taunton said. “He found them to be different from the veneer of Christianity in Britain. When he began debating these evangelicals, he began to like them.”

That’s news to me, but I didn’t exactly follow what Hitchens’ was or wasn’t doing. I don’t think it’s terribly surprising that you can end up liking people you also disagree with on some issues. That happens to most people, doesn’t it?

I don’t know if I can write anything ever again that gets universal praise from both the left and the right. This book is getting quite a reaction. The reception has been so kind, no nice. The atheist Michael Schermer loved the book.”

Yeah, okay, the book is a definite skip for me.

“I discovered Christopher is not defined by his atheism,” Taunton said. “Atheism is a negative and you can’t build a philosophy around a negative. Christopher was searching for a unifying system of thought. They’re accusing me of saying he converted. I make no such claim. It’s not my claim that Christopher converted, it’s that Christopher was contemplating conversion. I think I substantiate it in the book.”

[…]

In the end, Hitchens had created too big a reputation on his atheism to convert to Christianity, Taunton said.

“Christopher was in a difficult place,” Taunton said. “He’s a dying man. He asked me why I thought he didn’t convert. I said, ‘You’ve created a global reputation as an atheist, your fortune, your reputation is based on it. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to admit you were wrong. You created a prison for yourself.'”

I’m not saying he converted! Wait, I am too saying he converted! No, just that he wanted to convert! I’d think more of this “good Christian” if he wasn’t picking the bones of the dead to make a profit. Full Article Here.

This is Shermer’s brief review:

If you really want to get to know someone intimately, go on a multi-day cross-country road trip, share fine food and expensive spirits, and have open and honest conversations about the most important issues in life. And then engage them in public debate before thousands of people on those very topics. In this engrossing narrative about his friendship with the atheist activist Christopher Hitchens, the evangelical Christian Larry Taunton shows us a side of the man very few of us knew. Apparent contradictions dissolve before Taunton’s penetrating insight into the psychology of man fiercely loyal to his friends and passionately devoted to leading a life of integrity. This book should be read by every atheist and theist passionate about the truth, and by anyone who really wants to understand Hitch, one of the greatest minds and literary geniuses of our time.
—Michael Shermer

Atheists Fight to Offer College Scholarships

FFRF Ad.

FFRF Ad.

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A school district in California’s high desert refused to include scholarship offers from atheist groups in the lists they distribute to students, the groups claim in court.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Antelope Valley Freethinkers sued Antelope Valley Union School Board and its High School District on constitutional grounds Tuesday in Federal Court. […]

The Freedom From Religion Foundation annually offers $17,950 in college scholarships, and the Antelope Valley Freethinkers offered $1,750 in scholarships to three winners.
Both groups asked applicants to submit an essay on the challenges of being a “nonbeliever” or “freethinker.”
Both say the school district and Palmdale High School refused to make their scholarship announcements available to students, though the district did announce other scholarship offers that “solicited religious speech, required applicants to be religious, and dealt with the historically controversial topics of homosexuality and guns.” […]

Freethinkers president David Dionne, a plaintiff, says in the lawsuit that Deputy Superintendent Jeff Foster told him that “he couldn’t approve the scholarship the way it was worded because it would upset some parents. In particular, he cited the following sentence as particularly objectionable: ‘Perhaps you’ve been ridiculed, harassed, or punished for speaking up against religion in the classroom, at school events, in government, or within your family.'”
When Dionne offered to rewrite his announcement, he says, Foster told him: “”We simply do not have the time to ‘word smith’ language that might be acceptable to the district and yet meet the intent of your organization.”

Full Story Here.

Sunday Facepalm: Our God is Bigger!

A Troup ISD student wears religious shirt (Facebook)

A Troup ISD student wears religious shirt (Facebook)

Troup ISD parents are upset after a letter was sent to the school district asking that a bible verse be taken down from its website.

The letter was sent out by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Brittany Taylor has two kids at Troup ISD.  She, along with other upset parents, are fighting a battle she says the schools can’t.

[…]

Parents at Troup are in the process of ordering shirts for their students that say, “Our God is bigger.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) said that’s not the point.

[…]

The bible verse that was on the website read  “As Goliath moved closer to attack, David quickly ran out to meet him.” It comes from the Old Testament.

The FFRF said the verse promotes Christianity.

“I’m hoping that we get to put it back up because everybody should have freedom of religion,” said Jesse Calley, 7th grader.

Even if the quote never goes back on the website, parents said they’re planning to send pictures of the students wearing the shirts to the foundation in hopes of getting a message across.

“It will be in our children’s hearts and they will not stop praising God because a group told them to,” said Taylor.

Full Story Here.

Our God Is Bigger. That sentiment has a whole lot to answer for, mostly in the form of one war after another, with corpses strewn across the landscape. It’s simplistic, and terrifying. How about “Our God Doesn’t Require A Quote.”?

Gov. Phil Bryant Strikes Again

The stupid. The bigotry. The Pretend Persecution. It never ends. I think this story can be safely tucked into The Persecution Files.

A gun and a Bible (Shutterstock)

A gun and a Bible (Shutterstock)

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed a gun rights bill on Friday allowing churches to create security programs designating members to carry firearms to defend worshipers against violence.

The legislation, called the “Mississippi Church Protection Act,” also makes it easier for residents in other settings to carry concealed weapons, drawing criticism from national gun control advocates.

Full Story Here.

Do I look sufficiently self-righteous?

John Kasich gives a Bible lesson to Jewish voters in Brooklyn (YouTube/screen grab)

John Kasich gives a Bible lesson to Jewish voters in Brooklyn (YouTube/screen grab)

I’m getting tired of feeling like I should just go pound my head into the wall. Or maybe pound someone else’s head into a wall. It’s a toss up. Kasich decides to Jesussplain to Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn.

Uriel Heilman of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency recommended on Thursday that Kasich abstain from giving Christian Bible lessons to Jewish voters.

“Talking about Christ’s blood during a visit to Borough Park? Oy vey,” Heilman wrote. “Please, somebody, prep this guy Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn want to hear about food stamps, affordable housing, Medicaid. Ix-nay on the Jesus-nay.”

Full Story Here.

Judo Jesus and The Spitter

I’ve often written about the Red River Clinic  in the comments at Pharyngula. It’s the last clinic standing in ND, and they always have anti-choicers hanging about. (Any and all pennies you might have to contribute to keep the clinic open would be more than appreciated). Then there’s Jesus, but for a change, he’s on the right side…

IMG_0265

Nik Severson

In this Forum file photo, Fargo police responded to a disturbance between Tyson Kuznia, left, and Nikolaus Severson, right, outside the Red River Women’s Clinic in downtown Fargo, N.D. on Sunday, October 25, 2015.

FARGO – A judge has ordered a Fargo man to pay a $400 fine for fighting someone outside the downtown Red River Women’s Clinic last year.

In October, Nikolaus Severson was goading anti-abortion protesters picketing outside the only clinic that performs abortions in North Dakota when a passer-by spit in his face.

Severson “grabbed the victim, threw him to the ground and sat on him,” prosecutor Ian R. McLean said in Municipal Court on Thursday, April 14.

[…]

Tyson Kuznia, who spit on Severson before being tackled, was also ordered to pay $400 and granted a deferred imposition of sentence when a Municipal Court judge found him guilty Jan. 14 of a misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Kuznia said he felt compelled to spit on Severson because Severson was harassing anti-abortion protesters.

[Gosh, those anti-choice protesters, not harassing anyone, no, not at all, nope.]

Severson irritated the anti-abortion protesters for several days, holding up signs like “F— these haters.” In an interview late last year, Severson said he has no stance on abortion because he is not a woman. But he said, “I just don’t like people using God to shame women.”

Full Story Here.

Sunday Facepalm

Rice Broocks, author of God's Not Dead.

Rice Broocks, author of God’s Not Dead.

The God’s Not Dead author, Rice Broocks:

MRT: Could you describe your relationship with science?

Broocks: I actually travel with a physicist who speaks with me at universities, and he likes the theology [Broocks has a master’s degree in theology] more and I like  science more. For 20 years I’ve been seeking the evidence because I want to know. If people from science say that science points away from God, you have to explain that. Everybody has a philosophy and a worldview. Everyone has a different interpretation and you shouldn’t be afraid of the explanation of those same facts. I know there are a lot of people that are sincere and might be afraid of science, but the common grounds we all have are the facts of it.

My, my. I read that twice, just to make sure, but there isn’t one damn thing in that paragraph of nothing about his personal relationship with science. I think it might be safe to assume that in Mr. Broock’s world, science means anything I want it to mean. And he travels with a physicist. He makes it sound like the physicist is his pet. I find that very odd, to say the least.

MRT: Your research on both fronts must be quite extensive.

Broocks: I just read all the time. For 30 years my target audience has been university students, so you had to stay caught up. When I go and speak, I encounter “gotcha” questions so you have to stay caught up. I wouldn’t say the first book [“God’s Not Dead”] is scientific, but I want to make the science I use understandable. I’m constantly speaking in a way that is understandable, I’m sort of a middle man for the people who are really, really smart and the people who just don’t know. My quest is always to try and talk to the 15-35-year old who thinks that these ideas have been disproven, and let them know that we believe evidence points toward God, not away from.

What do you know, I read all the time too! It’s not research. It’s reading. Those aren’t the same thing. I’m a bit…gobsmacked over the smug happiness in wallowing in ignorance that is on display. (I know, I shouldn’t be, but I am.)

Oh, and those of you in Italy and Iceland? Beware:

Broocks: I’m going around and doing these events in different countries. I”m going to Italy soon, and I’ll be doing an outreach program in Iceland.

The rest of the mess is here.

Mississippi Goddam

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant

Miss. Gov. Signs Sweeping Anti-LGBT ‘Religious Liberty’ Law

 

Mississippi now boasts the nation’s most aggressive anti-LGBT law, after Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1523 into law this morning.

The first-of-its-kind law will take effect in July, and allow businesses, individuals, and religiously affiliated organizations to deny service to LGBT people, single mothers, and others who somehow offend an individual’s “sincerely held religious belief.” It also directly targets transgender residents, effectively claiming that one’s sex assigned at birth is immutable, and will be the only gender recognized by the state.

The Republican governor announced that he had signed the bill in a tweet on Tuesday morning. It was accompanied by a statement contending that he signed HB 1523 “into law to protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

“This bill merely reinforces the rights which currently exist to the exercise of religious freedom,” the governor’s statement continued. “This bill does not limit any constitutionally protected rights or actions of any citizen of this state under federal or state laws.”

[…]

“Gov. Phil Bryant’s decision to sign HB 1523 into law is unconscionable,” said Jody E. Owens, managing attorney in Mississippi at the progressive Southern Poverty Law Center in a statement. “This newly enacted law — like the draconian anti-LGBT laws in other states — uses the guise of ‘religious freedom’ to justify discrimination, mistreatment and bigotry. It’s the same sort of rationale used by white supremacists in earlier eras to justify slavery and Jim Crow. The estimated 60,000 LGBT people in Mississippi deserve better. We need to stand up for the rights of all people.”

I don’t know what can be said here. I don’t know how to express the grief I feel. I don’t understand how people can be so filled with hatred and fear, yet think they are good people.

https://youtu.be/fVQjGGJVSXc

UPDATE: ‘#1 in bigotry’: Twitter unleashes its wrath.

Like Father, Like Son, oh no…

Ted and Rafael Cruz: Like Frightening Father, Like Scary Son.

Extremist antigay preacher Rafael Cruz groomed his son for the presidency since the age of 9 — and now Ted Cruz is ready to put his father's hateful views into practice. (AP Photo)

Extremist antigay preacher Rafael Cruz groomed his son for the presidency since the age of 9 — and now Ted Cruz is ready to put his father’s hateful views into practice. (AP Photo)

Ted Cruz is bad enough all on his own. If Cruz is elected, however, it will be a two-for-one deal. The devil and hellfire Daddy Cruz goes right with him.

If you follow politics at all, you probably know Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz’s major issue stances — he’s anti-LGBT equality, anti-abortion rights, a proponent of free-market economics and an aggressive foreign policy.

But to really kow Cruz’s worldview, it’s important to know his father, mentor, and top campaign surrogate, 76-year-old Rev. Rafael Cruz.

“Rafael Cruz is an extremist,” Chuck Smith, CEO of Equality Texas, tells The Advocate. “He is the senator’s role model. Rafael Cruz spoke at the World Congress of Families event in Utah with a gay-bashing lineup of hateful speakers, and he is Ted’s surrogate traveling across the country on the campaign trail bashing gay people. Like father, like son.”

And the elder Cruz, who hit the campaign trail extensively in Ted’s successful run for U.S. senator from Texas in 2012 and is doing so now in his presidential effort, says the things his son — or almost any politician — can’t get away with.

[…]

Among Rafael Cruz’s other antigay greatest hits: At the World Congress of Families event last November, he said gay people want to legalize pedophilia, starting with an effort to strike down age-of-consent laws. Indeed, he has frequently described LGBT people as sexual predators. He has also said marriage equality is part of a government plot to “destroy the concept of God” and establish socialism in the United States.

[…]

The lack of distance between father and son shows how dangerous a Ted Cruz presidency would be, Smith tells The Advocate. He “lets his father say all the fiery gay-bashing rhetoric, but Ted Cruz will implement that rhetoric in his policies and appointments,” Smith says. “He is the worst candidate in the race, and I have no doubt he will discriminate against gay and transgender people all over the United States if he is elected president.”

Full Story.

OH FFS

A brief round up of the amazingly stupid and awful…

Rally to keep the Confederate flag flying (Mashable/Twitter)

Rally to keep the Confederate flag flying (Mashable/Twitter)

Mississippi governor Phil Bryant recently proclaimed April to be Confederate Heritage Month , adding an official flourish to a longstanding tradition in his state and several others. April, he wrote in the proclamation, is “the month in which the Confederate States began and ended a four-year struggle”.

Bryant’s proclamation does not mention the central cause of the struggle – slavery – but instead announces the month as a chance to “gain insight from our mistakes and successes” and to “earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us”. It also sets aside 25 April as “Confederate Memorial Day”.

Full Story Here.

 Beata Szydło supports the motion to ban abortion. Photograph: East News/REX/Shutterstock

Beata Szydło supports the motion to ban abortion. Photograph: East News/REX/Shutterstock

The Polish prime minister, Beata Szydło, said she backs moves towards a total ban on abortion, in a sign the nationalist government may be set to turn its attention to the nuclear family.

A campaign against abortion is due to be launched this Sunday in the country’s Roman Catholic churches. Priests have been asked to read out a letter from the bishops’ conference calling for Poland’s existing, limited abortion rights to be scrapped.

[Read more…]

Washington D.C.: travel ban to NC

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser

Washington D.C. Bans Employees From Traveling to North Carolina

The mayor of Washington, D.C., has banned all nonessential employee travel to North Carolina after the state passed an anti-LGBT law that bars transgender people from accessing public facilities like bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity and eliminates all existing LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances in the state.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted out the executive order banning travel for government employees, saying, “We stand with the LGBTQ community and against discrimination.”

[…]

D.C. joins Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Chicago,Vermont, and Washington State in barring employees from traveling to North Carolina.

When Indiana passed a so-called religious freedom bill last year, a similar backlash had entire states clamping down on travel. The governors of Connecticut, New York, and Washington all issued orders banning nonessential travel to Indiana until that law was amended.

[…]

The consequences to North Carolina, its economics, and its reputation as an inclusive state are piling up. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit. The entertainment company Lionsgate has relocated a television series. The mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, is asking North Carolina businesses to move to the Windy City in order to avoid controversy.

Full story here. It’s good to see people pouring on the pressure. Sooner or later, the message that hate is not to be legislated must hit home, and hard.