From my remarks in the Iowa House Judiciary subcommittee on Jan 31, 2024 regarding HF 2082 - A bill for an act relating to gender identity and disability under the Iowa civil rights Act:
Rights aren’t something given to us by any mythological creature. They’re not presents from Santa or Odin or Tak or Yahweh or leprechauns.
Rights are DEMANDED, DECLARED, and DEFENDED….by people. We The People. It’s been that way since before our inception as a nation.
We Demanded specific Rights, from the beginning to today. We’ve Declared those Rights, from our Constitution to our statutes. And We’ve Defended them, from the battlefields of the Revolutionary War through Abolition and Civil War, from the Suffragists through the Freedom Riders, from Stonewall to Black Lives Matter.
Countless people have put our very lives on the line to secure the Blessings of Liberty. Countless people have been killed or harmed in this noble pursuit. Countless families have been disrupted so that We may Maintain our Rights.
Indeed, these jerks need to remind themselves of those first three words of the Constitution ... and while they're at it, they could also catch a clue that the Declaration of Independence is NOT an operant document of this country. It was and is a DECLARATION OF WAR, including a considerable explanation as to WHY we were going to war. But because it mentions "Nature's God," the evangelicals have latched onto it and that phrase as though it were the only part of that document that mattered.
You and I both know that they don't WANT to understand that. They want to twist the words to their own purposes. Problem is: when they do that, we call 'em on it!
Christians don't really believe in natural rights. They constantly have their hands out to the government, demanding that the government take care of them and give them everything they want.
Not true. Did you read the article? Separating the normal lies about Christians from the Politico authors targets?
You don't agree with her huh?
This makes me think this author's article is not genuine if his readers believe differently.
I was so happy to learn he and his friends would even admit most Christians aren't "Christian Nationalists." Appears it might have been a fake notion done to score brownie points and doesn't represent his or his groups views.
Nature is not the 'creation' of a supernatural deity for which there is absolutely no hard, credible evidence. And no amount of wishing/praying for that deity will make it real. "God did it!" is not an answer. It is nothing. It is less than nothing. It explains nothing.
We can play the same game with that god. If everything needs a creator, who created that creator? If you say that your god doesn't need a creator, you are negating your own argument and engaging in special pleading, which is a logical fallacy.
Go ahead and last-word me if you so desire. I won't respond and you'll be wasting your time. And since the article in question was posted in very early March, I doubt anyone else will see what you had to say, either.
Thanks. What is it with godies? They think we haven't seen their "Divine Fallacy" 'arguments' before?
"The divine fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone assumes that a certain phenomenon must occur as a result of divine intervention or a supernatural force, either because they don't know how to explain it otherwise, or because they can't believe that this isn't the case."
“Nature’s god” reminds me of the word-of-god telling us to Be Good Stewards Of This Earth (including air, water, fishes, birds, etc). Not ignore climate change!
Then there are those pesky 10 rules where “we the humans” were supposed to Not lie (exaggerate, fib) or lust after someone else’s money, house, fame, daughter, wife, Power…Not supposed to be mean; don’t murder or hurt! Commands- commandments not options!
You know all those things “Christian” nationalists seem to ignore and Don’t Believe in. Don’t blaspheme - Mr. “I’m the chosen One, of ONLY I “infamy”.
In fact they believe in Something that doesn’t resemble Jesus’s Teachings or Words at all. Not Even Close.
Any Christian should be cringing at the orange-charlatan & False Profit.
Exactly. If they really think God is the one in charge of handing out and defending rights then they don't have any business doing Her work, they are clearly not God. Obviously it's people creating and enforcing all of these things but the things they want to do are so outrageous they don't even have the wherewithal to own them as their own goals, just "God's". What a desolate hellscape the inside of these assholes' minds must be.
Exactly. Because they're always basing their actions on their imaginary rewards in their imaginary afterlife. Even though the things they do should actually get them sent to their imaginary hell. They definitely don't give a shit about the people stuck on the planet with them.
So stolen... Now this on FB. Thank you for the idea.
"Human Rights under the U.S. Constitution were created to protect people from religion. They Founding Fathers saw how the original colonies had become religious dictatorships under various gods. They saw the sectarian violence as cult after cult tried to assert dominance over all the other cults. They knew a better way."
That was certainly one reason. The founders knew their European history and wanted none of the religious violence that had soaked Europe in blood for centuries.
The Catholic Church is responsible for a great deal of violence, but they are hardly alone in that regard. Martin Luther had no problem burning women alive for witchcraft. Calvin's Geneva was a theocratic hell. The Thirty Years War was Protestants and Catholics butchering each other. There is no shortage of religious violence on the part of Islam.
Joe here. I still stand by this, and stand proudly by my dearest friend who testified next to me in that building and who just won her election to that very same body. We fight. We fight.
And that is the one thing that Christian Nationalists cannot stand. They lean 100% on their rhetoric and their dogma and their talking points, and when someone has the audacity to rebut their baloney with actual FACTS, they completely lose their shit, as demonstrated here. This should be a clear signal to Ms. Przybyla that she's doing it RIGHT and should continue to broadcast what she's found on all available media.
We already know that Christian Nationalism is dangerous. The rest of the country should be so informed.
Yes. Especially since this bunch seems to hate women with such cruelty and vileness. In actuality, I believe they truly fear women and the fact they are going to lose whatever power they believe they have over half the nation's population. While it can initially create much misery and horrific suffering, such delusional thinking and behavior never ends well for those perpetrating such beliefs.
Because God is so powerful, omniscient and ubiquitous, one must close one's eyes and believe in said God for "they" to decide to determine your fate. Fantasy? Yes. Delusion? No, because the definition excludes belief in said deity.
No theocracy was ever a bastion of human rights and intellectual freedom. The religious right can talk about their loving Jesus and the glorious after life from now on, but there is nothing they crave so much as power and control on this earthly plane. Power, few groups would be more ill-equipped to exercise. They are fighting a rear-guard action in the attempt to accomplish through government what they have failed to accomplish from their pulpits. Mere religious freedom is never going to be enough for these people. They have deluded themselves into believing their religion entitles them to make decisions for everyone.
What creeps me out are the multitude of politicos who will happily pander to the Christian Theocratic voters just to get into office. Judge Tom Parker of Alabamastan was a predictable surprise to the Right. Sure he had the Alabama Constitutions supernatural based amendment, but he used it not to cudgel the liberals, but noooo (trans channeling Mr. Belushi) Judge Parker goes full on press the pedal to the floor no drogue chute race to the finish line where the winner get a ticket to Heaven. There are many fanatics who will keep their politicos in power or sociopaths who find said fanatics fun and useful enough to get them into power politics. So at the end of another day power and control in the sphere of Malkuth is - happy ending for fanatics. Vote against Christian Nationalists in all their guises. Let them marinate in their heavenly hell dominating wills and defiling the flock. Or maybe it’s Theocarcy Time!
C. S. Lewis - “when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else -something it never entered your head to conceive- comes crasing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.” The Leviathan is ascending.
I'm at the mid-way point of my eigth decade. It's a lot to get my head around. I have very little hope for the future of this country. Reasonable people are up against an avalanche of stupidity.
oraxx, though I am neither eloquent or intelligent to be able to add much to that comment of yours, I totally understand the point you are making. 08/20/43.
The MSM has to be much more aggressive in exposing the political machinations of Christian Nationalists. It should not be just one media outlet reporting on them. It should be all of them. If they win in November, our democracy will be destroyed.
Read Project 2025 for yourself. It’s a manifesto and it’s a plan to impose rightwing Christianity down our collective throats.
I have and it’s hair-raising. Some numbnuts tried to spin it to me that it’s “a 90-day plan, all new administrations have a 90-day plan”. Really? What happens on day 91? Everything back to normal or (what passes for it). Sure, wanna buy some swampland? 🙄
Yeah... "it's only a 90 day plan." 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮. If that's what they want to do in 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 the first 90 days, then we'll be living in hell on Earth by the end of the year.
Cause they are taking everyone you advocate for to the FEMA camps, right? "They're killing brown people at the border!"
Right?
Oh, good grief what a sad comment section fo denial of reality.
Protestant and later, specifically, what you would call evangelical preachers were the exact people who were FIRST to speak for dissenters' rights in the West.
This author's entire post was constantly separating Christians from Christian Nationalists but zero people in the comments are even acknowledging it. I was so happy that even admitted it, but it seems it is a post motivated by atheist guile and not a genuine admission of the truth.
Aren't Christians the ones constantly accusing others of "cancel culture?" Yet here they are, doing it themselves. Again.
Oh, and Christers? We fought a Revolution to get away from a Christian empire and a king who believed he had a divine right to rule. We fought to get out from under the thumb of your god and those who believed they were doing his will.
That game was way closer than it should have been. The first 6 or 7 minutes were potentially disastrous and Grubi had to work a hulluva lot harder to keep anything getting past him.
Fortunately we got past it and started to take control of the game but way too many pucks clanging off the iron.
Any group of people this allergic to honesty has no business being entrusted with the running of the building, never mind the country.
There seems to be a specific brand of American Conservatism that insists that everything will be better when they're in charge regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. These folks all too often want to remove everything from social safety net programs to rights for women, and then turn around an insist that will, somehow, be 'better'. This brand of American Conservative is heavily tied to Christianity right now, and it's not doing anyone any favors; it's driving people away from the polls, but it's also driving them away from church. Unfortunately, that means they've started coming out of their churches and into the political arena in an effort to stop their slide into dustbin of history.
Politics and religion don't mix. We've seen this over and over in the course of human history; when politics and religion start working together, it's to the detriment of everyone. The current crop of Christian Nationalists aren't any different; they're already telling us what they'll do and who they'll do it to, and they're mad for being accurately called out on what they've said. Believe them; they are scared and desperate and really will do whatever they think it might take to hold on to the power they've lost control of. Dishonesty was the first step, and they took that years ago now; now they think they're going to win and as a result they're not even bothering to lie anymore; they just get mad when some 'uppty woman' gives a truthful accurate summation of their plan.
If anything, she was far too soft on those fuckers. We all know that Project 2025 is not an 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 plan, it's a 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵, and will lead to far worse if they're allowed to put it into motion.
History shows us what such movements lead to, again and again. Their own holy book is stuffed full of stories about the slaughter of anyone their deity deemed less than perfect, and when their religion had its day to rule, they enacted that slaughter themselves. Entire civilizations were reduced to rubble and corpses by this kind of religious fervor. Nations already ruled by it gutted themselves over intolerance for even the slightest hint of heresy, their own citizens murdered for imagined offenses and accidents of birth as often as for deliberate blasphemy- and whenever they ran out of visible 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 to target, they turned on each other for stupid doctrinal disagreements and religious minutiae.
That is what Project 2025 leads to. Ultimately, what they intend for us- for all of us, everyone who doesn't conform to their tightrope-narrow worldview- is death.
Heh. If the Christianists are worried about disdain for their religion, they should probably read the comments here.
I can clearly state I have nothing but disdain for their primitive, backwards belief system and their attempts to foist it on everyone, regardless of personal beliefs or lack thereof.
I did. Hoping that the readers of the article actually understood the difference between a Christian and a Christian Nationalist as the author was pointing out.
What 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 would have helped is if the Dept. of Education had sent out warning letters to school districts implementing these shitty anti-trans policies when they first started popping up- and backed them up with consequences for noncompliance. This is an area where pressure could've been applied with or without Congress; ED policy can be set by Executive Order.
Instead, it's the same old story: the G-Men don't care until someone's dead. I'm glad that there's 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 happening; honestly, I didn't expect anything more than a tepid scolding aimed in Oklahoma's general direction, but... the amount of time the administration spent doing absolutely nothing about this in the two years or so since the GQP decided to make trans kids their punching bags is pretty fucking infuriating.
Yeah. I wish I could say I was surprised at the earlier crickets and I'm not sure the crickets aren't going to ultimately carry the day. Sometimes I think we should take a lesson from our ancestors: the only time the masses notice something is wrong is when there is a riot.
To be clear, I don't think it's apathy, far less antipathy, 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 to trans and queer issues on the part of the federal government (at least not under 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 government, though that would certainly be the case under Trump or, at this point, any other Republican)- it's a problem with the way we do government regulation, oversight, and intervention in general. I think it's the same as the FAA not giving a shit about Boeing cutting corners until planeloads of people started turning into craters. The signs were all there; the writing on the wall was clear and legible; everybody knew that someone was going to get hurt or killed sooner or later... but the will to act just wasn't there until 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 the completely predictable worst-case scenario came to pass, and even then, the wheels were slow to turn.
And... that's just not good enough. Some shit, the government and its agencies need to be more proactive about.
I'd imagine they could forward their findings to DOJ after the investigation, if criminal charges are deemed appropriate... and any federal assistance the district receives could probably be cut off until or unless they make whatever changes (if any) the ED demands of them. I don't know beyond that.
Reporting on the dangers of Christian Nationalism needs to be put on steroids, and not just Politico. We need to turn the spotlight on this anti-democratic group and their misrepresentation of what the Founders believed and what their documents described. And btw, Jefferson did us all a great favor when he extracted from the Bible's nonsense only what Jesus said. Christians of all stripes should focus on those words instead of the peripheral issues they love to bray about...sex, sex, sex.
Defending Politico, what is this world becoming? The hell that christo-fascists envision. But as others have pointed out, these...persons have insinuated themselves among the elected, in their staffs and in the seats themselves, and what is the point of power if you don't use it?
It will get worse before it gets better. Prove me wrong America.
"Additionally, Ladapo was a signatory to the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter claimed to have been signed by 15,000 scientists and medical professionals calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid, but which included a multitude of spoof names including Dr Johnny Bananas, Dr Person Fakename and Dr I P Freely."
Hemant wrote: "They cannot expect exemption from criticism from people who oppose their agendas, nor any extra deference for their political words or actions simply because they are motivated by religious belief."
As I have been saying for more than 50 years, "just because someone says something is their sincere religious belief does not make that a true statement. And even if it is their sincere religious belief, that does not make it right."
From my remarks in the Iowa House Judiciary subcommittee on Jan 31, 2024 regarding HF 2082 - A bill for an act relating to gender identity and disability under the Iowa civil rights Act:
Rights aren’t something given to us by any mythological creature. They’re not presents from Santa or Odin or Tak or Yahweh or leprechauns.
Rights are DEMANDED, DECLARED, and DEFENDED….by people. We The People. It’s been that way since before our inception as a nation.
We Demanded specific Rights, from the beginning to today. We’ve Declared those Rights, from our Constitution to our statutes. And We’ve Defended them, from the battlefields of the Revolutionary War through Abolition and Civil War, from the Suffragists through the Freedom Riders, from Stonewall to Black Lives Matter.
Countless people have put our very lives on the line to secure the Blessings of Liberty. Countless people have been killed or harmed in this noble pursuit. Countless families have been disrupted so that We may Maintain our Rights.
Indeed, these jerks need to remind themselves of those first three words of the Constitution ... and while they're at it, they could also catch a clue that the Declaration of Independence is NOT an operant document of this country. It was and is a DECLARATION OF WAR, including a considerable explanation as to WHY we were going to war. But because it mentions "Nature's God," the evangelicals have latched onto it and that phrase as though it were the only part of that document that mattered.
And they need to be disabused of that notion.
They don't understand that "Nature's God" isn't their Christian god. It's nature, period. Nature has no need of mythological gods.
You and I both know that they don't WANT to understand that. They want to twist the words to their own purposes. Problem is: when they do that, we call 'em on it!
Natural rights: "You have the right to survive, if you can."
Christians don't really believe in natural rights. They constantly have their hands out to the government, demanding that the government take care of them and give them everything they want.
They "deserve those [benefits, subsidies, tax breaks]", but those other people are just lazy is how it's been explained to me.
Not true. Did you read the article? Separating the normal lies about Christians from the Politico authors targets?
You don't agree with her huh?
This makes me think this author's article is not genuine if his readers believe differently.
I was so happy to learn he and his friends would even admit most Christians aren't "Christian Nationalists." Appears it might have been a fake notion done to score brownie points and doesn't represent his or his groups views.
And who made nature?
My one and only response to you...
Nature is not the 'creation' of a supernatural deity for which there is absolutely no hard, credible evidence. And no amount of wishing/praying for that deity will make it real. "God did it!" is not an answer. It is nothing. It is less than nothing. It explains nothing.
We can play the same game with that god. If everything needs a creator, who created that creator? If you say that your god doesn't need a creator, you are negating your own argument and engaging in special pleading, which is a logical fallacy.
Go ahead and last-word me if you so desire. I won't respond and you'll be wasting your time. And since the article in question was posted in very early March, I doubt anyone else will see what you had to say, either.
----------------------------
EDIT to correct typos.
Well put! Unfortunately, for many, logic doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Thanks. What is it with godies? They think we haven't seen their "Divine Fallacy" 'arguments' before?
"The divine fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone assumes that a certain phenomenon must occur as a result of divine intervention or a supernatural force, either because they don't know how to explain it otherwise, or because they can't believe that this isn't the case."
Sounds like Dronom!
I didn’t read this
Good luck with that. The worst deaf is the one who doesn't want to hear.
Oh, I've known about that for a while:
𝐼𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑛 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑡.
-- Upton Sinclair
KKKristers are taught wilolful deacness from bitrth
Worse than deaf and dumb
"Nature's god."
Wouldn't that be Pan?
Gaia.
Cernunnos
Gesundheit
How about Pan Priapus? 😁
Wheeee!
Call your doctor. Now!
A mere rip off of Min.
Ymir.
There is only 𝒁𝒖𝒖𝒍
LOL I just watched Ghostbusters again the other day!
Peter?
Et Demeter elle compte pour du beurre ? 😁
“Nature’s god” reminds me of the word-of-god telling us to Be Good Stewards Of This Earth (including air, water, fishes, birds, etc). Not ignore climate change!
Then there are those pesky 10 rules where “we the humans” were supposed to Not lie (exaggerate, fib) or lust after someone else’s money, house, fame, daughter, wife, Power…Not supposed to be mean; don’t murder or hurt! Commands- commandments not options!
You know all those things “Christian” nationalists seem to ignore and Don’t Believe in. Don’t blaspheme - Mr. “I’m the chosen One, of ONLY I “infamy”.
In fact they believe in Something that doesn’t resemble Jesus’s Teachings or Words at all. Not Even Close.
Any Christian should be cringing at the orange-charlatan & False Profit.
With a hammer.
Exactly. If they really think God is the one in charge of handing out and defending rights then they don't have any business doing Her work, they are clearly not God. Obviously it's people creating and enforcing all of these things but the things they want to do are so outrageous they don't even have the wherewithal to own them as their own goals, just "God's". What a desolate hellscape the inside of these assholes' minds must be.
https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/428692448_1627060791413610_1016680459542465601_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=524774&_nc_ohc=LLpsqftC1dIAX-1ps9K&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-2.xx&oh=00_AfDvqUbX2AwZvNJB-thI7lwyNOPtrQCfgXhDYJSn-LZyDw&oe=65E6F07C
Exactly. Because they're always basing their actions on their imaginary rewards in their imaginary afterlife. Even though the things they do should actually get them sent to their imaginary hell. They definitely don't give a shit about the people stuck on the planet with them.
Whose they? Christians, ones who actually believe and practice, do the most charitable and social work in the world and it's not even close.
The lady noted in this entire post was separating people who claim to follow Christ from those who actually do.
Are you claiming otherwise?
The Bill of Rights wouldn't last fifteen minutes if the preachers were in charge.
Rights were created to protect people from religion.
So stolen... Now this on FB. Thank you for the idea.
"Human Rights under the U.S. Constitution were created to protect people from religion. They Founding Fathers saw how the original colonies had become religious dictatorships under various gods. They saw the sectarian violence as cult after cult tried to assert dominance over all the other cults. They knew a better way."
That was certainly one reason. The founders knew their European history and wanted none of the religious violence that had soaked Europe in blood for centuries.
Hey ! What's a few bloodbaths between friends ?
Who cares about a niggling little thing like 3 CENTURIES of witch hunts cuz they were of gosd, right?
IKR?
You're being vague about "religious violence".
The violence was by THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Now in America we have a new wave of violence by Dominionist Catholics,led by Steve Bannon.
Of course the Jewish Nazis like Steven Miller and Jared Kushner are all too happy to help these shitheads out. ✅
The Catholic Church is responsible for a great deal of violence, but they are hardly alone in that regard. Martin Luther had no problem burning women alive for witchcraft. Calvin's Geneva was a theocratic hell. The Thirty Years War was Protestants and Catholics butchering each other. There is no shortage of religious violence on the part of Islam.
That is such a great line, almost worthy of a t-shirt.
And from despots. 😝
So was the Separation of Church and State!
15 picoseconds.
EXCELLENT!
Joe here. I still stand by this, and stand proudly by my dearest friend who testified next to me in that building and who just won her election to that very same body. We fight. We fight.
https://www.iowapublicradio.org/2024-11-07/meet-democrat-aime-wichtendahl-iowas-first-transgender-state-representative
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/electaime2024
Well said!
𝐻𝑒𝑖𝑑𝑖 𝑃𝑟𝑧𝑦𝑏𝑦𝑙𝑎 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑡—𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒.
And that is the one thing that Christian Nationalists cannot stand. They lean 100% on their rhetoric and their dogma and their talking points, and when someone has the audacity to rebut their baloney with actual FACTS, they completely lose their shit, as demonstrated here. This should be a clear signal to Ms. Przybyla that she's doing it RIGHT and should continue to broadcast what she's found on all available media.
We already know that Christian Nationalism is dangerous. The rest of the country should be so informed.
Worse for this mysogynistic bunch, it's actually a woman who dared to oppose them.
Bingo! You win the rubber cheroot! 😁
*Include a picture of a confused dog*
A cheroot is a cigar. Winning a cigar in a game of chance or skill at a carnival back in the 1900s was one's reward.
Ever hear the term "Close, but no cigar?" That's what the carnival barker said when you didn't quite hit the target.
[chuckle] Okay, then. How about a big lollipop and a hug? Whatever floats yer boat!
Fried tofu with sweet potato noodles and about the hug, what about never ?
As I said, whatever works. 😁
Yes. Especially since this bunch seems to hate women with such cruelty and vileness. In actuality, I believe they truly fear women and the fact they are going to lose whatever power they believe they have over half the nation's population. While it can initially create much misery and horrific suffering, such delusional thinking and behavior never ends well for those perpetrating such beliefs.
Evidence is like antimatter to their faith.
Because God is so powerful, omniscient and ubiquitous, one must close one's eyes and believe in said God for "they" to decide to determine your fate. Fantasy? Yes. Delusion? No, because the definition excludes belief in said deity.
As one meme says, "Has the power to end world hunger. Watches you masturbate instead."
I try to make it as entertaining as possible.
I had never heard that one before, it's a giggle at first and then a bit sad…
We should start to make him pay for it 😏
Right on!
No theocracy was ever a bastion of human rights and intellectual freedom. The religious right can talk about their loving Jesus and the glorious after life from now on, but there is nothing they crave so much as power and control on this earthly plane. Power, few groups would be more ill-equipped to exercise. They are fighting a rear-guard action in the attempt to accomplish through government what they have failed to accomplish from their pulpits. Mere religious freedom is never going to be enough for these people. They have deluded themselves into believing their religion entitles them to make decisions for everyone.
What creeps me out are the multitude of politicos who will happily pander to the Christian Theocratic voters just to get into office. Judge Tom Parker of Alabamastan was a predictable surprise to the Right. Sure he had the Alabama Constitutions supernatural based amendment, but he used it not to cudgel the liberals, but noooo (trans channeling Mr. Belushi) Judge Parker goes full on press the pedal to the floor no drogue chute race to the finish line where the winner get a ticket to Heaven. There are many fanatics who will keep their politicos in power or sociopaths who find said fanatics fun and useful enough to get them into power politics. So at the end of another day power and control in the sphere of Malkuth is - happy ending for fanatics. Vote against Christian Nationalists in all their guises. Let them marinate in their heavenly hell dominating wills and defiling the flock. Or maybe it’s Theocarcy Time!
C. S. Lewis - “when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else -something it never entered your head to conceive- comes crasing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.” The Leviathan is ascending.
I'm at the mid-way point of my eigth decade. It's a lot to get my head around. I have very little hope for the future of this country. Reasonable people are up against an avalanche of stupidity.
oraxx, though I am neither eloquent or intelligent to be able to add much to that comment of yours, I totally understand the point you are making. 08/20/43.
Exhibit A, Iran.
Because the Mullahs and my 86-year-old Christian mother-in-law are so similar.
Thanks for your excellent succinct spot on comment!
One response is appropriate to men like these, "Go fuck yourself, you lying, hypocritical, anti-American fuckwads."
Damn it Spence, you
The MSM has to be much more aggressive in exposing the political machinations of Christian Nationalists. It should not be just one media outlet reporting on them. It should be all of them. If they win in November, our democracy will be destroyed.
Read Project 2025 for yourself. It’s a manifesto and it’s a plan to impose rightwing Christianity down our collective throats.
I have and it’s hair-raising. Some numbnuts tried to spin it to me that it’s “a 90-day plan, all new administrations have a 90-day plan”. Really? What happens on day 91? Everything back to normal or (what passes for it). Sure, wanna buy some swampland? 🙄
Yeah... "it's only a 90 day plan." 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮. If that's what they want to do in 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 the first 90 days, then we'll be living in hell on Earth by the end of the year.
If people like cdbunch, Bensnewlogin and you are still alive.
Cause they are taking everyone you advocate for to the FEMA camps, right? "They're killing brown people at the border!"
Right?
Oh, good grief what a sad comment section fo denial of reality.
Protestant and later, specifically, what you would call evangelical preachers were the exact people who were FIRST to speak for dissenters' rights in the West.
This author's entire post was constantly separating Christians from Christian Nationalists but zero people in the comments are even acknowledging it. I was so happy that even admitted it, but it seems it is a post motivated by atheist guile and not a genuine admission of the truth.
Day 1 plan = dictatorship.
Aren't Christians the ones constantly accusing others of "cancel culture?" Yet here they are, doing it themselves. Again.
Oh, and Christers? We fought a Revolution to get away from a Christian empire and a king who believed he had a divine right to rule. We fought to get out from under the thumb of your god and those who believed they were doing his will.
OT
#$*%* Grubauer.
You have to admit that keeping Crosby, Malkin, Karlsson and Letang out of the back of the net is pretty impressive. 😎
Not this year.
That game was way closer than it should have been. The first 6 or 7 minutes were potentially disastrous and Grubi had to work a hulluva lot harder to keep anything getting past him.
Fortunately we got past it and started to take control of the game but way too many pucks clanging off the iron.
First goal was a bit flukey, Jarry played well.
This whole season has been weird for the Kraken (especially after last year's dramatic run). We can beat Boston 4-1 yet get shut out by the Sharks.
Lots of guys on the roster who should be scoring, but aren't. Then Will Borgen, who doesn't get many goals, starts lighting the lamp.
Any group of people this allergic to honesty has no business being entrusted with the running of the building, never mind the country.
There seems to be a specific brand of American Conservatism that insists that everything will be better when they're in charge regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. These folks all too often want to remove everything from social safety net programs to rights for women, and then turn around an insist that will, somehow, be 'better'. This brand of American Conservative is heavily tied to Christianity right now, and it's not doing anyone any favors; it's driving people away from the polls, but it's also driving them away from church. Unfortunately, that means they've started coming out of their churches and into the political arena in an effort to stop their slide into dustbin of history.
Politics and religion don't mix. We've seen this over and over in the course of human history; when politics and religion start working together, it's to the detriment of everyone. The current crop of Christian Nationalists aren't any different; they're already telling us what they'll do and who they'll do it to, and they're mad for being accurately called out on what they've said. Believe them; they are scared and desperate and really will do whatever they think it might take to hold on to the power they've lost control of. Dishonesty was the first step, and they took that years ago now; now they think they're going to win and as a result they're not even bothering to lie anymore; they just get mad when some 'uppty woman' gives a truthful accurate summation of their plan.
Conservatism is the herpes of America. The NatCs are the blisters on the national lip warning that the disease is infectious.
Yeah those radical Xtians don't like Heidi spilling the beans about Trump green lighting the Xtian Sex Police to enforce Gawd's laws on us.
Meanwhile Lindsay Graham has come out and said that when the Republicans get the Senate back they will pass a total abortion ban.
https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1763229973937103093
Lindsey-belle has nothing to lose with a total abortion ban. Nobody needs abortion rights less than a gay man.
If anything, she was far too soft on those fuckers. We all know that Project 2025 is not an 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 plan, it's a 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵, and will lead to far worse if they're allowed to put it into motion.
History shows us what such movements lead to, again and again. Their own holy book is stuffed full of stories about the slaughter of anyone their deity deemed less than perfect, and when their religion had its day to rule, they enacted that slaughter themselves. Entire civilizations were reduced to rubble and corpses by this kind of religious fervor. Nations already ruled by it gutted themselves over intolerance for even the slightest hint of heresy, their own citizens murdered for imagined offenses and accidents of birth as often as for deliberate blasphemy- and whenever they ran out of visible 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 to target, they turned on each other for stupid doctrinal disagreements and religious minutiae.
That is what Project 2025 leads to. Ultimately, what they intend for us- for all of us, everyone who doesn't conform to their tightrope-narrow worldview- is death.
Heh. If the Christianists are worried about disdain for their religion, they should probably read the comments here.
I can clearly state I have nothing but disdain for their primitive, backwards belief system and their attempts to foist it on everyone, regardless of personal beliefs or lack thereof.
I did. Hoping that the readers of the article actually understood the difference between a Christian and a Christian Nationalist as the author was pointing out.
But no.
OT: Don't know if anyone has already posted this but the U.S Dept of Ed is investigating the school that killed Nex Benedict.
https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/formal-complaint-from-hrc-triggers-department-of-education-investigation-into-owasso-public-schools-following-attacks-on-nex-benedict
Also a petition to remove Ryan Walters, while anyone can sign, I implore OK residents to do so.
https://act.hrc.org/page/144664/petition/1
What 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 would have helped is if the Dept. of Education had sent out warning letters to school districts implementing these shitty anti-trans policies when they first started popping up- and backed them up with consequences for noncompliance. This is an area where pressure could've been applied with or without Congress; ED policy can be set by Executive Order.
Instead, it's the same old story: the G-Men don't care until someone's dead. I'm glad that there's 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 happening; honestly, I didn't expect anything more than a tepid scolding aimed in Oklahoma's general direction, but... the amount of time the administration spent doing absolutely nothing about this in the two years or so since the GQP decided to make trans kids their punching bags is pretty fucking infuriating.
Yeah. I wish I could say I was surprised at the earlier crickets and I'm not sure the crickets aren't going to ultimately carry the day. Sometimes I think we should take a lesson from our ancestors: the only time the masses notice something is wrong is when there is a riot.
To be clear, I don't think it's apathy, far less antipathy, 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 to trans and queer issues on the part of the federal government (at least not under 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 government, though that would certainly be the case under Trump or, at this point, any other Republican)- it's a problem with the way we do government regulation, oversight, and intervention in general. I think it's the same as the FAA not giving a shit about Boeing cutting corners until planeloads of people started turning into craters. The signs were all there; the writing on the wall was clear and legible; everybody knew that someone was going to get hurt or killed sooner or later... but the will to act just wasn't there until 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 the completely predictable worst-case scenario came to pass, and even then, the wheels were slow to turn.
And... that's just not good enough. Some shit, the government and its agencies need to be more proactive about.
I don't know what the Dept of Ed can do unless they forward it to the DOJ.
I'd imagine they could forward their findings to DOJ after the investigation, if criminal charges are deemed appropriate... and any federal assistance the district receives could probably be cut off until or unless they make whatever changes (if any) the ED demands of them. I don't know beyond that.
Signed. I know live in Quebec, France 🤪
NAME ADDED
Reporting on the dangers of Christian Nationalism needs to be put on steroids, and not just Politico. We need to turn the spotlight on this anti-democratic group and their misrepresentation of what the Founders believed and what their documents described. And btw, Jefferson did us all a great favor when he extracted from the Bible's nonsense only what Jesus said. Christians of all stripes should focus on those words instead of the peripheral issues they love to bray about...sex, sex, sex.
Defending Politico, what is this world becoming? The hell that christo-fascists envision. But as others have pointed out, these...persons have insinuated themselves among the elected, in their staffs and in the seats themselves, and what is the point of power if you don't use it?
It will get worse before it gets better. Prove me wrong America.
We can hope USA proves you wrong, but I won't bet on it.
OT
Poor Zorgin, having this guy as his state's Surgeon General...
"Florida is swamped by disease outbreaks as quackery replaces science"
https://theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/03/florida-measles-outbreak-preventable
I want a foursome between him, me, DM's cane and a picture of my aunt J who died when she was 3 years old around 1956.
"for a herd immunity approach to Covid"
Hé p'tit malin ! Do you know how herd immunity (when it's possible) is achieved ? BY VACCINATING THE FUCKING POPULATION !
QAFO.
(Quack around find out.)
The final bill will be expensive.
And the quacks won't pay it.
Florida: Come for the Sunshine, Leave With the Measles.
The more I read the worse it gets.
"Additionally, Ladapo was a signatory to the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter claimed to have been signed by 15,000 scientists and medical professionals calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid, but which included a multitude of spoof names including Dr Johnny Bananas, Dr Person Fakename and Dr I P Freely."
Also: Dr. Sue Me.
If only a world existed where ducks were the only ones who quacked. Ah, a guy can dream...
De-sanitized!
Reverting to a disease-ridden swamp.
Hemant wrote: "They cannot expect exemption from criticism from people who oppose their agendas, nor any extra deference for their political words or actions simply because they are motivated by religious belief."
As I have been saying for more than 50 years, "just because someone says something is their sincere religious belief does not make that a true statement. And even if it is their sincere religious belief, that does not make it right."
Well, if what Heidi said is an attack on God, then God can arrest her.
Let me know when that happens.