CORPORATE MEDIA: Thom Hartmann / Why is Fox so-called News Supporting the Christian Taliban?
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Category Archives: Christianity
Alan Dershowitz vs. Religion
Why Does [Bigot] Tony Perkins Even Bother Going on TV…? (VIDEOS)
Repost from: Friendly Atheist
Tony Perkins, the head Christian at the Family Research Council, made news this week when he appeared on Piers Morgan‘s show and said this incredibly stupid thing:
Morgan: You have five kids, right?
Perkins: Yes, I do.
Morgan: What would you do if one of them came home and said, dad, I’m gay?
Perkins: Well, we would have a conversation about it. I doubt that would happen with my children, as we are teaching them the right ways that they are to interact as human beings.
In other words, his kids wouldn’t turn out gay because he raised them “right.”
Chris Matthews invited Perkins on Hardball to elaborate on the comment… and, for some reason, Perkins accepted. Barney Frank was there, too, and both he and Matthews went off on Perkins for 15 glorious minutes:
Read more, and watch Barney Frank school Tony Perkins video here . . .
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To add insult to injury, Lawrence O’Donnell took Perkins to task for suggesting there has only been one definition of marriage throughout mankind’s 5,000-year history (wait, what?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQWxWk1wTAs&feature=player_embedded
Aphorism: On Spontaneous Human Combustion
By Madison S. Hughes (05.09.2012)
I cannot say that spontaneous human combustion is my forte; however, judging from the bits and pieces of information concerning such that have entered my realm of thought, I must say that I am not convinced by any evidence that proponents have put forth to support such claims.
Certainly, a “loving” God would not allow such, but somehow I doubt One that engages in world genocide would take issue with a burning here and there. As a matter of fact, His followers have historically proven rather fond to burnings. I wonder if those that spontaneously combust are also of the more intellectual among us.
[Fifteen] Major Differences Between Occupy Wall Street And The Tea Party Protests
Article by Matthew Desmond
I read an article recently, which compared the origins of the Occupy Wall Street movement to the origins of the Tea Party movement. As someone who has paid attention to both movements, I believe nothing could be further from the truth. Below are just 15 differences between the Occupy Wall Street protests, and the Tea Party movement.
1. Occupy Wall Street is a grassroots movement, funded by people around the world, without corporate sponsorship.
The Tea Party is an AstroTurf movement, receiving most of its funding from corporate sponsorship, and Fox News and its supporters.2. Occupy Wall Street wants less corporate influence over our Government.
The Tea Party wants less Governmental influence over corporations.3. Occupy Wall Street didn’t receive mainstream media coverage until several weeks after it began.
The Tea Party held rallies across the country sponsored by Fox News, and even small rallies with minimal turnout received attention from other media outlets.4. Occupy Wall Street protesters are unarmed.
The Tea Party protesters openly carried a large variety of guns, including assault rifles.5. Over 1,000 Occupy Wall Street Protesters have been arrested.
Zero Tea Party Protesters have been arrested.
National Day of Reason / National Day Of Prayer
Sean Faircloth on National Day of Reason
Christopher Hitchens on National Day Of Prayer Being Unconstitutional (04.16.2010)
Conversion on Mount Improbable: How Evolution Challenges Christian Dogma
During most of my years as a liberal Protestant minister, I never saw a contradiction between my Christian faith and the fact of evolution. Like many progressive Christians, I did not understand evolution as a challenge to the doctrine of divine creation ex nihilo; evolution was merely the mechanism that God used for creating life on our planet.
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My indifference towards evolution changed dramatically when I ran across Richard Dawkins’ analogy of natural selection as “climbing Mount Improbable.” In that memorable and vivid metaphor, Dawkins illustrates the truly incremental and gradual nature of the evolutionary process. Opponents of evolution have contended that, while change within species can occur, the leap from one species to a new species is just too improbably great to have happened by purely natural processes. Outside assistance must have been involved. Dawkins addresses that claim by acknowledging that, yes, the leap from one species to the next seems improbably difficult—like scaling the cliff of a mountain to reach the peak. However, if one approaches the peak not from the formidable cliff but instead moves slowly along the slope on the other side of the mountain, reaching the peak of “Mount Improbable” becomes quite possible, although it might take a very long time.
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Which core doctrines of Christianity does evolution challenge? Well, basically all of them. The doctrine of original sin is a prime example. If my rudimentary grasp of the science is accurate, then Darwin’s theory tells us that because new species only emerge extremely gradually, there really is no “first” prototype or model of any species at all—no “first” dog or “first” giraffe and certainly no “first” homo sapiens created instantaneously. The transition from predecessor hominid species was almost imperceptible. So, if there was no “first” human, there was clearly no original couple through whom the contagion of “sin” could be transmitted to the entire human race. The history of our species does not contain a “fall” into sin from a mythical, pristine sinless paradise that never existed.
Republicans, Get In My Vagina!
Fascist America: Have We Finally Turned The Corner?
The author offers one of her periodic assessments of America’s potential to go fascist. And the news is better than it’s been in years.
Political Research Associates estimates that, at any given time in our history, roughly 10-12 percent of the country’s population has been bred-in-the-bone right-wing authoritarians — the people who are hard-wired to think in terms of fascist control and order. Our latter-day Christian Dominionists, sexual fundamentalists and white nationalists are the descendants — sometimes, the literal blood descendants — of the same people who joined the KKK in the 1920s, followed Father Coughlin in the 1930s, backed Joe McCarthy in the early ’50s, joined the John Birch society in the ’60s, and signed up for the Moral Majority in the 1970s and the Christian Coalition in the 1990s.
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The conservatives know that the demographic trends are not on their side, and that whatever limited advantages they enjoy now are receding with every election cycle that passes. Right-wing America is old, white, rural, and religious — a cohort that’s shrinking with every passing year, and is even now in the process of being swamped by a tide of voters who are younger, urban, ethnically diverse, and largely non-churchgoing.
Zinnia Jones: Dan Savage is right about the Bible
Always Question Authority 