Deep Something

Over at One News Now (an ultra-conservative non-news outlet), they published another story this week trying to refute the idea of Global Warming, with what may be the most absurd argument yet. Christians are called to believe that the earth is the creation of God and is a gift given to humans for our care and nurturing. I believe that responsible Christians are especially called on to protect the environment and all in it. So why have so many so-called Christian Leaders and Organizations seen fit to argue over the nuances of data collection instead of concerning themselves with the deterioration of the environment and the ever increasing cost of energy? To whom are they beholding?

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Take one preconceived notion and grasp it strongly. Bake this idea into your mind until well seared. If necessary, run around shouting it at the top of your lungs with your ears plugged and eyes shut so as to drown out any competing notions.

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The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

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In the not-too-distant future, a solitary man walks across the wasteland that was once America. There is no civilization here, no law. The roads belong to gangs that would murder a man for his shoes, an ounce of water… or for nothing at all. But they’re no match for this traveler. It’s not his life he guards so fiercely but his hope for the future; a hope he has carried and protected for 30 years and is determined to realize. Overall, this movie is probably worth watching, but wait until it is out on video.

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Today in Sunday School, We still going through the Rick Warren book. This discussion was about being friends with God. The discussion went off in a number of directions, and I’m not sure how much I got out of this week. Today is also the Birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so I wanted to work in a reference to that in today’s prayer. I heard a great story this morning on NPR about how King had once been asked, in his teenage years, what he was looking at as he stared out the Window. He was watching the gas lamp lighter going along lighting the gas lights. King said he was watching the man, “knock holes in the darkness.”

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I honestly can think of nothing more vile and hateful than the things that come from the mouth of Pat Robertson. Who can forget his blaming feminism and abortion for the attack on the 9/11, and now, as is so often the case, he’s blaming the victims in Haiti for their own misery. According to Robertson, the reason for the earthquake there, and the poverty of the country is because back during the days of French Colonialism, the Haitians made a pact with Satan to get the French out.

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It seems I’m frequently asked to offer the closing prayer for my Sunday School class. I guess some are good enough that I’ve been asked to get them down for possible future publication. This seems to be as good a place as any. So this will be the first in what may become a series.

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The fine folks at Rescue Marriage, who faked out the American Family Association with their tongue-in-cheek campaign to ban divorce in California, have really stepped up their game with this ad. And the California Attorney General has titled the measure and certified it for signature gathering. It has been called the 2010 CALIFORNIA MARRIAGE PROTECTION ACT.

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Stephen Fry explains why the Catholic Church is not a force for good in the world. Fry is a well known British actor, but is probably best known to American audiences for his role in V for Vendetta.

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From time to time I have a discussion of politics with someone at work. He’s very much a conservative Republican. Yesterday our discussion went to how far off the cliff the most extreme elements of theright-wing have gone. He kept insisting there were extremists on the left as well. And now come forth the Psalmists. Apparently they are now printing the phrase, “Psalm 109,” on mouse pads, bumper stickers, and even teddy bears. The Biblical verse Psalm 109: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children become fatherless; and his wife become a widow.”

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We’ve got crazies coming out of the woodwork. In Tampa we have a guy calling 911 for phone sex, and another guy taking a tire iron to a Greek Orthodox Priest (because we all know how easy it is to mistake them for Arab Terrorists), and a “Christian” group wanting to try to incite people to gay bash so they can become martyrs charged under the revised hate crimes law. WWJW

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Turns out the Bible is just too progressive in its views for some. So the Conservative Bible Project has been formed to use Wiki technology to create a whole new, and more conservative, translation of the Bible. The group cites a few reasons why the Bible is too progressive: “Lack of precision in the original language … lack of precision in modern language” and “translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.”

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Rachael Maddow reports on a survey that says that more than one in three conservatives in New Jersey believe that Obama is the anti-christ. She discusses with Republican operative and former religious right co-founder Frank Schaeffer how we respond to the idiocy. Schaeffer rightly notes that there is a sub-culture within the ultra-conservative evangelical right that is taught from birth to reject fact as a matter of “faith.” These are people who believe the world is only about six billion years old, that humans lived with dinosaurs, and that John F. Kennedy was the anti-christ. He refers to them as a “fifth column of insanity.”

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These are interviews with the 60,00 to 70,000 people who turned out for the big Tea Bagger March in Washington. Apparently, you don’t have to really know anything about what you’re protesting. It’s all just bad because it is Obama, and some industry or media flak like Glenn Beck told you to be mad and scared.

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The brohaha over Carrie Prejean seems to be continuing as nudie pictures have surfaced, and she seems to think the contract she signed with the Miss Califonia organization doesn’t mean anything. It all sounds so Christian to me. I mean how dishonest and hypocritical. Seems a perfect with today’s version of professional christianity.

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I have held off posting on this whole Miss USA conflagration. I thought it mostly much ado about nothing, but now everyone seems to be jumping into the act. Not suprisingly, the krazy kristian kooks are trying to martyr Miss Jugs for Jesus.

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The krazy kristian kooks have their knickers all in a wad over the gay marriage situation in Iowa and Vermont, and their responses are predictably idiotic. Basically we can’t allow equal protection under the law because it violates their religious sensibilities.

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Mark Twain said, “Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” Rick Warren, darling of the “intellectual evangelicals,” is learning that lesson the hard way this week after an appearance on Larry King Live. Obviously I don’t agree with the evangelical view on homosexuality, and believe they are misreading the Bible based on many years of misinterpretation by their clerics, but I understand their right to believe as they wish. One thing, though, I’m fairly clear about is that lying is pretty much frowned upon throughout the Bible, yet Warren decides to play fast and loose with the truth. Now, even the evangelicals are mad at him.

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The Supreme Court has declined to take up the case of a Kentucky High School student who wants to sue the school district for barring him from expressing opposition to homosexuality. Morrison, a senior at Boyd County High School, sued the Boyd County school district over a policy that required students to undergo anti-harassment training. He claimed the policy threatened him with punishment for expressing religious beliefs in opposition to homosexuality.

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Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin seems to have found out why the Proposition 8 people were so hell bent in trying to prohibit the release of the names of donors to their campaign to take away the rights of Gay people in California. It seems the LDS had way more to do with this than they were claiming. (And by the Church, I mean the church corporate…not just “members.”) Burroway reports they had 190,000 reasons to prevent the disclosure. Seems the LDS provided lots of official corporate support and in-kind services.

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