Congress and the Whore of Babylon

During my sabbatical many interesting things occurred in the faith based community. Most of these events were the run-of-the-mill preacher activities involving sex, greed, drugs, and gambling, and are far too numerous to mention.

But--(I bet you all saw this coming) there is one ongoing event that has really peaked my interest--the investigation by Republican Senator Robert Grassley into the financial activities of six of the U.S.'s top televangelists.

Now, I am not so naive as to believe that this investigation will change the blind stupidity suffered by those who give money to these con-men, nor am I so stupid that I believe that a Republican Senator is going after members of the largest demographic of Republican donors without some ulterior motive. But, it does make for some pretty good entertainment, and material for my arguments when idiots like Creflo Dollar are grilled about their Rolls Royce, mansions, and corporate jets.

Hopefully, by now, at least one reader has wondered about my reference to the Whore of Babylon, because the explanation for this reference follows.

Years ago I had a discussion with a co-worker about the popular Protestant belief that the Pope is the Anti-Christ. The topic was brought up by this idiot and struck a nerve with me for two very different reasons. First, it is a topic that I suffered through for my entire childhood. When I was a child, my fanatic Christian father would quite often get on one of his many Holy Spirit and alcohol induced tirades and babble on for hours about the evils of the World. His second favorite topic during these sermons was Pope John Paul II's un-holy alliance with Satan (his favorite topic was my going to Hell because I was not a good kid).

The second, and major reason I attacked this moron's preaching about the Pope was my late wife. She was a devout Catholic, and an extremely good person whom I loved very much, and my idiot co-worker continually rambled on about her going to Hell for her beliefs, so, as is my nature, I did some reading, and confronted my antagonist with passages from the Bible which showed that, in fact, Billy Graham (this guy's favorite preacher) was the Anti-Christ not the Pope.

Part of my "proof" revolved around the Anti-Christ coming from the Whore of Babylon, and went something like this:

According to the Bible salvation and sex are gifts from God. A prostitute is evil because she charges money for something that is a gift from God, not a commodity to be bought and sold. Salvation is also a gift from God delivered by Jesus Christ who made a point of throwing a hissy fit when he caught people doing business inside a church.

With these points in mind, a televangelist, who makes money by promising to deliver a gift freely given by God is merely a whore. The Whore of Babylon in the bible is obviously an institution, and the primary institution on this planet that exhibits whore-like qualities is televangelism. Billy Graham was the first major televangelist (born from the Whore known as televangelism) in the World, so is the primary candidate for Anti-Christ.

Since my discovery, I have often referred to televangelism as the Whore of Babylon as I did above.

Have a great day all, and beware of people promising salvation (or a good time) for money.

Hey, NAE. Wanna Help? Then Get Out of the Way.

Last month the National Association of Evangelicals, sans Ted Haggard, announced an effort to begin protecting the environment. This extremely belated decision is quite a change from two decades ago when the Secretary of the Interior for the then Evangelical in Chief, Ronald Reagan, announced that environmental issues were a waste of time because of the impending return of Christ who wouldn't allow us to self-destruct before he got here.

But, now even Pat Robertson has come around, and no longer thinks that Global Warming is a hoax perpetrated by the evil Christian hating, Gay loving, feminista left.

According to the NAE's announcement they will start looking for ways to "reverse the degradation of Creation," and "not allow it to be progressively destroyed by human folly." Naturally, I have some suggestions for ways they can help.

First step: They should actually mean what they say. On the same day that the NAE announced their new stand on the environment, there was an announcement on the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance's website saying the exact opposite. For some, this contradiction says that there is a split in the Evangelical community over the whole issue, and I agree, but it also points to the NAE's attempt to play both sides of the issue, which will ensure that their current flow of money will continue pouring in to them. Money that people like the NAE's former leader, Ted Haggard, will need for prostitutes and meth.

However, the most important step they could take, would be halting their attempts to take science back to the Dark Ages.

The people who are now calling for "fundamental change in values, lifestyles, and public policies required to address these worsening problems before it is too late," and are pledging to "work together toward a responsible care for Creation and call with one voice to the religious, scientific, business, political and educational arenas to join them in this historic initiative" are the same people who routinely call for an end to the study of real science in American public schools, and are thereby promulgating their ignorance of science.

While famous failed attempts at dumbing down our children in places like Pennsylvania, and the comedic back and forth on the issue by educators in Kansas draw a lot of media and public attention, it is the daily battles fought by fanatic undereducated educators that really harm our society's chances to do something positive about the damage we have done to the Earth's environment.

Luckily, other economically powerful countries and groups like Japan and the European Union aren't as stupid as ours when it comes to science education, which goes a long way toward explaining why the richest and most powerful country on the planet consistently ranks behind virtually every European and Asian country in terms of the science and math proficiency of its students.

Luckily for the rest of us, these same countries have taken positive steps to help matters, despite the current American administration's continued road blocks over the past six years.

If the NAE really wants to make positive steps toward a survivable environment, then they simply need to take several steps away from public schools and education, and accept the Constituion's stance on religion and government, thereby allowing people who know what they are doing to get things done.


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Be Careful What You Pray For...

Well folks, the same group of people who are constantly calling for having God put into politics, are now engaged in prayers, because of God being part of politics.

Officials in Uzbekistan have arrested Dmitry Shestakov (a.k.a. Pastor David), a Pentecostal preacher for inciting religious hatred, insulting Islam and distributing banned literature. Evangelical leaders in Uzbekistan, and elsewhere are crying foul saying that Shestakov's arrest is part of a pattern of religious intolerance by the government of this predominantly Islamic nation.

The Russian Orthodox Church is recognized by and registered with the government, as are some other Christian groups, but according to the Uzbek authorities, Shestakov was preaching without permission.

While I, by no means, support arresting people because of their religion, Uzbekistan's government and religious leaders make some good points about Shestakov and his ilk.

Some of Uzbekistan's Imams feel that Shestakov's arrest is a good thing because he and other pentecostal missionaries "set out their traps and our young people fall into them. We must punish in the harshest way those who poison the minds of our youth." Uzbek government spokesmen have questioned Shestakov’s being a real pastor because, "Earlier he abused alcohol and was dependent on drugs and now he presents himself as pastor David."

These claims have been confirmed by Shestakov's wife who also added that the good pastor had been in prison "several times." It has also been confirmed that Shestakov has been officially warned twice before about his "illegal religious activities."

The only person who has been allowed to see the pastor is his personal lawyer. According to Shestakov's followers his getting his own lawyer instead of a state appointed lawyer was in answer to their prayers. They didn't say why they didn't just get him released by praying for that.

Let me reiterate that I don't favor religious oppression, but if Pentecostals and other Evangelicals are going to rant and rave about having religion in government then they should shut up, and obey the laws put in place when a god is put into government. It is this exact type of situation that Jefferson saw happening in the American colonies and was trying to avoid by "building a wall of separation between Church & State." A wall which American Evangelicals are constantly trying to tear down.

Of course the issue here for Evangelicals would seem to be that it is not necessarily religious oppression that is the issue, but rather that this time they aren't the ones trying to oppress. When Evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson call Muslims "evil," and "Satanic," then compare the to Hitler and, say that Islam "is not a peaceful religion that wants to coexist. They want to coexist until they can control, dominate and then, if need be, destroy,", it is alright, but when drug addict/Evangelical preachers are called bad people it is "intolerance." When Evangelicals like Jerry Falwell say that America cannot accommodate ideas "that are diametrically opposed to Christian truth," it is "God's will," but when one of theirs is arrested for trying to control, and dominate children it is oppression.

Where are these self-proclaimed champions of tolerance when atheists are attacked by Christians, because they don't believe in God, or even when Evangelical Christians attack other Christians because they worship the same god differently (occurrences of which have according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have risen sharply in the last few years)? They were standing behind the attackers pressing them on, that's where.

Evangelicals, and other religious folk, need to stand back and face the truth--you can't have it both ways: if religion is involved with government things like this are inevitable, so my advice to these hypocrites is simple:

Shut the Hell up! And, Be careful what you pray for

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Scientific Creationists: Oxymorons and Just Plain Morons

Since I have been all but trapped in my house for the last couple of days due to Ole' Man Winter's rearing his ugly head, I have had a lot of time to cruise the web catching up on a lot of things. During my travels I came across an interesting article posted on the Telegraph's website. According to this article, which is a month old, a group of Evangelical (a.k.a. fundamentalist) churches in Kenya is banding together to try and force Kenya's national museum to hide its collection of hominid fossils from the public. These fossils represent decades of archaeological finds in Kenya's Great Rift Valley by people such as Dr. Richard Leakey, and his family, and are considered to be the " clearest record yet discovered of the origins of Homo sapiens."

Basically, what this means is that Evangelicals want the Kenyan museum to hide all of the evidence that they have debunking the idiocy commonly called creationism. The churches' argue that their doctrine is "not that we evolved from apes...", so therefore don't want the fossils displayed, because it runs contrary to that doctrine (evolution from apes to man is also not the doctrine of evolution as anyone who has actually halfway researched it knows). Dr. Leakey said the group's plans were "the most outrageous comments I have ever heard."

But, unlike Dr. Leakey, I live in the American mid-west, and have the misfortune of seeing and hearing such tactics regularly. When Bible thumpers here are hit with something that runs contrary to their mythology, they make serious attempts to hide the opposing viewpoint. Here they generally go after children by trying to supplant real science with so-called "scientific creationism," or as it is called now, "intelligent design."

Such ideas are neither scientific, or intelligent, so their attempts generally fail, or are overturned later. The problem is that during their attempts many children are denied true knowledge that they would need to succeed in real Universities, and become so bombarded with un-substantiated and irrational claims that they spend years if not all their life confused and mis-informed about real science.

But, confusion and dis-information are the only things that creationists have on their side to "prove" their outrageous, and outdated claims that the fairy-tales found in Genesis are true. They claim that the Bible is scientifically accurate, and that its stories of divine creation, a world wide flood, supernatural sources for linguistic differences, etc. are true. But, when pressed to show their evidence they tend to take the course of attacking the other side, and pointing to the Bible as the truth. The "evidence" presented by proponents such as Duane Gish amounts to collections of attacks, unsubstantiated claims, misquotes, and , quite often, downright lies.

The tactics of the creationists involve instilling a fear of eternal pain, making sensationalist claims and statements, and the knowledge that your average person won't think to ask for sources, or won't take the time to seek them out. I have a great deal of experience with these methods, because they were used on me throughout my childhood by my father. He would force me to read nonsense such as a pamphlet from his preacher of choice entitled "Did Humans Evolve from Lower Life Forms, or Did God Create Adam?" (I still have my original copy), but then forbid me to read anything that presents the other side. I remember one instance when I was in middle-school, where dear ole' Christian Dad beat me silly for bringing home a book from the school library about evolution, and then burned the book because it was "evil and full of Satan's lies."

What Dad, and other creationists, didn't count on was that I, like so many others, had the ability to read, ask questions, and do my own research on the subject. Not only did I read and research the evolutionist viewpoint, but also read and researched the creationist side. I found the creationist side severely lacking any proof at all, and further found that their only documented source of information, the Bible, was so messed up that I eventually got to the point that I not only could no longer believe the darned thing, but couldn't believe that I had been so blind as to have ever believed it in the first place.

To present all of the evidence for the evolution side of the debate would not only take more time and space than I have here, but would be senseless, because an indoctrinated creationist wouldn't read it to begin with. But, I do have the space and time to present documented evidence for my claim that the Bible is as far from a reliable scientific document as you can get, and provide links at the end for further information about evolution, and other ACTUAL scientific studies--This is a hell of a lot more than any creationist is willing or even able to give about their claims. Besides, they want to use the Bible as proof, so I will go their route and challenge them to support their evidence.

The Bible is rife with statements, stories, and claims that are easily proven wrong by science, but it also full of statements that are easily proven wrong by a trip to the zoo or even your own backyard. I present just a few of these idiocies here. The entries here are just some of what I saw when I was checking a reference to "proof" of the Bible's being scientifically accurate left in the comments section of one of my previous posts.

All you need to double check my assertions and statements are a Bible, a brain, two eyes (one eye would suffice), and the ability to read (which you obviously have, otherwise these squiggly lines mean little or nothing to you).

Four-legged birds?

In your entire lifetime, how many four-legged birds have you ever seen? Weird dreams and sci-fi movies don't count. I have never seen a single one. I have seen fossil evidence that birds evolved from four-legged animals but have never seen any evidence for a four-legged bird. According to the Bible--there are such things.

"All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination to you." [Lev. 11:20 KJV Bible emphasis mine]

Feathered Bats?

I have seen many bats in my lifetime. I used to crawl into some caves behind my grandmothers house and catch them; a past time that Granny severely disapproved of, especially since I occasionally brought them into the house. But, none of the bats I ever caught, and in fact no bat ever recorded, caught, or photographed by anyone, had feathers. This is because they aren't birds--they're mammals, and mammals don't have feathers. But, the bats in the Bible are birds:

"And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls ... the stork, and the lapwing, and the bat." [Lev. 11:13-19 KJV Bible emphasis mine]

Hoofed rabbits?

Rabbits are something else I have seen a lot of. There are currently three living in my backyard, and I used to hunt them with a girl-friend's father when I was in high-school (the things a guy will do for a girl, huh). But, alive or dead, I never saw a rabbit with hooves. I have never seen pictures of hoofed rabbits either. I have seen jackalopes mounted, but I thought they were novelties constructed by taxidermists: I never knew they were mentioned in the Bible:

"And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you." [Lev. 11:6 KJV Bible emphasis mine]

I am not sure that rabbits or hares chew their cud either, because I do know that they can't regurgitate, which is part of the "cud" process--I will research this.

Camel hoof?

There is a reason for the term "camel toe." The reason is that camels have feet with two toes. They don't have hooves. Granted, the only camels I've actually seen are ones in the zoos I've been to, but I have never seen pictures of camel hooves either, and according to everything I have ever read about them, they don't have hooves. Well, everything I've read but the Bible:

"... the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you." [Lev. 11:4 KJV Bible emphasis mine]

Four-legged Insects?

To the chagrin of my Grandmother, I also liked collecting insects when I was young. Being the type of person that tends to research anything I become interested in, I learned that all insects have six legs, and that grasshoppers, locusts, and beetles are insects. My children knew these things before they could even write. But the "scientific" writers of the Bible didn't know it:

"Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind."

"But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you." [Lev. 11:22-23 KJV Bible emphasis mine]

Then there are stories about boats holding representatives of every animal on the planet when the boat wouldn't have been large enough to hold two of every insect much less two of every other animal, a family, and a year's worth of the food needed for the family and animals. Stories about every human, of every race on the planet being from one family in Turkey who lived 4,000 years ago. And, other outlandish stories that are supposed to be accepted as history, not fairy-tale.

The Bible can't even get its first story straight, much less be intelligently considered scientifically accurate. But, its deluded proponents continue to try to convince people that they have the only true source of information about everything even though they have no evidence for their claim, and try to hide the evidence against it.

And, as for the passage I mentioned above that was presented to me as "proof":

"For the life of the flesh is in the blood... ." [Lev. 17:11 KJV Bible]

Genesis 2:7 says:

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

These guys can't even decide if it's breath, or blood that is gives life. Scientists claim that it is both, but what do they know?

Evolution links as promised above (some contain explanations in simple language, some are scholarly, and some contain articles about creationism, but all are documented, cited, and refer you to their sources):

Evolution site at Berkeley

National Academies of Science evolution pages

The complete works of Darwin from Cambridge

Tree of Life project--Web collection of douments about the evolution of damned near everything

TalkOrigins archive--Many documents debunking creationism

National Center for Science Education "Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools"

No Answers in Genesis: collection of anti-creationism documents

Leakey Foundation

Evolution Sciences versus Doctrines of Creationism and Intelligent Design

Their are many, many more places to find information on this subject. Just run a search for evolution and you will find thousands of documents and links.


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Organized Crime for Christ

Stealing a church, buying male prostitutes, smoking meth, and environmental activism.

The crimes committed by leaders of the gay agenda? No?

Crimes committed by godless atheists? No?

Actually these are the activities of some of the leaders of the most active group in American organized crime today: The Evangelical Christian Mafioso.

Our Crook Pastor for the day is one Randall Radic, former pastor of Ripon's First Congregational Church in Ripon, California. This man of God managed to forge papers making him look like the owner of the Church property. He then used the papers to get $200,000 dollars in loans with the property as collateral, then sold the property for $525,000. Of course, since he is a man of God, no one from whom he got the loans, the people to whom he sold the church, or his blindly faithful flock thought that maybe he was up to no good.

The really good part about this is that aside from the six months he spent in jail, he will receive no further punishment. It seems that he has entered into a plea agreement--freedom in return for ratting out a murderer who supposedly confessed to him while he was in prison.

The pastor turned snitch has also found a publisher for a book he has written entitled "The Sound of Meat," a memoir of sorts about how he managed to sell a church right out from under its members. As I have always said: Illegal crime may not pay, but religion sure does.

Now, I'm sure that there are a number of people out there who will of course immediately say something to the effect that he "was not a true Christian." I've never understood what that meant, but I will say that he sure looks like a pastor to me, and according to Grace Notes, an online Bible study resource, Pastor Radic sure sounds like a typical Christian pastor:

Dr. Randall Radic

Dr. Randall Radic is the pastor of First Congregational Church in Ripon, California. He has graciously consented to provide some of his writings for distribution by Grace Notes. I think that you will really enjoy this teaching and receive blessing and help from his spiritual communication.

Dr. Radic has had an extensive and eclectic education in the Word of God. He received a B.A. in Classics from the University of Arizona; then he attended Bellview College in Westminster, Colorado, where he receive the Bachelors in Biblical Studies. He went on to receive the Master of Ministry and Doctor of Theology degrees from Trinity Seminar. Finally, he attended Agape Seminary where he received a doctorate in Sacred Theology.

He is a well-prepared pastor who has the rare ability to produce scholarly lessons that are readily understandable by most Christians.

That last line is my favorite.

I read some of his stuff, it is well written from a feed the believer standpoint. I'm surprised that some of his quotes haven't shown up here yet. My favorite article was one he wrote entitled "The False Prophet and the Mark of the Beast." I guess it takes one to know one.

I also liked the note that appears near the bottom of the bio. pages at Grace Notes:

There is no charge for Grace Notes Materials.

The ministry is supported by Christians who pray for the work and share in the expenses.

Radic's supporters sure prayed and paid.

Update on an Evangelical don I mentioned in a previous post: Estavam Hernandes-Filho and his wife have pleaded not guilty to smuggling charges in Florida. Brazilian officials are still waiting to get their hands on them for fraud and money laundering.

In other news, American evangelicals, the people formerly led by the solicitor/ice head Ted Haggard, are worried about negative growth in their numbers. To reverse this trend they are going after Hispanics and other ethnic groups. I guess the poor undereducated Caucasian population has been tapped out.

They are also going after children with activities that include clowns and parades, and trying to attract single-moms by offering to change their oil.

Incidents like this always bring the words of Ben Franklin to mind:

When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

Granted single moms, and Hispanics don't constitute a civil power, but the basic message is the same.

There are Baptists in Texas who are putting this growth drive in jeopardy though. It seems that 2.3 million Baptist Texans are being asked by their leaders to help the environment by voicing their opposition to 18 new coal-fired power plants that the governor is proposing. This moves is also in opposition to the Southern Baptist Convention, who last summer denounced environmental activism and warned that it was "threatening to become a wedge issue to divide the evangelical community."

There is also concern that this will divide Baptists in Texas. It seems that God is telling different people different things. Quite the jokester this guy.

Next thing you know we will have an Evangelical preacher/reformed lover of prostitutes having a show on the Discovery Channel a bastion of scientific programs, or even Spike TV home of shows like Spike's Women of Action, Late Night Strip, and Films of Fury, which they describe as: "a kung-fu flick of unparalleled ass-kickin-ness." Their website is interesting too, especially the feature called "The Babe-A-Lizer."

Wait a minute folks--such a thing has happened. It seems that America's favorite cry-baby/prostitute lover Evangelical leader, Jimmy Swaggart, airs his BS on these two channels. OK, now I can't be surprised anymore.


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