FSTDT

I’ve known this site for a long time, but a reader just sent me a link to it, so maybe I shouldn’t take for granted that you all know about it, too…it’s Fundies Say The Darndest Things, a collection of ripe and juicy quotes culled from Christian discussion boards. Some of them I suspect to be the product of godless trolls, but others, including some of the most outrageously ridiculous statements, are definitely from steadfast fundamentalists.

Megachurches make millions

You really should read this Senator Charles Grassley’s investigation into megachurches. It’s about time someone pulled down these big-time scams.

Nearly 2,000 years later, some who claim to speak in Jesus’ name are taking a different view. Consider Bishop Eddie Long, who pastors a megachurch in Lithonia, Ga. With a salary approaching $1 million a year and a nine-bathroom mansion situated on 20 acres, Long’s choice of vehicles reflects his opulent lifestyle: He drives a $350,000 Bentley.

Far from casting out money changers, Long is likely to join them. In a 2005 profile in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he defended his high-flying ways, insisting, “I pastor a multimillion dollar congregation. You’ve got to put me on a different scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that’s supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering.”

These charlatans tend to hide behind the first amendment and claim that their congregations have a right to worship as they please (which generally seems to mean throwing money to the pastor at his bidding). As the article makes clear, Grassley isn’t interested in challenging them on constitutional issues: he’s investigation financial fraud, not doctrine.

That sounds fair to me. Churches ought to repay their tax exemption by being required to provide full, open, public disclosure of all of their finances.

Let’s just go back to arranged marriages

This is probably a serious site. Probably. It could be satire, but the line between satire and Christianity is razor thin. Read Christian dating tips, and judge for yourself.

First rule of Christian dating: it’s pretty much like going to church. Boring, chaste, and offering nothing but faint hopes. No intimacy is allowed, not even a kiss.

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Blasphemy is always good for a laugh

Here’s a fine list of 20 blasphemous events, rated by
vulgarity, criminality, religious impact, political impact, and deaths. My favorite has to be number 13.

Rude Buddha

A sculpture of Buddha with a banana and two eggs strategically placed was happily on display at the Royal Academy of Arts this summer, but when it was moved to the sculptors’ home city of Norfolk it raised hackles amongst the local police force’s hate crime unit. DC Dan Cocks ordered it to be removed from the gallery. The artist said he aimed to show that in a global village everyone can take offence at something.

I know, it’s silly, but I felt like ordering Dan Cocks fired for vulgarity, too.

Yeah, that’ll work

So the Catholic church has a problem with pedophilia. In a rational world, there’s a range of options available: stop protecting priests who abuse their position, threaten convicted child-abusing priests with expulsion and excommunication, even revisit this peculiar custom of demanding celibacy for the priesthood. Alas, the Pope has his own very special solution.

Pope Benedict XVI has instructed Roman Catholics to pray “in perpetuity” to cleanse the Church of paedophile clergy. All dioceses, parishes, monasteries, convents and seminaries will be expected to organise continuous daily prayers to express penitence and to purify the clergy.

Pray harder! Exercise a completely ineffective technique more strenuously!

I do wonder how the Pope imagines god will “cleanse” the church. Just tweaking the brains of priests so they don’t feel lust anymore would be a violation of free will and make a mess of centuries of theology, while having god get all Old Testament on the church and smite priests all around the world with lightning bolts would be spectacular and effective, but probably very bad PR.

Mixed messages from the NAS

The NAS has a new edition of their Science, Evolution, and Creationism publication, which is a genuinely excellent piece of work. We’ve used the previous editions in our introductory biology course here at UMM, and if you want a short, plainly written introduction to the evidence for and importance of evolution to modern biology, I recommend it highly. It fills a niche well — it explains the science and gives a general overview for the layman without getting distracted by the details. And if $12 strains your wallet and 70 pages exceeds your attention span, you can download an 8 page summary for free. If you teach high school biology or have kids in high school, grab that: it’s an outline of what every educated adult ought to understand about evolution.

However, it does play the bland game of religious appeasement to a small degree, and although it is only a short part of the book, it’s a blemish that would have been better left out. The NY Times review plays up the religion-and-science-are compatible angle, unfortunately; as you might expect, Greg Laden doesn’t sound impressed and Larry Moran doesn’t fall for it. I don’t either. It’s not enough to dissuade me from urging more people to read the book, since it really is an inconsequential dollop of pablum tossed on top of some good science, but I have to say that it really looks stupid in there.

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Uh-oh — I can think of a few people who will argue with this

Although this article does make a very good case that you can’t be a feminist and religious at the same time. Even the most peaceful religions, like Jainism and Buddhism, treat women as inferiors.

The article doesn’t mention any female-centered religions, though, like Wicca…I suppose you could be a Wiccan feminist, but you’re still stuck trying to believe in crazy stuff.

There must be violence against women

Those darn human rights organizations keep meddling in people’s personal affairs — for instance, they think fathers and brothers shouldn’t be allowed to beat or kill their wives and sisters if they have been dishonorable, and that women ought to report abuse to the police. Don’t they know that violence against women is a good thing? There are perfectly good reasons for it.

Relationships between fathers and daughters or sisters and brothers also provoke argument from human rights organizations, which propose the suggested solutions for all relationships. Personally, I don’t think fathers or brothers would undertake such behavior unless there was a reason for it.

Of course, if you actually read the article, the author just rambles about and never tells us what these good reasons might be. If women are naughty, you have to do something about it, after all, and why not kick and hit them?

Fathers are responsible for their daughters’ behavior, but human rights organizations deny this too. Brothers also should take action regarding their sisters’ behavior, especially if their parents are too old or dead. If a daughter or sister makes a mistake – especially a moral one – that negatively affects the entire family and its reputation, what’s the solution by such organizations?

According to them, women should complain to the courts about any type of violence against them. Likewise, should fathers and brothers complain to police if their daughters or sisters violate moral, Islamic or social norms?

Fathers should handle their daughters via any means that suits their mistake; thus, is it better to use violence to a certain limit or complain to the police? Shall such women then complain to the police against their fathers or brothers? It’s really amazing to hear this.

It really is amazing. How about talking with them, treating them with respect, and finding out what their reasons for their behavior might be…and how about finding a solution other than stupidly hitting them?

It’s also peculiar because all of this violence is only excused against women — as if fathers and brothers do not ever violate moral, Islamic, or social norms. It’s all so blindly one-sided. And here’s the interesting reason why:

Dear readers – especially women – don’t think that I hate or am against women; rather, I simply mean to preserve the morals and principles with which Islam has honored us.

I hope my message is clear, since it’s really quite relevant to the future of our societies, which must be protected from any kind of cultural invasion.

That last bit is legitimate — of course there is a fear that outsiders will destroy one’s culture, especially the valuable, useful, loved parts of one’s historical tradition, so there is a natural tendency to bunker up and defend everything with equal zealotry. But no culture is perfect and every culture has some ugly relics creeping about in the basement; in this case, the mistreatment of women is one such horrid little vestige of a barbaric society. Perhaps instead of arguing in favor of the indefensible, it would be better to encourage the culture to change from within, and recognize that there is injustice in Islam.

Unfortunately, there will also be people who will argue that because Allah wills it, it must be so.