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Unholy Harangue
Summit Speakers Hit New Heights Of Extremism

Several of the speakers at the Religious Right’s recent “Values Voter Summit” expressed extreme views. Here’s a sampling:

Sometimes the Bible gets it right:

“The instruments and methods of the fraudulent and greedy [for gain] are evil; he devises wicked devices to ruin the poor and the lowly with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is just and right.
But the noble, openhearted, and liberal man devises noble things; and he stands for what is noble, openhearted, and generous.” --Isaiah 32:7-8 (AMP)

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Magic Mormon Underwear via YouTube

"Who needs Kevlar when you're putting on the literal armor of God"

141 Things Jehovah's Witnesses Can't Do

LINK

Accurate for the most part.

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..........Porn and Pastors

"According to a Christianity Today survey, nearly 40 percent of Christian pastors are struggling with pornography. They seem especially vulnerable, due to their time alone, their legitimate use of computers and their fear of getting help because of the public nature of their jobs.

It is "one of the fastest growing problems in the lives of North American pastors today," according to pastorswives.org. "It has become such a common problem, that groups have formed which only exist to help ministers out of the entangled lives they find themselves living."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has created a system for helping people overcome it.

Five years ago, the LDS Church tapped Mormon therapist Michael Gardner to head its 12-step pornography addiction program. He says the addiction afflicts 3 to 5 percent of Latter-day Saints (about the same rate as the rest of the country).

from HuffPo

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Some interesting stuff on this website: ReligionWTF?

Darrel wrote:

This started going around on facebook a couple weeks ago or so. I watched several Christian users express outrage and proceed to vow to take a long (1 week or more) sabbatical from facebook to prevent seeing this and other similar pictures.

None of them kept that vow.

But then, they don't really mind that stuff. After all, they never complain when the "vile" and "disgusting" (to use their words) posts are pro-Christianity.

Darrel wrote:

Forget the bread and the cup-- this is communion.

Well, if there is anyone that needs to be saved by the blood of Christ, it's that guy right?

Excellent article here:

"The Christian Cop-out"

The Christian Left

Skeptic Money

Texas approves controversial license plate featuring crosses



LA Times

Or does kiddie diddling get its own thread?

Man Accused Of Sexual Assault

By Tracy Neal | Posted: December 13, 2011 at 5:53 a.m.

"BENTONVILLE — A former youth minister pleaded not guilty Monday to engaging in sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl.

"Tyrone Atwater, 41, of Rogers is charged in connection with sexual assault in the first degree, a Class A felony punishable with a prison sentence ranging from six to 30 years. He entered the plea at an arraignment before Circuit Judge Jon Comstock.

"Atwater was arrested Nov. 1.

"Atwater was the youth minister at Open Door Baptist Church in Rogers, according to court documents.

"Rogers police received a tip from the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children hot line involving allegations concerning Atwater and a teenage girl, according to a probable cause affidavit.

"Police interviewed the girl, and she denied involvement with Atwater, according to court documents.

"The girl’s mother asked police why they interviewed her daughter at school. When told, the mother said that was the second rumor she’d heard concerning the allegations, according to the affidavit.

"The girl and her mother later returned to the Rogers Police Department, where the girl said the allegations were true, according to court documents.

"The probable cause affidavit states the mother found text messages on the girl’s cellphone that confirmed the allegations.

"Three incidents occurred according to the affidavit — at Atwater’s home, at the girl’s home and at a church lock-in.

"An omnibus hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Jan. 24.

"Atwater was released from the Benton County Jail after posting a $20,000 bond."

Here's the link-- not that it will be of use for long:
http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2011/dec/ ... kansas-nwa

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How We All Pay For the Huge Tax Privileges Granted to Religion -- It's Time to Tax the Church

By some estimates, the property tax exemption alone removes $100 billion in property from U.S. tax rolls, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Alternet story here

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My latest snail mail from Free Inquiry included this insert from Richard Dawkins. It's worth reading.

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Dear Friend,

If you live in America, the chances are good that your next door neighbours believe the following: the Inventor of the laws of physics and the Programmer of the DNA code decided to enter the uterus of a Jewish virgin, got himself born, then deliberately had himself tortured and executed because he couldn’t think of a better way to forgive the theft of an apple, committed at the instigation of a talking snake. As Creator of the majestically expanding universe, he not only understands relativistic gravity and quantum mechanics but actually designed them. Yet what he really cares about is “sin”, abortion, how often you go to church, and whether gay people should marry. Statistically, the chances are that your neighbours believe all that – and they can vote.

In other parts of the world, there is a good chance that your neighbours believe you should be beheaded if you draw a cartoon of a desert warlord who copulated with a child and flew into the sky on a winged horse. In other places, there’s a good chance that your neighbors think their wishes will be granted if they pray to a human figure with an elephant’s trunk.

Even if your neighbours don’t hold any of those mutually contradictory beliefs, they probably take it for granted that we should unquestioningly respect those who do. And a huge majority of American and British newspapers and periodicals go along with this abject kow-towing to what their educated editorial staff must know, in their heart of hearts, is nonsense.

In all this darkness we discern occasional pinpoints of light, beacons of evidence-based intelligence. There are just a few publications that serve as light-houses in a dark, foggy ocean, and of these my favourite in all the English-speaking free world is Free Inquiry. In keeping with my pessimistic opening, its circulation is not large, but it is growing. Free Inquiry’s list of regular columnists is as star-studded as any in America. Free Inquiry is committed to piercing the darkness, rolling back the fog, and restoring the Enlightenment values that inspired the founders of this great Republic.

I think it is clear that we are gaining ground, and I believe our pace is accelerating. Free Inquiry is in the vanguard of this exhilarating adventure in critical thinking. Please subscribe to, and join me in celebrating, a magazine that believes all ideas are open to rational debate and critical examination, a magazine that is not afraid to speak out in language that flashes as clear as a light-house on a dark night.

Richard Dawkins
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Interesting Bible problem:

Genesis 6:4 (KJV)
4There were giants {Hebrew nĕphiyl} in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

Numbers 13:33 (KJV)
And there we saw the giants { Hebrew nĕphiyl}, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants {Hebrew nĕphiyl}: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

Question: How could the giants/nĕphiyl have existed "after that" (the preflood days of Noah) since, according to the Bible (even the KJV) all life except the inhabitants of the ark was destroyed by the Great Flood?

--John K.

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Question: How could the giants/nĕphiyl have existed "after that" (the preflood days of Noah)

Numbers was late getting to the publishers?

David Franks found this gem of a fundie argument for a young earth:



LINK

Darrel wrote:David Franks found this gem of a fundie argument for a young earth:



LINK

I has assumed this was the work of a poe but it is so hard to tell....