Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.
– Robert Bentley, newly elected governor of Alabama, and apparently a Christian to the exclusion of others.
The National Organization for Marriage or NOM (which more accurately should be referred to as the National Organization for and only for Heterosexual Marriage) has launched a press release attach and TV ad against Steve Jobs. Why? Because Apple would not approve an app that promoted “traditional” marriage and pro-life propaganda.
This crew is really a bunch of whackjobs.
For a reply, there is no one better than Fake Steve Jobs. In fact, Fake Steve wrote a rebuttal before this video even came out. Read the whole thing, but here is a taste.
Dear faux Christians,
First of all, it’s my store, and I’ll sell what I want, and I will not sell what I don’t want to sell. That’s my definition of freedom — I’m free to do whatever the hell I want with my store.
Second, your “religion” is a myth. It’s bogus. Jesus did not die and rise from the tomb and ascend into heaven. Okay? That. Did. Not. Happen. God did not take the form of a little bird and fly down and impregnate an unwed teenage virgin girl so that she could give birth to a half-human half-divine man-god. Immaculate conception, virgin birth, raising people from the dead, walking on water, loaves and fishes — great stories, but correctly filed under “fiction.” The sad fact is, what you call “faith” is a form of mental illness. It’s amazing enough that so many of you are running around in your mental case dream world. But it’s simply unacceptable when you start trying to impose your delusions upon the rest of us. Cynical politicians may feel the need to humor you and kowtow to your demands. I, however, do not.
According to Rep. John Shimkus, global warming is crap because God promised Noah that there would be no more destructive floods against mankind. It is, after all, the infallible word of God.
I think that pretty much settles the issue, don’t you? (via Balloon Juice)
Check out this terrific periodic table of nonsense. (via The Big Picture)
Christopher Hitchens is battling esophogeal cancer. And he appears likely to die soon.
But that doesn’t stop him from writing, including this essay in Vanity Fair that highlights two important points. First. anyone with cancer is immediately provided with “helpful” tips about the latest, “best” or wackiest treatment. Second, a decent chunk of Christians are trying to stop the development of new treatments based on stem-cell research. Both need to stop.
… ast August a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a halt to all government expenditure on embryonic stem-cell research. Judge Royce Lamberth was responding to a suit from supporters of the so-called Dickey-Wicker Amendment, named for the Republican duo who in 1995 managed to forbid federal spending on any research that employs a human embryo. As a believing Christian, Francis is squeamish about the creation for research purposes of these nonsentient cell clumps (as, if you care, am I), but he was hoping for good work to result from the use of already existing embryos, originally created for in-vitro fertilization. These embryos are going nowhere as it is. But now religious maniacs strive to forbid even their use, which would help what the same maniacs regard as the unformed embryo’s fellow humans! The politicized sponsors of this pseudo-scientific nonsense should be ashamed to live, let alone die. If you want to take part in the “war” against cancer, and other terrible maladies too, then join the battle against their lethal stupidity.
If the embeded video doesn’t work, use this link.
And this proves it! BAM!
You will probably not believe it, but this is a real conference. Read it and weep. Every time I think we have reached a new low in respect of science, I am wrong. (via Balloon Juice)
This is too good. And an appropriate ridicule of hate in a variety of forms.
Image via Wikipedia
The First Amendment is not, so far as I know, a “privilege” earned by some Americans and not earned by others. It is a right. And it applies as powerfully to Muslims as to Catholics and Mormons and Jews and evangelicals alike.
There have been fewer more distressing experiences these past couple of months than witnessing the casual conflation of al Qaeda with American Muslims. It is obviously counter-productive in winning the war; but it is also a statement that even the most moderate of American Muslims are guilty until proven innocent. I’m sorry but I find that deeply unfair to a community that has, unlike some in Europe, integrated and succeeded in this country and deserves respect and inclusion, not suspicion and fear.
– Andrew Sullivan, on his blog today.
Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr
In the current issue of The New Yorker, Perter J. Boyer takes a close look at the so-called GOP “frat house” that has been the DC home of a group of evangelical lawmakers, including John Ensign, Tom Coburn and Bart Stupak. The legislators had all pledged to help each other live like Jesus.
How did it turn out? No so well.
One day some weeks earlier, Coburn said, he had learned that John Ensign, who was married, was having an affair with Cynthia Hampton, the wife of one of his aides, Doug Hampton, and there had been an immediate intervention that same day. Meeting in an upstairs room at the C Street house (a room that was occasionally used for marriage counselling), Doug Hampton, accompanied by Coburn and three lay ministers who manage C Street, had confronted Ensign about the affair. The encounter was filled with recrimination and tears, and culminated in Ensign confessing and vowing to repent. Coburn returned to the Senate, but the others remained with Ensign, handing him a pen and paper and dictating a letter to Cynthia Hampton declaring his intention to end the affair.
“Cindy,” the letter began. “This is the most important letter that I’ve ever written. What I did with you was wrong. I was completely self-centered + only thinking of myself.” Ensign wrote that God wished for the two marriages to heal, and for the two lovers to “restore our relationships to Him.” The letter was put in a FedEx envelope, and addressed. The three ministers—Marty Sherman, Tim Coe, and David Coe—drove with Ensign to a FedEx station, and watched as he slipped the letter into the drop-box.
* * *
According to Doug Hampton, Ensign, after mailing the letter and shaking his escorts, had telephoned Cindy Hampton and begged her to disregard the package he had just sent. He soon met her again, in Las Vegas, where they resumed the affair.
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.
It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.
–Multiple award-winning physicist Stephen Hawking, in his new book The Grand Design
We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture.
– Ray Mummert, a pastor in Dover, Pennsylvania, quoted by Charles P. Pierce in the article Greetings from Idiot America. Pierce is the author of the book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. (Via Quotation of the Day Mailing List)
Legislators around the country are considering banning sugar and fatty foods in schools, removing salt and butter from restaurants and want to control what temperature you can have in your own homes, because they fear the potential of health problems. Perhaps they should consider banning the promotion of a lifestyle that the Centers For Disease Control has determined actually causes HIV/AIDS.
– Ken Hutcherson, the minister who officiated at Rush Limbaugh’s fourth marriage ceremony.
This is really incredible to me. But it appears that the number of Americans who believe President Obama is a Muslim continues to grow.
The number of Americans who believe — wrongly — that President Obama is a Muslim has increased significantly since his inauguration and now account for nearly 20 percent of the nation’s population.
