Fundamentalist Absurdities #1
Nutty stuff fundamentalists say and do
This is a somewhat unusual post — I typically don’t dwell much on some of the news going around in Christian (and religious) fundamentalism, mainly because it makes me angry. And I really don’t like to be angry.
But there’s been enough absurdities floating around, that I simply must comment — even if only in passing.
And so, for your enjoyment (and anger), I present the first in the “Fundamentalist Absurdities” series. Would that I would never need to write another post on the subject, but we all know that won’t happen any time soon.
OK GOP candidate: Let cities decide whether gays should be stoned to death
Apparently, it’s ok to murder people just because they are gay:
But Scott Esk, a Tea Party Republican and John Birch Society member, did exactly that — repeatedly.
The GOP candidate responded to a post on Pope Francis saying “who am I to judge?” on homosexuality by posting numerous Old Testament quotations prescribing capital punishment for LGBT people.
Another commenter asked, “So just to be clear, you think we should execute homosexuals (presumably by stoning)?”
“I think we would be totally in the right to do it,” Esk said. “That goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I’m largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.”
From http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/11/ok-gop-candidate-let-cities-decide-whether-gays-should-be-stoned-to-death/ via http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd
Wow. Just… wow. I’d really love to know if this man thinks it is okay to put people to death for other sins worthy of death, like:
- Doing work on the Sabbath (Ex 31:14)
- Cursing their father or mother (Ex 21:17)
- Having an affair (Lev 20:10)
- Being a medium / spiritualist (Lev 20:27)
- Blasphemy (Lev 24:16)
- Showing contempt for a judge or priest (Deut 17:12)
Tony Perkins Worries Obama Will Seize Control of Government, Cancel 2016 Election
Just go read it — it’s two paragraphs:
No, Obama isn’t out to take over the government. No, he won’t cancel the 2016 election. Gah — think, people, think.
The sun is the main driver of climate change. Not you. Not CO2.
For the space lovers in us, the Sun happily demonstrated a little bit of its power and beauty recently: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasas-sdo-sees-a-summer-solar-flare/#.U5hYdJRdVOE (via http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/).
Something tells me these people that triggered this particular post are thinking “proof!” Sigh.
The Holy Bible: Inspired. Absolute. Final.
http://www.jeremystyron.com/2014/06/855-no-proof/
From: http://www.jeremystyron.com/2014/06/855-no-proof/
Oh, if only the people who posted this billboard actually read their holy book and learned about its history!
Klingenschmitt: Teaching Kids About Gay Marriage Is Mind Rape
So, this is frightening:
Oh, I don’t know, but I think these things qualify as far worse than teaching kids about gay marriage:
- That every person is depraved and born into sin.
- That every person is broken and abominable.
- That every person is lost and must be “saved”.
- That your thoughts are sufficient to judge you eternally.
- That one should abandon reason and replace it with faith.
- “Don’t do that — it would hurt Jesus’s feelings!”
Which, of course dovetails right into this next story.
Helping your kids win the battle in their mind
Via http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/moar-bad-stuff-from-satan-and-the-pope/.
There’s so much awfulness from Joyce Meyer. Really, this stuff should be classified as child abuse. (Emphasis added by me.)
In the same way, Satan will look for your child’s weakest area and attack at that point. He will attempt to fill your child with worry, reasoning, fear, depression and discouraging negative thoughts. Negative, hopeless thinking and depression have become a serious problem for many young people today. In order for this to change, we need to teach our kids how to line up their thinking with God’s Word.
A few other gems:
Don’t reason in the mind just obey in the spirit.
And:
Satan frequently steals the will of God from us due to reasoning. The Lord may direct us to do a certain thing, but if it does not make sense — if it is not logical — we may be tempted to disregard it. What God leads a person to do does not always make logical sense to his mind. His spirit may affirm it and His mind reject it, especially if it would be out of the ordinary or unpleasant or if it would require personal sacrifice or discomfort.
And:
The mind should be kept peaceful. As the prophet Isaiah tells us, when the mind is stayed on the right things, it will be at rest.
And:
When a person is going through a hard time, his mind wants to give up. Satan knows that if he can defeat us in our mind, he can defeat us in our experience. That’s why it is so important that we not lose heart, grow weary and faint.
And:
There are times when God leaves huge question marks as tools in our lives to stretch our our faith.
And more at GoodReads, if you have the stomach. I… don’t.
If evolution is true, is rape wrong?
From the so stupid, it’s … there are no words to describe how stupid it is department (via http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/06/10/creationist-if-evolution-is-true-is-rape-wrong/):
Seriously? Really? What the hell? Someome clearly does not understand what evolution is at all.
Hemant has far more patience than I do, and managed a far more eloquent response.
Southern Baptists approve resolutions on transgender identity, the afterlife and casinos
From http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/06/11/southern-baptists-reject-transgender-identification-saying-its-not-part-of-gods-good-design/ comes this disheartening story that’s really no surprise.
First, I really wish I had that figure.
Second, sigh: (emphasis mine)
On transgender identity, the delegates affirmed that “God’s good design that gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception.” The resolution, which was approved, urges transgender people to “trust in Christ and to experience renewal in the Gospel.”
Wow. What a back-handed, horribly cruel way of dealing with people who deserve far better than this kind of response.
- God’s good design? Ha! If I had a chance to redesign the human form, there are a huge number of design flaws that I would modify. If I can come up with a better design, why in the hell didn’t God? (Oh, right — because we aren’t designed!)
- Gender identity is determined by biological sex — says who? Why do I have to take your word on this (and apparently, God’s)? Does this also mean that SBC holds to binary views regarding genders? That is — one is either 100% male or 100% female? How do they handle intersex individuals, especially those with chromosomes other than XX or XY? (Or how about individuals who don’t exhibit gender identity issues and manage to have different chromosomes?) Or — what about chimeras? There’s any number of potential glitches here, and none of them are God’s good design and none of them require me to assume that my chromosomes necessarily dictate my gender identity.
- Gender identity is not [determined] by one’s self-perception — again, says who? Who better to say what I am than me? After all, I know me. I live with me 24/7/365. What a perfect way to make me question my own self. What a perfect way to make a child believe that they are broken? Child abuse. Period.
- Trust in Christ and experience renewal in the Gospel — no thanks. Did that for the majority of my life, and let me tell you: any renewal I experienced was my own doing, and was accomplished by my own efforts, and was only accomplished by my own transition. Life is far from perfect now, but had I not transitioned, I can say with a large degree of certainty that I would not be here right now. Which would be bad — because as far as I know, there’s no afterlife.
Sadly, this is nothing new when it comes to Christianity, and the SBC isn’t the only denomination to share this view. Which is sad, really, because one of the most painful things to deal with is reconciling what one knows they are with the lies they are told by their parents and churches and the emotional and physical toll that this causes.
Frankly, if there really was a god out there who listened to and granted prayer, this is one thing I would pray for:
That every individual who says and does hateful things against the LGBTQ community (and, frankly, any community) would be “blessed” by getting to walk in the other’s shoes, and that they would experience the same self-hatred and self-loathing as well as the vitriol spewed onto us by others proclaiming “God is Love” that we have all experienced because of the “Bible”, “God” and “the Church”.
I don’t mean the above in a vengeful, spiteful, or hateful sense: I mean it in a loving sense — because maybe, just maybe, this world would really be a better place if we would spend a few days in each other’s shoes. Maybe we would think before speaking something that might hurt another. Maybe we wouldn’t go to war for an invisible deity in the sky that doesn’t even exist. Maybe, maybe, maybe — if only we would imagine other’s feelings and sufferings without judgement more often. One can dream, right?