Kindness by Christians A Bad Thing – Who Knew

I’ve talked before about a conservative United Methodist page I follow. I recently posted a Facebook meme merely because I found the sentiment somewhat heartwarming and thoughtful, but boy did I get taken to the woodshed. A few of them just flew into a rage that I should dare call on conservative United Methodists to express kindness…well, at least of the variety they seem to believe the Dalai Lama expresses.

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The Martian – A Movie Review

During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.

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Utah Tea Party Falls Off The Deep End

Just in case you’ve forgotten, U.S. Senators were not always elected by the people. The Constitution allowed the state legislatures to determine how their states’ Senators would be chosen. In the early days after the Constitution was ratified, legislatures often chose the Senators themselves. This was changed in 1913, by the 17th Amendment, which provided that Senators would be chosen by the people in the same way the Representatives were.

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Lady in The Van – A Movie Review

An eccentric (and decidedly grubby) aged lady parks her decrepit old van (which appears to contain her entire world goods) outside writer Alan Bennett’s house in Camden. When the Council threatens to have it towed away, Bennett’s diffidence leads to it being parked in his drive, to the consternation of his neighbors, where it – and she – stay for 15 years. As time passes, an odd relationship develops between them, and he begins to discover elements of her past.

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My New Nissan Rogue Sucks

There, I said it. Back in late August I traded in my 2005 Nissan Pathfinder for a supposedly new 2015 Rogue. I based it on test drives and comparisons with a variety of similar crossovers, and reading reviews on several auto websites, combined with the price I got it for. I was fairly pleased, but in the past two months a number of critical components have failed, and Nissan and the dealership are unconcerned and actually fairly rude about it.

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Cruz Goes Even More Crazy

It’s no surprise that Ted Cruz wants an ultra-conservative justice to replaced Antonin Scalia. What is surprising is how much he’s willing to lie about the consequences if that doesn’t happen. (But then again, he’s been lying for Jesus for quite a while now.) On Meet the Press Sunday, Cruz told host Chuck Todd that a liberal justice would mean the end of religious liberty — adding that religious symbols would be “sandblasted off of the tombstones of our fallen veterans”:

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Scalia: Not As Originalist As He’d Like to Think

So, by now everyone knows that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died over the weekend. As is usual, everyone is rushing to the airwaves to talk about what a nice and brilliant person he was. Of course I don’t know him personally, but certainly his public personae were not so nice, and I don’t think his legal reasoning, considered by many to be smart and original (pun intended), was all that brilliant. It was merely partisan and theocratic. Scalia was not really interested in the original intent of the framers. He was interested in creating a facade of intellectualism around his rulings. His genius was not in a new form of thought around the Constitution, but in a way to package his rulings so that people thought they had a grand origin.

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Theological Silliness About Communion

Recently, a person posted on a conservative Methodist Facebook page about the words used at a Communion Service he had recently attended. Apparently, this set him into a real tizzy, because the Officiant didn’t follow the exact words of the Liturgy from the Hymnal. And you wouldn’t believe the discussion that followed. I don’t think, in all my 50+ years as a Methodist I can ever remember a Communion service where, amongst all the words said, the Officiant didn’t stumble over, mispronounce or add to or leave out some words. But to hear some of the people on the Facebook page, you’d think he’d committed heresy for a slight change.

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Satan’s demons of hell have destroyed…God’s Gentle Loving People

I’m starting a new series of short posts just to call out of the xtian craziness that I see. I’ll try to avoid stupid stuff from ill-informed and people poorly taught by their religious leaders, but I will make it a special point to call out those who are religious leaders. And probably happy to have the distinction of being the first post in the series is Pastor Dave.

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Talking Ted Cruz-Scariest Candidate Running

So, Rafael “Ted” Cruz wants to be President of the United States. That should scare the crap out of any sane person. Ted and his supposed pastor father (I say “supposed” because there is scant evidence of his ever pastoring a church) subscribe to a very dark end-times religious doctrine referred to as Dominionism, and the two of them have decreed that Ted is ordained by God to lead the Government. There is a reason none of the people like him who know him, and there is a very good reason people who find themselves in his presence get a sense of creepiness. But he’s way more than just an unattractive, vindictive demagogue…he’s a downright scary person with a set of religious beliefs that make the most radical Muslim clerics look tame.

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