War on Xmas

I have been unable to blog for a few weeks. I don't want to miss out on the fake War on Christmas which is being promoted by Fox News and the American Family Association. Do these people have nothing better to do than start some kind of pseudo-controversy? If they want to boycott stores which use the phrase "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" that's fine, but let's not get carried away and pretend that there is a "War on Christmas" in the United States or that Christians are being persecuted.

I am all for a right-wing christian whacko boycott. But let's not be hypocrites. Why don't you persecuted christians boycott stores that do not "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.." Surely, those stores that choose to break one of God's commandments in order to make more money should not be patronized by Christians.

This country is really losing it. I don't really have anything to add to the discussion but I wanted to go on the record here and say how stupid this whole thing is.

Gia has an excellent response to the War on Christmas nonsense. Welcome back Gia! We have missed you.

Only Christians

In her latest post Dumbgirl posits that it is only Christians who change the world for the better. She goes on to ask:

"I'd love to see a long list of non-Christians who have changed the world for the better."
-- Amy "Dumbgirl" Proctor

Someone mentioned Gandhi and she admitted that he was a non-christian who changed the world for the better. I know that she would not allow me to comment there so here is a brief list of some other non-christians who have changed the world for the better:

• Thomas Jefferson
  
• Tenzin Gyatso
  
• Margaret Sanger
  
• Shirin Ebadi
  
• Friedrich Nietzsche
  
• Pythagoras
  
• Bill Gates
  
• Steve Wozniak
  
• Benjamin Franklin
  
• Elie Wiesel
  
• Voltaire
  
• Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa
  
• Ani DiFranco
  
• Socrates
  
• Plato
  
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
  
• Eddie Vedder
  
• Aristotle
  
• Euclid
  
• Confucius
  
• Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
  
• Lao Tzu
  
• John Adams
  
• John Quincy Adams
  
• Richard Leakey
  
• David Hume
  
• Wangari Maathai
  
• Vandana Shiva
  
• Aung San Suu Kyi
  
• Bertrand Russell
  
• ...

A statement like that is just stupid. Is she that wrapped up in christianity to see beyond it? Is she unaware that there are non-western cultures? At least sixty-seven percent of the world's population is non-christian.

File under: Religion

Dumbgirl is hot

In her post entitled "Democracy & Freedom Are On the March!!" Dumbgirl regurgitated some Bush Administration propaganda about the United States making the world safe for democracy or something. One of her followers commented about the report in The Lancet that found 100,000 Iraqi civilians died because of American intervention in Iraq. I tried to correct her mistaken interpretation of the study; Dumbgirl promptly deleted my comment and banned my ip.

I tried again with another comment on the topic of Dumbgirl accepting public assistance in the past and her belief that she should not have her tax dollars used to pay for abortions.

All women should receive free pre-natal care, free births, and receive a stipend to care for the baby once it is born and free health care for children.

Amy, do (you) approve of your tax dollars going to pay for breast augmentations and liposuction for military people?
see: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040726ta_talk_schaler
Abortion maybe abhorrent to you but breast augmentation and liposuction are abhorrent to me. Why should I pay for military women to have bigger boobs?

March 9, 2005 | Rob

Dumbgirl responded:

Rob,

I will address you once, then never again.

As for the military breast augmentations, keep in mind that they are not all for vanity reasons. Medical care in the military has in the past covered masectamies (sic) for removal of the breast due to cancer and tumors, but not an implant to recover the form. If you think that these "boob jobs" are sickening, that's on you, but for the military to cosmetically replace the breast taken through surgery is very humane. As for doing it for vanity purposes, I am opposed to this. It is unnecessary and frivolous. However, being the anti-conservative that you are I'd think you'd 1) like seeing "bigger boobs" and 2) believed in bigger (pardon the pun) government.

So because I am liberal, or as she says "anti-conservative", that means that I like seeing "bigger boobs"? Actually I think big plastic breasts are as disgusting as abortions, but I am not going to try to pass laws or amend the Constitution to stop women from doing either.

And I'm for "bigger government"? Bigger than Dubya's government and his record budget deficit? I'm for a big government in the right places. If by big government she means keeping people out of poverty or making sure that people get health care and stuff like that, then okay, I'm for big government. If she means filling up the prisons with non-violent drug offenders and building a missile defense system, then no.

She goes on:

Finally, I can only assume you bypass my IP bans because you need to hear what I have to say. I am being sincere when I suggest you have a longing inside for the message of Jesus, since you beat down my internet door to come in and hear it. True, you attempt to discredit it, but I believe this is your attempt to quite your conscience and justify your own views to yourself. This is typically what people in need of saving do: if they know they need saving, they accept. If they don't want to change their lifestyle or their minds, they make it their life's work to make the truth wrong (which cannot be done) This really has little to do with me (unless you just think I'm hot) and everything to do with you.

Oh yeah, I think she's hot. Uh huh. Middle-aged, Catholic mothers of four are my thing.

I am not "longing for the message of Jesus" either. I know what it is and I agree with it. She is the one who discredits the message of Jesus more than I do. Would Jesus volunteer to work for George Bush and jump out of a plane to shoot at Muslims to secure a supply of oil? Or would Jesus be one of the millions of people protesting Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq?

"People in need of saving"? Saved from what? I need to be saved from over-zealous christians who think that they know what is best for their neighbors and the rest of the world.

Actually I'm on my own little anti-witnessing campaign. Every week I have christian pamphlets left in my door. On my radio, where I once picked up local community radio stations, I get a satellite feed from Tennessee or somewhere with christian preachers. In the public or university library when I check out a book there is a pretty good chance that there is a Chick tract in it. I guess it is okay for christians to come univited into everyone else's lives.

I am just trying to do my part to provide an alternative to "all Bush, all Jesus, all the time". If I comment and she deletes it then at least I know that she read it.

I am sick of the holier-than-thou attitudes of these people.

I am also sick of Rick Santorum's weaselly face. He will lose in 2006.

And now the baby is crying so I may have to come back and edit later.

File under: Religion,Hypocrites

Quote of the Day

"[W]hat ever happened to turn the other cheek" and garbage like that. Guess what? That only works for so long and the time has come for us to stand up to what we know is evil and wrong. Bottom line is MAJORITY RULES and, well, I think you are sweating because we might just have a majority.
--Alice, Christian wife and mother

That's one Christian housewife who is mad as hell and she's not going to take it any more.

File under: Religion, Hypocrites

On Religion

And other stuff

Much of my mother's side of the family belongs to the United Church of Christ (UCC). I was raised in the UCC--Sunday School, confirmation, youth group, etc. My problem was that I never believed in God so as soon as I graduated from high school I stopped going to church. Looking back on it now I see that God was a very small part of the experience. The focus of the local church was (and is) community, except for the 45 minutes on Sunday morning that were set aside for God talk. I still support the UCC--financially and otherwise. My niece and nephew also go to that church so I've been back for baptisms and children's programs.

My dad's family is Roman Catholic. My son is (or will be) Catholic. Not because I agree with the Church on a lot of things, but because I think that every person should get a good religious education. There is a fine line between education and indoctrination, so I will have a lot work to do. His mother is a practicing Catholic. As a child she attended the Methodist vacation bible school and did other things with protestant churches and she is pretty open to other religions. We discussed other options like joining the Unitarian Universalist congregation, but because of her experience and because she regularly attends mass it just makes sense to take him along. I think that my job will be to help him see that there is no one true religion and to help him get a background in comparative religion.

My personal, face-to-face contact with fundamentalist christians has been very limited. They've invited me to Wednesday night Bible study, I've been handed cassette tapes of 'christian rock', but I also I worked a summer job with a few girls from a nearby bible college. The college girls were very nice normal people. They were intelligent and witty and I enjoyed talking to them.

I also had another job that took me into people's homes to work with their children. (I know, people let a liberal atheist in their homes with their children!) It is a real eye-opener to go into the homes of strangers. And I've seen everything; from the homes where the children have their own suites with a bedroom, bathroom, and playroom with full entertainment center to the hot, smelly 40 year old trailer with cockroaches scurrying about. The children, however, were pretty much the same. Infants like to be held and talked to, toddlers want someone to play with them, and the 4 to 8 year olds ask question after question. Of course, each has her own personality but the differences are not due to income or ethnicity or anything like that. I loved that job. Well, I loved the part of it that involved the kids.

Anyhow, for some reason I visited a lot of fundamentalist Christian home schoolers. I always felt bad for those kids. First, because they were getting a really poor 'education' but also because they were generally lacking social skills and the one thing that they were learning was hate. They were being taught that anyone who disagrees with the their parents is worthless and going to hell. I don't know, it's hard for me to decide if it is worse that these children get a poor education from their mothers or for them to be in public school with their parents trying to get the curriculum changed to include 'Creation Science' and a morning prayer. I always wonder what the school prayer people would think if their kids were forced to say or attend Muslim prayers at school. Would they still be in favor of school prayer?

File under: Religion

Idlers, gossips, & busybodies

Is it Christian to make fun of someone for the way they look?

The gang of happy housewives on another blog is discussing an email allegedly received by one of them. The email apparently came from one 'k.d. van der bosch' who claimed to be a Bush supporter but it is fairly obvious that she is not.

I have my own theory about the email, but let's explore the response by the Christian women. First is by the resident Catholic fundamentalist:

It's odd that this anon poster would choose the initials "K.D." rather like, K.D. Lang? I have come to believe that certain female pursuers of Donna's (& mine) are perhaps lesbian or are at least exploring their lesbian tendancies. This would explain the inordinate amount of time they spend pursuing other women and reviling their Christianity, which is opposed to homosexual "activities", shall we say. Perhaps desire for Donna and frustration at the futility of that pursuit is driving them nuts?

Just a theory.

Posted by: Amy *******

Just as one would expect she is focused on the person's sexuality. A lifetime of sexual repression leads her to speculate that they have a lesbian stalker/sexual predator that they are dealing with. She immediately associates the 'k.d.' part with a celebrity who happens to be a lesbian. It's funny that she did not connect the 'van der Bosch' to the Jesuit hagiographer.

Then they go on to discuss a certain person's appearance. They emailed each other a picture of the alleged lesbian stalker of the middle aged-mother of three and even more middle-aged mother of four. The mother of three suggested that if a person is ugly on the inside she is probably ugly on the outside.

Then another of the mothers chimed in with this:

How ugly is that photo? Good grief, I mean at least fix yourself up a bit before plastering it all over the net. Some people have no self respect. Someone needs to introduce the subject of that photo to Max....Max Factor! Use a bit of makeup.

Posted by: Alice

These women are supposedly Christian mothers in their mid-30s but they behave like middle school girls with a secret. Do THEY have a secret crush on someone? Or maybe they are jealous of the popular girl. Whatever the case, I don't think that behavior is very Christlike.

Someone passed along photo ** edit** (due to a harassment complaint to flickr by D***a I have had to make the photo 'friends only', if you really want to see it...) that one of these women posted of herself. I guess she was too embarrassed to show her face on this one, but we've seen her face many times.

Tsunami, pt 2

It took nearly a week but some of the "christian" bloggers have chimed in on the tsunami. I guess they had to wait to get the official word from the Bush Administration before they could comment.

A big surprise, they are comparing aid to the the victims of this natural disaster to Iraq. Dumb Girl has a map of Asia with the words "worth humanitarian aid" across it and a map of Iraq with "not worth humanitarian aid" on it. Mr Dumb Girl writes in the comments section, "The US has 4% of the world's population and provides nearly half of the world's food relief/aid EVERY DAY..." I would also point out that the US has about half of the world's wealth. Also Japan has about half the population of the US and they led the world in foreign aid for most of the past twelve years. Mr Dumb Girl goes on to say, "The US also supports international stability with its global reach military capability and ALL nations benefit from the sacrifices of the US soldier and the taxpayer behind him....The world owes President Bush and the US taxpayer a hearty THANK YOU instead of criticism." Is he serious? That is just laughable. Ask the people of Nicaragua, Chile, Cuba, Iraq, Vietnam, etc. how grateful they are to US for intervening in their affairs.

...more later

The true meaning of...

Samantha Bee made the following observation on tonight's The Daily Show Mark Your Calendar segment (paraphrased):

Christmas: it's the only religious holiday that is also a federal holiday. So christians can go to their services and everyone else can stay home and reflect on the true meaning of separation of church and state.

Specter must go

...according to the Evangelical Christians.

Last week Pennsylvania's senior Senator Arlen Specter who is in line to head the Senate Judiciary Committee warned Bush about appointing people who are pro-life to fill judicial vacancies. Well, ever since, the extreme christian right has been on a crusade to stop Specter.

From NPR's All Things Considered:

"We would like to see him gone. We don't believe that Arlen Specter represents what the president stands for, we don't believe that Arlen Specter represents what the Senate leadership stands for, particularly on the abortion issue. Arlen Specter is a man who's time has gone, and he ought to go too." -- Tom Minnery, Vice President of Public Policy for Focus on the Family

So the Evangelical Christians, who are responsible for giving Bush a second term, want to get their religious beliefs passed through Congress and they don't want a MODERATE Jew from a blue state slowing them down. They're even having a "Pro-Life Pray-In" to stop Specter. They make the guy sound like Ted Kennedy.

It's really sad when there is no place in the Republican party for moderates. The GOP better start to take their party back from the bible thumpers before it self destructs. On second thought, maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

Definition

From The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, 1911

Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.