It’s God. I mean, Ken Ham, who thinks he is god.
Oh look. Biden has appointed a transgender woman to a position where she can advise godly men. This is catastrophic to the Christian world view.
Once again, he demonstrates that his peculiar interpretation of the Bible is the one true Christianity.
OH NOES. Biden is planning to sacrifice children on the altar of secular humanism! Darn these Moloch worshippers worming their way into high office.
Wait, I thought he was a Catholic…
Our MN city council has a transgender woman on it. She’s very Trumpian – voted to make the town a 2nd amendment sanctuary city, refuses to wear a mask at council meetings, voted to allow downtown bars to hold street dances this last summer, agreed with the city administrator that Trump flags are not covered by the ordinance dealing with campaign signs because they are “flags” not “signs” . . . on and on. So Ham makes his usual broad generalization.
Just putting a competent person put in charge of handling COVID-19 would have cut Ham to the bone. But the fact that she’s Transgender really makes him stew.
As I mentioned elsewhere, Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang (who is also Trans) played a huge role in Taiwan’s success. It was she who coordinated and connected the health care system with cell phones, allowing Taiwan’s CDC and CECC to track and trace people to prevent a spread.
In the various streams of Protestantism, there’s an ebb and flow of the degree to which the pope in Rome is deemed the Antichrist. Among Ham and his ilk, it’s likely to reach a flood tide now that a pro-choice Catholic is in the White House without a ban of excommunication issued against him (even though ultramontane loonies like Catholic Militant keep agitating for it).
No matter what Biden/Harris do, it would make Ham blindly angry.
Just them existing is enough.
To be fair, the fact that PZ Myers, myself, or most of the US population exists makes Ham mad.
He is a hater and haters got to hate.
“I mean, Ken Ham, who thinks he is god.”
Now you’re unfair. He is way too modest for such a thought. No, he considers himself only fourth in line, immediately after the Holy Tritinity.
“Wait, I thought he was a Catholic…|
Ie not a christian according to the one man who has a direct telephone line with the Father, The Son and the Holy Spook.
Secular humanism really should be our “religion”.
Ham lies about everything.
There is no such thing as a Christian worldview.
The religion is split into 42,000 sects that don’t agree on anything.
Don’t forget Biden is a Catholic and Harris is a Baptist. Most of their voters were…other xians.
Ken Ham doesn’t even speak for the 20% of white Evangelicals who voted for Biden, much less most xians.
Most xians would consider Ham a heretic.
The Biden administration isn’t going to be catastrophic change.
That was Trump who created a rolling 4 year disaster ending with a pandemic that has killed 400,000.
It will be a return to our normal, a centrist regime leaning slightly to the left this time.
“More children sacrificed” and an “already triumphant” Lord. Either Ham doesn’t know what triumphant means – the last year(s) hasn’t been any great triumph for anyone – or Jesus is actually really into human sacrifice, especially when it isn’t him, in which case he should apparently be very happy with this new development. More blood for the blood god. Hosanna!
On the other hand maybe it’s just unreasonable of me to expect any degree of consistency from someone quoting the Bible.
That Biden is a Christian doesn’t register with the likes of Ham. That he isn’t a right-wing conservative is more than enough to preemptively condemn him.
I wish God would save us…. from Mr Ham.
Australia sure ain’t sending its best.
Hey, is Ham even a US citizen? Wikipedia calls him “Australian” and I see no record of him naturalizing. Shouldn’t he stay the fuck out of US politics? (Sorry not sorry if he is a citizen, but if not, he sure has some chutzpah.)
“He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame.” How ironic that Ham would quote this.
“Australia sure ain’t sending its best.” Well, maybe not, but I bet Ken Ham has calves the size of cantaloupes.
I love the taste of X-tian tears.
WEEP FOR ME KEN!!!
I’m thirsty.
@11 After Paul Hogan and Jacko, that’s a pretty low bar already.
I am not a big President Biden fan. Not in my top ten of folks running this last time.
However, I do like the Biden that conservatives keep talking about. Funny his first name is also Joe…
As an Australian I would like to sincerely and humbly apologise.
But I can’t because sending him there means he is not here.
@16 Hey now, we gave you Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Flea and Helen Reddy. Murdoch’s has been a naturalized citizen for almost 40 years, so that’s your problem now.
I’d tell Ham to fuck off back to Australia,except I live in Australia.
Technically Mel Gibson was born in the US and we shipped him to Oz to become radicalized.
There were so many good Aussies of importance that the bad ones are easily overlooked: Sandy from Grease, Joker from Batman, Leonard Shelby from Memento, Agent Smith from Matrix, Huge Jackass, Team Hemsworth, Nicole Kidman, and the Crocodile Hunter.
And Philosopher Wilkins.
Who claims responsibility for AC/DC?
@19 Fair enough, cobber. And you do get partial credit for Olivia Newton-John.
@21, “Who claims responsibility for AC/DC?”
Tesla/Edison. (Neither Ozlandian.)
tacitus @11: A lot of Evangelicals don’t recognize Catholics as being Christians. They think they’re atheists (somehow).
@24, Speculating, anyone who isn’t “one of them” is TEH Most Evil Thing Evar!!!!1! — and a cartoon version of atheism is on the shortlist.
blf @25: It seems to boil down to “you’re either an Evangelical or an atheist.”
The Hamster must be really angry. He forgot to end with a plea to send him money.
Evangelicals consider Catholics to be “pagan”, because — and they’re not entirely wrong — Catholics “venerate” (fancy word for worship) Mary and the Saints. Catholicism is thinly-veiled polytheism, really. But it’s very much a Christianized form of polytheism.
Traditionally there was a lot of suspicion by American Protestants of “Papist” Catholics, though I’m not sure it was limited to Evangelicals. (And clearly it was controversial enough to come up in JFK’s presidential campaign.)
Today, the alignment is different. There are very conservative Catholics who seem to get along very well with Evangelicals at least in the political sphere. Of course there are liberal Catholics too. I am not sure there are as many as there were when I was young. This rightwing alliance could be one of convenience, since there are clearly many theological differences.
WMDKitty — Survivor@28 BTW, I disagree strongly that Catholicism is any sort of polytheism at all unless you really want to stretch definitions.
You’re reminding me of that Jack Chick tract that claimed IHS stands for Isis Horus Seb. Mary’s status is not that of a goddess. Though the belief that she is without Original Sin sets her apart, she’s still human. When the saints are asked to “intercede” I agree it’s all a little silly, but their status as immortal souls of humans is not in question and not conflated with godhood. The doctrine of the Trinity is not limited to Catholicism, and the point gets hammered home repeatedly that there is one God, not three.
Anyway, some Evangelicals believe in angels, don’t they? By a definition as loose as yours, they might as well be demigods and therefore many Christian religions are “polytheistic.”
What’s the difference between an angel, and a subordinate god like what you find in plenty of other polytheistic religions with a single creator god? None.
Are you taking the piss? Why isn’t it called the “unity” then?
I think theology is best left to the believers.
To anyone else, I propose they first provide solid evidence in support of their beliefs. Only then is it worth anyone’s breath or brainspace. Demonstrate that God exists*, and then we can talk about the smaller details.
However, what always astounds me is how blatantly hypocritical the fundies are. They preach love and yet mostly practice hatred. They profess divine happiness and yet their beliefs mostly bring forth misery. Not exactly appealling from the outside.
*The only “evidence” I would accept is a personal visit. And even then I might chalk it up to a gas leak or insufficient intake of oxygen. And even then, this might not be their god.
@31’s footnote, That reminds of Issac Asimov’s opinion on suitable evidence for alien flying saucers, paraphrasing, “An alien crew and its craft, in plain sight, allowing inspection, for a reasonable amount of time”.
@29 Catholics are polytheists. They worship Mary and the saints alongside big-G God.
They claim they’re not “worshipping” but “venerating” so they’re monotheists. It’s false, much like the Evangelicals who claim that Christianity isn’t a religion but a relationship with Jesus/God. No, it’s a religion.
@29 Mary has the powers of a goddess, for example being expected to hear tens to hundreds of millions of prayers per day.
@23- I saw Tesla and Edison live in 1982? They were high voltage on a highway to hell. Stepped on a live wire but was a problem child. At least it wasn’t TNT. Those were my school days with the brothers Young. Let there be rock!
GOTS @30:
Angels aren’t worshipped.
Why aren’t ice, water and water vapour just called ‘H₂O’ then?
PaulBC — I was raised Catholic, thanks. It’s definitely polytheistic, they just go through some really complicated theological “reasoning” as to why it’s not “really” polytheistic.
Rob Grigjanis — Angels? No. But Mary and the saints are definitely worshiped as lesser gods.
Re: several people…
On whether or not evangelicals/fundamentalists consider Catholics to be Christian or not depends on what point they’re trying to make. If they seek to show that “Christians” are a majority, they include Catholics. If they’re making either an “oppressed/embattled” minority or making a “True Christian” argument, then Catholics aren’t.
As for “unity”…Unitarians. That argument got their founder burned at the stake.
WMDKitty — Survivor@37 Well, me too. Your point about saints being “worshipped” has some logical consistency, but I still think you’re stretching things. First off, I believe in taking any religion at face value unless absolutely impossible do so. If Catholics recite a creed that begins “We believe in one God” it takes some audacity to say “Oh, no you don’t!” I apply the same courtesy to all religions (and generally don’t care what people claim to believe, but whether they show basic decency, since I’m wrong about a ton of stuff too). Actually, I have a particular respect for Mormons because it takes real chutzpah to claim you dug up your sacred work only a couple centuries ago when most religions have the whole “shrouded in antiquity” excuse to fall back on. People are going to believe stuff. It’s not always going to make sense. Being an asshole about it doesn’t build bridges–which isn’t what you’re always try to do, but it is what I prefer when I can.
One of things that really throws me for a loop is “St. Gabriel the Archangel.” Well he’s an angel fer sure. So he’s a saint too? Maybe it makes more sense in other languages. Santa Cruz, after all, is Holy Cross, not Saint Cruz. And if a church can be named after Gabriel, where people assemble to worship, are they “worshipping” an angel. I don’t think so, but I don’t think they’re worshipping Saint Patrick at a church named after him.
People “venerate” saints, and it’s more common (correct me if I’m wrong) in the Orthodox tradition, where icons are revered. It seems obviously to go against the prohibition on “graven images” and I know that is a Protestant objection (and a logical one I think).
(Though it hasn’t stopped today’s Evangelicals from producing all kinds of ludicrous representational art.)
Saint veneration strikes me less like polytheism than ancestor worship. The saints aren’t ancestors but they are honored deceased. They’re not really said to have “godlike” powers. They intercede. God is still assumed to be the one who works the miracles attributed to saints. Words, yeah, I mean I see where you are going with this, but I still think you could stretch the definition to make nearly any religion polytheistic. All you need is more than one being with superhuman powers and some attempt to communicate with them.
whheydt@39
And they are happy to morph into Judeo-Christians at the drop of a hat, though oddly disinclined to extend themselves further into the Abrahamic tradition.
Unless they need to align yet more generically as “people of faith” but I think this is more common among political moderates than conservatives.
is all this ham about Biden not being a Christian and echo of Christians saying “JFK being a CATHOLIC, is not Christian” ?
Funny that Biden is the 2nd Catholic President. You’d think JFK would have cleaned that stigma from them
“Australia sure ain’t sending its best.”
Well we sent you Ted Cruz, Australia sent you Ken Ham.
Notice a pattern here?
WMDKitty @38: Yeah, to an outsider like me, the status of Mary does seem remarkably goddess-like. Like a reincarnation of Asherah, another, older Queen of Heaven.
If no one wants to claim AC/DC I will because they rock.
I’ll take The Chats and Amyl and the Sniffers too.
On the subject of Mary, I was once randomly googling “Our Lady of Luck” (like a combination of Mary and Lady Luck) and I was surprised to find there is a Catholic Shrine in China, Our Mother of Sheshan, that is sometimes called Our Lady of Luck. “Attributes: Blessed Virgin Mary standing on top a Chinese dragon, Infant Jesus in cruciform gesture”
No word on whether they sing “Luck be a Lady tonight” though it seems unlikely.
I agree that the veneration of Mary, prayers like the Rosary, and some of the depictions make her appear like a goddess, but again the Catholic church does not claim that and would actually consider it heretical to say so.
Catholicism is not strictly polytheistic in the same way that Amway is not strictly a Ponzi scheme.
@47 I’m not sure it’s exactly mincing words here. I don’t see the big distinction between polytheism and monotheism as a matter of whether various celestial beings are worshiped* or not, but where they draw their power from.
E.g., in classical mythology, the gods and goddesses can fight each other. They hide information, lie, and trick each other. Some are more powerful than others, but any one of them is potentially vulnerable to another.
In all Abrahamic religions, the assumption is that power comes from one God who is omnipotent and by definition can revoke powers. So Mary, St. Patrick, or the archangel Gabriel can’t gang up on God the Father because whatever powers you assign to them are actually a redirection of powers coming from God. I mean, this is the basic theology I was taught. It’s not that circuitous. No, I don’t believe it, but I think it is distinct from polytheism.
This point is often made very specifically about Satan, who basically can’t win against God because God is the source of all power (and again it’s considered heretical to suggest otherwise). Hence’s Satan’s “empty promises.” He talks a good game but he can’t back it up.
I agree that not every account, whether biblical or traditional is consistent with this view, and indeed there’s almost certainly a lot of syncretism going on, but it does a disservice both to Abrahamic religions and true polytheistic faiths to conflate them haphazardly.
*Can’t you be a god and not be worshipped? How about a deistic creator? Can’t a god be too minor to worship, or simply out of fashion? Can’t a religion encompass the existence of lonely, unworshipped gods, or even introverted gods who want nothing of it?
As always in matters sexual or gender issues, you can’t help asking “what the hell does it have to do with Ken Ham?”
American not considering Catholics proper Christians will never fail to amuse me.
But I also enjoy lots of atheists debating whether Catholicism is truly this for of religion or not, because we all know, there is one true definition for that. Have fun, kids, you could be doing worse.
I’ve been listening to all these Evangelical “prophets” who keep claiming that God has revealed the Truth to them, but everything always turns out to be false. Not a single true prediction to the lot. It makes me wonder whom they are really praying to. The fourth member of the Trinity, I think.
@23 You ragbag ,i was going to say that .
Wasn’t rambling ron a catholic ?
re @48:
Have you red Gaiman’s American Gods (or seen the AMC production)? Gaiman expands earlier SF ideas (I think Zelazny did one) where Gods live off of faith, that Gods no one believe in cease to exist, essentially evaporate. That essentially Man creates Gods, not in any sense was Man physically created by a god.
This is my religion, that God and the Bible are a story we created to cope with things we don;t understand. When something happens we can;t explain we simply default to “God did it”
–don;t know where I’ going with this …
Ultimately, arguing whether Mary and the saints are the same thing as pagan gods strikes me as rather like arguing whether the Enterprise or a Star Destroyer would win in a fight- sure, it’s fun, but it’s rather pointless, since they have fundamentally different sets of underlying assumptions and are both fictional anyway.
So first day in office Biden makes an executive order prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people.
Yes, I know I shouldn’t get carried away, yes, I know he’s a centrist, blah blah blah. But after 4 years of Trumpism/TERFism holy fuck is this a breath of fresh air.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))@53 I have not, but I’ve seen similar ideas. Though the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of an introverted god who gets annoyed when lesser beings bother him with prayer. I wonder if there is anything analogous in an actual mythology.
@ 40 PaulBC
I was raised Catholic and even had nuns teaching me for 3 years in high school. Not a hint of polytheism. OTOH, even in the (almost) monolithic Catholic Chur there could be some strange cults (Opus Dei?). Certainly there are today. Reports about that weird group that the new US Justice Amy Vivian Coney Barrett belongs to make them sound like a candidate for excommunication even back in Pope John-Paul XXII’s day. You will not find many Jesuits in the ranks of polytheism.
“St. Gabriel the Archangel.”
Never heard of that one in English. It was “The Archangel Gabriel”. I think you are right and is a more or less direct translation from another language.
@ 50 Giliell
American not considering Catholics proper Christians will never fail to amuse me.
It spills over the border. I heard one Canadian assuring a would-be recruit that Catholics were, to paraphrase, fringe Christians.
jrkrideau@57 Well here it is verbatim https://www.stgabrielstl.org I would probably have been skeptical of that exact phrasing if I hadn’t found it in a search yesterday.
I had a Latin teacher in high school (Latin was not required; call me a masochist). Anyway, he was lay, not a brother, and I never thought of him as devout but he explained that he had been reading the works of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egeria_(pilgrim) a medieval pilgrim and that she wrote “Sanctus Moyses” a lot, literally “Holy Moses.” I often felt that needs to be brought back as an expression, “Sanctus Moyses!” in place of “Holy Moses!”
jrkrideau @58: Not much spillage. Ten Prime Ministers have been Catholics, and five of those were Anglophones. Four Anglicans, three Baptists, three Presbyterians, two United Church. And Stephen Harper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Canada_by_religious_affiliation
On the subject of the translation of “saint” I remember when I was in Zürich for a year, one day two young men, nicely dressed, came up talking full blast in German to me, which I do not understand, and I hastily translated their badges as Saints of the Last Days (Heiligen der Letzten Tage) which sounded like an apocalyptic cult. I said (in English) “Sorry I don’t speak German.” and they switched to American-accented English, after which it became clear that they were Mormons on their required mission, and we chatted a little.
Since then I would recognize their look and m.o., as well as that of Jehovah’s Witnesses (who in my experience seem to show up at the door as a man and a woman, but I don’t know if that’s always true). But I had never thought about “Latter Day” and I am still not even sure what that’s supposed to mean.
PaulBC
So, the argument by naked fiat? It’s monotheistic because I say so? Ignore all of the inconvenient facts that argue against my position because I say so?
Yahweh is sometimes depicted as the single creator god, and sometimes as the godhead of one pantheon among many, e.g. Baal.
Yahweh is sometimes depicted as the singular creator god, and sometimes Jesus and the Holy Spirit get in on it too, e.g. the purposefully incomprehensible trinity doctrine. Sometimes you worship Jesus. Sometimes you worship Yahweh.
Then of course there’s all of the worship of the individual saints, and Mary, and don’t pretend that this is anything other than widespread and more or less officially condoned by the Catholic Church. I mean, the Catholic Church preserves the bones of long-dead saints in places where pilgrims can visit and “pay thanks” or something. That’s worship to me.
And let’s not forget everyone’s favorite verse about Yahweh’s not-omnipotent power. Mere iron chariots defeated Yahweh. There’s also more fun esoteric verses that show that Yahweh is not all-powerful, like how Moses’s wife cut off the tip of their child and threw the baby penis tip at Moses’s penis, and how this somehow thwarted Yahweh’s intention to kill Moses on the spot. (One of my personal favorite verses.)
So, yes, you’re right, if you ignore all of the other stuff that contradicts your position.
GerrardOfTitanServer@62 As I said, there’s a lot of syncretism from other Near East religions, and the Old Testament in particular has the “jealous God” who clearly isn’t quite omnipotent, for example, if he sees the building of the Tower of Babel as an actual threat to his power.
I’m not really that interested in arguing whether “polytheistic” applies or not. It is not the first word that would come to my mind. Saint veneration has been around since the the early medieval church and of martyrs specifically (with the iconography such as Sebastian with arrows). It would be interesting to know where it originated. It strikes me more like ancestor worship than the worship of minor gods. But sure, call it polytheism if you want.
Personally, I think syncretic religions are more benign than ones with a “pure” doctrine that cannot abide any outside influence.
Arians vs Niceans is fairly well documented. The arguments don’t become better, but the tripartite nature of the One True God was a huge political battle back in the day. (Late 400s if my memory is accurate).
One God won out a very long time ago.
Tacitus mentions a few of the prechristian pantheons of pre roman invasion Europe.
Isis of the Suebi and her boat long predate Mary. The much later Finnish Kalevala also contains a story about a mother and a dismembered son who she returns to life.
Veneration of Mother Earth is also mentioned as very common among the northern tribes.
Re: felixmajister @ #54…
My wife got an (unfinished) story out of speculating what would happen if you dropped the Starship Enterprise into the Lensmen universe. We decided that phasers have absolutely no effect on polycyclic screens, but photon torpedoes get sucked in and the attempt to disappate the energy release will block the screen generator (thus, 4 photon torpedoes to destroy the screens of a ship in that universe). Running the warp drive while inertialess got exciting…
As for plot… Started with the Enterprise intersecting a hyper-spatial tube, dropping Kinnison onto the transporter deck. Spock was the only one who had read the series (and he promptly locked access to them in the ships library), so the Arisians wanted the starfleet folks out of there, ASAP. But to do it required the help of Nadreck and he wasn’t going to until his current project was completed, forcing the Enterprise to assist him.