The Religious right should be careful Jesus is returning someday and he'll running as a Democrat.

More like 'Swift Boat Christians for (fill in your favorite "R" candidate here)'

They still haven't sorted out their 'misgivings about George Bush'.

Today of all days, we should have a couple of million of us marching on the Bastille.

But alas

OK, this religious right stuff is about the blathering of the, as the late Jack Anderson and Mike Royko both called them, "The Hallelujah Boys."

McCain gets the Hallelujah boys and Obama gets the "paying customers" in the pews.

Hmmm, seems a tad different this time around.

That's all this country needs now - another president sucking the dicks of religious wackos. Hasn't bush done enough to get us to the rapture?

Just another reason for all us to hang tough with Obama and stop this sudden emergence of "know it all" bloggers and others who get all bent out of shape if Barack does not say exactly what they want, every day on every issue. The urgency of assuring Obama is elected could not be clearer. He is using all his wit and energy to position himself effectively for the election. Let's stay together and help him otherwise we'll end up extending the dominance of the nut jobs in this country.

You would not want Huckabee to be a heartbeat away from the presidency... his tenure as Governor of Arkansas has seen incomes and jobs decline; the state has fewer educated professionals than any other, fewer college graduates, fewer women in business, and more poverty than you can imagine.

If the model for America's future is Arkansas, welcome to your new third-world country, folks. Oh, and happy 4th of July.

McCain has flip-flopped on every issue there is, but let Obama change one bit and the press is ALL over it.

The religious right needs to be marginalized. Ridiculed in a manner that excludes them from our halls of power (political or otherwise).

Demand people start talking sense!

And again, Obama should be careful who he courts as in the process he may lose non-religious people who are turned off by religion. He warned of "inaunthentic" "transparent" "expressions of faith" and how it's "dangerous" for progressive to adopt religious terminology.

(see the comments in the Obama Matthew 25 blog)

I'm not religious but I don't put myself above anyone who is. Senator Obama's true supporters aren't going to turn away just because he appeals to people of faith. They know we have too much to lose with McCain in the white house. They know this election is about so much more than that.

Today in the Palm Beach Post it said that our gov. Charlie Crist is getting married. It has been said that he could not be McCain's veep because Crist was gay. So no one knows what to make of this upcoming marriage. I have some thoughts, but I better keep them to myself.

"'The only evangelicals that will support Obama are the ones who haven't read their Bible,' Burress said."

Man, I hate this mentality. Because the Bible can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways depending on what context or emphasis you put on the text. With that said, I wish we could get to a point in our nation where our legal and political decisions weren't made based on a book written several hundred years ago, canonized for political rather than spiritual reasons, and the root cause of all of the bloodshed and suffering in the world for the last few thousand years.

Can we just judge our candidates based on their proposals, principles, perceived integrity (after all they are politicians and have none), and political history? I know that's asking the average Joe Blow a lot when he has American Idol and the latest episode of Cop Drama to watch, two jobs to work, and 3 kids to take around to all their extra-curricular activities, but people need to realize that these political choices have a direct impact on the rest of their daily lives.

Oh well, I know I'm preaching in a vacuum.

All these born-agains have a dirty secret. They all found Jesus in court ordered AA and NA meetings. Most of them actually have black cavities in their brains from all the drugs and booze. This is why they are all so crazy.

MAJeff @ 23:

Christian conservative leaders?

"Vile, worthless scum" is more like it.

Amen to that!!

Ironically, Obama seems to be a more devout Christian than McCain, whose "faith" seems to be of the "political necessity" variety.

So... what could the fundies' problem with Obama be, then?

The funny thing is that Obama is the one who has a clear testimony about being born again as a Christian. That is unless you define Christian as someone who trusts Christ as their saviour, is against abortion and against equal rights for gays.

Perhaps not so to the religious conservatives but during last year's National Review hosted Ship of Fools, McCain was...

A bell rings somewhere, and we are all beckoned to dinner. We have been assigned random seats, which will change each night. We will, the publicity pack promises, each dine with at least one National Review speaker during our trip.

To my left, I find a middle-aged Floridian with a neat beard. To my right are two elderly New Yorkers who look and sound like late-era Dorothy Parkers, minus the alcohol poisoning. They live on Park Avenue, they explain in precise Northern tones. "You must live near the UN building," the Floridian says to one of the New York ladies after the entree is served. Yes, she responds, shaking her head wearily. "They should suicide-bomb that place," he says. They all chuckle gently. How did that happen? How do you go from sweet to suicide-bomb in six seconds?

The conversation ebbs back to friendly chit-chat. So, you're a European, one of the Park Avenue ladies says, before offering witty commentaries on the cities she's visited. Her companion adds, "I went to Paris, and it was so lovely." Her face darkens: "But then you think – it's surrounded by Muslims." The first lady nods: "They're out there, and they're coming." Emboldened, the bearded Floridian wags a finger and says, "Down the line, we're not going to bail out the French again." He mimes picking up a phone and shouts into it, "I can't hear you, Jacques! What's that? The Muslims are doing what to you? I can't hear you!"

Now that this barrier has been broken – everyone agrees the Muslims are devouring the French, and everyone agrees it's funny – the usual suspects are quickly rounded up. Jimmy Carter is "almost a traitor". John McCain is "crazy" because of "all that torture". One of the Park Avenue ladies declares that she gets on her knees every day to "thank God for Fox News". As the wine reaches the Floridian, he announces, "This cruise is the best money I ever spent."

And people are questioning if questioning his military service to see if McCain is qualified to be president is out of bounds.

Conservatives were calling him crazy last year. Does anyone believe anything has really changed about him aside from his body-snatching of George W. Bush?

Ironic, isn't it? These "Christians" don't forgive too easy, do they?

Rusty Bombshell Video Shackleford @ 37:

Steve @ 34:

The funny thing is that Obama is the one who has a clear testimony about being born again as a Christian. That is unless you define Christian as someone who trusts Christ as their saviour, is against abortion and against equal rights for gays.

I've looked for Jesus' statements about abortion and gays but have never been able to locate them. Maybe some helpful biblical scholar can help me out.

Yehoshua never spoke of them. The anti-gay and anti-abortion crowd plays to popular prejudices and can only find a few scriptures, some 6 I believe that refer to homosexual practices and ignore the hundreds that speak to heterosexual practice and come to the conclusions that they do. Biblically, gays and abortion are non-issues, it's only a few loons that seem to think they are all that there is to the Faith.

39 diamondmc

Yeshua ben Joseph being Jewish himself would probably hold to Jewish tradition regarding abortion.

According to Jewish tradition, which mayn't be uniform over all groups, there are two periods at which a baby may be considered alive. In Genesis, it says, and I'm paraphrasing, G-d breathed the breath of life into Adam, and he became a living soul. In other words, Adam wasn't alive until he was breathing.

Another tradition says a foetus isn't alive until the period of quickening, which is when the little bugger starts breakdancing in his mother's womb.

However, the baby was considered the father's property even before birth, although it would only inherit it's Jewishness from the mother in the case of a mixed marriage. Additionally, the phrase commonly translated into "Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live," more accurately would be translated as poisoner. I think that's arguing semantics, since Witches were considered to be brewers of poison. An herbal concoction that could heal one person could kill another. Additionally, rival leaders commonly poisoned each other (at least in Greece and Rome), and who would they buy the poison from?

However, the "poisons" could be used to cause spontaneous abortion and that would've caused concerns too in a patriarchal society. Even though daughters were less valuable, they were often bartering chips to marry into better society. In Genesis, Chapter 19, Verses 1-7, he Biblical patriarch Lot tried to offer his underaged virgin daughters to a rapacious mob to save some angels.

41 General_Rennenkampf Says:

As a Christian, I wholeheartedly agree. The first statements remind me of the Rabbinic law of interpretation that any verse in Torah can be correctly interpreted 77 ways.
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Isn't that one of the basis for Gematria?

I have to admit I can't get the hang of that.

It also sounds reminiscent of a someone who asked Yesua how many times he can forgive another, 10 times? And Yeshua answered 10 times 10 would be just the beginning.

They're about as Christian as the Taliban and Al Qaeda are Muslim.

They'll do whatever it takes to advance their inhumane policies.

Screw those hypocrites.

43 General_Rennenkampf

Could you cite a scriptural reference where YHVH orders the Isrealites to rip open the bellies of pregnant women? I suspect Joshua, where supposedly Moses's successor was "divinely" ordered to slaughter inhabitants of towns that already surrendered.

The 77 ways also reminds me of the Qabbalah which has 22 pathways, 10 sephiroths, and three emanations above the top sephiroth Kether (crown). If I remember correctly the emanations were called ain soph aur, ain soph, ain. I always found that soph curious, in that it sounds like a basis for the later Christianized Qabbalah figure of Sophia (wisdom). She seemed to replace Shekhina the wife of YHVH, who now wanders with the Israelis, and is curiously linked to the terrestial Adam's first wife Lilith, now considered so evil (Adam Kadman is not terrestial). However, it's my understanding that Lilith may be linked to both the High Priestess of the Tarot cards as well as the second sephiroth from the bottom, Yesod which is above Malkuth. This would make Lilith the first step to achieving wisdom.

What makes this ironic is there's a church of Saint Sophia (perhaps a euhemerized figure) that was the scene of a nasty slaughter, where Roman Catholic Crusaders slaughtered the accomadating Greek Orthodox hosts.

However, I'm having some trouble regarding a figure called Eve the Elder, who was created while Adam was awake, but he was grossed out by the sight of YHVH almost Frankenstein like manner of creation. What do you know about that?

I just try to learn enough about religion to bug the fundies.

ysbaddaden,

There is also a Gnostic belief that Eve was actually first (as a manifestation of Sophia) and that Adam was somehow created from her or created by her, or created at her request.

I find parallels to this in science if we consider that all human beings are created female in the womb, only later differentiating their genders.

50 James

The original Eve sounded similar to the Green Eurynome, whose lover was the snake. Upon getting pregnant she gave birth to the world. All over the Middle-East are variations of her name generally meaning life or the earth. Some of the Gnostic sects were like to think thus. Additionally, although a father may be unknown, we all pretty much know who our mothers are.

The whole Adam and Eve story seems to come from Babylon where the Gods created the human race as essentially a slave race to tend paradise, and later the rest of the world.

I know I've bugged fundies with my comparison of the passion of Christ to Dionysian theatrical elements which are: Agon, Threnos, Pathos, Anagnoresis and Apotheosis (Presentation a birth or an appearance before village elders, fear usually the night before boinking a high priestess or sacrificing one's own life, the actual sacrifice, the ritual wailing for the lost savior, and then then savior being assimilated to the godhead).

I generally don't bring up that the the jars of vinegar present at Yeshua's crucifixion. That appears to be morin, a wine/vinegar derived from mandrake used as a pain killer in ancient Jerusalem according to Josephus. In I believe, Matthew, Mark and John they mention Yeshua crying out for water, and getting a sop of vinegar. It's generally taught in churches as the final insult from the Jewish "mobs" to Yeshua, denying a dying man water, but they were trying to kill his pain. An interesting effect of morin is it can also cause someone to go into a catalyptic swoon, appearing to be dead, only to recover later.

Could that be the basis of the resurrection story?

But I have to go now. My dial-up is bogging down, and I'm already a couple of hours behind in my yearly re-reading of the constitution.

ysbaddaden @ 52:

50 James

The original Eve sounded similar to the Green Eurynome, whose lover was the snake. Upon getting pregnant she gave birth to the world. All over the Middle-East are variations of her name generally meaning life or the earth. Some of the Gnostic sects were like to think thus. Additionally, although a father may be unknown, we all pretty much know who our mothers are.

The whole Adam and Eve story seems to come from Babylon where the Gods created the human race as essentially a slave race to tend paradise, and later the rest of the world.

I know I've bugged fundies with my comparison of the passion of Christ to Dionysian theatrical elements which are: Agon, Threnos, Pathos, Anagnoresis and Apotheosis (Presentation a birth or an appearance before village elders, fear usually the night before boinking a high priestess or sacrificing one's own life, the actual sacrifice, the ritual wailing for the lost savior, and then then savior being assimilated to the godhead).

I generally don't bring up that the the jars of vinegar present at Yeshua's crucifixion. That appears to be morin, a wine/vinegar derived from mandrake used as a pain killer in ancient Jerusalem according to Josephus. In I believe, Matthew, Mark and John they mention Yeshua crying out for water, and getting a sop of vinegar. It's generally taught in churches as the final insult from the Jewish "mobs" to Yeshua, denying a dying man water, but they were trying to kill his pain. An interesting effect of morin is it can also cause someone to go into a catalyptic swoon, appearing to be dead, only to recover later.

Could that be the basis of the resurrection story?

But I have to go now. My dial-up is bogging down, and I'm already a couple of hours behind in my yearly re-reading of the constitution.

Not really, when the Romans wanted somebody to be dead, they ensured their deaths. Crucifixion was much more horrible than the electric chair. The Resurrection story's origins from a secular perspective are much better understood that Yehoshua had such a powerful grip on His followers that they could not believe He was dead. From the religious perspective, of course, He was Yahweh and was Resurrected. From a secular perspective, it was likely mass hallucinations combined with a Jim Jones-style grip on a small group of people that in 300 years had emerged into a full-blown religion. I prefer the religious version, but then I've been raised Christian.

As for the mystery religions, Christianity gradually evolved into a pacifistic Jewish mystery religion until Theodosius I gave it the shot in the arm needed to emerge from Yehoshua's iron grip and the pacifist state to Great Religion status.

I knew they would.

given by a legionnaire named Longinius.

Actually it was my understanding that Lilith rejected Adam, because of his insistence on the missionary position and her to assume a subordinate status. Lilith split from Adam and was pursued by the angels Sanvai, Sasanvai and Semangeloff (must've been a damn Ruskie). They tried to convince her to return to Adam, but she refused. She ended up living next to the Red Sea with the demon Samael, by whom she gave birth to a hundred babies a day, than G-d would destroy a hundred babies a day. I don't know how she got rid of her stretch marks.

YHVH eventually destroyed all or most of her kiddies, and she grew jealous of Eve and her children (mankind) and vowed to destroy them with the aid of her lilim. Her kids was one way of explaining the presence of demons in the world, besides the fallen angels. Cain may've been the father of demons, or at least of all monsters, or the rest of the human races after he went into the wilderness and mated with demons.

Interesting spending the 4th of July discussing religious arcana, the Constitution while listening to Joan Jett singing if I want to touch her there.

61 Gretchen Says

Personally I think its a joke to call any of these people “religious” leaders. God is the last thing on their minds.
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Actually, they're worshippers of Mammon

Me?

I'm a worshipper of

Mammaries.

chad @ 38:

Ironic, isn't it? These "Christians" don't forgive too easy, do they?

Christians who preach hate, greed and intolerance?

I read the New Testament twice, and most of what Jesus talked about was helping the poor and sick (liberals), while condemming the money changers and religious "sellouts" (today's republicans).

Delusional irony anyone, or just plain hypocricy of an exponential magnitude???

Given that Obama is going after the religious vote, the traditional leaders of the Christian right must be getting pretty scared that they could lose their ability to herd their sheep. They cannot have religious people not voting the way they tell them to vote. They cannot afford not to rally behind McCain.

General_Rennenkampf @ 40:

Rusty Bombshell Video Shackleford @ 37:

Steve @ 34:

The funny thing is that Obama is the one who has a clear testimony about being born again as a Christian. That is unless you define Christian as someone who trusts Christ as their saviour, is against abortion and against equal rights for gays.

I've looked for Jesus' statements about abortion and gays but have never been able to locate them. Maybe some helpful biblical scholar can help me out.

Yehoshua never spoke of them. The anti-gay and anti-abortion crowd plays to popular prejudices and can only find a few scriptures, some 6 I believe that refer to homosexual practices and ignore the hundreds that speak to heterosexual practice and come to the conclusions that they do. Biblically, gays and abortion are non-issues, it's only a few loons that seem to think they are all that there is to the Faith.

Thank you, General. That's what I thought.