The snake in the garden…

I nearly laughed out loud when I saw the headline “No religious freedom in SA.” In fact, I found it so amusing, I had to click on it and see just what this person was on about.
You see, South Africa is just about the most free country, with respect to religion (and many other things) I have ever heard of. Women walk down the streets in burquas, Hindu festivals are public affairs attended by everyone, Christian churches dot the landscape like freckles on a sun-exposed arm. Christian observances are marked by the government in the form of public holidays (two days off for Christmas [Christmas and Boxing Day], and Easter [Good Friday and Easter Monday]). Animist religions and sangomas coexist peacefully with better-known faiths and their leaders, and nobody tells my local supermarket it cannot have a kosher meat gondola or eggs my in-laws’ homes for their colourful statues of Hindu deities and other publicly-displayed artefacts of their faith.

OK, there is a wee fly in the ointment, a snake in the garden, if you will, and it probably won’t surprise you that the disruptive element in this country’s otherwise peaceful religious landscape are fundamentalist Christians. In a place where equality (including gender equality) is enshrined in the Constitution and the government provides a free court for people to bring their equality issues to, I see these people—very small numbers of them, mind you—picketing a women’s clinic that provides, among other things, abortion services. Never mind that it is none of their business, nobody is asking (or forcing) them to avail themselves of services, and that a woman’s right to her control over her body is, in this country, absolute. No, these busybodys, who make up a tiny minority of the population and would appear to have entirely too much time on their hands, have made it their mission to exercise their freedoms under the Constitution by attempting to frighten women away from exercising theirs.

The religious right wingnuts aren’t as powerful or visible here as they are in America, nor as numerous. Our media doesn’t find their antics newsworthy, so they have little clout. And that, apparently, is what the author of the whinging polemic referenced above is unhappy about: his lack of clout in bending the country’s educational system to his whim and forcing it into the consciousness of all of the children in this land, be they Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, or even more enlightened, evolved Christians. No, according to him, his exercise of his religious freedoms requires the violation of the religious freedoms of everyone else in the country, most specifically those who have children in the government school system. In other words, if the local school doesn’t teach all of the children his own personal religious view on matters otherwise considered scientific, then his religious freedom is being violated. I know—HUH??—

There are, of course, private schools that will pander to this man’s religious delusions and, for the life of me, I don’t understand why he just doesn’t whisk his kids off to one if he finds the government schools not to his liking. Parents who insist on high academic standards for their children have been doing this for aeons, all over the world. And, unlike America where the schools are “free” because they are funded through taxation, South Africa schools are funded by the parents who pay school fees each term. Rather than hand this money over to the local government school and then whinge about the curriculum, why doesn’t this parent simply take the money to a school with a curriculum that better agrees with his view of science? Consider a school with a student body of 500 children, each of whom has two parents who think that because they pay out of their own pockets for the operation of the school, each individual parent has a right to dictate curriculum for the entire school. Imagine the chaos! Imagine the din! Imagine the education not imparted to the students? Unlike American parents who have to dig deep into their pockets to provide the kind of misinformation masquerading as education that this man wants for his children, South African parents can simply direct their education funds to alternatives that suit their personal prejudices and fantasies better than the government schools.

If I didn’t know better, I might be tempted to think this was a disingenuous attempt to stir the social pot a bit, a troll’s attempt to get a little controversy boiling, some sparks flying. But unfortunately, the rant has the unmistakeable stench of the mindset of one who cannot seem to grasp the point that to give him his way would be to trample the freedoms of the rest of the citizens. He cannot seem to grasp that government, which is answerable to more than just him and his own narrow little über-Christian mentality, must provide services to all in such a way that respects us all, and that failing to favour him is not, in any way, depriving him of his rights. His rights, after all, do not include being given preference over everyone else in the country.

No, this smacks of being the real deal, the dunder-headed thickie who thinks, like a small, spoilt child, that not getting his own way means that he is somehow being deprived of something to which he is entitled. Perhaps he is just too lazy to teach his children the phantasmagorical nonsense he prefers to believe over science and wants the school to do it for him; perhaps he is too lazy to take his kids to church and Sunday School where they can be taught their mythology as truth. Certainly he does not want his kids exposed to the religious-neutral concepts of science that are taught in schools today—perhaps he, himself, is too poorly educated and ignorant to effectively counter those insidious little facts and keep his kids on the fatuous straight and narrow.

I find it very interesting that neither the Muslim community nor the Jewish community, which both share the same creation story with Christians, have not come to support this push for substituting Genesis for genetics. And what about the Hindus, whose creation stories predate Genesis by a millennia or more? Why aren’t they out there, lobbying the schools and the government to substitute their traditions for the discoveries of science? Could it be they not only have a better grasp of reality, they understand the concept of respect for others in a way that is simply outside the ken of fundamentalist Christians?

Whatever it is, this guy needs to get a grip and realize that favouritism is not a right, religious or otherwise.

Jesus wept...

…when he saw what His followers had ultimately become…

Are Atheists Blind? I have tried to debate with atheist on this forum, and I don't know if its me or not, but I find them very unreasonable. They do not seem willing to consider even for a moment that God may be real. They seem to have an attitude of arrogance about them. And I wonder, could some of them be evil, because sometimes they give me the shivers. And then there are those that get me a tiny bit angry. Then I want to smite them.... which of course is wrong... I should turn the other cheek. I'm beginning to think that some of the atheists that come looking for debate maybe under the influence of Satan. Are these people blind to God's truth? because when it is put right under their noses, they just don't see it. Gary51, ChristianForums
What part of “I don’t believe in supernatural puppet masters in the sky” does this person not understand? If a person were to say “I don’t believe in the Tooth Fairy” would he consider them unreasonable because they were not willing to consider even for a moment that the Tooth Fairy might be real? And can this person not see that he commits the same offence…unwillingness to consider that the other person’s view may have some validity…for which he castigates the atheist? Most alarming, however, is this person’s easy assumption that, because these people refuse to get onto his bandwagon, they are therefore evil. People who don’t agree with him give him the shivers and are under the influence of Satan. Coupled with his desire to “smite” these people, Gary51 becomes a scary guy. What happened to “love thy neighbour as thyself”?

This is a mother speaking:
As a devoted Southern Baptist, and more importantly, as a disciple of Christ, I would rather kill my own child (as Abraham was willing to do) than see him convert to either Islam or Atheism. Fisher, Yahoo Answers
Here is an example of atheism being capitalized as if it were a proper noun and the name of a religion. One does not convert to atheism, for there is nothing to which to convert. Oh…you are horrified at the easy pronouncement of a mother that she would kill her own child if said child were to take on a belief system she found repugnant? After reading hundreds of posts by these people, I’m not even surprised. They are the very evil they so fear.

My unsaved daughter died last year. I know she was unsaved because we tried to convert her when she was dying. My husband removed her oxygen mask hoping she would make a public confession of Christ, but she died cursing us. I often [think] about the flames as the lap up against her face for eternity and how painful that must be. I hope when we get to heaven, we won't hear the screams from hell. Do you think about the same with your children? adrianna.scruggs, Yahoo Answers
Yah…remove my oxygen mask as I lay dying and demand I convert to your belief system and I’ll curse you too. Gee, do you think depriving her of her oxygen might have hastened her death? What kind of selfish, self-serving monsters are you, to take the breath right from the lungs of a dying person in order to further your own agenda? Might it not have been more appropriate to simply say “no matter what, we love you” and let the girl have her few last breaths in peace?

If dinosaurs "evolved" into birds then how come on the Flinstones there were BOTH dinos AND birds? Darwin Was Wrong, Yahoo! Answers
Can anyone really be so stupid as to believe the Flintstones are an animated expression of historical reality? Well, I’ve read people objecting to Scooby-Doo because it “glorifies witchcraft” and deals with the supernatural. How ironic, considering that the very people objecting are those who want to cram their own supernatural beliefs down the throats of everyone else on this planet.

Why believe in something you can't prove at all, and which actually flys in the face of the bible? I would have thought that science involved more than belief, in this area, however, it doesn't. We must consider that God really seems to have created it, and that your so called science is religious balderdash!!! dad, christianforums.com
Does this person even read what he is writing? “Why believe in something you can’t prove at all...” Erm, exactly. Interestingly, “Dad” seems to overlook the salient fact that there is no proof of God (the Bible doesn’t count as that would be using circular logic), yet science proves itself over and over again through repeated experiments that give the same result.

The church is drastically affected by the bastard which is a child conceived out of wedlock. The bastards have great difficulty in going to church and participating in the church services. Those who have sexual demons may act religious in church to cover their guilt about their sexual sins. Gene Moody, Demonbuster
This illustrates two of my primary objections to modern Christianity: hypocrisy and the notion that it is ok to condemn one person for the “sins” of another. What do you want to bet the Gene Moody is rabidly anti-abortion, even in the case of aborting “bastards”?

If something is not in the bible, it is never 100 percent true. Not even 2+2=4. PharasiticalLaws, Five Pharasitical Laws
Oh, really? Well, I have given birth to three children. It’s not in the Bible. Does that make my kids figments of my imagination?

I just read that women obtained 61% of the masters degrees in 2007. Does anyone think this is a sign of the end days? I do. I think it is a sign of love growing cold because these women are choosing not to get married or need a man or have children. I think it is funny how they talk about this in the media as though it were perfectly alright. Jsmythe, RaptureReady
Maybe it’s just a sign of women, in a country where more than half of the marriages end in divorce (leaving women to look after children without fathers and, in many cases, child support) have decided to be able to take care of themselves and any children they might have? Maybe it’s a sign that women are coming to the point of understanding that if they are capable of looking after themselves economically, they have more secure futures. And what is not “perfectly alright” about a woman being able to take care of herself and her kids?

A good looking woman has a lot of advantages that an average looking women does not have. So looks alone would increase her odds for survival. If evolution were true, I would expect the less attractive one’s to die off in favor of the attractive ones just like the change in structure of Darwin’s finches. But what do we see in every day life? Most people have just average looks. SavedToo, FaithCommunityNetwork [
Evolution doesn’t work that way. For one thing, as long as the less attractive ones procreate, their genes are kept alive and they can’t die off. For another, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And finally, if everybody was “beautiful,” then “beautiful” would be, by definition, average.

Is it true that the Catholics claim the pope is inflammable? Alex V Z, Yahoo Answers
How can anyone seriously believe this? Wouldn’t a person possessing even the most rudimentary critical thinking skills instantly grasp that they must have misheard that last word? And, given that these people are adamant that their bible (usually KJV) is infallible, they are well familiar with the word. I have a great deal of difficulty wrapping my mind around the existence of this kind of credulity.

Richard Nixon, the US President sent hundreds of thousands of his people to their deaths in Vietnam, and for that you'd expect that he'd go to Hell. Well you're wrong. Through prophecy we have received a message from him in Heaven, and the only reason he got there was because as a very young child, he accepted Jesus and believed in Him. dancingdog777, Yahoo! Answers
Like many Fundies, this person is factually challenged. Hundreds of thousands of Americans did not die in the Vietnam War, and of those who did die, Nixon was responsible for only a portion, Lyndon Johnson having sent at least as many as Nixon. Second, there is no evidence that Nixon “accepted Jesus” at any point in his lifetime, particularly as a young child when his Quaker parents were in control of his religious influences. There is no way to tell if this person is merely uninformed or making that information up, but the subsequent claim would seem to indicate the latter: “Through prophecy we have received a message from him in Heaven…” Ok, prophecy means to foretell the future…how do you receive a contemporaneous message in a prophecy? Just one more example of what has come to be known as “Lying for Jesus.”

I'm sick & tired of all these secularists complaining that McCain's pastor, Rev. John Hagee, calls Catholics "Nazis." So what? Obama's pastor questioned America!! No thanks! I'll take McCain's hate-speech over critical dialog ANYday!! ConcernedMother, Eyeblast.tv
Hate speech is preferable to critical dialog…’nuff said.

Anyone with intelligence will NOT vote for this man because of these facts and more. The super delegates are backing him only to obtain black votes for their needs! Clinton carries baggage, but this Devil carries "the end of America" and that is what he calls "change". He is a Muslim wrapped in a cloak of "BLACK CHRISTIANITY" He is NOT an American, he is NOT a patriot; he is a liar and a fake with the wrong people behind him. WAKE UP AMERICAN VOTERS. Nonna, Eyeblast.tv
Can we say R-A-C-I-S-T? And, as usual, factually challenged. Obama is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian, and he most assuredly is an American, his mother being a natural-born citizen. His father, who was never involved in his life, was Muslim at one time. This, to me, is a prime example of what Fundies mean by the phrase “sins of the fathers visited upon the children.” I find it immensely interesting that the so-called Christians, those who purportedly embrace the teachings of Christ (“love thy neighbour as thyself” and “turn the other cheek”) are the very ones who are attempting to smear this man through lies and innuendo.

Mean-spirited, pridefully ignorant, willing to condemn and kill others…even their own children…at the drop of a pitchfork—is this the legacy Christ meant to leave for the world?

I can no longer call myself a Christian for I shudder at the thought of being associated with people like these, people who would rather kill than think, condemn than love. Their very zealotry drives me off. People who openly justify lying and deceiving to draw others into their web, people who reject logic and reality if it conflicts with what they want to believe. People who condemn to eternal damnation the innocent alongside the guilty and who beat, starve, rape and mentally abuse children in the name of their faith.

If you wonder how atheists are created, go to www.fstdt.com and read it daily for a month or so. But be prepared to read some truly despicable stuff done in the name of the Christian god.

Even more Fundie "fun"

I worry about America. I used to think that referring to a person as a “good Christian” was a compliment and testament to their good character, but I’ve since had reason to change my mind. Read some of the comments actually made by “good Christians” and see what you think.

The reason why I threw out logic is because people think it is the bastion of secularism when in reality it is a religious belief unto itself. Mailpouch, World of Warcraft Off-Topic Discussion
Since when is logic a religious belief? I have seen these people insist that evolution is a religion, but logic???

The biblical worldview makes sense of science; secular worldviews do not. Jason Lisle, Answers in Genesis
Remember, the Bible says that insects have four legs, bats are birds, and rabbits chew cud; the secular view says insects have six legs, bats are mammals, and cud-chewing animals have multiple stomachs while rabbits have only one. You decide.

In response to the cloud rat being "rediscovered" after not being seen for 112 years:
well all this shows is how scientists jump to conclusions....the weather may be a tad warmer for a couple years and its global warming they say....now they find animals they thought were extinct or almost extinct...how come scientists arent claiming that God is recreating these animals. ricsow2, AOL News Comment Board
Occam’s Razor says the most likely scenario is the simplest. That would mean that we simply haven’t seen the creature for 112 years, magical recreation being significantly less likely.

Stop assuming that the bible is not on the same level as scientific explanations. Ininja2000, GameFAQs
And we should assume a book written thousands of years ago by Bronze Age goatherds is on the same level as modern science because…? Science and religion are two very different things…as well they should be. Would you want a surgeon, whose training was entirely biblical in nature, do your bypass surgery? I have always believed that both had a place in our culture and society, but more and more I’m coming to rethink the religion aspect since it seems to make people stupid, selfish, and mean-spirited rather than inquiring, generous and compassionate, qualities necessary for a civilization to survive and advance.

I am learning, im learning that you tell me thats proof, but I still don't see it. showing me pics with evidence like swiss cheese isn't going to convince me. For example, I can give you a pic of a rabbit and a cat, thoses two breed together you get a cabbit, thats not evolution. and yes there are cabbits, look it up. Thats not evolution. It the same difference. dean1003, Christian Forums
I would like to tell you this is a joke, but sadly, it is not. This is what comes from allowing people who dropped out of high school to home school their own children. If this person…or his parents…had ever taken a 10th grade biology class they would know that wholly unrelated species…like cats and rabbits…cannot breed together. You can create hybrids from related species (horse+donkey=mule) but invariably such offspring are sterile and cannot reproduce themselves, Photoshopped pictures (or taxidermist’s little jokes like the Jackelope) notwithstanding.

[Does evolution stipulate any political attitudes?]
Um...can you stop using fancy phrases and talk plainly? What exactly do you mean by this?...If you mean, "Does belief in the Theory of Evolution affect the way a country is run or what Laws are (or are not) introduced?" then yeah, in my opinion it does. Racism for example used to be a HUGE problem back when people believed that Black folk were not as highly evolved from the monkey as White folk, and were in fact, sub-human. This all ties in with the Slave Trade as well. In the 1800s the Australian Aboriginies were highly persecuted, chased, shot, and displayed in museums, as sub-human "missing links". Presumeably this was all perfectly legal, because the Theory of Evolution dictated that these people were not really human, and therefore did not have human rights. The problem of racism also falls under the last question about moral consequences. Many other laws have also been passed that greatly oppose Christian and other moral teaching, and I believe that these can be linked with the general embracing attitude towards the Theory of Evolution. Kat, Myspace
Argument from Ignorance coupled with temporo-centrism. First of all, slavery and the slave trade itself predate the Theory of Evolution by centuries. People from the Indies who were then called “Malays” were enslaved by the Dutch and brought to Southern Africa in the 1600s; black slaves were bought and sold and considered less human than white people at the time of the writing of the American Constitution in the late 18th century: Darwin and his theories did not exist until the mid-nineteenth century. Slavery was an accepted institution in the time of Christ and Christ himself did not repudiate it. The idea of racism as a bad thing is a late 20th century concept: even the abolitionists of the Civil War era did not think racism was bad, only enslavement of humans of any race. Christianity had nothing to do with the abolition of slavery or the demonization of racism: both were secular and political in nature and the Christians of the Deep South embraced both without compunction. And while slavery was abolished more than 150 years ago, racism was alive and well in America…and openly and blatantly practiced by even the most devout Christians in the South…for more than 100 years after Abolition.

On Creationism in school:This should be an option in school. Darwinism is a religeon too. I am sorry but in the words of South Park....I am not derived from a retarded fish having but sex with a monkey creating me...a butt sex retard baby...I did not spawn from primortial soup or a monkey.....keep it up Florida... All of you science based individuals are the ones who are closed minded.. Duh, Topix
For starters, “Darwinism,” or more correctly, evolution, is not a religion but a scientific theory. Creationism, on the other hand, is a religious (Fundamentalist Christian) explanation for how the world and its contents came to be. Public school are funded by tax dollars paid by people who are not Fundamentalist Christians, people who are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, Wiccan. The taxes that support public schools are also paid by Christians who do not believe in Creationism or its oxymoronic equivalent, Intelligent Design. Since the Constitution forbids the government from establishing a religion, the government cannot support one religion’s creed over that of another: it must treat them all equally. Americans are notoriously stingy when it comes to approving tax increases for the benefit of their local schools so it is unlikely that, given a choice between funding the teaching of a hundred or more creation myths (government has to treat all religions equally, remember) or teaching a single secular scientific theory (and leaving the individual creation myths to the individual religions and their adherents), it’s no surprise that nobody has voted a bond issue to pay for the teaching of a plethora of creation stories in their school district.

As an aside, Duh (how apropos the name, denoting both stupidity and wilful ignorance) is apparently another victim of home or Christian schooling, exhibiting a shocking ignorance not only of evolution but of biology as well. Evolution theory addresses how the species evolve and differentiate, slowly over long spans of time; it does not address how life originated, only how life adapts to its changing environment. Duh could not have made a more pathetic example of prideful ignorance had he intended to do so.

[Faith can alter reality? If I have enough faith in something, faith makes it true??]
Yes Inan3, Christian Forums
What do you say to something this bone-deep ignorant? If you have enough faith, you can get the sun to rise in the west and set in the east? With enough faith you can raise your dead grandmother from her grave and find her baking cookies in your kitchen when you get home tomorrow? With sufficient faith you can bring back the dinosaurs or even Thomas Jefferson to set you straight on what the Founding Fathers really meant by the government not establishing a religion. Why, with enough faith you could even grow red roses in snow-covered fields, and get Brad Pitt to leave Angelina and fall madly in love with you and happily move into your double-wide behind the wrecking yard out on the edge of town.

Whatever is praised by men is an abomination to God (Luke 16:15). Apply this fully to the world: economics, science, self-confidence, power, sex, sports, business, celebrities, democracy, freedom, money, politics, success, peace, business... [yes, PEACE!] anonymous, Bible Issues-General Christian Principles
Well, if you ever wondered why the followers of Jesus were such a war-mongering bunch, here’s your answer: these people believe that peace, since it is praised by men, is an abomination to God. Of course, it can’t be that they are misapplying this admonition, can it? I mean, their book is infallible (even if the readers and their interpretations are not).

It appears that evolutionists don't how stars generate light because they laughed at me when I said that scientists claim that stars reflect light. So I though I'd illuminate them. (Forgive the pun). Carico, CARM
Um…stars generate light as they are big balls of burning gas; planets reflect light from stars, much as the moon reflects light fro m our sun (which is actually a star). How hard was that? And how can you get something so basic, so wrong? Maybe it really is time to outlaw home schooling and hold religious schools to a minimum state-mandated curriculum so that this kind of ignorance, which once was rare but now is frighteningly common, especially among the fundamentalists, disappears. No nation of superstition-bound technophobes can survive in the modern world and if this kind of stupidity continues to spread, American is doomed.

Could Satanist and Atheist be the same? This thread is not intended to offend anyone but to merely examine the common elements between the two subjects…I have examined different beliefs and I have found two that strike me as eerily similar and yet strikingly different. From my understanding so far, Atheist believe there is no life after death, god, heaven, hell or devil. Jackie, GATEWORLD Forum
For some unknown reason, many fundamentalist Christians simply cannot grasp the idea of someone being without a supernatural being to worship so, if you don’t worship a god, they apparently reason, then you must worship the devil. To her credit, Jackie actually seems to understand that atheists do not share the Christian mythology, but she is rare among Fundies, most of whom seem to think atheism (which they often capitalize) is actually a religion rather than the complete absence of religious belief.

almost 100% of murderers, rapists, and other are not religious. they either worship satin or no god at all *cough cough* ,athiests, but there are a select few christians out there doing it but most realize of what they are doing and dont do such an unnessicary thing. cartmn203, YouTube
This is an excellent example of Fundie “facts.” The truth is, more than 80% of those incarcerated in US prisons self-identify as some form of Christian. The other 20% are not necessarily atheists, either: there are lots of other religions besides Christianity. This is also an excellent example of what passes for education among fundamentalists: not only can this person not reason well, he can’t spell (satin, athiests, dont, unnessicary) and shows complete disregard for the most basic conventions of written English (punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure, syntax). His recognition of the necessity for research and his dedication to telling the truth (the 9th Commandment, I believe) seem to be sub-optimal as well.

A lot of these people aren’t very nice, even to their kids:

[Response to a letter written about little kids who steal food from the pantry and won't admit to the thievery] Get a hidden camera that comes on when the beam is interrupted. They are used to photograph animals and can be purchased for less than $100.00. Install it secretly and wait for the lying thief to appear…First, get each one to sign a statement that they will not steal sweets. If one of them steals, wait for a week to see if the others will as well. Them come down on them with a charge of theft and be prepared to show your evidence. Three good spankings will be in order, plus one year with no sweets. Michael Pearl, No Greater Joy
Talk about overreacting! This person is scary! Treating six year olds like criminals, laying traps to catch your own kids…who, BTW, are between the ages of 6 and 11…rather than sitting down and finding out why they are taking the food? (I already know why nobody’s admitting anything…they are scared! And I suspect with good reason!)

Have you ever met a six year old who could make the connection between scribbling on a piece of paper and a promise not to sneak snacks when nobody’s looking? And if more than one child is sneaking into the pantry for snacks, my guess is that the kids are not being fed sufficiently. If it’s only one child, then I suspect the kid is doing some acting out behaviour (defiance or self-medicating with food) that could benefit from some gentle counselling. Maybe a lock on the pantry door would be helpful in making the point that nobody is supposed to go in the pantry without permission? But turning your house into a police state over a little pantry pilfering seems just a bit over the top to me.

More from the same guy:
It takes time and thoughtfulness for the child to come to repentance. I have told a child I was going to give him 10 licks. I count out loud as I go. After about three licks, leaving him in his position, I would stop and remind him what this is all about. I would continue slowly, still counting, stop again and tell him that I know it hurts and I wish I didn’t have to do it but that it is for his own good. Then I would continue slowly. Pretending to forget the count, I would again stop at about eight and ask him the number. Have him subtract eight from ten, (a little homeschooling) and continue with the final two licks. Then I would have him stand in front of me and ask him why he got the spanking. If his answer showed that he was rebellious and defiant, he would get several more licks. Again he would be questioned as to his offense. If he showed total submission, we put it all behind us, but if he were still rebellious, we would continue until he gave over his will. Only about three of our five children ever resisted after a spanking and refused to cooperate. Each of the three required only one experience of continued spankings until they surrendered. None of the three ever tried it a second time. In all cases, it was between the ages of two and four that they tried their moment of defiance. Michael Pearl, No Greater Joy Ministries
Slowly? Submission? “continued spankings until they surrendered”? Is it just me or does this sound like sadistic torture and child abuse to you, too? This person believes he is doing this in the name of his god. I can’t say I disagree with spanking a child, but this is just over the top.

Remember, these are the bright lights who tipped the scales and ushered George Bush into the Presidency, a man who named Ken Lay of Enron fame as a best friend, has wrecked the economy by unbalancing Clinton’s budget with the largest deficit in the nation’s history, repeatedly lied to the citizenry to scare them into supporting a war that is making his cronies rich, and has the compassion, intelligence and common sense of a large rock. Scintillating bunch, eh?

Taking the "fun" out of Fundamentalism

If you want to have the shock of your life, I have a website for you to visit.

On this website are quotes from various religious websites, mostly forums on which ordinary people who self-identify as fundamentalist christians post their opinions about everything from current events (the back-of-the-head classroom shooting of a gay 15 year old by a 14 year old classmate, for example) to classic issues such as evolution, sex education, the age of the earth, etc.

The more outrageous of these quotes are posted on a site that is dedicated to posting them for the entertainment of visitors and members alike. Unfortunately, a lot of the quotes are superficially hilarious due to their very absurdity, but when a moment is taken to reflect on the fact that the original posters actually believe the drivel they post, the sheer level of stupidity they demonstrate is alarming enough to make one fear for the future of the human race. And then there are those who are so steeped in the stultifying repressiveness of their beliefs that they have come to be the very evil they fear. These people make me utterly ashamed to ever have called myself a christian.

Some of the stupid quotes (remember, the people saying these things really believe them!):

“[Referring to J.K. Rowling] Because she's a member of the Church Of Scotland, believes in God, and does a lot of good things? Sorry, that doesn't make anyone a Christian.” (What does she have to do, sacrifice her first born son as a burnt offering? Shoot gender dysphoric teens in the back of the head? Murder a doctor who performs abortions? When did christianity become an exclusive country club, the membership of which is under your control??)

“…where Science contradicts something clearly revealed in Scriptures, Science is mistaken.” (Never mind that scripture says that insects have four legs, bats are birds, and rabbits chew cud.)

“The fact that there is no evidence of God existing is even more proof that he does, as it proves that he is a supernatural being.” (Well, there is no evidence of leprechauns, mermaids, and tokoloshies existing, so is that even more proof that they do, as it proves they are supernatural beings? And, of course, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, can’t possibly exist because they actually leave evidence of their existence in the form of gifts, cash, or brightly coloured eggs and sweets, right?)

“I think this makes it very clear that the bible is only talking about "good" slavery.” (Oh, like “good” murder or “good” adultery or “good” rape or “good” child molesting?)

“I'm also coming to the conclusion -- through my own "science-less" investigation -- that cancer is not actually a "disease" at all. Sounds weird, but tumors are actually the body's defense mechanism that kicks into gear to surround the cells that are out of control. The formation of a tumor is actually a self-defense mechanism designed to control the spread of the problem...therefore when science cuts tumors out of people, they are actually causing the cancer to spread!” (OK, this is not just stupid, it is stupidly dangerous. Imagine someone with operable cancer deciding against it because of this stupidity. For those of you who don’t know, the tumor IS the cancer.)

“You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them.” (So, people who belong to christian churches that have been around centuries longer than yours are spirits of the Antichrist? And it’s OK to be rude to people who don’t parrot your own narrow belief system? What a lovely representative for Jesus you are!)

“If electricity were real, and we really had an electric potential of 200 volts from head to toe, why arn't we being zapped by lightning every living second? Why do bacteria and viruses change and evolve by the scientists terms? It's because of God trying to punish the sinful, the scientists are the median between God giving his vengeance to the sinful, so when the scientists cure a so called disease God changes the structure so it can continue killing the sinned.You can't even prove that God doesnt exist, look at Africa, they don't worship the Savior so they have famine thrust upon them.” (Electricity doesn’t exist? So why is everybody here so mad at Eskom? God uses bacteria and viruses to punish the sinful? My oldest son nearly died of spinal meningitis when he was only 5 months old…what sin had he committed that was punishable by death? This moron has obviously never heard of our Grammy-winning gospel choir…)

“All ppl think they have the answer to something until their own science proves them wrong. Science is always discovering new things. If you'd ask a guy who lives by science if the heart had a brain a few years back, he'd say" NO..... I know this b.c of science" ...and now we know the heart has a brain.” (OK, this one is so monumentally stupid I can’t even formulate a response to it.)

Then there are the scary ones, and the truly evil and malicious, often convinced their evil is goodness itself. These people make me shudder. Some examples:

“…for those who say, "God is cruel by killing the infants of Sodom and Gomorrah," let's follow this through now. Suppose that God knows that city [sic] is full of diseases - including the children - because of their just horrible practices with all sorts of things they were doing. Incest and homosexuality and things filled that society with diseases. God's people are going to move into this area. God says, "I want you to kill the whole population for their own good and for your good so this disease is wiped out off the Earth." Then the guy is a smart god to command the execution. It's like me pulling weeds out of my flower garden.” (Considering the omnipotent nature of this man's god, doesn't it seem just a little unnecessary to commit genocide, including innocent infants, when the god is capable of simply curing the diseases? And the fact that this guy considers the mass murder of a multitude of babies to be of no more consequence than weeding his garden is, to me, blood-curdling.

“When asked how many Muslims he knows] What the HELL does this have to do with anything? Why do you libfuks always think that if one does not "personally know" (muslim, fag, commie, liberal{I'm being redundant}insert your choice here) or any other dregs of society, that we don't have the right, nor the ability to form an impression, or conception, or speak with any confidence about that muslim, fag, commie, etc.?” (By all means, work up a good hate for people and ideologies you know little or nothing about. If you actually knew something about these people, you might have to change your narrow little mind…and we couldn’t have that, now, could we?)

“ [about a report that Saudi Arabia has sentenced a 'Witch' to the death penalty] “Believe it or not, witchcraft is a serious problem in Pakistan; I believe in them completely and I think that they should be punished like this. These types of cruel punishments have the biggest deterrence than any other punishment.” (The “witch” was accused and convicted of causing a man to be impotent. Most likely her husband, since in her society she is not even allowed to be alone in the presence of a man to whom she is not closely related. She is going to be beheaded. This is fundamentalism at its worst (I make no distinction between Muslim and Christian fundamentalism: they are just different colours of the same garment)…not even the tiniest glimmer of light and reason permitted to crack open the dark, suffocating sphere of repressive beliefs.)

“God ordained the torture of Christ for our benefit. So that one day we may be so lucky as to see the kingdom of heaven. The torture of Christ on the cross came for a greater benefit. It saved all who profess faith in him. Torture, if used to benefit the greater good and save American lives, isn't morally wrong. However, it should only be reserved for when it is known that a terrorist has information that would save American lives. We have to be very careful with the people we decide to waterboard, and so far the government has done it's job.” (No, it has not. The US Constitution very clearly proscribes “cruel and unusual” punishments, and no amount of sophistry can contravene the intent of the framers to prohibit such things.)

“Evolution does not exist. It was invented by a jewish pig, Darwin. But there is one thing for sure. We WILL kill them... and soon!” (Gee, ignorance, anti-Semitism, misidentification (Darwin was not Jewish, he was CoE and studied to be a vicar!), and a premeditated violation of one of the more important Commandments. Peace and love to you, too!)

“I'm just waiting for Armageddon. I'm waiting for Jesus to destroy America and this entire piece of dung world. When God destroys America and the rest of the world, there will finally be peace on the land. No more evil when Armageddon Comes. No more satanic feminism. No more satanic child support laws that enslave millions of men. Thank you Jesus for the Coming Armageddon.” (I think this guy is just one Past Due bill away from taking his arsenal out in a duffel bag and attempting to bring on Armegeddon himself. This is good example why many people consider fundamentalists to be “death cult worshippers,” because so many actually subordinate actually living today to their expectations of the hereafter.)

Multiple quotes regarding the aforementioned 15 year old gender dysphoric student shot in the back of the head by a 14 year old classmate:

“Moral: Don't be gay.”

“His daily parade of his sexuality through the use of clothing, make up and so forth is, in fact, harrassment. Remember, these kids are forced by state law to attend these schools. It's the school's choice to inflict sexual offense on the kids. Obviously one young child was harrassed to the point he felt it necessary to defend himself with a firearm.”

“The sick freak didn't belong in school. He belonged in a mental institution. So do his "parents". As far as the degenerates wanting to crucify a 14 year old child for this; I would expect nothing less from them. If the situation were reversed and the freak had killed the straight kid, they would have a million excuses why the freak shouldn't be punished. The kid should not be tried as an adult. The administration should be put on trial for letting such abominable sick costume displays n school. When kids are allowed to act out their pathologies, nothing good results.” (Note: in California when a person is convicted as a juvenile, he goes to a youth prison and will be set free (and his criminal record sealed) no later than his 24th birthday. If tried as an adult, he will go to the youth prison until he is of legal age, then transferred to an adult prison to serve out his sentence. Trying the offender as a juvenile guarantees his return to freedom, with a clean criminal record, in ten years or less.)

On this particular thread there is an abundance of hatred towards the dead youth and a huge tide of sympathy for the shooter. A family in California is burying their teenaged son because someone didn’t like the way he dressed, and these people, who have the audacity to call themselves christians, are lauding the killer. It is a chilling testimony as to where the disciples of Jesus have gone astray and taken a left into the Dark Side.

I'll leave you with a quote from one of the denizens of the website exposing all this insanity:
“Why is it you assholes always define yourselves by what you hate?”

To shake up your complacency a bit, visit http://www.fstdt.com/. Just don’t be shocked at what you read…and don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Just for grins, see if you can figure out which of the quotes in this entry is from Dr. Dino himself, the convicted fraudster now serving time in a Federal penitentiary, Kent Hovind.