Archive for category Religious Fundamentalism
Carl Wimmer Throws Utah’s Hispanics Under The Bus
Posted by Cliff Lyon in Bigotry, Bullying, Carl Wimmer, Liars (politics), People Are Nuts, Prisons, Racism, Republicans, Rocky Anderson, SLC Politics, This Blog, Utah Legislature, Utah Politics, utah on July 16, 2010
Sunday morning on KSL’s Sunday Edition, Utah State Republican Representative Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman said:
81 percent of the homicides, when you have a recorded ethnicity, are committed by Hispanics
It’s hard to know if Rookie Rep, Carl Wimmer really hates our Mexican friends or whether he is just pandering to Carl Wimmer voters. Remember, Carl Wimmer is the creative genius who cooked up the Patrick Henry Caucus (PHC) Billy Bob Road Show.
As an ex-cop and self-proclaimed Constitutional expert going as far back as 2009, Carl Wimmer knows well the concept of “innocent until proven guilty.” Wimmer conveniently failed to mention that his 81% claim comes from ARRESTS, not convictions. That’s probably because he didn’t know. But hey, he BELIEVES! Oh yeah, and his math sucks.
Here’s the funniest part. His so-called friends put him up to it. I imagine it went something like this:
[BEGIN SCENE]
PHC Testerones Uno: “Hey Wimmster! Got a job for ya”
Carl Wimmer: “Anything for YOU Padre! Que pasa?”*
(A cool breeze tickles the ungrowable hairs between Carl’s nose and lips)
PHC Testerones Dos: “Anything?”
Carl Wimmer: “Hey, what’r Amigos for right?”
PHC Testerones Tres: “Remember that ‘waste of a vagina?’”
Carl Wimmer: “Forget it, Amigo. That ‘Lesbo’ scares the sombrero outta’ me.”
PHC Testerones Uno: “He’s kidding Carl. This one’s easy. Ya did so good scaring the b’Jesus outta’ the West Valley preggies, we need you go on KSL and scare the shit outta’ the Beaners.
Carl Wimmer: “Sho’ thang padróni ‘Herrodoni’. What’cha got?”
(A young light-skinned Latina intern hands him a piece of paper with a chart on it which, distracted by her beauty, he fumbles and drops on the floor)
Distracted by her beauty, the paper falls to the floor
Carl Wimmer: “What the butt plug is this Herrodeeee?”
PHC Testerones Uno: “We’ve done the math already. Checked it twice even. You can take it to the Temple. Just say, ‘81 percent of the homicides, when you have a recorded ethnicity, are committed by Hispanics.’ And make sure you say ‘recorded ethnicity.’ That way, all the Bishops can defend the statement as technically correct if need be.”
{ END SCENE }
End Notes:
5% of Utah State and County Prison population are Hispanic. Sutherland Institute: Illegal Immigration study
* Carl Wimmer feels very cool when he speaks Spanish.
* Disclaimer: Law Enforcement Deserve our full respect until they quit, get fired and or fail and decide to become Republican politicians in Utah.
* I am still mad at Carl Wimmer for taking away my right to free speech on his Facebook page for nothing more than politely challenging him on a few of the amazingly stupid things he says.
Flaming Ex-Gay
Posted by Glenden Brown in Bigotry, Bullying, Conservative, Conservative Sell-Outs, GLBT issues, Homophobia, Human Rights, Mental Illness, Mental health, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, Sex, This Blog on June 24, 2010
The video by this goombah - Adam Hood – has been making it’s way around the internet to much gleeful and cruel chortling. Despite his gold flecked ascot, pitch perfect Charles Nelson Reilly voice, and FAAAABULOUS hand gestures, he claims to be totally completely straight. (Is it my imagination or is he wearing a brownish red velvet jacket with that gold flecked ascot?)
Now, you really can’t judge such things purely by behaviors – but when this big queen tells us he straight while embodying every gay stereotype, it’s difficult to take him seriously. GLBT bloggers have been laughing all week.
Andy Towle at his place used the headling “Does this gold-flecked ascot make me look ex-gay?” Pam Spaulding responded with “Tuesday AM laff-fest: the gayest ‘ex-gay’ ever“. Joe Jervis summed it up this way: “I’m Not Gay Anymore He Said While Wearing The Gayest Outfit In History.” One blogger asked “How long till Adam Hood falls off the wagon onto a pile of men? My bet is next Tuesday.”
All of which is true and good for a laugh. Read the rest of this entry »
Current Affairs and Ancient Prophecy are Strange Bedfellows
Posted by Glenden Brown in Activist groups, Conservative, Conservatives, Neocons, People Are Nuts, Philosophy, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on May 31, 2010
Every so often, I tune into the Christian stations to watch either The Hal Lindsey Report or Jack Van Impe. Now you may be wondering what a nice boy like me is doing watching two over-the-hill possibly nutty as fruitcakes right wing televangelists. It’s an excellent question.
Lindsey and Van Impe are both easily two decades past the peak of their influence. People like James Dobson, John Hagee and Joel Osteen have had been far more influential in the past decade than either of the older men. Ted Haggard, before his fall, was exponentially more influential than either Hal Lindsey or Jack Van Impe. So why watch them? The short answer is that both Hal Lindsey and Jack Van Impe represent a strain of conservative theology that is shared by many Christian conservatives but which is generally hidden from the mainstream public by Lindsey and Van Impe’s more PR aware peers. Read the rest of this entry »
This is why people make fun of creationists
Posted by Glenden Brown in Activist groups, Conservative, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism on May 4, 2010
From the reliably wingnutty One News Now, Peter Heck (not making that name up!) has a wonderfully shallow op-ed excoriating the world for not treating the “discovery” of Noah’s Ark as a serious, scientific find.
The truth is that science is supposed to be skeptical of everything. And yet, so often we see the reality that Darwinists hijack the name of science in an effort to proselytize their own faith, and thereby commit the same offense they condemn creationists for committing. Think about it:
Kuniholm mocks Ark hunters by saying, “These guys have already gotten the answer worked out ahead of time, and then they go out to prove it.” In other words, if there does end up being a large wooden structure on the mountain, that doesn’t necessarily prove Noah’s story. It only proves there is something wooden on the mountain. Creationists then work that structure into a narrative they’ve already accepted of a worldwide flood.
Fair enough…but what was Ida? Nothing about her suggested anything other than an extinct, lemur-like creature. Yet Darwinists took a dead organism and worked it into a narrative they’ve already accepted of macro-evolution. They presuppose Darwin’s model is correct and then interpret the fossil in a way that helps tell the story.
Boil down all the nonsense and you see the fundamental problem. Heck assumes the biblical record is equivalent to the scientific record. He argues that the scientific consensus (the one based on evidence) is the same kind of “assumption” as you make when accepting the biblical account. Read the rest of this entry »
If Christianity is to survive it needs to reclaim the body of Christ
Posted by Glenden Brown in Bigotry, Bigotry, Conservative, Homophobia, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, This Blog on April 19, 2010
Christian theology is a mishmash of ideas from two thousand years of history. The earliest Christians were Jewish citizens from Roman occupied Judea, a cultural and political backwater in the sprawling, cosmopolitan world of the late Hellenic era. Christianity was absorbed into the Roman world and its earliest centers were places like Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople. Christian thinking evolved as it came into contact with the Hellenic world. Saul of Tarsus, later known as Saint Paul, has been described as having one of the most dynamic religious imaginations in history. Hyam Maccoby credits Paul with the “invention” of Christianity.
In the Hellenic world, Christianity absorbed so deeply the ideas of that world that they are largely invisible. Christianity defined itself by two dualisms – the first is the spirit/body dualism, the second male/female dualism, in case accepting that the first item is superior to the second. So deeply embedded in Christian theology are these dualisms that most Christians simply accept the theological outcomes of these dualisms without examining them.
Examining the behavior and policies of Christian churches you can see these dualism as play. The resistance in many denominations to women as priests and pastors can only be realistically defended if you accept that men are spiritually superior to women. Arguments that women “can’t” be priests are simply untrue – the skills and knowledge required to successfully preach and teach don’t require having a penis. Christian hostility toward women is often packaged in pleasant sounding crap – assertions that women have such a special role in rearing children that they shouldn’t work outside the home, think for themselves or generally behave a fully fledged, morally aware adults.
It’s no accident that strongly authoritarian faiths (the Catholic church, Mormonism) resist women in leadership, a resistance ultimately grounded in profound levels of sexism – distrust of and diminishment of women’s abilities and gifts. The teaching in many conservative faiths that men must be the head of household, that women are to support male leadership, to trust male judgement. (I don’t fully grok, but as I undrestand doctrinal Mormonism, any priesthood holder is considered worthy and able to give counsel to people, to make decisions, to lead even those who are older and wiser who do not “hold” the priesthood; there’s a lot that could potentially be unpacked from the language used in this area.) Read the rest of this entry »
What do you do when the only thing you have is moral authority and you’ve destroyed that?
Posted by Glenden Brown in Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, This Blog on March 31, 2010
The tragedy of the expanding flood of revelations about the Catholic church and its decades long efforts to coverup the deeds and protect the perpetrators lies in two places – first the harm done to the most vulnerable (for instance, the priest in Milwaukee who raped deaf boys for years and when those boys became adults the church’s stubborn insistence on ignoring them) and second in the dismantling of the church’s moral authority.
Newsweek has an interesting article:
The pope’s ideas about the church include his belief that interpreters of Vatican II overly weakened the church’s teachings on salvation outside the church (that is, they relaxed the message that only Catholic dogma can lead to salvation), ecumenical relations with other Christian communities, abortion, homosexuality, and contraception, for example. There is already an air of widespread indifference, if not outright opposition, to some of Benedict’s objections, such as those related to human sexuality and reproduction.
AND
Now, though, the pope’s moral authority is very much in doubt. Especially if additional cases surface, his teaching on moral matters will hold much less sway among ordinary Catholics. The indifference to his agenda would probably expand into outright rejection. And Benedict would likely be less able to draft undecided Catholics to his side, except perhaps the most conservative.
The point here is a powerful one – the church’s sole source of authority has been its moral authority – it’s ability to sway people through moral argument. Whether the issue was poverty or sexuality or war, when the Catholic church spoke much of the world listened. John Paul II was so profoundly loved and respected that Catholics were willing to listen even if they disagreed. Benedict XVI has no such reservoir of goodwill. Benedict XVI certainly seems complicit in the church’s decades long criminal conspircy to coverup child sexual abuse and assault.
The church faces a truly daunting task – repairing its damaged credibility by removing those men who were either abusers, actively covering it up and protecting those who did both would gut the church. Removing abusive priests at this point isn’t enough; far too many were knowingly protected from consequences of their actions by other priests and bishops. Not removing those men will undermine any efforts to rescue the church’s reputation. With the Pope himself apparently involved in covering up these crimes, the church’s moral authority is badly if not irrevocably damaged.
When you’ve destroyed your only source of authority, you’re in deep trouble. The Catholic Church isn’t going away anytime soon, but unless the church finds some way to correct the problem, it will find itself entering a dark period of church history in which its authority and influence decline dramatically. The gulf between lay Catholics and the hierarchy – so hopefully bridged with Vatican II – will grow wider and wider until a great many lay Catholics feel little or no allegiance to the church and simply reject its moral teachings out of hand; the era of the cafeteria Catholic will become a fondly remembered golden age.
Utah Gomorrah: Crisis Addled, Moralistic and Careening Toward Self-Made Disaster
Posted by Glenden Brown in Corruption, Ethics, Hypocrisy, Liars (politics), Mormon LDS, Political Corruption, Religious Fundamentalism, Republicans, This Blog, Utah Legislature on March 13, 2010
“The authoritarian character worships the past,” wrote Erich Fromm in Escape from Freedom. “What has been, will eternally be. To wish or to work for something that has not yet been before is crime or madness. The miracle of creation—and creation is always a miracle—is outside of his range of emotional experience.”
Republican Gomorrah, Max Blumenthal
I find myself pondering the tawdriness of Kevin Garn’s confession of naked hot-tubbing with an underage teen girl. The image of a 28 year old man getting naked with a 15 year old girl is equal parts pathetic and creepy.
Why not simply approach a woman his own age? Why a teenager? To be honest, the incident tells us a great deal about Kevin Garn that I’d rather not know. And the warm and welcoming and forgiving embrace he received from his Legislative colleagues is distasteful.
House Speaker Dave Clark, R-Santa Clara, was visibly upset following Garn’s confession and was the only legislator to speak afterwards.
“I don’t know the man you speak of, but I know the man I consider a friend, a leader and an asset to the state of Utah,” Clark said. “I would ask my fellow colleagues that their hearts might be open, and that we wish you and your family all the best and we hope that you remain with us.”
I can’t help but wonder how many of Garn’s legislative colleagues can imagine themselves in the same situation – a nubile 15 year old giving them googly eyes. How many of them suspect they themselves might have succumbed to temptation as well? The ready forgiveness they seem to be offering is a disturbing insight into the mindset of many of our legislators. Garn’s statement could have paraphrased “It was a long time ago which means it meant nothing and she’s a bad woman for going to the press. She should have kept silent instead of betraying me” – and his legislative colleagues seem to want to agree. In the past, the woman in question could simply have been ignored and discredited. No more and now Garn must resentfully defend his actions. Read the rest of this entry »
A Causal Link Between Religion and Racism
Posted by Glenden Brown in American People, Bigotry, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, This Blog, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on March 9, 2010
From Tapped:
A recent analysis of religious attitudes by researchers at Duke, USC and Augsburg College reaches the conclusion that religious people tend to be more racist — and the more religious you are, the more racist you tend to be. It may come as no surprise that some Christians may not practice what they preach, but what is noteworthy about the study is that it draws a causal link between the structure of religious organizations and racism.
The authors note that religion promotes conformity and respect for tradition. Moreover, it tends to be practiced within race, promoting “in-group identity.” Racist attitudes may emerge when “different others” appear to be in competition for resources.
For a number of reasons I find this research disconcerting but also disturbingly accurate. Religion in practice becomes profoundly tribal, encouraging a strong sense of “us” which all too easily becomes an equally strong aversion to “them.” Very few churches are racially integrated in a meaningful way. The church - which should be an agent of tolerance, diversity and pluralism - becomes instead an agent of prejudice.
Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Posted by Glenden Brown in 4th Estate (Media), Bigotry, Bigotry, Conservative, Rachel Maddow, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, Republicans on February 23, 2010
Why is it that the best arguments for atheism always come from the mouths of loudly professing Christians?
Virginia State Legislator Bob Marshall:
The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children.
In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.
PZ Myers response:
I despise his imaginary, wrathful, poisonous, child-torturing god. This is what these kinds of Christians hold as just: that an omnipotent monster would wreak vengeance on children for a mother’s actions, and furthermore, that a handicapped child is a punishment for the parents. That’s simply twisted. A suffering child is loved no less by a sane parent, and our hearts are wrenched by the troubles of even our healthiest children. Think about what this dumb wretch has said to every child who is less than perfect in this world (which includes all of us, of course): we are his god’s instrument of torture for our parents. God is the psychopathic bastard who forces failings on us to make our mothers suffer a little more.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell (who spoke in Salt Lake last summer and was AMAZING):
Well, I‘ll tell you, what I‘d like to do is go chapter and verse with Bob Marshall. You know, a part of what I do, of course, is I‘m a seminary student. And I have an honorary doctorate in seminary studies. And I‘d like to talk to him about what the Bible says about dedicating one‘s first fruit.
And the fact that, you know, the notion of dedication often had to do with killing the first born and, in fact, Jesus who he points who was dedicated in the temple and who was, of course, also offered up as a blood sacrifice.
So he‘s got a little bit of theological explaining to do on the basic understanding of biblical text.
Easily The Worst Hymn in all of Christian Hymnody
Posted by Glenden Brown in Atheism, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, This Blog on February 18, 2010
(and that’s saying something!)
I’m not a fan of traditional Christian hymnody. Far too much of it is dreary, depressing, cheaply sentimental and just for kicks almost impossible to sing. Easily the worst of these songs is On a Hill Far Away – aka The Old Rugged Cross.
The story goes that a Methodist minister had been preaching as revivals and he was inspired to write the song. It is a favorite of many christians, but I find it a piece of sickening trite pablum, cheaply sentimental, cloying, manipulative and degrading of humanity, a condensation of all that is worst in Christian thinking.
Let’s start by looking at the lyrics if you can read a whole stanza without gagging: Read the rest of this entry »
killed
wounded
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