It’s never a good day to read about Doug Wilson

Remember Doug Wilson? I’ve never met him, but I met a few of his creationist acolytes when I visited the Palouse a few years ago, and they were a remarkably slimy bunch. I couldn’t even imagine how slimy, though. Doug Wilson is known for founding a particularly regressive church in Idaho, and also for a debate tour he did with Christopher Hitchens (they made a documentary about it), which was a total mystery to me. I don’t know whether Hitchens wanted to give Wilson a platform for his conservative ideology, or whether he thought Wilson was an obliging punching bag.

Here, though, is a brief introduction to Wilson’s version of Christianity.

In addition to his role as pastor, Wilson is also a co-founder of New St. Andrew’s College and Grayfriars Hall, a vocational seminary for young men. He has developed a reputation for being a harsh and constant critic, spilling tons of digital ink on issues from LGBT inclusion in the church (he’s against it) to his favorite topic, the implausibility of Christian feminism. Wilson makes his reputation as a shock-jock theologian; in his tendency to bloviate, he brings to mind a certain presidential candidate: “Make Christianity great again!”

Wilson is one of the figureheads of a set of beliefs known as Biblical Patriarchy, devoted to the idea that “father rule”—the literal meaning of patriarchy—is a guiding principle for the Christian life. He is convinced the Bible teaches that a woman’s primary domain is in the home, and only after her responsibilities are satisfied there can she think about going out to get some volunteer work or, perhaps, a part-time job. Female preachers are, naturally, out of the question. “Christian women ought to be domestic,” he once said. “Everything is directed toward home and family and kids.”

You may not want to read further into the article, because it gets even uglier. One of the cheap tricks of Wilson’s seminary is that he gets community members to house his budding seminarians for him. So picture this: this predatory, misogynistic church attracts predatory, misogynistic students, who are then housed with the trusting faithful of his congregation and their families, and then…well, this isn’t a sitcom, so I can’t cheerfully say that mirthful hijinks ensue. It’s more like sexual abuse of minors, stalking, and destruction of families. Or, in other words, typical Christian family life.

And, you will not be surprised to learn, the kicker is that Doug Wilson defends his students who are molesting 13 year old girls, and blames the parents in those households. He has a point: you are a bad parent if you let a Wilson-endorsed student anywhere near your children.

Jesus Fascist Christ

Trump goes full Nazi. Never go full Nazi.

So he endorses religious registration, watch lists, surveillance on mosques, and, the shit icing on the big cake made of poop, torture.

We have to be strong, the candidate insisted. You know, they don’t use waterboarding over there, they use chopping off people’s heads, they use drowning people.

I would bring it back, I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they do to us, he opined. I would absolutely bring back interrogation and strong interrogation.

And he’s got crowds cheering for that.

We don’t need no education

Cristina Odone is not happy that her daughter is required to take science and math classes — and it’s all those damned feminists pressuring girls to go into STEM fields. She thinks it isn’t right that, under the British system, kids are required to take a couple of GCSEs in the sciences.

Now this is where my Americanism gets in the way — I’m unfamiliar with the British system, so I had to do a little digging to relate her complaint to the American system I understand. GCSEs are qualifications that demonstrate basic understanding of a subject — students take exams, after a couple of years of coursework, when they’re about 16 years old, in a collection of subjects, some of which are required, and others which are elective. They’ll typically get 8-10 GCSEs.

Speak up, readers from the UK, if I’m getting any of this wrong!

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Scott Adams, master of ignorance

dilbertpig

I used to regularly take slaps at Scott Adams, but it got old — he’s so imperturbably stupid that it seemed mostly pointless. He thinks he already knows everything, so he’ll never learn. Either that or he’ll talk to himself in a series of positive affirmations to confirm that he’s right anyway…PZ Myers telling him he’s wrong can’t possibly compete with Scott Adams telling Scott Adams how brilliant Scott Adams is.

But now David Futrelle reminds me that not only is he stupid, he’s just an awful person. Adams has written a complaint about how poor men are so put upon by feminists, because of their rules. He tries to explain what a typical imaginary date is like.

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Is World Net Daily for real?

It’s practically a cartoon of far right idiocy, but it’s popular, and no one ever seems to stop and wonder that they can promote such hatefulness and ignorance and still maintain a readership. But then, this is the country of Trump and Carson, where a race towards stupidity has become a successful strategy for running for the presidency. And that scares me. We’ve got loons promoting murder and fascism, and we shrug our shoulders and say it’s just a fringe, don’t worry.

But look at what that fringe is saying.

My own politically incorrect suggestion is that we remove ISIS from the face of the earth, hopefully as a joint effort with every other nation it has threatened or attacked, and that we then bomb Mecca off the face of the earth, not concerning ourselves in the least with collateral damage, letting the Muslims know once and for all that our God is far more powerful and, yes, vengeful than their own puny deity.

It’s harsh, but they’ve been asking for it for over 1,400 years, and it’s time they got it. I, for one, am sick and tired of seeing the Islamic bullies demand our lunch money and, like a bunch of scrawny wimps afraid of our own shadow, we hand it over. What’s even more appalling, we then pretend we did it because we’re good guys who realized that they’re human beings just like us, and who just happen to be a little bit hungrier than we are.

not concerning ourselves in the least with collateral damage means killing innocent civilians. And that is OK to this fellow, because the important thing is destroying a religious center (yeah, that’ll win us friends and allies), and demonstrating that our god is more vengeful, barbaric, and murderous than their god.

I’m also baffled by the resentful claim that somehow, we are the weak country that’s getting taken advantage of by bullies, as if Iran is the bad guy sending drone strikes against outdoor weddings in Poughkeepsie, Scranton, and Walla Walla. As if Kuwait is forcing Americans to buy their oil at gunpoint. As if our little dribble of foreign aid is going to countries that are faking their poverty.

That guy, you can be sure, gets out and votes in every election, and he votes angrily against those damn liberals on the basis of that kind of bigotry and ignorance. And that’s why we’ve got the representatives we do.

We should be terrified not by terrorism, but by the lunatics in our own country.

No, the Republicans definitely are not neo-Nazis

I know what you’re thinking. You’re seeing recent remarks from Republican presidential front-runners, and thinking that they sound an awful lot like Nazis. I must point out, in the interest of accuracy, that this is not true.

Ben Carson’s comments aren’t actually Nazi-like.

According to Washington Post reporter Philip Rucker, who was also present, Carson said of Syrian refugees: If there’s a rabid dog running around in your neighborhood, you’re probably not going to assume something good.

See? If Carson were being fascist, he would have compared the Syrian refugees to disease-ridden rats. Rats, not rabid dogs. We all like dogs, so he was actually saying something nice about them. Except for the rabid part. Maybe he’s suggesting we should get the refugees shots and health care?

Trump is also not saying anything terrible.

Certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy, he added. We’re going to have to do things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.

Trump would not rule out warrantless searches in his plans for increased surveillance of the nation’s Muslims, Yahoo reported Thursday.

He also remained open toward registering U.S. Muslims in a database or giving them special identification identifying their faith, the news outlet added.

Warrantless searches just means that we’ll follow the Harris plan for screenings (and we all know that Sam Harris is such a liberal fellow…), we’ll just be expanding them from the airport to everywhere, any time.

And the “special identification” will be tasteful, as all things Trump are. Perhaps some armbands with an elegant crescent symbol on them? Maybe they’d even be included in Ivanka Trump’s Lifestyle Collection. They’re gonna be BEEEYOOOTIFUL and YUGE (aiding in identification). Nothing like what the Nazis did.

And they’d even be fashionable. As everyone knows, Nazis never knew anything about style.

Rest easy, Americans! It’s simply True Patriots caring deeply and sincerely about the Fatherland!

Oh, hi, Ben Stein. I had almost forgotten that you existed.

But now that you’ve reminded me, could you please go away again? You’re simply an awful little man.

He has a question about Barack Obama.

I think the question is why is he so angry at America? I don’t think there’s much question that he does not wish America well. He has a real strong hatred of America. Is it because he’s part black? I don’t know. Is it because his father was mistreated by the British in Kenya? I don’t know.

Obama is a bad leader because he doesn’t realize that being black means you hate America? Clearly, Ben Stein is the new voice of the Republican party.

The real threat to our way of life

The terrorist attacks in Paris and the rising tide of Islamist fascism have had dire consequences here in America. Erick Erickson is afraid to go to the movies.

I’m really glad I didn’t get tickets on opening day to see Star Wars. Seriously.

I have no confidence in this Administration to keep us all safe, particularly in light of President Obama’s statement today that there’s really no way to stop this stuff.

There are no metal detectors at American theaters.

I think I’ll wait till Star Wars is less a threat scenario.

I weep for you, Erick. The terrorists have won.

Comma strikes again!

Reddit and the usual clueless suspects are stirred up again over that misstep at Skepticon, so once again I’m getting inundated by messages from people who weren’t there telling me how awful I was for mistreating those poor white people at the meeting. It doesn’t matter that I am not an organizer or volunteer at this conference, just an attendee who had no influence over decisions, good and bad, made here: Skepticon has been ‘taken over’ by SJWs, led by the nefarious PZ Myers.

I wish I could take any credit at all for the excellent talks here, but I have to be honest: I have had zero influence. Sorry, conspiracy theorists, but I am not the mastermind you’re looking for. I’m also disappointed that the Illuminati keep refusing to take my calls.

But at least I have “Terry Dean, Nemmers” AKA Comma sending more letters on my behalf!

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Bristol Palin gets something right for a change

Starbucks-Red-Cups

She has declared the current Starbucks holiday cup ‘controversy’ stupid.

Do not buy in to the media hype surrounding this story!! It is just another attempt by the LEFT to make Christians look stupid.

She still gets some things wrong. All of us on the “LEFT” are shocked and bemused by the fact that anyone on the “RIGHT” thinks this is a matter of any significance at all…but the original instigator, people like Joshua Feuerstein, are most definitely not part of any left-wing conspiracy.

I am also amused by one other little fact. She thinks the controversy is stupid, but…

But even Palin said that she had chosen to buy her coffee at the local Mocha Moose instead of patronizing Starbucks.

But then maybe that’s entirely because Starbucks coffee is terrible.