Category: Religious Kooks

Saudi Sheikh Warns, Women Who Drive Produce Children with Disorders

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Kooks, Theocracy

Driving affects ovaries and pelvis, Saudi sheikh warns women

Saudi Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaydan said driving “could have a reverse physiological impact” on women. (Al Arabiya)
Al Arabiya

Saudi women seeking to challenge a de facto ban on driving should realize that this could affect their ovaries and pelvises, Sheikh Saleh bin Saad al-Luhaydan, a judicial and psychological consultant to the Gulf Psychological Association, told Saudi news website sabq.org.

Driving “could have a reverse physiological impact. Physiological science and functional medicine studied this side [and found] that it automatically affects ovaries and rolls up the pelvis. This is why we find for women who continuously drive cars their children are born with clinical disorders of varying degrees,” Sheikh al-Luhaydan said.

Saudi female activists have launched an online campaign urging women to drive on Oct. 26.

More than 11,000 women have signed the oct26driving.com declaration that says: “Since there are no clear justifications for the state to ban adult, capable women from driving. We call for enabling women to have driving tests and for issuing licenses for those who pass.”

Sheikh al-Luhaydan urged these women to consider “the mind before the heart and emotion and look at this issue with a realistic eye.”

“The result of this is bad and they should wait and consider the negativities,” he said.

Twitter reaction

Al-Luhaydan’s statement drew immediate reaction on social media, with many Saudis ridiculing his “great scientific discoveries.” An Arabic Twitter hashtag “Women_driving_affects_ovaries_and_pelvises” was created and is going viral among Arab users.

Female twitter user @Shams_AlShmous sarcastically applauded the sheikh’s “exclusive scientific achievement.” A female user with the name of Ms Jackson @B_B1ack tells everyone: “What’s your understanding of physiology, leave it to our Sheikh al-Luhaydan”.

Another female @Mshaal80 asked whether al-Haydan “studied Shariah, medicine or foolishness.”

Not part of Sharia

The head of the kingdom’s religious police said last week that the “Islamic sharia does not have a text forbidding women driving.”

Sheikh Abdulatif al-Sheikh stressed that since he was appointed as head of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice religious police have not pursued or stopped a woman driving.

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Strange Gods: The Religious Right’s Offensive Response To The Tragedy In Connecticut

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in God, Mike Huckabee, Religion, Religious Crazies, Religious Kooks, Religious Psychotics

Strange Gods: The Religious Right’s Offensive Response To The Tragedy In Connecticut

by Rob Boston in Wall of Separation

As soon as we start talking about official prayer in public schools, we also start talking about which religion, what prayer and whose God. The God that gets talked about or promoted in your school could easily be the God that is worshipped by people like Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer.

As soon as I heard about Friday’s horrific school shootings in Newtown, Conn., I knew it would only be a matter of time before some Religious Right extremist blamed it on the lack of mandatory prayer in public schools.

It didn’t take long. First out of the crazy box was former Arkansas governor and erstwhile presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

“We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools,” Huckabee said during an appearance on the Fox News Channel. “Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?”

He added, “We’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability — that we’re not just going to have be accountable to the police if they catch us, but one day we stand before, you know, a holy God in judgment. If we don’t believe that, then we don’t fear that.”

Not to be left out of the Nitwit Sweepstakes, the always-offensive Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association quickly chimed in with this gem: “You know the question’s gonna come up, where was God? I thought God cared about the little children, God protected the little children. Where was God when all this went down? And here’s the bottom line: God is not gonna go where he’s not wanted.”

Fischer continued, “Now we have spent, since 1962 – this, we’re 50 years into this now – we  have spent 50 years telling God to get lost, telling God, we do not want you in our schools, we don’t want to pray to you in our schools, we don’t want to pray to you before football games, we don’t want to pray to you at graduation, we don’t want anyone talking about you in a graduation speech. We’ve kicked God out of our public school system. And I think God would say to us, ‘Hey I’ll be glad to protect your children, but you’ve gotta invite me back into your world first. I’m not gonna go where I’m not wanted. I am a gentleman.’”

People sometimes ask me why Americans United is so adamant about keeping organized, school-sponsored forms of prayer and religious worship out of public education. On occasion I encounter those who assert, “What’s the harm in a little prayer or talk about God? Isn’t it good for kids?”

Huckabee and Fischer are walking examples of the harm. Remember, as soon as we start talking about official prayer in public schools, we also start talking about which religion, what prayer and whose God. The God that gets talked about or promoted in your school could easily be the God that is worshipped by people like Huckabee and Fischer.

Personally, I have no use for the God of the Religious Right – and I don’t think I’m alone there. The God of the Religious Right allows 20 children and eight adults to die in a school because he’s in a snit over his alleged expulsion from public education.

The God of the Religious Right is mean, petty, vindictive and not very ethical. The God of the Religious Right is all hate and retribution, with no love and acceptance. The God of the Religious Right, in my opinion, is not worthy of our worship.

This is America, and supporters of the Religious Right are free to worship that God. Members of that movement are free to approach that God in fear – never joy – as is their wont. But let’s be clear: They want to use our public schools, a taxpayer-supported institution that serves children of many faiths and philosophies, to push that God on your children, mine and everyone else’s. They have no right to do that.

The good news is that millions of Americans reject the God of the Religious Right.  They reject a God based on fear, division, violence and retribution. The God that many Americans worship is so far removed from the God of the Religious Right that we can’t paper over the difference by pretending it’s a minor theological tiff and that, at the end of the day, most Americans worship the same deity.

No. The entity Huckabee, Fischer and their allies tremble before and beseech is so alien to most of the devoutly religious people I know that they would not even recognize it as God.

(Millions of Americans also know that in the wake of a tragedy like this, the proper response is  words that offer comfort, not divisive displays of ignorance.)

So let us make no mistake: When Huckabee, Fischer and their allies speak of bringing church and state closer together or removing a few bricks from the church-state wall to allow “a little religion” into our schools, this is the God they would set loose. This is the God they would preference by law. This is the God they would force you to support. This is the God they would foist onto your children.

If this isn’t your God, or if you’re one of the many Americans who recognize no God, you must speak out against offensive Religious Right foghorns like Huckabee and Fischer. You must challenge those who exploit sorrow for political gain.

And you need to stand up for the one thing that keeps the God of the Religious Right from becoming the government’s favorite: the wall of separation between church and state.

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Hate-oozing, Creepy Religious Reich Kook Brian Fischer Likens God to a Vampire

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Brian Fischer, Fundamentalism, Religious Delusion, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Nuts, Religious Windbags, Right Wing Crazies, Right Wing Culture Wars, Right Wing Nuts

God Doesn’t Go Where He’s Not Wanted
Reminds one of the series “Trueblood” where vampires are forbidden entry into peoples homes without permission!
Brian Fischer wants us to know that God won’t go anywhere that he’s not invited.  His god is like a vampire that way, I guess!

I just don’t know anymore.  You’d think that someone from the Christian mainstream would step up and explain “omnipresence” to Fischer.  You’d think someone would explain that a God who will go to Nineveh won’t stop at a school room door.  You’d think that some influential Christian would explain that Christians don’t worship a God that petty.  But there’s never any pushback.

That leaves idiots like Fischer to us; atheists, liberal Christians and religious minorities calling them out. Is there any point? We can chronicle all the horrible things that people like him say, but they just keep on saying them. You can’t embarrass them. You can’t shame them. They live to be offended, and every attack against them just fuels their persecution complex.

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American Religious Fascists Praise Uganda’s Theocratic Dictatorship

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Kooks, Religious Laws, Religious Lunatics, Religious Nazis, Religious Nuts, Religious Psychos, Religious Racketeers, Religious Right, World Net Daily, World Nut Daily

American Religious Fanatics Praise Uganda for Making Homosexuality Illegal
Bad craziness
Posted by Charles Johnson
The far right freakazoids at World Net Daily are praising Uganda’s fanatical Christian fundamentalist president today for making homosexual behavior illegal and for staging a public show of “repentance.”

And American Christian Taliban leaders are pointing at Uganda as a future model for the United States.

Massachusetts pastor and activist Rev. Scott Lively believes Museveni is a model for other national leaders.

‘The Museveni prayer is a model for all Christian leaders in the world. The leaders of the West have declined in proportion to their degree of rejection of God,’ Lively said.

Lively also believes Uganda will rise as a major African power as America continues to decline. He uses Britain as an example.

‘Britain was at its height as a world power when it honored God as the Ugandan president has just done. America’s greatness has similarly diminished as we have shifted from a Christian to a secular-humanist country. But watch now for Uganda to be blessed by God for their desire to be His,’ Lively said. …

Homosexual activist groups have criticized the government of Uganda and Museveni for passing laws criminalizing homosexual behavior. A current bill before the Ugandan Parliament increases the jail sentences for homosexual acts and includes criminal penalties for those who encourage or promote homosexuality. …

Lively said he didn’t agree with the death penalty provision but supports the nation’s strong stance against homosexual behavior.

For another example: American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer is crowing, “It can be done!”

Homosexuality now against the law in Uganda, just as it was for 200 years in the US. It can be done.

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Delusional Religious Crazies Claim to Have Stopped Terrorists

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religion Breeds Ignorance, Religion Destroys the Brain, Religion Is a Scam, Religion Makes You Stupid, Religious Brain Damage, Religious Brainwashing, Religious Charlatans, Religious Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Cretins, Religious Crooks, Religious Delusion, Religious Frauds, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Liars, Religious Lunatics, Religious Morons, Religious Nuts, Religious Racketeers, Religious Right, Religious scammers, Religious Windbags, Religious Zombies

Jacobs Claims to have Thwarted Numerous Terrorist Attacks
Submitted by Ariella on Friday, 11/9/2012 1:15 pm

Self-proclaimed “prophets” Mike and Cindy Jacobs of Generals International continued to spew their predictions about terrorism, natural disasters and economic turmoil on their show God Knows. Jacobs—who previously alleged that she helped avert bombings—revealed that she along with other prophets were having dreams in 2011 about a looming terrorist attack, and explains that their visions were confirmed by the events in Benghazi.

Mike Jacobs contended that there were even more terrorist plots, but that they had been thwarted by “the prayer cover that has been placed over the United States by various prayer groups and individuals praying.”

Watch:

Raped By Stepfather at 13 | Forced to Get Illegal Abortion in Mexico

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in God and Rape, God Crazies, God Delusion, God Rape, Mitt Romney, Religious Kooks, Republican Hypocrisy, Republican Loons, Richard Mourdock, Right Wing Nuts

Raped by stepfather at 13, Forced to illegal abortion Mexico

Raped By Stepfather at 13 | Forced to Illegal Abortion in Mexico

By Dawn Hill

I Was Raped By My Stepfather at 13 and Forced to Get an Illegal Abortion in Mexico

I became pregnant, contrary to the “scientific theories” of many modern Republicans. Not only was the experience loathsome and painful, it was also impossible for me to deal with or talk about because abortion was illegal in the 1950s.

This is one of a series of powerful stories from survivors of rape, you will find them all here .

Last week, Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock argued in a debate that women who have been raped should not have access to abortion services because their pregnancies are a “gift from god.” As a survivor of childhood sexual violence, I disagree with him completely.

My name is Dawn Hill. Though I am old now, there was a time when I was young and carefree as you perhaps are now or can remember being in your childhood. Childhood should be a happy and carefree time for all our children, but my mother found her new husband, my stepfather, much more important. He forever took the joy away from my life when I was just 11 years old: He began molesting me and continued until he began raping me when I was 13.

Mr. Mourdock last night said: “I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen.”

I became pregnant, contrary to the “scientific theories” of many modern Republicans. Not only was the experience loathsome and painful, it was also impossible for me to deal with or talk about because of the times: in the fifties, abortion was illegal. Illegal in the same way the Republican Party platform states it wants to make abortion now by constitutional amendment and just as Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has suggested casually he would “be delighted” to return to.

Please, take a moment to travel back to the fifties with me.

My mother took me to Mexico, where anyone could get an abortion for a price. I have blocked out many memories associated with this entire experience, but I remember the pain. Illegal abortions are not the simple safe vacuum procedure used today by legal abortion providers. Oh, no: They were a “dilatation and curettage.”

This means that my cervix was mechanically opened by insertion of larger and larger metal “dilators” until it was opened enough to get a sort of sharpened spoon inside my 13-year-old uterus, while strangers looked at my exposed parts that were theretofore called “private.”

It was cold and dirty in the room, and then the true torture started. They shoved this curette into me and scraped away the entire lining of my uterus with the sharp side. I screamed the entire time even though no one had seen so much as a tear out of me before this moment because I had developed a stony stoicism to protect my mind from the molestation.

This pain was, however, like nothing I’ve ever felt before or since. Can you imagine what happened to those women and girls who couldn’t even get this barbaric abortion? They stuck wire hangers into themselves and bled to death or suffered other horrible complications. Then, too, I also got a terrible infection from the filthy conditions.

I can tell you, though, that I would have gotten a hundred illegal abortions before carrying that monster’s offspring and going through labor, even to give the child away. That would have been the unkindest cut of all.

For women and girls, safe legal abortions are essential. While many will choose a different path than I with their pregnancies, having that choice is essential. Any encroachment on that right is an encroachment on the life, liberty, and safety of the women and girls of America.

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Pastor Sodomizes Boy

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Pastor Sodomizes Boy, Religious Kooks, Religious Lunatics, Religious Psychos, Religious Sadism, Religious Sadists, Religious Sex Abuse

Pastor Sodomizes Boy

Religious Sex Abuse

Clergy Sexual Abuse

Priests Sexual Abuse

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Religious Neanderthal Todd Akin Arrested in 1987 With Radical Anti-Abortion Group

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Anti Abortion Crazies, Anti Abortion Terrorists, Anti Choice, Anti Choice Crazies, Anti Choice Lunatics, Religious Kooks, Religious Right, Right Wing Crackpots, Right Wing Crazies, Right Wing Creeps

Missouri Caveman Todd Akin Arrested in 1987 With Radical Anti-Abortion Group
Very bad craziness
 Via:-Charles Johnson

It’s easy to laugh at Todd Akin’s ridiculous caveman views, but Akin and the deranged anti-choice fanatics he associates with are really not a laughing matter; they’re deadly serious and willing to break laws: Todd Akin Arrested on May 9, 1987 With Radical Anti-Abortion Group.

We learned from a public records request that Akin was arrested on May 9, 1987 in St. Louis. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered the protest and reported the following day that police “arrested 30 anti-abortion protesters” for blocking “the front doors of Reproductive Health Services” while about “50 anti-abortion activists picketed two clinics” in St. Louis County. The Post-Dispatch quoted the spokesman for the protesters, John Ryan, who said the actions “were in honor of Mother’s Day.”

At the time, Ryan was head of the Pro-Life Direct Action League. He and his organization were among those sued by the National Organization for Women in 1986, which sought to “stop what it called a nationwide conspiracy to close abortion clinics.” “We believe there is a reign of terror going on,” said Eleanor Smeal, then president of NOW. She labeled Ryan – who had been “arrested almost 350 times” by then – a “terrorist.”

This is who Akin chose to get involved with in 1987 – and it gets worse. Ryan was pushed out as head of the Pro-Life Direct Action League around September 1987 and replaced by an aggressive, fundamentalist leader, Tim Dreste. Dreste affiliated the group with Randall Terry’s radical Operation Rescue the following summer. This is the same Randall Terry who later said of abortion providers, “When I, or people like me are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we’ll execute you.”

Dreste shared a jail cell with Terry in September 1988 and returned to St. Louis under orders to break with the Catholic-dominated Pro-Life Direct Action League. Just one month later, Akin appeared at an event for Dreste’s new group, Whole Life Ministries.

The Post-Dispatch reported on October 29 that Akin, who was elected days later to public office, “spoke to about 35 anti-abortion activists” planning to block clinic doors the next day. He said, “As far as I am concerned, you are the freedom fighters of America.” “My hat is off to you,” he continued.

The article identified Dreste as director of Whole Life Ministries, “a new anti-abortion group in St. Louis.” “We’re going to tell her we’re not going to allow her to kill her baby,” he said. Dreste made clear that protesters would block the clinic doors and refuse police orders to move. “We will tell (police) we will obey God’s law before we obey man’s law.” Sound familiar?

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Obama Antichrist | Failed Right Wing Politician Finds New Success With Religious Fanatics

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Charlatans, Religious Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Cretins, Religious Fanatics, Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Hypocrisy, Religious Kooks, Religious Liars, Religious Money Racket, Religious Morons, Religious Racketeers, Religious Right, Religious scammers, Right Wing Crackpots, Right Wing Culture Wars, Right Wing Nuts

E.W. Jackson: Democrats Have an ‘Agenda Worthy of the Antichrist’

Bishop E.W. Jackson has embarked on a campaign following his failed Senate bid to convince black voters to reject the Democrats’ “anti-God” views and partake in a “mass exodus of Christians from the Democrat party.” Today in an opinion piece in the Washington Times, “Blacks are abandoning the Democratic Party,” Jackson asserted that African Americans will abandon the Democratic party over the issues of abortion rights and gay equality, incredulously asking how Democrats have “managed to hold on to black Christians in spite of an agenda worthy of the Antichrist?” “Mr. Obama’s commitment to the radical left’s anti-Christian, anti-God politics may cost him the election,” Jackson writes, “because a constituency he has taken for granted has awakened to the truth that being the first black president is not enough.” Of course, recent polling shows that Obama has a commanding 94-0 lead among black voters.

I was raised to be an FDR Democrat because my father was a young man during the Depression and credited President Roosevelt with saving him from starvation. “The Republicans only care about rich people,” I was told. This was more than 40 years ago. In spite of my childhood indoctrination, as a young man newly committed to my Christian faith, I had a crisis of conscience in the late 1970s. Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank was pushing the homosexual agenda. How could I, as a Christian, be committed to a party led by Mr. Frank? In the end, I could not. My desire to be in a right relationship with God and my faith was greater than my desire to be approved by my father, my family or the black community.  My wife and I, then Massachusetts residents, left the Democratic Party in 1980 and never looked back.
Democrats now have fully embraced an abortion policy that amounts to infanticide. They have also made the lesbian-homosexual-bisexual-transgender agenda their vision for America. How have they managed to hold on to black Christians in spite of an agenda worthy of the Antichrist? They have shown a ruthless willingness to frighten black voters with outright lies about the plans of conservatives and Republicans. Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s “they gonna put y’all back in chains” was not a gaffe. It is part of the Democrats’ strategy of using fear to keep blacks as a captive audience. I always have believed that such lies could not distract black voters forever or keep them from noticing the increasingly anti-Christian radicalism of the Democratic Party.
…
Now black churchgoers are being told to suppress Christian conscience and remain beholden to a party that demands their loyalty while insulting their faith and blaspheming their God. For the first time in 50 years, there is a discussion going on in the black community as to whether their loyalty to the Democratic Party is deserved. Many black pastors are telling their members to stay home, rather than vote for a black president who has done more to advance the cause of homosexuality and abortion than that of black Americans.
We are hearing the rumblings of a fissure between black Christians and the Democratic Party. My organization, Staying True to America’s National Destiny (Stand), is calling for a mass exodus of Christians from the Democratic Party. We held a news conference at the National Press Club on Sept. 10 and produced several videos. This not only has prompted discussion, but perhaps has launched a movement. Mr. Obama’s commitment to the radical left’s anti-Christian, anti-God politics may cost him the election, because a constituency he has taken for granted has awakened to the truth that being the first black president is not enough.

Jews Must Be Converted | American Right Wing Nuts’ Hate Fest

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Bryan Fischer, Family Research Council, Jerry Boykin, Religious Kooks, Religious Lunatics, Right Wing, Right Wing Clown Car, Right Wing Crackpots, Right Wing Crazies, Right Wing Culture Wars, Right Wing Extremism, Tony Perkins

Jews Must Be Converted: FRC Vice President
Submitted by Josh Glasstetter on Thu, 09/13/2012 – 12:25pm

Bad news for Eric Cantor. He’s speaking tomorrow at the Values Voter Summit, but he’s apparently still going to hell. Let me explain.

Jerry Boykin is the Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council and Tony Perkins’ right-hand man. FRC is hosting the far right conference that the House Majority Leader, who is Jewish, plans to address tomorrow.

Boykin, much like Bryan Fischer, has a penchant for saying exactly what’s on his mind – things which others know not to say, even when they’re thinking the same thing. While you may know Boykin from his prolific Muslim-bashing, he also has some interesting things to say about Jews.

In a 2009 speech on “Why We Must Stand with Israel,” Boykin spoke out against pastors who say that “the Jews don’t have to come to know Jesus,” complaining that those pastors were “destroying the efforts” to lead Jews to Christ:

Last year, Boykin said that “one of the most disgusting things I hear is for people to call Hitler the extreme Right” because he was “an extraordinarily off the scale leftist.” He then lamented that “many Jews in America, for example, can’t identify with the Republican Party because they’re called the party of the Right, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.”

Boykin also said that President Obama is creating a Hitler-sytle Brownshirt army to force Marxism on America. And in 2003, then-Lt. Gen. Boykin said that the U.S. was fighting a war “in the name of Jesus,” prompting a rebuke from the ADL and President Bush.

To be sure, the Religious Right hasn’t always had the best relations with American Jews. Jerry Falwell sparked a controversy in 1980 when he said that God “does not hear the prayers of unredeemed Gentiles or Jews.” He was speaking at a press conference in defense of the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who had proclaimed that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew.”

More recently, however, Religious Right leaders have been careful to stress Judeo-Christian values and avoid explicit attacks. Boykin, however, doesn’t have any use for such niceties.

Yet Boykin was able to meet recently with Mitt Romney, and he has three speaking slots during the conference. He’s even leading a panel on Israel with his good friend Kamal Saleem. Saleem, who is considered to be a fraud, describes himself as a former terrorist who “completed his first bloody terror mission into Israel for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) at the age of seven.”

All of this makes me wonder if Cantor’s folks did their homework before agreeing to speak tomorrow. Perhaps something will come up, and he’ll have to decline FRC’s invitation, much like Ann Romney and Cardinal Dolan have done. We’ll find out tomorrow.

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Religious Nutcase Kirk Cameron Causes The American Taliban To Drool

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in American Fascism, American Fascists, American Godnuts, American Politics, American Right, American Taliban, Religion Destroys the Brain, Religion Makes You Stupid, Religious Bloviate, Religious Crazies, Religious Delusion, Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Lunatics, Religious Nuts, Religious Propaganda, Religious Reich, Religious Right, Religious Right Crusaders

Kirk Cameron: “God IS the Platform”
The Christian Taliban movement
Wingnuts

Today’s moment of right wing religious fanaticism comes from former child star Kirk Cameron, who says, “one of our parties is wondering whether the name God should be in the platform,” but according to America’s founding fathers, “God is the platform!”

The crowd cheers this line in a very disturbing way.

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Palin: Obama Seems To Want To Go Back To The Days Of Slavery

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Kooks, Religious Lunatics, Religious Morons, Religious Nuts, Religious Reich, Religious Right, Religious Zombies, Right Wing Freaks, Right Wing Kooks, Right Wing Lies, Right Wing Nuts, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin is Insane, Sarah Palin Ugly Hypocrite

Palin: Obama Seems To Want To Go Back To The Days Of Slavery

by Liz Colville

Sarah Palin went on Heinity on Thursday to do some sort of to-the-core-of-the-earth analysis of something Obama-related, god knows what, but perhaps hugs? (Hannity describes it as a “sort of bit of information,” which is the closest any conservative has come to admitting how flea-sized this incident is.) And the gist was Sean Hannity asking Palin what all “this” “means.” Something something, Obama’s hug of a guy, “class warfare” and attempts to help the broke suggest that the president is “bringing us back” to the era in which blacks were considered to be 3/5 of a person. It’s true, this — wanting equality, supporting others who do — is a true replica of slavery, you can’t even tell the two apart.

Some of the exchange:

Hannity: Bleebloopityblahblah?

Palin: He is bringing us back, Sean, to days, uh — you can harken back to days before the Civil War when unfortunately too many Americans mistakenly believed that not all men were created equal.

What a thing. What a day. Palin goes on to say (WARNING: CRAP ENGLISH FOLLOWS):

Palin: And it was the Civil War that began the codification of the truth that here in America, yes we are equal, and we all have equal opportunities, not based on the color of your skin. You have equal opportunity to work hard and to succeed and to embrace the opportunities, god-given opportunities to develop resources, to work extremely hard, and to, as I say, to succeed. Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand that — that gravity, that mistake took place before the Civil War, and why the Civil War, had to really start changing America. What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back to before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin. Why are we allowing our country to move backwards instead of moving forward –

Hannity: Whu–

Palin: — with that understanding that as our charters of liberty spell out for us, that we are all created equally.

Incuriouser and incuriouser! Whatever could this white lady be talking about? That welfare encourages people historically deprived of opportunities to continue to not have them? That rich people are more sensitive than others and poor people should be considerate of that? That health care saves people’s teeth from falling out, which causes them to be too elitist? Please let us know, if you know. [Media Matters]

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Jewish Superstitious Penis Blood Sucking Ritual Kills Another Baby

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Jewish Abusers, Jewish Crazies, Jewish Fanatics, Mohel, Religion, Religion Destroys the Brain, Religion Kills, Religion Makes You Stupid, Religious abuse, Religious Baby Killers, Religious barbarity, Religious Brain Damage, Religious Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Delusion, Religious Kooks, Religious Lunatics, Religious Morons, Religious Nuts, Religious Violence, Sucking Baby Penis, Superstition

Jewish Superstitious Penis Blood Sucking Ritual Kills Another Baby

Family Of Dead Baby Killed By Bris Stonewalls Cops, Health Department

Maimonides Medical Center Brooklyn

An infant died at Maimonides Medical Center on Sept. 28 from herpes contracted from metzitzah b’peh performed during a bris milah, circumcision. But the family of the dead boy is refusing to cooperate with the investigation into their son’s death.

Maimonides Medical Center Brooklyn

Family stonewalling authorities after newborn dies from herpes contracted in ritual circumcision Sources in Orthodox Jewish community say baby’s parents were related to herpes-infected rabbi who did circumcision By Simone Weichselbaum And Reuven Blau • NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

An infant died at Maimonides Medical Center on Sept. 28 from herpes contracted during a ritual circumcision.

Authorities are being stonewalled by the family of a newborn boy who died after contracting herpes through a controversial religious circumcision ritual, the Daily News has learned.

Multiple sources in the Orthodox Jewish community said the 2-week-old boy’s parents were related to a herpes-infected rabbi who conducted the circumcision according to tradition — using one’s mouth to remove blood from the wound.

The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office is investigating the death and trying to identify the rabbi, or mohel, but family members have not been cooperative, sources said.
“You guys are barking up the right tree,” a law enforcement source said of word that the mohel was related to the boy. “But we don’t know yet who did what.”

City health officials have criticized the religious practice, saying that putting the open wound into contact with the mouth of the rabbi carries “inherent risks” for the infant.

The unidentified infant died at Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center last Sept. 28. An autopsy listed the cause of death as “disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction,” according to a spokeswoman for the city Medical Examiner.

Mayor Bloomberg Tuesday vowed to work with the Orthodox Jewish community to prevent future tragedies.

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Tzipi Livni Slams Lazy Jewish Haredim And Politicians Corrupted By Their Indolence

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Jewish Extremists, Lazy Haredi, Religious Kooks

Livni Slams Haredim And Pols Who Are Corrupted By Them

Tzipi Livni

“I believe Yeshivas have place in the state, but they have turned into a haven for people who don’t serve and don’t work, even though they can.”

Tzipi Livni

Tzipi Livni

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni of Kadima attacked haredim and members of her own party who are corrupted by them. This is how Ynet quotes her:

“These political tricks that are employed by my fellow party members, who take into account the haredi parties’ calculations… are invalid and compromise the people’s ability to unite. I believe Yeshivas have place in the state, but they have turned into a haven for people who don’t serve and don’t work, even though they can.”

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Secularism vs. Theocracy | The Good Guys vs. Superstitious Ignorance

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Kooks, Religious Reich, Religious Right, Religious Right Crusaders, Religious Roots of Hatred, Secular Humanism, Secular Revival, Secular United States, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Theocon, Theocon Fascists, Theocons, Theocracy, Theocrats

Secularism vs. Theocracy
Freedom vs. Theocracy
Freedom vs. theocracy is appropriate for this image because today’s Democratic Party is anything but secular. Instead of standing up for our secular democracy, many have adopted a path of pandering to the religious. For us, regardless of our political leanings, it is about secularism vs. theocracy.
Here’s how Adam Lee (Daylight Atheism) recently put it:

It’s secularism against theocracy, the free intellect against dogmatism, conscience against barbarity, the future against the past. Like it or not, it’s one of the defining struggles of our time. And there are many decent, well-intentioned people who don’t want to confront the full scope of the problem, who turn their gazes from it or try to paper it over with soothing platitudes. (Or worse, they claim that we, the people who are pointing out the problem, are the ones who started it all, and everything would be fine if we’d just be quieter and more respectful.)

I encourage you to read Lee’s entire post. It is one of those rare gems I plan to bookmark and re-read whenever I feel like giving up.

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Jewish ‘Taliban’ On The Rise | Turning Tel Aviv Into ‘Teheran’

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Jewish Taliban, Religious Kooks, Ultra Orthodox

The Growing Influence of the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel

By Juliane von Mittelstaedt

Photo Gallery: Battle for the Soul of Israel

Einat Keinan / DER SPIEGEL

Veiled women, radical rabbis and gender segregation: Israel is facing a rise in the influence of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Their efforts to impose a strictly conservative worldview have led to growing tensions with the country’s secular society. A resolution to the conflict is vital for Israel’s future.

Read More:-

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,808252,00.html

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Crazy Michele Bachmann ‘Steps Aside’ For Equally Unhinged Rick Santorum

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Kooks, Religious Right, Theocon Fascists, Theocrats

Bye Bye Bachmann
Bye Bye Bachmann
by vjack
Michele Bachmann
It is all over for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). She did not get her miracle after all. Jesus was not in her corner like she thought. And that is really good news for the reality-based community.
As she announced that she was dropping out of the presidential race following her poor showing in Iowa, Bachmann repeatedly referred to her god, you know, the god who wanted her to run for president in the first place.

Surrounded by her family, Mrs. Bachmann invoked her faith frequently. “I look forward to the next chapter in God’s plan,” she said. “He has one for each of us, you know.”

Did her god change its mind? Did she simply misunderstand her god? Of course not. Running a losing campaign based on lies was exactly what her god wanted of her. I mean, what other explanation could there be?

I know some atheists will miss Bachmann. Her antics were undeniably entertaining. I’ll certainly grant you that. But we must remember that she represents something dangerous: American theocracy. You see, Michele Bachmann is a true Christian extremist. Keeping her far away from political power of any sort is a good thing.

Anyone remotely in touch with reality – which, of course, ruled out Michele Bachmann and husband “Marcia” Bachmann (pictured above) – would have known that Michele Bachmann didn’t had a snowball’s chance in Hell of moving forward beyond Iowa in the GOP presidential clown car contest. And as one blogger noted, when Bachmann claims she heard God telling her to run for president, she should have asked “president of what?” In any event, in the wake of her disastrous showing in Iowa, Bachmann has been forced to at least briefly get in touch with reality and the result is that she is suspending – translated, ending – her presidential campaign. Frankly, given Bachmann’s unbridled homophobia and her marketing of reparative therapy through “Marcia” Bachmann’s “Christian counseling clinics,” I find it difficult to have even a shred of sympathy for her. Here are some highlights from Politico:

Michele Bachmann announced Wednesday morning that she would drop her GOP presidential bid after a sixth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses Tuesday. “Last night, the people in Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so I have decided to step aside,” Bachmann told supporters in West Des Moines.

She did not endorse one of her rivals, but said instead that Republicans “must rally” around whoever the party chooses as its “standard-bearer” in the race.

Her departure will give a boost to Rick Santorum, whose recent surge put him in a virtual tie with Mitt Romney on Tuesday.

Heading into South Carolina, where evangelicals and social conservatives dominate the pool of potential voters, Santorum will be in a better position to consolidate that support. Santorum’s hoping to establish himself as the new — and perhaps final — conservative alternative to Romney

[H]er campaign was beset by a string of gaffes — starting with the assertion at her campaign launch that Waterloo was the home of John Wayne, when it was actually the hometown of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Another blow came when Ed Rollins, her campaign manager, departed and began speaking out against Bachmann on cable TV and in the media.
Heading into the fall, Bachmann tried to derail the then-front-runner Perry by attacking him for mandating the HPV vaccine Gardasil. But the blowback of her claims that the vaccine caused mental retardation hurt her as well

Since her decline began, Bachmann had been banking on a strong finish with Iowa’s social conservative and evangelical voters. Last month, when Iowa conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats endorsed Santorum and called Bachmann asking her to consider dropping out, it became clear that she would not be the top choice of social conservatives in the state.

Bachmann is up for reelection to the House in November, but did not make any announcement regarding her plans for that race. Congressional observers and those in her district say she’d be a virtual lock for reelection if she decides to run.

With Bachmann out of the running, the equally unhinged Rick Santorum will be the short term beneficiary. However, one can only hope that as a result of Santorum’s new high profile, the media and his opponents will seriously focus on his significant baggage and far out of the mainstream positions on divorce, contraception and, of course, treatment of LGBT citizens. As for Bachmann’s re-election to her House seat, I hope and pray that her constituents may have waken up to the fact that she’s a huge liability to her district and the State of Minnesota.

https://theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com/

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Female Is a “Slut” Says Jewish Religious Fanatic

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Fascists, Religious Kooks, The Age of Blasphemy

Female Soldier A “Slut” Who Deserved It, Haredi Man Claims

Doron Matalon uniform closeup

Doron Matalon, a female soldier who tried to sit at the front of a public bus last week and who would not move to the back when Shlomo Fuchs told her to, deserved it, Fuchs reportedly said today. “She stood amidst the ultra-Orthodox men,” Fuchs said. “It’s the most  basic concept: A woman should not stand amidst men, just like no woman  would go into a man’s bathroom. So I called her a slut.”

Updated at 1:58 pm CST

Shut Your Mouth And Move To The Back You Uppity Little Woman

Via:- Shmarya Rosenberg

For many haredim, a woman’s place may not be exclusively in the kitchen and the bedroom, but it certainly isn’t at the front of a public bus – especially if she dares to open her mouth to defend another woman being harassed by a haredi male.

Shlomo Fuchs, a haredi man arrested last week for harassing Doron Matalon, a female soldier who tried to sit at the front of one such bus and who would not move to the back when Fuchs asked her to, now says Matalon deserved to be harassed because she intervened in argument Fuchs was having with another woman, Fuchs told Ynet today.

And even if he she hadn’t done that, according to Fuchs she deserved to be harassed anyway because she acted like a “slut.”

“She stood amidst the ultra-Orthodox men,” Fuchs said. “It’s the most basic concenpt: A woman should not stand amidst men, just like no woman would go into a man’s bathroom. So I called her a slut.”

Fuchs, who claims he only saw Matalon’s head but not the rest of her body, described the incident this way:

…He was traveling from his home in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood [of Jerusalem] to a yeshiva in [the Jerusalem haredi neighborhood of] Mea Shearim last Tuesday when “some Russian woman stood by the men’s seats at the front of the bus.”
“I told her: ‘Lady, you don’t have to present a ticket if you have a monthly pass.’ She said, ‘Thank you very much, sir.’ Suddenly I heard someone from the center of the bus saying, ‘She’ll stand wherever she pleases.’ So I answered ‘What business is it of yours?’ I couldn’t see who was speaking, because the bus was full. I only heard her voice. I didn’t see it was a soldier. I could only make out her head, and I yelled ‘slut.'”
At this point, Fuchs claimed, Matalon said “Look at you; parasite; parasites, taking money from the State. I protect you.”
“She protects me? I sit at shul from eight in the morning till midnight and study, and she’s protecting me? I protect her,” the ultra-Orthodox man told Ynet. “I understood who I was dealing with, so I went back to studying for my test and things calmed down.”
However, Fuchs said, Matalon continued to argue. According to him, she said “these haredim do what they want. We will bring an end to it. Take him to the police.”
Fuchs claimed he was not aware of the significance of the word “slut” in the secular world. “I am completely detached from the (secular world). I don’t own a television set and I never have newspapers in the house. People laughed at me because I don’t have any idea what women’s exclusion is and don’t know what happened in Beit Shemesh,” he said.
“I do not forgive (Matalon). She cannot give me the hours of studying that I lost; she cannot take away the fear that I have when I go out to the street. She shamed us all and made us out to be criminals,” Fuchs said.
He claimed Israel Police had deliberately assigned female investigators to handle his case. “I always thought police were supposed to protect me, but I will never forgive them for the nightmare they made me go through. Yes, they harassed me only because I am haredi,” Fuchs said. “This is a blood libel.”
Asked about the controversial Holocaust display at a recent ultra-Orthodox rally in the capital, Fuchs said, “I sympathize with these feelings of persecution. They tried to present me as though I were the worst criminal in the world, and from this perspective it is just like the goyim treated the Jews for generations.
“Let me live in peace. I too sang “Hatikva” (national anthem) once. I want to be free in our land. Leave me be.”

Ynet also reports that two female passengers on the bus, almost certainly haredi, claim Matalon was not the female soldier involved in the incident because the soldier involved “does not fit Matalon’s description.”

[Hat Tip for the video: Shish.]

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Rick Perry Embraces Sadistic Anti-Choice Fanatics

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Abortion Politics, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Lunatics, Religious Right, Religious Sadism, Religious Sadists, Republican Insanity, Republican Nazis, Rick Perry, Right Wing, Right Wing Crackpots, Right Wing Crazies, Right Wing Extremism, Right Wing Nuts

Rick Perry Joins the Heartless Anti-Choice Fanatics

Via Charles Johnson

It’s horrifying to hear almost all the GOP presidential candidates proudly saying that victims of rape or incest should be forced to give birth to an attacker’s child. There’s nothing that makes the utter heartlessness of this fanatical agenda more evident, and now Rick Perry (who previously supported rape/incest exceptions) has announced that he’s a monster like the rest of them: Perry changes stance to oppose all abortions.

CNN – Texas Gov. Rick Perry revealed a hardening in his stance on abortion Tuesday, telling a crowd in Iowa that he opposed abortions in all cases, including when a woman had been raped or the victim of incest.

Previously, Perry had not opposed the procedure in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother’s life was threatened.

Responding to a question about the change in position, Perry said, “You’re seeing a transformation.”

Perry told the crowd at his campaign stop that the decision came after watching a documentary on abortion produced by former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

“That transformation was after watching the DVD, ‘The Gift of Life,’” Perry said. “And I really started giving some thought about the issue of rape and incest. And some powerful, some powerful stories in that DVD.”

Perry said a woman who appeared in the movie who said she was a product of rape moved him to change his mind about abortion.

“She said, ‘My life has worth.’ It was a powerful moment for me,” Perry said.

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Religious Crazies Hear Gods Approval In Thunder

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religion Destroys the Brain, Religion Makes You Stupid, Religious Crazies, Religious Kooks

God speaks to Rick Joyner & Jim Bakker through thunder
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on December 6, 2011 – 4:51pm

Rick Joyner was a guest for a series of episodes of “The Jim Bakker Show” last month where they discussed everything from reclaiming the Seven Mountains of influence to the looming End Times and America’s relationship with Israel.

The shows were clearly recorded during inclement weather, as thunder could be heard booming several times over the several episodes … but to Joyner and Bakker, it was not some minor uncontrollable inconvenience but rather proof that God was approving of the things they were saying, such as the need to support Bakker’s ministry through donations and the importance of supporting Israel:

God speaks to Rick Joyner & Jim Bakker through thunder

Religious Death Dealers

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religion Destroys the Brain, Religion Kills, Religious Brain Damage, Religious Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Death Dealers, Religious Delusion, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Lunatics, Religious Parasites, Religious Psychos, Religious Racketeers

Six Die After Evangelical Churches Tell Them to Stop Taking HIV Medication
//
According to Sky News, evangelical churches in four British cities have been claiming to cure HIV through faith healing. Three undercover reporters entered the Synagogue Church of All Nations, told pastors that they were HIV positive, and all were informed that they could be healed.

The healing process involves the pastor shouting, over the person being healed, for the devil to come out of their body, and spraying water in their face.

Pastors also told the reporters posing as HIV patients that they should throw away their medication after the healing because they had been cured.

If it occurs to you that this might be dangerous, you will be saddened but not surprised to learn that at least six people have died after being told by these churches to stop taking their HIV medication. I applaud the efforts of Sky News to investigate this atrocity. I don’t think America’s corporate media would dare to do something like this. I sincerely hope British authorities prosecute the hell out of these churches.

 

Bigotry and Hatred Always Has Religious Roots

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Brain Damage, Religious Crazies, Religious Delusion, Religious Hypocrisy, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Roots of Hatred

The Roots of Hatred and Bigotry Against Atheists
End religious bigotry and ignorance
Austin Cline (About.com Agnosticism/Atheism) recently asked about the origins of the hatred and bigotry directed at atheistsin the U.S. He notes,

The extreme hostility towards atheists in America can probably be traced to two related factors: America’s view of itself as a religious nation entrusted with a special mission from God and America’s fight against communism in the Cold War.

I think he’s right to mention these historical factors, as they are certainly relevant. However, I think that there are deeper psychological processes going on. Austin mentions scapegoating and refers indirectly to others like fear of modernity and loss of privilege. These bring us closer to what is likely happening.
For the most part, I’m not so sure that hatred and bigotry against atheists is so different from any other case where an out-group has been demonization and dehumanized. I suspect that the heart of the matter is that atheists have been despised because we are different. We have always been perceived as failing to conform with a standard that has been equated with morality (i.e., religious belief).
To the degree that the hatred and bigotry we face differs from that experienced by other minority groups, this is likely a result of our very existence being viewed as a threat. The only way we can be tolerated is if we remain silent and invisible. As soon as we open our mouths, we pose a danger to an increasingly indefensible belief system.

Jewish Religious Hucksters – Credit Cards Accepted

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Jewish Religious Hucksters, Religious Credulity, Religious Delusion, Religious Hypocrisy, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious scammers

Evil Eye Removal $50, Credit Cards Accepted

Evil_eyeJust in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, haredim can now get a deal on evil eye removal.

Do you think the machashayfa next door is hexing you? You’re a phone call away from removing her curse. A mere $50 will do it. And your kabbalist savior even takes credit cards.

Evil Eye Removal Monsey Area 50 Dollars Credit Cards Accepted 11-28-11 watermarked
[Hat Tip: 613 Enforcer.]
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Alleged White House Shooter Inspired by Alex Jones

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Alex Jones, American Right, Anti-Christ, Conspiracism, Conspiracy Crackpots, Conspiracy Crazies, Conspiracy Loons, Conspiracy Theories, Crazy for God, Cretins, Religion, Religion Kills, Religious Brain Damage, Religious Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Psychos, Right Wing

The deranged far right inspires another violent nut
Imagine our surprise (NOT!) that the accused White House shooter Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez drew some of his inspiration from the crazed conspiracy ravings of Uber Nut Alex Jones!

Jake Chapman is also scheduled to make the trip to Washington. The AK-47 that Mr. Ortega is accused of using to fire on the White House was registered to Mr. Chapman, who said in an interview that he is known to friends as “the gun guy.” He said that he sold the gun to Mr. Ortega in March for $550 and that he believed it was the first gun Mr. Ortega owned.

Mr. Chapman, 21, said he had not heard Mr. Ortega talk of taking violent action. But more than a year ago, he recalled, Mr. Ortega and others watched an antigovernment film on the Internet called “The Obama Deception,” which was written, directed and produced by Alex Jones, a Texas-based conservative talk show host who has espoused a number of conspiracy theories involving the federal government.

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Obama, Assassination, and the Antichrist Conspiracy

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in American Right, American Superstitions, Anti-Christ, Anti-Science, Anti-Science Crazies, Atheists Are Smarter, Bad Religion, Barack Obama, Barack Obama Anti-Christ, Conspiracism, Conspiracy Crackpots, Conspiracy Crazies, Conspiracy Loons, Conspiracy Theories, Crazy for God, Fundamentalism, Racket of religion, Religion, Religion and the Brain, Religion Destroys the Brain, Religious Brain Damage, Religious Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Delusion, Religious Fascists, Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Right, Religious Violence, Right Wing

Obama, Assassination, and the Antichrist Conspiracy
Chip Berlet on the connections
Randall Gross Nov 19, 2011

[Link: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/11/19/153758/35/Front_Page/Obama_Assassination_and_the_Antichrist_Conspiracy]

Even if the shooter is a thorough crackpot his delusions did not form in a vacuum. Hate sites like Prison Planet, Atlas Shrugs, and Farrah’s World Net Daily all do most of the heavy lifting for these conspiracy theories and delusions. Oprah is not a hate site, but she does her share of aiding and abetting delusion with promotion of pseudoscience and magical thinking disguised as pop pscyh self help, so it’s really not a contradiction that he addressed a video to her, even though many on the right will grasp at that and say aha!

The alleged shooter charged with attempting to assassinate President Obama, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, apparently thinks our Commander in Chief is an agent of Satan in an End Times war. Sarah Posner has explained the basics in an article “‘Obama the Antichrist’ and end-times doctrine.” I warned about the possibility of the demonization of Obama leading to more violence in a book chapter published in 2010 “The Roots of Anti-Obama Rhetoric.” Here is a slightly revised version of what I wrote:

Many Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. Others are convinced he was not born in Hawaii and is thus not eligible to be President. Some say Obama is the Antichrist of Biblical prophecy.

A September 2009 poll in New Jersey found that 14% of Republicans believed that President Obama was the Antichrist—Satan’s agent in the End Times according to one reading of the Bible’s Book of Revelation. Another 15% thought it might be possible.

The results across political allegiances, however, were also troubling; with 8% of respondents statewide saying they thought Obama was the Antichrist and 13% stating they “aren’t sure”. The poll also found that “21% of respondents, including 33% of Republicans, express the belief that Obama was not born in the United States”.

According to the pollster, these are “eye popping numbers” (“Extremism in New Jersey”, 2009). The mobilization of apocalyptic expectation among Christian Evangelicals in the United States has been shown to be an effective mobilization strategy by the Christian Right and allies in the Republican Party (Boyer, 1992; Fuller 1995). This is especially true among fundamentalists (Barron, 1992; Mason, 2002; Berlet, 2008). This millenarian mood is spread from religious into secular communities, often through conspiracy theories (Brasher, 2000).

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Suspected White House Shooter’s Right Wing Ideas

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in American Fascism, American Right, Anti-Christ, Bad Religion, Barack Obama, Barack Obama Anti-Christ, Barack Obama President, Buffoon, Religious Crazies, Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Psychos, Religious Right, Religious Right Crusaders, Right Wing

The Suspected White House Shooter’s Right Wing Ideas
An anti-government religious fanatic who thinks Obama is the anti-Christ
Charles Johnson

Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez has been charged with attempting to assassinate President Obama, and in light of the right wing blogosphere’s ongoing attempts to link Ortega to the Occupy Wall Street protests, it should be pointed out that what we know so far about his delusional ideas falls much more in line with right wing religious ideology: Idaho Man Threatened Obama, Officials Say.

Mr. Ortega-Hernandez’s family had reported him missing in Idaho Falls last month, after he drove away in the Honda Accord, the complaint said. The Secret Service has said it did not have Mr. Ortega-Hernandez on record as having made any threats against the president. But after the shooting, several acquaintances said he had been fixated on Mr. Obama.

Besides the one friend who told investigators that Mr. Ortega-Hernandez had said he believed the president was the “Antichrist” and that he needed to kill him, another friend said he stated “President Obama was the problem with the government,” was “the devil,” and that he “needed to be taken care of.” The second friend also said he appeared to be “preparing for something.”

Mr. Ortega-Hernandez has had legal problems in Idaho, Texas, and Utah, including charges related to drug offenses, resisting arrest and assault on a police officer, officials have said. He is said to be heavily tattooed, with the word “Israel” on his neck and pictures of rosary beads and hands clasped in prayer on his chest.

The crazy idea that President Obama is the anti-Christ is a very common meme on the religious right; here’s one of many articles at World Net Daily promoting this idiocy: Did Jesus actually reveal name of the ‘antichrist’?

The name that “Jesus revealed,” according to this article, is Barack Obama.

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Christian Child-Rearing Manual Leads to Child Abuse, Even Deaths

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religion, Religion Destroys the Brain, Religion Kills, Religious barbarity, Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Hypocrisy, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Psychos, Religious Sadism, Religious Sadists, Religious Violence

Christian Child-Rearing Manual Is A Frequent Factor In Child Abuse, Even Deaths
                By Susie Madrak

So many people were shocked by the video of that Texas judge hitting his child, but I wasn’t. I’ve been reading for a long time about the abusive child-rearing practices of extreme Christian fundamentalists, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that girl’s father thought he was merely doing his duty and “raising a godly child.”

The books of Michael and Debi Pearl are frequently implicated in that kind of abuse. Here’s a heart-wrenching post from a reader over at the No Longer Quivering blog, started by a woman who left the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement:

When the Pearls’ methods failed, I got stuck on method a. Blame yourself.  I re-read To Train Up a Child. When I knew I had it right, I hit harder. Prayed harder. Did the whole disciplinary routine smiling from ear to ear and cooing like a dove. My babies acted freaked out by my grin (it was a lot like Debi Pearl’s vacuous, huge grin in the Tuchman interview) and were enraged by my efforts to “lovingly reconcile” with them after spankings. They kept up the fight. At this point, I think I would have admitted to myself that something was wrong with this whole child-training method and stopped torturing the toddlers all day to no avail. If you have to be cruel to get the Pearl method to work on some kids, it’s wrong. I had a husband, however, who was firmly convinced that Pearl was right. He went right for the b. and c. options: hit harder and blame the kid.

Options b. and c. are hard to do without getting angry. They are hard to do without leaving bruises, especially since Pearl discipline is cumulative: faced with entrenched rebellion, you are supposed to hit repeatedly and in the same areas. My ex-husband got angry with the kids for thwarting the Pearl method, but he remained coldly self-controlled. He also left bruises. A lot of bruises.

Why didn’t I stop him? I finally did, but early in my marriage I was paralyzed by fear and brainwashed by bad teaching. We both feared raising ungodly kids. We were looking for confirmation that some part of this system worked, and my ex-husband began to get results. The children flinched when he even moved. Cowered when he reached for a spanking implement. Had semi-seizures on the carpet following “biblical correction.” We got compliance with our wishes. Eventually, there wasimmediate and unquestioning compliance. My ex-husband had quelled the rebellion in three kids. He had created unfocused, freaked-out little robots who obeyed. The joy and the peace that was supposed to suffuse our home according to Pearl, we thought we could dispense with. Maybe it would come later; the Pearls are a little vague on where the peace and love should come into the process, just as they are a little vague on how you can keep “chastising” repeatedly with progressively increased force in the same places without leaving bruises.

To Train Up a Child is a manual of progressive violence against children. Not only are there no stopgaps to prevent child abuse, the book is a mandate to use implements to inflict increasingly intense pain in the face of continued disobedience. The part about not causing injury is vague and open to interpretation, but the part about never backing down or shirking your parental duty to spank harder and harder is crystal clear. The Pearls’ teachings will lead, inescapably, to extremely strong-willed kids being abused and sometimes murdered by fundamentalist parents who are determined to “break” those children.  The Pearls’ defenders will say, “Oh, they took it to an extreme and should have known better.” If anyone knows better than to keep inflicting more severe discipline on an intractable child, they can only apply that knowledge by scuttling the Pearls’ sadistic teaching and being more reasonable.

Whenever I read stories like this, I think of a lovely young woman I once interviewed, someone who grew up on the streets with her schizophrenic mother. By the time she was 16, she was pregnant. Fortunately, by the time she was 18, she’d been taken into a new program for young mothers that essentially re-parented them: Taught them to budget, balance a checkbook, plan meals, discipline children. She told me she was deeply haunted by guilt over having hit her toddler: “It wasn’t that I didn’t care about her – I did. I hit her to make her behave. I thought that’s what good parents did, and I wanted to be a good parent.”

That’s the sad part of all this violence. For whatever twisted reason, religious or psychological, many parents still believe they’re only doing what good parents do.

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The Republicans’ war on science and reason – The Washington Post

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Anti-Science, Anti-Science Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Delusion, Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Republican Insanity, Right Wing

The Republicans’ war on science and reason 

By  , Published: October 25

Last month, Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein wrote that if you wanted to come up with a bumper sticker that defined the Republican Party’s platform it would be this: “Repeal the 20th century. Vote GOP.” With their unrelenting attempts to slash Social Security, end Medicare and Medicaid and destroy the social safety net, Republicans are, indeed, on a quest of reversal. But they have set their sights on an even bolder course than Pearlstein acknowledges in his column: It’s not just the 20th century they have targeted for repeal; it’s the 18th and 19th too.

The 18th century was defined, in many ways, by the Enlightenment, a philosophical movement based on the idea that reason, rational discourse and the advancement of knowledge, were the critical pillars of modern life. The leaders of the movement inspired the thinking of Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin; its tenets can be found in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. But more than 200 years later, those basic tenets — the very notion that facts and evidence matter — are being rejected, wholesale, by the 21st-century Republican Party.

The contempt with which the party views reason is staggering. Republicans have become proudly and unquestionably anti-science. (It is their litmus test, though they would probably reject the science behind litmus paper.) With the exception of Jon Huntsman, who polls about as well as Darwin would in a Republican primary, the Republican presidential candidates have either denied the existence of climate change, denied that it has been caused — and can be reversed — by man, or apologized for once holding a different view. They have come to this conclusion not because the science is inconclusive, but because they believe, as a matter of principle, that scientific evidence is no evidence at all.

It’s on that basis that Ron Paul can say of evolution, “I think it’s a theory and I don’t accept it as a theory.” It’s on that basis that Rick Perry can call evolution “it’s a theory that’s out there, but one that’s got some gaps in it.” And it’s on that same basis, that same rejection of science, that Perry can say, “I’m not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how old the earth is.”

Then there’s Michele Bachmann, who has embraced the idea that the HPV vaccine can cause mental retardation, although not a single piece of medical evidence backs up her claim. How, then, did she come to that conclusion? That’s simple: A woman came up to her at a debate and told her so. Scientific evidence is anathema; superstitious and anecdotal asides, on the other hand, deserve to be repeated and amplified on a national stage, the consequences, in this case to countless women and girls, be damned.

This kind of guttural rejection of reason, evidence and science trickles into just about every aspect of Republican ideology. There’s Herman Cain’s much-discussed 9-9-9 plan, for example, which has been eviscerated by independents, conservative and progressive economists alike, but which Cain continues to champion. Why? Because, he argues, the skeptics haven’t read his analysis yet — as if he is entitled not just to his own facts but to his own math. It’s that same worldview that makes Cain comfortable, when asked about the Occupy Wall Street protests, to say, “I don’t [have] facts to back this up, but I happen to believe . . . ” Without facts, does it really matter how he finished the sentence?

Perry now fancies himself a flat-taxer, a position that might as well make him a flat-earther. A flat tax is, in his mind, a job creation proposal. In a reality based on reason and logic, it is a ticket straight back to recession. He might be giving — or getting — lessons from his fellow Republican, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, who after boldly lying about Planned Parenthood on the floor of the Senate had his press flack explain that his remarks were not intended to be a factual statement. What then, one wonders, were they intended to be?

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, this kind of behavior is constantly rewarded by the media. As Al Gore noted in “An Inconvenient Truth,” while fewer than 1 percent of peer-reviewed scientific journals questioned the reality of man-made global warming, about half of all journalistic accounts did. In an age where media is obsessed with balance, facts are sidelined in favor of dueling opinions and false equivalence. That one is based on reason and science, the other on neither, is treated as entirely irrelevant. It’s a system ripe for exploitation, and conservatives are happy to oblige.

It seems worth reminding the candidates that these debates have been settled, many for decades, some for centuries and that the year is 2011, not 1611. In the coming decades, science — and a respect for science — will prove crucial to confronting our greatest global challenges, whether that means reducing our carbon footprint to combat climate change, finding new treatments and new cures to the diseases that ail us, or developing new innovations that can lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. We cannot afford to ignore the power of science or the problems we will need it to solve. Nor can we afford to make decisions about our economy, and our future, without reason or sound evidence. It’s time to take back the Enlightenment.

Katrina vanden Heuvel’s new book is “The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in the Age of Obama.”

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Hitler Was God’s Chosen Hunter: Hunting Jews! Claims Crazy For God John Hagee!

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Christian Zionism, Dominionists, Fascists & Zionists, Fundamentalism, God, God Crazies, God nuts, Gullible Christians, Hitler, John Hagee, Nazi Style Propaganda, Religion, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Psychos, Religious Racketeers, Religious Right, Religious Right Crusaders, Right Wing, Right Wing Buffoons, Right Wing Zionist, Superstition, Theocon, Theocon Fascists, Theocons, Theocracy

The Religious Right habitually camouflages it’s nefarious Christian Nationalist Worldview behind a phoney “pro-Israel” facade.

Religious fanatic John Hagee believes god sent Hitler to exterminate Jews and thus, as act and prophetic directive of his god, obviously a righteous and just genocide.

Like Catholic Hitler, John Hagee believes that unless Jews are converted to his Christ, they will be eradicated in the fires of hell that is, their final annihilation.

One has to wonder how even certain Right Wing Jews can be so utterly blind and continue support a religious buffoon who considers the destruction of Jews an inexorable, righteous and prophetic dictate — of his
psychopathic god?!

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Crackpot Rabbi Daniel Lapin Babbles Kooky 9/11 Conspiracy Lunacies With Co-Crazy Pat Robertson

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Conspiracism, Conspiracy Crackpots, Conspiracy Crazies, Conspiracy Loons, Jewish Fascist, Religious Fascists, Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Insanity, Religious Kooks, Religious Psychos, Religious Racketeers, Religious Right, Religious scammers, Religious Windbags, Right Wing Buffoons

[As previously blogged, conspiracism or conspiracy thinking and religious fundamentalism go hand in hand. Both are irrational world views. Conspiracism, like religion, provides a false sense of enlightenment and “… a thread of insistence exists that only certain, truly enlightened people can see the truth behind the secret plots. Most conspiracies are, so the thinking goes, invisible to the vast majority of sheeplike citizens who go grazing through the pasture of life, never suspecting the evil wolves lurking behind the rocks of everyday occurrences.

In a way, conspiracism can be comforting to true believers because it removes the scary notion of randomness from the universe. For some, conspiracies can seem like an extension of religious faith, with God and Satan locked in a struggle for supremacy on Earth. In fact, many conspiracists are strongly connected to a belief in the coming of the end of the world. After a specific series of world events happens, these “millenialists” believe, those events will usher in Armageddon, the final battle between the forces of good and evil on Earth.”]

Ref:- Pat Robertson Lapin Up 9/11 Bible Prophecy Nonsense
Posted on October 6, 2011 by Richard Bartholomew

A double-whammy of stupidity from Rabbi Daniel Lapin, in conversation with Pat Robertson:

The Torah, in ancient Jewish wisdom the Bible, actually explains something which we have lived through which is one of the great mysteries: the plot of 9/11… Not only do we find references in Zachariah to four mysterious crafts that come through between two mountains made of metal, in biblical terminology mountains can be natural mountains or also anything tall that grows up like two buildings, also the idea that the plot was hatched not in Mecca or Medina or Riyadh or anywhere else in Saudi Arabia, that plot was hatched in Hamburg, Germany…

Lapin is making a garbled and absurd reference to Zechariah 6: 1-8:

I looked up again, and there before me were four chariots coming out from between two mountains—mountains of bronze. The first chariot had red horses, the second black,  the third white, and the fourth dappled—all of them powerful. I asked the angel who was speaking to me, “What are these, my lord?” The angel answered me, “These are the four spirits of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world. The one with the black horses is going toward the north country, the one with the white horses toward the west, and the one with the dappled horses toward the south.” When the powerful horses went out, they were straining to go throughout the earth. And he said, “Go throughout the earth!” So they went throughout the earth. Then he called to me, “Look, those going toward the north country have given my Spirit rest in the land of the north.”

There are no “mysterious crafts”: instead, the author is obviously describing symbolic chariots for the four “spirits of heaven”. The “mountains of bronze” are not buildings: the image has been taken from Babylonian mythology to represent the gateway into heaven. It should be further noted that the chariots are “coming out from between” the two mountains, rather than crashing into them, and that their drivers are spirits sent to do God’s work around the world, rather than terrorists sent to the USA to massacre people. Lapin is either a fool or a fraud: but either way, it’s clear from this that he doesn’t give a damn about interpreting the Bible with any kind of integrity. And the same goes for Robertson, for endorsing such a farrago of nonsense.

But while we’re still trying to swallow that, Lapin serves up a dessert. 9/11, he explains,

… was based on a dream that Adolf Hitler had in 1943 which was to fly suicide Luftwaffe German air force bombers into the towers of Manhattan… That was a Hitler dream described in a book called ‘Spandau Diary’ written by one of the Nazis who was captured after the war and who witnessed, and actually I’ve seen drawings, and I don’t doubt for a moment that the Muslim plotters, in the mosque in Hamburg who laid out the plans for 9/11, I don’t doubt for a moment that they encountered those same plans. I don’t think they thought of this themselves. This was the fulfillment of a dream that was really put in place early on in World War II.

Lapin is referring to Spandau: The Secret Diaries, by Albert Speer. In his entry for 18 November 1947, Speer recalls that

I never saw [Hitler] so worked up as toward the end of the war, when in a kind of delirium he pictured for himself and for us the destruction of New York in a hurricane of fire. He described the skyscrapers being turned into gigantic burning torches, collapsing upon one another, the glow of the exploding city illuminating the dark sky. Then, as if finding his way back to reality from a frenzy, he declared that Saur must immediately carry our Messerschmitt’s scheme for a four-engine long-range jet bomber. With such range we could repay America a thousand-fold for the destruction of our cities.

The plan for a “jet bomber” is mentioned again in passing in the entry for 2 November 1953. There is no mention of Manhattan, and no concept of a suicide mission: the “jet bomber” was obviously envisioned as dropping bombs on New York, rather than as being a bomb itself.

Last year, Lapin took part in Glenn Beck’s “Divine Destiny”, as one of Beck’s “Black Robe Regiment” of conservative pastors. A subsequent Media Matters post, drawing on earlier Washington Post reports, notes Lapin’s links to Jack Abramoff, whom I previously discussed here.

(H/T Right Wing Watch)

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