At the heart of the Christian Gospel lies a simple-sounding transaction: when you believe in Jesus, God exchanges your sin for Christ’s righteousness, and thus you get to go to Heaven because you are no longer guilty. Or are you?
I’ve got to hand it to the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo: it takes a lot of courage to invite an imam to offer an opening prayer anywhere in Deepinnaharta Texas, especially if you have a Facebook page, as the Star-Telegram reports:
A sampling of the sentiments expressed:
“I just will choose NOT to go somewhere that embraces a religion that wants me, my family and my people DEAD.”
“Muslim/Islam has no place in this country let alone fwssr. Not one Muslim has come out against the radical actions that is the Muslim belief. PERIOD. COWBOYS DON’T WANT IT.”
“This really disappoints me in the FWSSR! Sad to see such a Texas & American institution fall in the gutter of political correctness.”
…
“Islam is against all other religions and I for one won’t attend an event that allows a darkness to be spoke over me!”
That second comment is just so classy, isn’t it? Not one Muslim has ever come out against radical Islam—assuming, of course, we don’t count the leading Islamic organizations in the United States and the overwhelming majority of non-radicalized Muslims world-wide. Apart from that, no, not one Muslim.
Here’s Texas Rep. Molly White, proving once again that you do not need to own a dick to be one.
I trust she will also have her staff invite Christian visitors to renounce pedophilia, since some Christians have been caught molesting altar boys, which means all must be presumed to be pedophiles.
Subtlety has never been a strong suit in America’s Christian supremacists, but you have to admire the feckless honesty of this guy:
Perhaps at no other time in America’s history has religious freedom suffered under such a sustained assault as today. And by “religious freedom,” I mean Christianity.
That’s it in a nut-case, er, -shell, isn’t it?
Via Mano Singham comes this story of a pastor who unwittingly had a close encounter with a little-known fact:
A Baptist minister is in hot water after preaching a sermon that called the Ten Commandments sayings or promises rather than mandates.
In his Christmas Eve message, Senior Pastor Perry Noble of NewSpring Church… told congregants that no word for “commandment” exists in Hebrew, the Old Testament’s original language.
For this faux pas, Noble has provoked a backlash among Christians, including the president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, who is threatening to disaffiliate Noble’s congregation for failure to conform to Baptist beliefs. Ironically, however, Noble is closer to the truth than the president of his denomination, which may be why he’s in such hot water. It’s true Hebrew DOES have a word for “commandment.” It’s just that this word never follows the number “ten.”
And that’s just the tip of the “Ten Commandments” iceberg.
A lot of people were surprised when Republicans, including Sen. Jim Inhofe, voted in favor of an amendment explicitly stating that climate change is real and is not a hoax. They needn’t have been. Conservatives have been saying for years that climate change is real, even while insisting that it is a hoax, depending on who they’re talking to and how much they think they can get away with. And to those who think the Senate vote is a good sign: sorry, but that’s only partly true. It does show that people are (reluctantly) conceding the facts. But does this mean the Republicans are now willing to support measures designed to try and address the issue before it turns into a global catastrophe? Unfortunately no. It only means a slight shift in tactics.
Q: How can you sneak a candy bar into a Colorado movie theater?
A: Hide it in the magazine of your open-carry handgun.
Or maybe just the stomach. According to a story in the Associated Press, a bigot in Colorado went to a baker and demanded a cake in the shape of a Bible with a hateful message about gays on it. When the baker refused, the bigot filed a complaint alleging that she was discriminating against his religious beliefs.
The NPR blog has a shortish post on “What If Heaven Is Not For Real,” written by self-declared agnostic Adam Frank. You can probably guess what he’s going to say, and I’m not going to say much for or against it. But I do want to take note of the comments, and this one in particular.
JW: That is a very profound verse. Do you believe that there is objective morality?
I’ve heard that argument so many times, and read it in so many books of apologetics (including C. S. Lewis et al), and of course it’s a huge red herring. But just for fun, let’s see how many ways we can come up with to try and make it clear, even to believers, that this is a bad argument. My entry: “Objective Deliciousness.”
The Economist is worried that technology may put limits on how effective the government is at spying on people.
Western spooks say they are losing the technological edge that has enabled them to monitor the communications of potential terrorists. Tech companies are competing in their efforts to provide their customers with unbreachable privacy through sophisticated and sometimes “default” encryption. The heads of both America’s FBI and Britain’s MI5 have complained about their inability to prevent suspects from “going dark”—dropping off the radar screen of surveillance.
Their solution? Make encryption easier to break.
The tech firms must come to terms with the fact that every previous form of communication—from the conversation to the letter to the phone—has been open to some form of eavesdropping: they cannot claim their realm is so distinct and inviolate that it can imperil others’ lives, especially as the number of people who need to be monitored is in the thousands. And it is far better to agree to some form of standard now, rather that wait for an atrocity plotted behind impenetrable walls to be unleashed: if that happens the Dick Cheneys and Donald Rumsfelds of the future will be setting the rules.
Apparently, Economist writers have failed to notice that the Dicks and Donalds are already making these rules. And there are other problems with their argument.