Pray For It

Oh please oh please oh please….

Does this mean I can smoke in the park?

Breaking: Military laser satellites picking them off like flies…

Imagine if it did happen, but it turns out the only people who disappear are the city-dwelling intellectuals, atheists, liberals and gays, leaving the christtards wandering around going “what the fuck,” until the tribulations start, of course.

That would make a great ant-Left Behind” novel, wouldn’t it?

@Prommie:
Or a great sequel to “Lord of the Flies.”

@ManchuCandidate: Talk about some revenge-porn. FCS could write the parts detailing the suffering of the left-behind christ-tards.

TJ: David Hasselhoff hospitalized with a .4 BAC reading! Wow, that guy really knows how to tie one on.

I’ll pack my mom’s bags.

@Prommie:
That’s pretty much the plot of the Left Behinds. All one needs to do is reverse the parts played by the heathens (us) and the Christers.

Will they leave their clothes behind? Heaven would get very kinky with all those repressed pervs running around nekkid.

I like how the actual “Rapture prediction” site links to other pages claiming the world will end in October 2008 (ie LAST FUCKING YEAR) without even a hint of irony. Will be a great site to come back to in December, to see how they’ve explained the Rapture not happening yet.

OT add-on: was arguing with a very Beckian high school classmate on FB and he brought up Walter Reed as an example of why “government healthcare won’t work”. Apparently he’d forgotten that things went to shit there after the DoD handed over much of the staff duties to KBR-associated private contractors in 2006… Why aren’t the Dems in Congress playing this up more?

good riddance

@ManchuCandidate:
which is pretty easy if you know anything about the actual teachings of Jesus. modern Fundies would be the last people on the planet he would save.
funny that they dont get that.

@Prommie: You’ve just turned Atlas Shrugged inside-out.

@al2o3cr: Well, that’s silly. Everyone knows the world is coming to an end in 2012.

@ManchuCandidate: Yeah, thats why its so great, the fundietards standing their with their thumbs up their ass, God didn’t invite them to the prom after all, he invited all the people they hate. Reversifying the Left Behind novels would be more fun than zombie-fying the Bible.

tj/Michael Savage endorsed handgun:

Kel-Tec have partnered with radio personality Michael Savage to produce a limited edition .380 P3A pistol that commemorates the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2009/09/21/kel-tec-freedom-p3at/

RML sayeth:

“Kel-Tec will never get any of my hard earned firearms money for supporting Savage, and I’ve been recently been buying a gun or two a year. I also canceled an order with Glock World after its president sent out his “fly the flag upside down over the Obama presidency” message.”

I have read that those little .380 autos such as the Kel-Tec and the Ruger LCP* kick like a mule, anyway. I’m sticking with my snubnosed Ruger SP-101 in .38 Spl/.357 mag, pure American heavy metal to handle the recoil.

*currently subject to recall to fix a defect

@Prommie: Oh, yeah, the survivors realize that SATAN is much more powerful and start worshiping the dark one, adopting ritual cannibalism and reading the satanic babblings of a moose-eating neonazi governor of Alaska turned satanist. With the economy in ruins, crops failed, the only currencies are crystal meth and ammo.

that rapture site is starting to convince me. it must be all the caps and big print.

@lentinus: According to the Left Behind books, of which I have read three, yes they do leave their clothes behind. Also wedding rings, tooth fillings, iPods, prosthetic limbs, and Band-Aids. However, as they arrive in heaven – and now remember, they are not dead, have not died – they find themselves attired in drapey, robey ensembles that hide all the naughty bits so they don’t get distracted during the endless praying and praising. Oh, and all children under the age of nine get a free pass. Clearly, they don’t know my relatives.

@nojo: I’ve just realized that this is what that inexplicable ending of Cats is all about! ALW’s version of the rapture. But of course you already knew that.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: Alas, JC Superstar is the alpha and omega of my familiarity with ALW. I can barely quote a line from Evita.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: Cats has an ending? For that matter, a beginning, and a middle?

@Prommie: That big pussy goes up in the air.

porn. its the new gay.

The plague of porn

“No one wants to talk about America’s growing addiction to pornography. Certainly not me, but I do quite often . . .

Your use warps your view of women and of common decency.”

um, what if no women are involved?

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: Wow. Sorry I missed it.

This is amusing.

As the lone non-christofascist Christian here while Tommcatt is off fighting the Man (or the Mouse, rather) to keep his job, can I just say that rapture shit drives me bonkers? The amount of time and effort these people put into dissecting a trippy Mediterranean island fever dream that somehow made it into the Bible and obsessing about just how great it’s going to be for them and just how much it’s going to suck for everyone else they hate–all the while ignoring the very real pain, suffering, and injustice that actually surrounds them every day–is enough to make me want to bitchslap every last one of these “brothers and sisters” in Christ. I mean, who in their right mind would sit around and wonder if they’ll be at work one day, just looking out the window or maybe typing on their computer, when suddenly they’ll just be whisked up into the clou

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken:

Holy shit. You read THREE of them? They must be really funny.

That would make a great movie scene. All these self righteous douches dropping their Ipods and rings, with street kids grabbing all the swag as it hits the ground. They arrive in heaven with their robes on, only to find out it is a huge intergalactic massage parlor where they have to turn tricks for all eternity. Um, or something like that …

@flippin eck: Oh, Flippin Eck! Where’d you go?

@JNOV: Oh, great. Now one of us heathens has to care for the pets.

Heh.

BTW, I’m reading the actual site, and well, Obama is the Anti-Christ, y’all.

Oh, this is priceless:

There are a lot of strange cults and some of them have even performed mass suicides, while others have been stopped. There are some very bizarre end-time groups in the world, with some strange beliefs.

@nojo: See if her bike is there when you check in on the critters.

@lentinus: Then their god appears and says “I’d like to introduce you all to Mohammed. He wants to have a few words with you.”

@flippin eck: Flip, darling, I’m sure they make you nuts. But their ‘authority’ isn’t The Revelation of John the Divine it’s Daniel; entirely based on the phrase ‘meeting His church in the air’ . That’s all they got. It was discovered by a Scottish maid in the 17c , amplified by the Brownists and broadcast by the Scofield Bible in the 1920s. That is where the recent craze came from. That I know this history does not make me proud. If one were to get orthodox on their ass it is heretical and antithetical to all of Christ’s teachings.

@lentinus: The first one made me cry with laughter. But it’s a case of diminishing returns. There is only one plot development: God smites sinners. And you can’t spin that over more than, say, three hundred pages. But the discovery on a transatlantic flight of puddles of gold rings left on seats and trousers pooled on the floor is hilarious.

@nojo: You know some bright sparks with their tongues firmly up each others’ ass have made a business of this?

@Prommie:

Anyone that has ever had the misfortune to sit through a production of Cats knows that that particular musical is endless. Or at least seems so.

Oh, hay, that gives me an idea. They should do a porn version called Pussies….

@Capt Howdy:

If it is good gay porn, that part is covered by “common decency” . Speaking as a connoisseur, of course.

@Tommmcatt Floats:

“Midnight…not a stain on the bedsheets
Has my john lost the room key?
I am coming alone….”

@Tommmcatt Floats:

“And you’ll all say:
Oh! Well I never! Was there ever
A cat who was hung better than
magical Mr. Mistoffelees?”

@flippin eck:

Gah, me too. WHERE IS THAT WRITTEN IN THE BIBLE? Nowhere, that’s where.

Brief update: with Dick Cook gone, it’s anybody’s ballgame. Complete reorg in the works? Maybe…

Fuckers. They can have my job when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: Yup — CheapBoy tipped me off a few weeks back. Would have ran it, but I was distracted by town halls or something.

@nojo: Damn that Cheap Boy. Is it wrong that I dream about him in a special way?

@Tommmcatt Floats: Thinking of you. May the Mouse make all your dreams come true. Except maybe those special ones. See above re Cheap Boy (why does that moniker turn me on?)

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: And the church was translated into the bride of Christ somewhere along the line. These folks are kinky, too.

Here is the message that I have just received directly from the Holy Spirit :

URGENT – To HIM who has an ear

Prophetic Warning: Thursday, 17th of September 2009

Thus says the Spirit of the Lord:

GET READY

On Sunday, September 20th 2009, between 11:00 am – 6:00 Pm

(Time Zone: Quebec, Canada), the Beloved WILL ravished his Bride.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: Depends on whether it involves wallabies.

@Tommmcatt Floats: What was Dick Cook’s job? Why did the Mouse boot him?

@The Nabisco Quiver are Go!: @nojo: Much as I love my bunnehs, they’re on their own if Armegeddon goes down. No rapture pet insurance for me.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: Actually, I think the strongest evidence comes courtesy of Jeebus himself, at least according to Dr. Luke:

It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed….I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left. Luke 17:30, 34-5

@nojo: Wallabies! OMFG!!!!

@JNOV: Bride of Christ is Catholic, as I understand it. (Flip? Catt?) And as such would be anathema to the fundie bleef* system.

*’Bleef’: what happens to ‘Belief’ when it spends too long on the beach.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: As a former fundie, I can affirm that fundies use that term. A lot.

@flippin eck: I spent a long time researching this and it all came down to the Church in the air quote. I used to know the name of the Scots slag – Margaret? – but have thankfully forgotten.

@JNOV: Wow. Doesn’t ‘Bride of Christ’? = ‘Whore of Rome’?

@Dodgerblue:

He was the chairman of the studio, which means he ran Home Entertainment as well. They fired him because, well, basically, he’s been producing clunkers, with the odd occasional exception, for the last four or five years. Plus he was insular and nepotist (is that a word/) as hell.

If you had seen G Force or Bedtime Stories you wouldn’t be wondering why they fired him.

They got it from here:

Ephesians 5:25-27:

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”b 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

And here:

Revelation 21:1-2

21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

And who knows where else.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Oh, and I think we lovingly referred to the Catholic Church as The Whore of Babylon.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken:

A) According to most denominations, all christian churches are small-c catholic, meaning “universal”. Roman Catholics technically don’t believe that way, but for the most part the Catholic church, at least as I understand it, considers non-Catholics as “real” Christians and therefore recipients of God’s grace and salvation, even though we can’t participate in Catholic rites without first converting.

B) Referring to the church as the “Bride of Christ” is rooted in Roman Catholicism, but is pretty common in non-Catholic churches (at least among Methodists). It’s an illustration of the patriarchal relationship that Jesus-as-God has with the community of believers, both as the spiritual provider and as a giver of laws. As such it is pretty sexist, and most liberal churches (such as west coast Methodists), tend to downplay the reference, except when canonical church documents (such as the Methodist Book of Prayer) refer directly to the concept. Fundie churches love the concept because it reinforces their view of the world as a kind of “chain of being”- kinda like the Elizabethan belief but only as it regards humans, i.e. God is married to the Church and directs it, therefore the Church assumes headship over the believer, and the male believer exercises headship over his wife.

@JNOV:

I thought Mormons considered mainstream Christians as kind of spiritual retards (kind of like the way that some Christians – not me, incidentally, as an aside to Dodger and the rest of the members of the Tribe that frequent this site- consider Jews)? You know, saved and all that, but just barely.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: According to those of the magic undies, we’ll be deprived of our own planets or something, right?

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: Mormons call all non-Mormons “Gentiles.” Even the Jews.

Mormonism is similar to Catholicism in that you are saved through works and not just faith. And Mormons have three levels of heaven — only the truly righteous get to the Celestial Kingdom where they have perfect human bodies, rule their own planets (cuz they’re God and stuff), and in heaven, there is polygamy. The Practice (polygamy) is still taught as a heavenly gift.

The one cool thing about Mormonism, well, the only thing I like about it, is that it has a solution for people who never heard of Joseph Smith. That’s what all that baptism for the dead and endowments and rites for the dead are about. That’s what goes on in those huge temples, and that’s why TCOJCOLDS does all that genealogy. And that’s why they baptized Obama’s mother (and I believe his father). They are not supposed to baptize people willy nilly, but they do anyway. They baptized Holocaust victims, and when Jewish groups complained, TCOJCOLDS apologized, but they kept up the practice in secret. Hitler, Ted Bundy and all sorts of folks have been posthumously baptized as well. It will probably happen to each of us eventually, if the church doesn’t collapse first.

BUT in order to do all those rites and rituals, you MUST pay a 10% tithe on your gross earnings, even on welfare. If you don’t perform The Work, well, you get stuck in Flat Barbie Heaven with no genitals. But at least you’re not a Son of Perdition living in Outerdarkness with the apostates and those who rejected Jos. Smith, Jr’s reformed church.

Mormons think they’re practicing Christianity like the early church did, so, yeah, to answer your question, they call theirs The One True Church.

The FLDS thinks the LDS has apostasized by giving up polygamy and other things (like accepting black men as preisthood holders), and if you want to know what that religion was like during the days of Breedem Young and Smith, just look at the compounds in Texas and Arizona and Colorado and Mexico and Canada, although the polygamists may have left Mexico. I’m not sure.

ADD: And there are mainstream Mormons practicing polygamy, and it’s just an open secret. If you’re obnoxious about it, you will be excommunicated, but most Born in the Covenant Mormons who live in the Mormon Corridor (SE Idaho, Utah, parts of Colorado and Arizona) know polygamist families who go to regular LDS churches and aren’t part of a fundamentalist group.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: Oh, and I’ve never been a Mormon. I’ve been through almost every other denomination of church, though.

@JNOV: Rapture mythology does not come from Ephesians. It is all based on the ‘meeting his church in the air’ in Daniel. If you make me I will go find the references but my life will be happier without. I know all this becaue I spent a couple of years researching the Pilgrims of Plymouth who were forerunners of the fundietards.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Right. Catholic means ‘universal’. And the Catholic church was, at one time, universal. Then we got CNN. And ‘Bride of Christ’ is total Catholic language.

@JNOV: As I understand it, the Mormons are the only cult deonmination that allows for a soul earning its release from hell through repentance and – well – time served. It’s the only appealing thing about the bleeth: that we can yearn our way to heaven.

@flippin eck: Pretty much. I’m not clear on if you can get your own planet if you weren’t a practicing Mormon on Earth, but at least the ghost missionaries will give you a chance to accept or reject the teachings after you die. So, that’s nice. But you won’t get to have sex forever and ever amen on your planet. But you’d be popping out spirit babies to populate your own planet anyway, so you’d be pregnant or in labor for a long, long, time. Like, for eternity. But your sister wives would take up some of the slack.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: Well, they’re not really in hell (AKA Outerdarkness) yet. They’re in some sort of limbo waiting for their turn with the dudes in white shirts with black name tags. If you reject the church, well, then it’s Outerdarkenss for you, BUT you’re not necessarily in the fire and brimstone type of hell. They don’t really preach that.

It’s interesting…I was scared into thinking I’d burn in hell if I weren’t saved, but BiC Mormons are scared that they won’t have their own planets if they don’t do X, Y and Z. And trust me, they are scared, forced to conform, indoctrinated — they are the only folks I’ve met who have had an experience similar to mine (think “Jesus Camp”). The pressure on marrying and having kids young is *huge*, because Elohim’s spirit babies need Earthly bodies. That’s why their families are so large.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken:

It is total Catholic language, but you do hear it at small-p protestant churches all the time. Anyway, doesn’t “bride of christ” also = “nun” for Catholics?

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: I didn’t say that’s where rapture mythology comes from — that’s where they pulled the bride of Christ business from. You don’t need to pull out Daniel; I’ve read it plenty of times.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: Yes, that’s why they wear wedding bands.

@JNOV:

I did not know that!

Who buys them for them? Do they buy them themselves?

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: That’s a good question, because they do take vows of poverty, but they have stuff they need like cars for the convent and civilian clothes. Some of the nuns I knew joined up after their kids were grown and their spouses died. Interesting bunch.

And I’d like to add that I’m making sweeping generalizations about Mormons who live in the Morridor. Mormons who grow up as minorities tend to be more loosey-goosey with the doctrine. And the Book of Mormon has been changed over 100 times, the temple ceremony has changed many times, so a lot of the young ones have no clue that The Prophet (who speaks directly to God) once said that Cain (the father of black folks) is Bigfoot. No lie.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: They receive the rings from the convent when they take their final vows.

@flippin eck: Hey-Suess was talking about the coming of the kingdom, that is not, not, not, the rapture.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Catholics believe in something called “apostolic succession,” which holds that all priests and bishops and cardinals and such, to be valid, must be able to trace their consecration down directly to Peter. If a so-called clergyperson cannot trace his consecration down to a bishop who was consecrated by a bishop who was consecrated by a Bishop who was consecrated, and so on, by Peter himself, then the sacraments they administer are invalid. Catholics do not believe that adherents of any denomination other than catholicism are safe, acceptable to God. They play it quiet these days, but its still doctrine.

I believe that the Church itself, in catholic doctrine, is more than just the bride of christ, it is the body of christ, it is the living body, living on and existing, as the continuation of Christ himself. The community of catholic believers is the body of christ, in a poetic way, a nice sorta sentiment.

@Tommmcatt Floats: from my catholic upbringing, I do not remember the phrase “bride of christ” having any meaning except “nun.” As an apostate high church episcopalian, a church which is as nearly identical to catholicism as to reach absurdity, the church as an entity embodied in its members, is always referred to as “the body of christ.”

I am also a christtard, believing, that Christ lived, that he had a spiritual connection with the transcendant which made him closer to that transcendence, which I believe “true” in a completely symbolic way, which, symbolically, would make him the son of God, and that despite his crucifiction, he lived on in his believers and teachings in a way which could symbolically be described as having been “resurrected.” If you read the gospel stories of the resurrection carefully and closely, without any lingering baggage about what it is you are reading, if you read critically and closely, as you read when practicing literary criticism or law, you will find that most of the gospel stories attesting to the resurrection are very carefully worded, so as to actually leave room for doubt that they meant a literal, bodily resurrection, though that is the official intrepretation.

This here is the actual Catechism of the RC Church, explaining the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ:

II. THE CHURCH – BODY OF CHRIST

The Church is communion with Jesus

787 From the beginning, Jesus associated his disciples with his own life, revealed the mystery of the Kingdom to them, and gave them a share in his mission, joy, and sufferings.215 Jesus spoke of a still more intimate communion between him and those who would follow him: “Abide in me, and I in you. . . . I am the vine, you are the branches.”216 And he proclaimed a mysterious and real communion between his own body and ours: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”217

788 When his visible presence was taken from them, Jesus did not leave his disciples orphans. He promised to remain with them until the end of time; he sent them his Spirit.218 As a result communion with Jesus has become, in a way, more intense: “By communicating his Spirit, Christ mystically constitutes as his body those brothers of his who are called together from every nation.”219

789 The comparison of the Church with the body casts light on the intimate bond between Christ and his Church. Not only is she gathered around him; she is united in him, in his body. Three aspects of the Church as the Body of Christ are to be more specifically noted: the unity of all her members with each other as a result of their union with Christ; Christ as head of the Body; and the Church as bride of Christ.

See, now, as I read, in teh Bible (matthew, john/boyfriend) Jesus states that the reason for his mission is to mitigate the harshness of the Mosaic law with love: hence a New Testament. His words not mine. Which suddenly makes everything clear. The rabbis of the temple were compelled to go after him for blasphemy – which is the crime for which he was nailed in the end. The story of the woman taken in adultery is not about forgiveness: it’s about Jesus challenging the rabbis to claim that they are without sin which would be blasphemy. So they have to let her go. And before the sermon on the mount he tells his followers, listen to me; what I talk about is important, the rest of it – meh. He can’t openly challenge the faith so he does it that way. I had Bible class at school and never heard this. It was only when I read His words that I got it. And found it extremely moving and powerful.

@JNOV: You’re so right about the Undie Fundies. They screw up their gay children worse than any other cult. It’s heartbreaking how screwed up most gay Mormon men are. The only upside is that there are no gay Mormon women. Let’s all breathe a sigh of relief.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: The issue of how they treat their GBLTQ members is so upsetting to me, I don’t even know how to address it in writing. I wish I could; I know a lot about the serious mind fuck these people endure, but it’s hard for me to talk about because it upsets me so much. It’s like the violence I witnessed when I was in the military. I treated many men who were bashed and raped by other soldiers but did not report it. The Shellbacks (sailors who cross the Equator) also engage in all sorts of hazing, some of it sexual. I wrote about it some at Pam’s House Blend, but I still can’t really process it. It’s been twenty years and I still can’t get over the barbarism of people.

ADD: There are some YouTube videos about Evergreen, the Turn ’em Straight Mormon program. They experimented on students (mostly male, but I know of one female, so there are probably more). That watch porn and get your genitals zapped business. And remember, your salvation depends on you getting married and procreating. That’s one heavy burden on anyone, but if you’re GLBTQ, man, that’s some tough shit to deal with.

@JNOV: I can only talk about my own small corner of the world, you’ve seen more than I. But gay men who come from Mormon families are the most beaten up that I know. Because they can’t get free of their families and their families hate them because of their ‘church’. Get them when they’re young and they will never get free.

I’m not at all surprised to hear that about the military. Nor would I be surprised to hear it about Sport. You feel like posting a link to Pam’s Blend? I’d love to read what you wrote.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: There is a distinct personality evident in the Jesus quotes, the red letter words. He was prickly, had mommy issues (argued with her in front of the public more than once), and had some verbal tics, one of which was that he would often preface his remarks with what is translated as “here me now” or “I tell you this.”

The gospels, read critically, without baggage, with a mind intent only on trying to figure out what the writers meant, what their agenda was, is fascinating. The genuine acccounts that were passed down and made their way into the book, they stand out, often for small details which serve no purpose (the lawnmower on the mantle that is never used) often for statements and accounts which are contradictory.

The discipline of biblical interpretation has an established principle which I simply love, its called “the embarrassment principle,” which states that an account or story which contains statements which run counter to the other stories and statements which are pretty obviously later insertions, are very likely to be genuine accounts, because they would not have been put down, because of the “embarrassment,” if they were not strongly supported by eyewitness accounts.

Mainstream New Testament scholarship is pretty accepting of the notion that virgin birth accounts, and the resurrection accounts, are later additions, in which the writers were inserting theological ideas and prior biblical prophesies, and not describing the accounts of witnesses. Mark does not mention the resurrection.

The descriptions of the career of Jesus, though, his actual career as a preacher wandering around the Sea of Galilee, ring true. And they read kinda like “a hard days night,” Jesus was a popular phenomenon, and drew crowds that got out of control, such that, for example, he and his disciples had to take to boats and go out on the lake to escape the screaming crowds of fans, it is a description of ancient Beatlemania, accounts of people grabbing him in crowds, trying to rip off his clothes.

I am serious here, read it with a completely open mind, ignore the miracles, and look at the big picture. The feeding of the multitiude, was it a miracle? They never say that, they say a huge crowd gathered to hear him, overwhelming their logistical planning, and the people were hungry, so they took up a collection to gather food to feed everyone, and “miraculously,” there was enough food. Kinda like a woodstock story, of the hippies making PBJ sandwiches, isn’t it?

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: It’s hard to disagree with Jesus’ teachings. But the various Christian denominations, like most institutions, are more concerned about their own survival and growth than about the message that they are supposedly here to promote. E.g. the Woody Guthrie song about what would happen if Jesus came back today: “they would lay Jesus Christ in his grave.”

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: I am honored, Benedick Who Rightly Says Keep on Fucking that Chicken. You’ll recognize me in the comments.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: In contrast to your account of the mormon gays, I come from a larger family (not my mom and dad, who were lapsed) of strict catholics, and there are several of teh gays among them, and I never saw or heard any hating going on at all. I recall an incident, when I was young, and it probably only happened in front of me because they thought I was too young to understand what they were talking about, when my father and my uncle were discussing a cousin who was gay. And my father and my uncle, the catholic WWII vets, were talking in a way that was purely just trying to understand what it was about, what this being gay thing was. I distinctly recall being astonished that there was no moral blame or criticism of the person, instead, there was sympathy for the plight of someone who was gay in our society.

Now this may be simply an element of the particular catholic school that they went to, which I believe had a bunch of Franciscan friars as teachers, and Jesuits as administrators, but my father and my uncle, were both the most kind and least judgmental men I have ever known. I have related this story many times, and I know I have never managed to get across the depth of it, my father’s remarks, on seeing a vagrant, on seeing a television report of a murderer sentenced to a long term, was never an angry, self-righteous, moral condemnation, it was always a reference to “the poor souls,” “the lost soul.” Pity. Not moral condemnation. And I spoke enough with my father to know it is because his “takeaway” from catholic teaching was that all men are sinners, and some lose their way completely, and are to be pitied, but that noone is fit to judge another sinner.

When I gave my father’s eulogy, I pointed out that he was a poor man all his life, but he was also proud. And I said, “he taught us that noone was better than us,” and I paused and everyone got a little nervous, and I continued “and that we were not better than anyone else.” And the priest resumed breathing.

@Promnight: A lot of folks say there was no Jesus, that he’s a combination of Mithra and some other common beliefs at the times. That red text may have come fully formed from some dude’s brain, which is fine, but the argument over a historical Jesus is interesting to me.

@Benedick says Keep on Fucking that Chicken: I think that what I got from all that is that love of your fellow humans is not possible without deep humility. That there is a huge factor of chance and circumstance in the difference between the best of us and the worst of us. We all here know it is a fraud and a lie, the idea that the rich are rich because they are more virtuous or smarter or more hardworking. The opposite side of that coin is that the worst, the criminals and drug addicts and bums, likewise are not there entirely because of moral fault. Fate and circumstance, good fortune, hard luck, place people where they are. Humilty demands recognition of this, always, even if you don’t believe in god, its good to always be thinking, there but for the grace of god go I.

@JNOV: You should read John Dominic Crossan’s book about The Search for the Historical Jesus. Rigorous science, logic, amazing book.

The Romans beleived Augustus became a God after his death, noone doubts he lived.

Who would invent a God who was an illiterate peasant executed as a criminal? I mean, if you were free to make the whole thing up from whole cloth, why start with that as the basic premise?

Or the obvious political spinning at the beginning of the gospels, which attempt to explain Jesus’ obvious beginnings as a follower of John the Baptist, and try to lure the baptist’s followers into the cult with the stories of John’s blessing of Jesus? Thats a purely political story about an acolyte of one leader branching off to lead his own sect, and trying to spin it as a positive, and convince the Baptist followers to join up? And again, why all this complication, if they were making up fiction from the get go and were free to say anything?

@Promnight: There are so many parts of the Jesus story that aren’t original (and baptizing is just a form of a Jewish mikvah), and the Gospels were written soooo long after the death of Jesus, if he existed, that you gotta wonder how they got those quotes down 50, 6o years after he died. There are no contemporaneous writings about him, just like there’s no proof the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt or wandered the desert for 40 years. They have yet to turn up a shard of pottery for all that desert wandering, but I digress.

The Gospels’ Jesus stories contradict each other, and Paul (who never met Jesus, if Jesus lived), is the real reason that religion got off the ground eventually. And Paul also fucked up what could have been a great religion. But, meh. I don’t really have a dog in this fight. Maybe he lived; maybe he didn’t. I don’t really care. It’s just that when I was exposed to the idea that this person may not have lived, well, that was mind blowing to this fundie apostate.

And Q is probably rubbish and not the thread that ties the Gospels together.

@JNOV: Read that book, your objections, all of them, are not just noted by liberal biblical scholarship, they are validated. Crossan uses the latest scholarship in oral tradition transmission, textual study, and lots of other very sophisticated stuff, its a science, and they show clearly that it is discernable and provable what is an orally transmitted tradition, and what is an interpolation by later sources with a theological agenda. Crossan thinks the Josephus mention is obvious bullshit, for example.

Hey, the fact that Joseph Smith is an obvious fraud does not mean he did not exist.

@Promnight: As much as I love oral tradition, and I do, it’s pretty darned hard to remember verbatim what people said last week let alone a half-century prior. I don’t believe Jesus had a scribe. And the Joseph Smith comparison makes my point: he wrote a book, well, he wrote several pretty shitty books, ran for president, had a criminal record — there are contemporaneous accounts of his life and shenanigans. We know most of the names and ages and marital statuses of his wives (he often sent men off on missions and married their wives while they were gone) because Mormonism is a young religion, and we have records, a death mask, shit like that. We have tangible proof that coincides with the time he walked this Earth.

Jesus, not so much. But we have lots of tangible information of other folks who lived before and after him, if he existed. Stuff that was written while they were alive, not a gazillion years after they died. Seriously, Paul never even met him. He had a vision and fell off his horse. Sounds more like heat stroke, the DTs or some type of seizure or fit to me.

@JNOV: Paul never even met him. He had a vision and fell off his horse.

From the moment I learned that, it’s been my favorite part.

Second-favorite part is the biblical anarchy that lasted three centuries, upon which a committee decided the matter. Constantine’s town halls must have been wack.

Oh my God it’s the middle of the night! nojo, turn off the Sarah Brightman. Her recording of Music of the Night will still be there tomorrow. Unfortunately.

But what Jesus said was: they will come after me for blasphemy.

We must moderate the Mosaic law so John and me can get gay-married.

Don’t provoke the rabbis. They will go all shofar on your ass.

Don’t provoke the Romans. They just want to get back to base.

Dad? Hello? We good? Hello? Damn, these nails hurt!

i’m just back from spending waaay too much time in jerusalem.
whackjobs aplenty, but nothing compares to the rapture crowd. they were everywhere. they were really swarming when pope adolf paid a visit, guess they thought they might get lucky and get to go with his pontifness.

i wrote about this last august, how i met a bunch of ’em from spain at masada, and feigned ignorance and interest for a giggle. i remember we bid our farewells with me saying, “well! i certainly do hope you die soon!!” to which they responded with crazy eyes, “oh, thank you! thank you!”

and to sum up every comment on this thread:
POLITICS

@JNOV:

your interest in the historical jesus:

having just been subjected to spiritual group meetings, religious cable programming, much reading and living with israeli’s…here’s my take:

jesus did live. he was a decent dude who rebelled against the corruption of his day. he was a huge pain in the asses of the romans and the rabbi’s who were in cahoots for–surprise surprise–the money.
they both wanted him dead, not unlike MLK, JFK and RFK.

every posthumous word written? unreliable at best, evil at worst.

@Promnight:

“jesus spoke of a still more intimate communion between him and those who would follow him: “abide in me”

heh heh…the dude abides!

@baked: Its kinda comforting to know he’s out there, takin’er easy for us poor sinners.

@Prommie:

i watched the davinci code on the flight from israel to london.

a *uote i like:

“Camerlengo Patrick McKenna: . Do you believe in God, sir?
Robert Langdon: Father, I simply believe that religion…
Camerlengo Patrick McKenna: I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believe in God.
Robert Langdon: I’m an academic. My mind tells me I will never understand God.
Camerlengo Patrick McKenna: And your heart?
Robert Langdon: Tells me I’m not meant to. Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive”

me too.

@nojo: Yeah. They’ve got meds and a DSM code for that.