The many mental acrobatics of evangelical theologian David Lamb

Posted on by under Drivel

Is God really “angry, sexist, and racist”? Biblical Seminary professor David Lamb says “yes and no“, and then proceeds to trip over his own two feet in trying to justify the “yes” part.

I think the biggest thing that God gets angry about is injustice: when poor people are being oppressed, when widows are not being cared for, when orphans are not being provided for. And those are really good things to get angry about. And let’s face it: When people are angry, it gets our attention.

Right. God gets angry about injustice. That’s why he killed the firstborn children of Egypt. You know how unjust kids can be.

Onto the charges of sexism:

The very first thing we learn in the Bible is that women are divine – they are God-like. Now, men are too, but I think most men think this already. The man and the woman, when God creates them in Genesis 1, they are made in his image. And there’s nothing more positive you could say.

Did you get that, ladies? There’s nothing more positive that can be said to you than, “you were made in the image of God”. Now, excuse me while I kick my menstruating wife out of the house for a week.

Onto racism:

We need to go to Genesis 12, where we encounter God first talking to Abraham. He is calling the father of the nations. He wants to bless them, but he wants to bless them to be a blessing to all nations. God gets angry when foreigners are not being cared for. God wants his people to be concerned about people that are different from them.

God gets angry when foreigners are not being cared for? Terrific news! Let me go tell the Canaanites… oh, wait.

This, however, takes the cake:

I sent an email to Richard Dawkins and got no response, which is perhaps not surprising. I’ve had some great interactions with atheists, and they love to talk about this. Some of them feel very strongly about it, which I think has been fantastic.

A lot of Christians, we do the same thing that Dawkins is doing – Dawkins just focuses on the negative texts, and Christians just focus on the positive texts. And I think Dawkins needs to acknowledge the positive texts in the same way that Christians need to not ignore these negative texts.

Yes, it is intellectually dishonest for Christians to focus only on “positive” Biblical texts, but is this any less honest than trying to negate the litany of bad texts with a few good? Sure, Genesis 12 calls Abraham the “father of nations”, but a few chapters before God cursed Ham and all of his descendants to servitude and submission. A good action does not negate a bad. It doesn’t matter that God wants everyone to come to his party, cursing people for the sins of their fathers is a dick move. End of story.

Still, kudos to Prof. Lamb for not being a dick himself. A note to Christians looking for “civil” debate, this is more or less how you do it.

‘Get Religion’ Can Get Fucked

Posted on by under Media

Nearly ten years ago, President George W. Bush rammed the full force of the United States military up the unsuspecting colon of a third world desert nation under the pretense he had “smoking gun” proof they were manufacturing, stockpiling, and selling weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. When the dust had finally settled, thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians lay dead, but not a single weapon of mass destruction was found in the armories of Saddam Hussein’s desert paradise. As thousands more American soldiers remained in Iraq, in what was tantamount to a masochistic effort to stabilize a house of cards in a Force 11 gale, many of us scratched our heads ponderously. Why, I thought we had “smoking gun” proof of WMDs, everyone said. Why haven’t they found them yet?

The reason, we would later learn, is because of an order that filtered down through the various intelligence agencies in the months leading up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The order, put simply, was to review all documentation on Iraq, and find evidence of WMDs and dealings with Al Qaeda. It turns out, this a bit like poisoning the well. If you tell somebody to read a document and then tell them what you expect them to find therein, they are going to find it whether or not it is really there.

If you were to take out “WMD” and “Iraq” from the equation and substitute instead “anti-religious bias” and “mainstream media”, you would get the Patheos-hosted blog Get Religion. Continue reading →

The Talented Mr. Jindal

Posted on by under News, Politics

Louisiana Governor Priyush Bobby Jindal has a plan for the Republican Party.

“We must stop being the stupid party.” “We must stop looking backward.” “We must stop insulting the intelligence of voters.”

Superb advice, but how would the Republican Party go about accomplishing these ends?

Firing Bobby Jindal would be a good start.

After all, is this not the same Bobby Jindal who signed into a law a bill that allows creationism to be taught in public schools as an academically equal alternative to evolution, the same Bobby Jindal whose school voucher system is being used to teach kids the Loch Ness Monster is proof man and dinosaur lived side-by-side? The same Governor Bobby Jindal who warns against “looking backward”, yet supports a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples? The same Bobby Jindal who warns agains “insulting the intelligence of voters”, while this whole “I have a plan for the Republican Party” schtick is clearly a ploy to test the waters for a potential presidential run in 2016?

SiskoORLY

Yes, he is that Bobby Jindal.

To be fair, when Jindal says “We need to stop being the stupid party”, he doesn’t really mean Republicans should stop being stupid. Rather, he means Republicans should stop sounding stupid.

We must compete for every single vote: the 47 percent and the 53 percent and any other combination of numbers that adds up to 100 percent,” he said, notably invoking comments 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made at a closed door fundraiser about a bloc of voters who would not consider GOP candidates.

He also spoke out against those and other “completely unhelpful” comments from Romney in a November interview with CNN. In that interview, he signaled one of the seven points for the Republican Party’s future which he laid out Thursday: “The first step in getting the voters to like you is to demonstrate that you like them,” he explained Thursday.

Republicans “must reject the notion that demography is destiny, the pathetic and simplistic notion that skin pigmentation dictates voter behavior. We must treat all people as individuals rather than as members of special interest groups,” he said.

Remember: it wasn’t the lies that killed the Romney/Ryan campaign. It wasn’t the Jeep factory in China, nonexistent deficit spending, or medicare cuts that never happened. Nor was it the policy. Millions of workaday Americans have in times past lined up around the block to vote against their own financial interests, and would no doubt do so again for the right candidate. No, what killed the Romney/Ryan campaign was a few short minutes of candid honesty.

 


So, please, insult voters’ intelligence all you want. Deny climate change and evolution. Make up some crazy shit about Social Security running out of money. Say “Greece” a lot. Just don’t insult them. They take that shit personally.

The NRA and the Stupefaction of the Gun Debate

Posted on by under News, Politics

Yesterday, President Obama officially announced he would push Congress to enact a comprehensive assault weapons ban, the specifics of which have yet to be announced.

The NRA released this video in response to the proposed legislation they haven’t yet seen.

It’s humorous on a very base level, I know, but I can’t help but chuckle.

Why, after all, do the President and his family require armed protection? Because there are armed, violent anti-government extremists out there, many of whom no doubt funded this video through their NRA membership dues.  In a sense, the NRA is calling Obama a hypocrite for protecting himself from them. How dare he!

A Pastor Gave a Homophobic Sermon? Surely, You Jest!

Posted on by under News, Politics, Religion

President Obama announced he would have Atlanta Pastor Louie Giglio deliver the benediction at his inauguration this month. The choice has drawn the ire of liberals, who found Rev. Giglio’s sermons on homosexuality somewhat distasteful.

I won’t go into detail regarding what Rev. Giglio said. It doesn’t really matter. It’s more of the same “Gays don’t go to heaven/Love the sinner, hate the sin” crap that is typical of nice-guy preachers who try to distance themselves from the fire and brimstone crowd. Still, if you are interested, you can listen for yourself:

Louie Giglio – In Search of a Standard Christian Response to Homosexuality

Honestly, I’m flabbergasted. Not because a Christian pastor made homophobic comments, but because a significant number of liberals are actually surprised a Christian pastor made homophobic comments.

The problem isn’t the pastors. It’s the religion. President Obama may be a good politician, but he’d have better luck pulling a tax increase out of Ron Paul than he would finding a mainstream Christian pastor who hasn’t said something disparaging of homosexuals.

EDIT: Louie Giglio has officially withdrawn from the inauguration program.

Call for Zorbing Regulations Offends None

Posted on by under Skeptically Left

This is what happens when Zorbing goes wrong.

 


Two men enter. One man leaves.

The giant inflatable ball containing the bodies of two thrill-seekers rolled down a mountainside, into a rocky ravine, and then onto a frozen lake. One of them–a father of two–is dead, his neck broken in the fall. The other is seriously injured.

Fingers have been pointed, and it would appear the operator who sold these two men their Zorb ride was somewhat unlearned in the finer points of physics. The manufacturer of this inflatable thrill ride, Zorb, LTD, is now calling for safety regulations that, they hope, would weed out such “cowboy operators”. Continue reading →

Drivel: Pope Benedict XVI Blasts “Intolerant Agnosticism”

Posted on by under News, Religion

I liken the Catholic Church in Europe to an old man in the middle of a vast ocean, and he can’t swim. The more he sinks, the more he thrashes about without direction or reason.

Enter Pope Benedict XVI, ostensibly the drowning man’s man age-addled, senile brain. The issue of gay marriage, the rising tide. With every passing day, the church’s response to criticisms and accusations of homophobia become less and less sensible, now to the point where they barely resemble cogent thoughts.

The mathematics involved aren’t difficult. The church supports an unpopular idea; therefore, the church has become unpopular. If the relationship between opposing gay marriage and positive public opinion are inversely related, it stands to reason the church may fix its image problems were it to reverse its position on gay marriage.

And let’s be clear. The church needn’t approve the sacrament of matrimony for homosexual couples. All they need do is cease their opposition to civil marriages for gay people, to acknowledge that they, as a religious institution, should have no say in matters of public policy not directly affecting them.

But Papa Joe has, yet again, misplaced his calculator. Who is to blame for the church’s declining attendance? Why, “intolerant agnostics”, of course!

FaithWorld reports:

In a homily to about 10,000 people in St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, he firmly rejected suggestions the Church should change to suit public opinion.

“Anyone who lives and proclaims the faith of the Church is on many points out of step with the prevalent way of thinking,” he said. “The approval of the prevailing wisdom, however, is not the criterion to which we submit.”

In the United States, a group last month started a petition on the White House website asking the administration of President Barack Obama to list the Catholic Church as a “hate group” because of its opposition to gay marriage.

“Today’s regnant agnosticism has its own dogmas and is extremely intolerant regarding anything that would question it and the criteria it employs,” the pope said.

“Therefore the courage to contradict the prevailing mindset is particularly urgent for a bishop today. He must be courageous,” he said.

Papa Joe would very much like to bash gays without the inconvenience of being labeled a bigot. How to do this? Why, accuse bigotry of those who accuse him of the same! Sheer brilliance!

The old man clearly feels religious tradition is sufficient enough reason to tolerate a bigoted argument amidst the public discourse. I wonder if he would make the same argument about, say, slavery, which his own infallible office once itself supported, or to which it was least indifferent.

 

Weapons Grade Facepalm: Religious Leaders Pray for “Collegiality”

Posted on by under News, Politics, Religion

The Faith & Politics Institute has called for religious leaders the country over to join in eighteen days of prayer, urging the religious to pray for civility in politics.

Religion News Service reports:

At a time when the ideals of compromise and collegiality seem like a distant dream in the nation’s capital, an unusually diverse coalition of religious leaders is asking Americans to pray for civility.

“Through daily prayer, we are calling on the ‘better angels of our nature’ needed to sustain our nation and solve problems,” said the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, immediate past president of the National Council of Churches and one of the faith leaders taking part in “18 days of Prayer for the Nation.”

Prayers begin Thursday (Jan. 3), the first day of the new Congress, and end on Jan. 21, the day of President Obama’s second inauguration.

Faith leaders from left, right and center have signed on, including Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Richard Land of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good.

The Faith & Politics Institute, a nonpartisan group that nurtures the spiritual life of members of Congress and their staffs, and presses political foes toward civil debate, organized the days of prayer and an online “commitment to prayer” page to document participation.

It lists 27 clergy and others on day one, including Eboo Patel, a Muslim American who founded the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, and Rabbi Steve Gutow, president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

 

You can’t make this stuff up.

Why eighteen days and not nineteen? Hell, why not simply one? Does the Lord relish in repetition? Moreover, can’t he, in his omnibenevolence, act without first being asked? If God wanted civility in politics, wouldn’t politics simply be civil? Continue reading →