Man Falsely Accused Of Insulting Bible

GOP candidates make intense 11th-hour arguments in Nevada:

For his part, Cruz spent significant time Monday seeking to explain the ouster of his spokesman for tweeting a story that falsely accused White House hopeful Marco Rubio of insulting the Bible.

Is it even possible to insult an inanimate object? And, if it is possible, why would that be a negative thing to do?

Also, could someone be arrested for assaulting a Bible with sticks and stones?

Every Day Brings More Insanity

An Idaho Senate panel just approved a bill to let public teachers use the Bible to teach biology and geology:

Idaho Republicans are pushing a bill that would allow teachers to cite the Bible as a reference book in science classes.

The Senate Education Committee has given preliminary approval to a measure introduced by state Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll (R-Cottonwood) that would permit teachers to use the religious document “for reference purposes” in classes such as astronomy, biology and geology.

A Democratic senator questioned why the bill was necessary, because teachers are already permitted to highlight biblical allusions in history and literature, but Nuxoll said a statute was needed to highlight the Bible’s importance.

“It’s to clarify and make sure teachers know their rights,” Nuxoll said. “A lot of teachers are scared to use the Bible.”

I propose a bill that would deny the use of Bibles in churches.

Two Mississippi Democrats propose making Bible the state book:

There's a state bird, a state nut, a state shell and more, but what about a book? A couple of Mississippi lawmakers are hoping to make the Bible the official book of the state.

Rep. Tom Miles of Forest and fellow Democratic Rep. Michael Evans of Preston are spearheading the bill which was proposed last week, according to Evans.

Evans told AL.com that the idea came about while he was speaking with constituents.

"Me and my constituents, we were talking about it and one of them made a comment that people ought to start reading the Bible," said Evans.

He said that they discussed "all the things going wrong in the world" and someone suggested making the Bible the state book.

Let me guess who the state nuts are.

This I Know, For The Bible Tells Me So

Earliest known draft of King James Bible found in Cambridge:

The King James Bible was the work of 47 translators working in teams, or “companies”, working in London, Oxford and Cambridge. They had been charged by King James I to produce an authorised version of the bible that would support the Church of England over Puritan influence in earlier texts.

It's the word of God, he won't mind if we mess around with it to suit our own agenda.

Biblical Unimportance

Is Palin's Rise Part of God's Plan?:

A revealing e-mail obtained exclusively by Vanity Fair suggests that some see Sarah Palin as a figure of biblical importance. She may even agree.

Sarah Palin has often suggested that she believes her rise to power is divinely ordained. She is, moreover, the only contemporary American politician whose admirers openly describe her as a modern-day version of a biblical character.

On the main pro-Palin blog, Conservatives4Palin, many postings contemplate Palin’s resemblance to Queen Esther, the eponymous hero of a short book in the Hebrew Bible. And Palin herself encourages the analogy. This past April, for instance, she told a Christian group in Louisville, Kentucky, that she often reads the book of Esther to her daughter Piper at bedtime.

Palin seems first to have gotten the idea that she might be a new Esther shortly after being elected governor in 2006, when she asked one of her former pastors for an example of biblical leadership that she could emulate. Quoting scripture, the pastor told Palin that she, like Esther, had “come to the Kingdom for such a time as this.”

Quote Of Note - Jeffrey Tayler

"The Bible is brimming with rank absurdities that insult our intelligence and affront our dignity as twenty-first-century, post-Enlightenment humans residing in one of the most developed countries on Earth." - Jeffrey Tayler

A Debate That Will Prove Nothing

Scholars To Debate If Quran, Bible Are Books Of Peace:

Apologetics is about learning to defend your faith and being able to clearly articulate why you believe what you believe using multiple sources to back up your claims. It will be a privilege to have both Dr. Ally and Dr. Wood in Chattanooga as we will learn from two of the best in the field of religious apologetics.

In spite of all the clear articulation and multiple sources used, Dr. Ally will remain a Muslim and Dr. Wood will remain a Christian and both the Quran and the Bible will continue to be books that condone violence.

The Most Important Book Ever Written?

The Bible: The most unread cherished book in the world:

If one really studies the Bible, one won’t find much, if anything, about homosexuality. One will find plenty of verses telling women to shut up, telling people not to engage in public displays of prayer and telling people to not criticize their politicians. In this lengthy Newsweek article, “The Bible: So Misunderstood, it’s a Sin,” Kurt Eichenwald expands on many of the observations of Bart Ehrman, imploring believers to actually read the book they proclaim to be the most important book ever written. They will be shocked at what is actually written in this book that they purportedly cherish.

Where Is Bill Donohue When You Really Need Him?

From These religious clowns should scare you: GOP candidates’ gullible, lunatic faith is a massive character flaw by Jeffrey Tayler

(And where are all those annoying trigger-warning zealots when you need them? Why don’t they campaign to have the Bible stamped with “TRIGGER WARNING: contains multiple accounts of genocide, warfare, murder, enslavement, sexual abuse of women and underage girls, and ritual human and animal sacrifice”?)

Why is Bill Donohue more concerned with the evil secular humanists (especially their movies and TV shows that are way too sexy for him) than the evils of the Bible?

Bill likes to whip himself into a tizzy about evil secular humanists:

I've had it with mean-spirited secular activists out to turn our society and culture inside out and upside down. They will stop at nothing to smash our traditions, norms and values, making mince meat out of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Like termites, they eat away at the cultural edifice of our society. Some, perversely, are working to sabotage their own religion. They must be stopped because there is too much at stake. 

And of course the victim card must be played. Because this an important civil rights issue, because they say it is:

The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. Founded in 1973 by the late Father Virgil C. Blum, S.J., the Catholic League defends the right of Catholics lay and clergy alike to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination. It is led by its' President, William A. Donohue, Ph.D.

Get back to me on that defamation and discrimination thing after the United States elects an atheist president. Bill is immune to his own hypocrisy, isn't he? Oh the irony!

Bigger Than The Bible

From Tax System: Too Complex To Be Constitutional? by Jack Hough:

Douglas Shulman says he uses a hired tax preparer because the U.S. tax code is so complex. That's a bad sign. He's the I.R.S. commissioner.

The tax system has clearly gotten too complicated. The code itself holds about 3.8 million words, nearly five times as many as the King James Bible.

Catapulting The Biblical Propaganda

I really wish that I believed in the devil and hell when I hear news like this. Then at least I would have the satisfaction of believing that the entire Bush administration would eventually be burning for eternity. Alas, if only it were true!

From Iraq war briefings headlined with biblical quotes, reports US magazine by Daniel Nasaw:

One of the top planners of the US war in Iraq gave President George Bush secret intelligence briefs headlined with biblical quotations, in a bid to boost his standing with the deeply religious president but one that risked sparking a conflagration in the Muslim world if the papers leaked.

In the days surrounding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld prepared top secret briefing papers for the president adorned with triumphant images of US military personnel and adoring Iraqis, along with the quotes, according to a new article in GQ magazine.

Rumsfeld, said to be personally disinclined toward ostentatious displays of piety, included the quotes because he believed the religious message would appeal to Bush, whom he knew frequently to quote the Bible, journalist Robert Draper wrote.

Rumsfeld and other top military aides brushed aside complaints that the quotes were an inappropriate injection of religion into intelligence matters and ignored fears that if the documents leaked to the media, they would touch off worldwide fear that the US had embarked on an anti-Muslim crusade.

The previously unreleased documents are a shocking and unusual admixture of the two realms. The cover of one intelligence briefing shows US soldiers kneeling in prayer, headlined with a selection from the book of Isaiah: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?/ Here I am Lord, send me!" The same page is covered with the classification codes and handling instructions typical to secret US government documents.

Other cover sheets released by the magazine feature images of US military vehicles and troops trudging through desert landscapes, manning a machine gun emplacement, and US soldiers inside what appears to be a posh palace once belonging to Saddam Hussein. One shows an image of Saddam speaking into a television camera and quotes 1 Peter 2:15: "It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men."

I believe that I do some good. Why have I not silenced at least a small portion of the ignorant talk of the foolish men of the Bush administration?

So, it appears that while Bush was busy catapulting, that he himself was being catapulted. Again, I wish we could catapult them all to hell!

The Good Book

From Bible:

Many Christians, Muslims, and Jews regard the Bible as inspired by God yet written by a variety of imperfect men over thousands of years. Many others, who identify themselves as Bible-believing Christians, regard both the New and Old Testament as the undiluted Word of God, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans. Still others hold the Biblical infallibility perspective, that the Bible is free from error in spiritual but not scientific matters.

If the Bible is the word of God and is perfect, then why do we need to have hucksters on television telling us over and over again what the damn thing means? Never mind that they also tell us over and over again how much they need our damn money as well.

“Revelations take on a whole new meaning in The Good Book…”

Go Forth And Use Birth Control

From The Five Year Ban: Because A Billion Less People Is A Great Place To Start by Steven Kotler:

We have spent the past 4000 years trying to shrug off the nightmare that is Biblical advice. We no longer sanction slavery or believe it okay to stone a woman to death for wearing sexy clothing or any of that other nonsense—but go forth and multiply?

Got to be the worst advice in the history of the world.

But wait, there's more: The Five Year Ban: Global Over-Population Part II.

The Good Book

It is my firm belief that the dictionary is a much more important book than the Bible.

From Atheist: Africa Needs God, Not Just Aid by Ethan Cole:

The problems in Africa cannot be solved with aid money alone, but Africans need to know God, contends an atheist journalist and former politician.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an atheist as “one who believes that there is no deity.” And of course, deity is defined as “God.”

Good God! It is so hard to refrain from calling people names sometimes. Without saying it, we all know what Ethan Cole is. Don’t we?

Bible Verse For Sunday 09-28-08

And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.

And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.

And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

What the hell?

"We've only been flipped off like twice"

From Atheists read religious texts for charity by Erin Rowley:

Nat Jackson read passages from the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Saturday to crowds walking past the Allen Street Gates.

Before reading verses about how the Spaghetti Monster created the universe, he put on a black eye patch, the required attire for the Spaghetti Monster's believers.

That text was one of more than a dozen religious books -- including the Bible and the Quran -- put on display by the Penn State Atheist and Agnostic Association, of which Jackson (senior-anthropology) is president. Passersby could donate money in return for hearing club members read aloud from the book of their choice.

The "Bible-A-Thon" raised about $503, which will go to Doctors Without Borders, an organization that brings medical care to people worldwide.

Club members manned their table of religious texts from 9 a.m. to about 7:15 p.m. Some of them held up signs that read, "Make atheists read the Bible."

Read the rest here.

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Religion, Politics, And Pants

Who really wears the pants in the Palin family? (A sexist question, yes, I know.) Does Sarah Palin take the Bible literally?

Ephesians - Chapter 5:22-24
22. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
23. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savoir.
24. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Colossians – Chapter 3:18
18. Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

First Corinthians - Chapter 11:3
3. Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

From A Palin & Palin co-vice presidency? by Kathy G.

I'm happy to see that the role Todd Palin plays in his wife's administration is finally beginning to get some serious scrutiny. Todd Palin appears to be his wife's most important adviser by far. But he hasn't been elected, nor does he hold any official position in his wife's government. He appears to be enormously powerful, yet he's essentially unaccountable -- and that's a scary combination.

Read the rest here.

From WWTD by digby:

I don't use the old saw "imagine if this were a Democrat" anymore because it's implicit in just about everything the Republicans do these days. But this is really too much. We heard constant hand wringing from the press during the primaries about the horrors of having Bill Clinton anywhere near the White house should the harpy Clinton win the election. Or Obama, with Clinton as his VP, for that matter. People have been rending their garments for months over the possibility that a successful ex-president might be hanging around the white house giving advice. (Of course, when Bush ran, the implicit --- if unfulfilled --- promise that Poppy would be around gave the same people confidence that the callow, unqualified Junior would have sage guidance.) Even Rudy Giuliani was soundly spanked for suggesting that his wife might sit in on cabinet meetings.

But here we have the underqualified Governor of Alaska empowering her even more underqualified husband, whose main claim to fame in life is being a snow machine racer, to be an intrinsic part of her executive team.

If Todd Palin played a large role in Palin's administration people have a right to hear from him about it. Hillary's professional life was a major concern in the 1992 election and Michelle Obama's speeches have been parsed almost as closely as her husband's. It would be one thing if he was uninvolved in his wife's business, like Howard Dean's wife was. But any spouse who is involved in his or her spouse's administration simply has to submit himself to questioning.

Cherry Picking The Bible

From What atheists can’t answer…

I challenge any sane person to open up a Bible and not be repulsed by the horrors contained within it. If one were really to live their lives based upon biblical teaching, one might find themselves at best facing a long spell in prison and at worst on charges of genocide. “But” says the believer “it’s a story, not all of it is meant to be taken literally”.

And this is why this question is so absurd. What the Bible thumping believer fails to understand is that it’s all very well cherry picking the Bible to find nuggets of moral teaching, but on what basis does one choose what is moral and what is not? The criteria for throwing out the nasty and picking the good come from outside of the Bible and are not under the exclusive ownership of those who believe in a deity. Scripture itself gives us no clues so anyone making these choices is using the same judgment that the secular amongst us make. The Bible has absolutely nothing to do with it. Those who continue to believe differently have either not read the Bible or have a very sadistic outlook on life.

Richard Dawkins On Abraham And Isaac

From the book The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins:

God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. Abraham built an altar, put firewood upon it, and trussed Isaac up on top of the wood. His murdering knife was already in his hand when an angel dramatically intervened with the news of a last-minute change of plan: God was only joking after all, ‘tempting’ Abraham, and testing his faith. A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two asymmetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: ‘I was only obeying orders.’ Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions.

Even though God stopped him from murder, isn’t Abraham more than a little like this guy?

Atheists Are Not Ignorant, Atheists Are Not Immoral

From Forgoing faith by Samantha Pak:

This is not surprising, said Michael Amini, a junior and Near Eastern languages and civilization major, who is another officer for the SSU. He said that many atheists know the Bible better than many Christians do — which shows that they turn to atheism not out of ignorance, but as a rejection of what they have learned.

Amini said that one of the most irritating reactions he gets when people find out he is atheist is the assumption that he has no morals. Contrary to this, Amini said that because he believes there is no divine justice and this is the only life he has, he is going to live it the best way possible. This makes for the view on his lack of morality interesting.

“Morality predates religion,” he said.

Read more here.

John Hagee Is Freakin' Nuts

Hagee - God Will Unleash Terrorists on U.S. for Israel Policy:

What kind of god would care about giving up land for peace? I can not find any reference in Joel 3:2 about “Any nation that tries to get Israel to divide my land, I will bring it into judgment.” Why does Hagee believe in a god that would side with terrorists, for Christ's sake?

John McCain scares the hell out of me.