Fundamentalist Religions create a Pit of Suffering for the Rest of Us
Posted: September 15, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections, religious extremists | Tags: NOT our VALUES, Values Voters Summit 54 CommentsAt some point in time, man invented the club and GAWD. The two have been inseparable since then. Women, children and gay and “others’ have been the recipient of the combined force of blunt object and stupidity ever since.
All you have to do is spend a few minutes reading up on the “Values Voter” summit and watching the newscasts of protests at US and Western embassies around the world to realize it really is us against them. It’s those of us that live with two feet solidly in modernity, science, and reason and the people that just can’t seem to give up their extreme religious views. All of them are orgasmic over their pet version of some rabid end time scenario where they get proven right and every one else falls into a big old pit of suffering. They seem hell-bent–excuse the term–to end life as we know it. Frankly, I look at all of them and believe they have made a pit of suffering in this world, they wallow in it, and they intend to bring the rest of us into it.
We have to overcome.
This week the Popes of the Roman Catholic and the Coptic Orthodox Churches, Hillary Clinton, and other world leaders have been on TV trying to get people to calm down. That’s not what religious fundamentalists of all stripes actually want and it’s not going to stop until we separate religious expression that deserves protection from hate speech that provokes violence coming from people who use religion like Rush Limbaugh uses Oxycontin. It’s a display of mental illness and an addiction. Religion is the drug, the psychosis and the root of their angry, ignorant, deviant, and downright mean behavior. It makes me want to use the blinky-flashy thing on people and say there is no such thing as your GAWD to each and every one of them.
So, we’ve covered the embassy attacks this week. We know it’s a complete mess over there. Most of the folks over in the MENA region can’t even get a job, food on the table, and any kind of education. What’s the excuse of the Values Voters and folks like Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum?
Paul Ryan supposedly has an education and classes in economics. You really wouldn’t know it from this: “Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan called the Federal Reserve’s latest effort to stimulate the economy “insidious” during a speech to Floridians on Saturday.” Let me just say this. Paul Ryan is insidious, insipid, immoral, and inspiring to only the craziest and most stupid of the crazy and stupid. He wants the rest of us to suffer for his ideology and political ambition. Here’s his speech to the Summit of those who Value Hate and Ignorance. These are the folks that should be airlifted to Tahrir Square to explain things to their Muslim stupid and crazy counterparts. These are the people that piss off Muslim fundamentalists. It’s not the rest of us. These are the people–and the man–who want to take away rights from living breathing women and give them to possibly viable fertilized eggs and even unfertilized eggs. These are the people that deny the humanity of our GLBT brothers and sisters. These are the people that say women ask for rape, call rape just another form of conception, and consider children victimized by incest to be less important than the fathering rights (e.g. property rights) of their attackers.
… nothing undermines the essential and honorable work of government more than the abuse of government power.
In the President’s telling, government is a big, benevolent presence – gently guiding our steps at every turn. In reality, when government enters the picture, private institutions are so often brushed aside with suspicion or even contempt.
This is what happened to the Catholic Church and Catholic Charities this past January, when the new mandates of Obamacare started coming. Never mind your own conscience, they were basically told, from now on you’re going to do things the government’s way.
Ladies and gentlemen, you would be hard pressed to find another group in America that does more to serve the health of women and their babies than the Catholic Church and Catholic Charities. And now, suddenly, we have Obamacare bureaucrats presuming to dictate how they will do it.
As Governor Romney has said, this mandate is not a threat and insult to one religious group – it is a threat and insult to every religious group. He and I are honored to stand with you – people of faith and concerned citizens – in defense of religious liberty.
Yes, nothing says liberty like forced pregnancy, forced & unnecessary vaginal probes, forced compliance with other people’s superstitions about birth control, forced propaganda sessions filled with lies about abortion, and forced death from laws enacted using other people’s religious tripe. Nothing says liberty like withholding civil rights from people; like civil marriages. Nothing says liberty like defining porn for every one else and defining the modicum of dress that is dowdy enough to hold back grown men from raping women and children.
The Values Voters Summit, presented by the Family Research Council, has been bashing President Obama, birth control and homosexuals all week, but here is something they are for: women dressing modestly.
ThinkProgress.org reports that an organization called Modesty Matters, which has a table at the Values Voters Summit in D.C., is passing out flyers admonishing women to cover up, especially in church.
Some of the advice for the ladies includes: “Since men are particularly visual, immodesty in church can trigger lustful thoughts” and “All women, whether married of single, are to model femininity in their various relationships, by exhibiting a distinctive modesty, responsiveness, and gentleness of spirit.”
Another piece of literature says “My men’s bible study group talks frequently about controlling our lust, thoughts, and eyes. Yes the problem and responsibility are ours, but is it really reasonable for the women of the church to make it this difficult for us?”
Modesty Matters was founded by a retired pharmacist from Roanoke, Virginia named J.H. Woolwine.
GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan was one of the speakers at the Values Voters Summit this year, as was Rep. Michele Bachmann and actor Kirk Cameron.
Exactly what is the christian version of a burkha?
When do we begin to run sex segregated buses in our urban areas so as not to offend orthodox jewish men that also appear unable to control their rapacious tendencies? Notice that the majority of Israelis don’t agree or want this particular little extremist service either. But, we have to surrender in the war on christmas and they have to acknowledge the prurient urges of guys stuck in the dark ages in the name of ‘religion’. Denying other people rights in the name of religion is not the same as protecting first amendment expression of religion. It simply cannot be. Otherwise, I could yell Jayzeus says there’s “Fire” in this auditorium and laws wouldn’t apply to me. It’s not like Simon sez. Jayzeus said is not a get out of crime free card. Neither is Muhammed said or the Torah said or the Tree over there that tells me to paint myself blue and run amok.
A group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish millionaires is considering funding a private bus line in Israel that would enforce strict segregation between male and female passengers, an Israeli newspaper has reported.
The initiative follows public outrage at an incident where a secular Israeli woman refused to take a seat at the back of a public bus travelling to an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood in Jerusalem at the request of a religious male passenger.
The backers of the proposed project are looking at providing bus transportation in Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, Ashdod and Beit Shemesh as an alternative to Israel’s Egged bus service, which insists that any gender segregation on its buses must be voluntary, Israel’s daily Yediot Aharonot reported yesterday.
“The Haredi public doesn’t own the entire state,” Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger was quoted as saying. “I support segregation, but only when it is done willingly. On private lines in which all the passengers are eager for separation, and the dignity of women is maintained, then that is a welcome initiative.”
Israel’s Transport Ministry has yet to respond to the request, and it remains unclear if the initiative will be approved, as Israel’s laws against discrimination demand that any provider of a public service must treat everybody equally, irrespective of gender, religion or ethnicity.
When does the religious bigotry and violent actions of these folks cease being a constitutional expression of religion? At one point, Southerners were arguing that slavery was just a constitutionally protected expression of their christianity. They said the same thing about not giving women the right to vote and repealing laws that made married women the property of their husband. They said the same thing about legalizing racially mixed marriages. Mormons argued the same thing whey the refused to give up polygamy. When do the rest of us get to rid ourselves of these backward, barbaric views that hide behind iron age religious practices? When can we take them all, give them iron age weapons, and drop the lot of them in some desert to find the end times on our terms instead of theirs?
Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum attacked the media and “smart people” for not being on the side of conservatives in a speech to the Values Voter Summit on Saturday.
“We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country,” Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, told the audience at the Omni Shoreham hotel. “We will never have the elite, smart people on our side.”
So true Rick. Economists that don’t want to be guilty of malpractice will not be on the side of Romney or Ryan. Doctors that don’t want to be guilty of malpractice will not be on your side either. Neither will scientists who know that a creation myth is just a creation myth. This brings me to another fantastic story about how dumb people can be when under the influence of fundamentalist religions. “Creationists Boycott Dr. Pepper over “Evolution of Flavor” Facebook Ad”
Several commenters, however, expressed disapproval of Dr. Pepper — believing, apparently, that the ad showed support for the scientific theory of evolution — and vowing to boycott the product. “I ain’t no freaking chimp. No more Dr Pepper for my household. God Bless y’all,” one user wrote. Another chimed in with, “I have lost all respect for Dr Pepper and if Dr Pepper wants business from thousands of people they will need to apologize.”
As the debate roiled on, pro-evolution commenters expressed their support of the company, vowing to stand by Dr Pepper no matter what. One person, for example, promised he’d continue drinking the soda even “if they announced they pissed in the formula.”
No matter what you believe regarding evolution, creationism, Christianity, Dr. Pepper, unicorns, cyborgs, narwhals or anything else, the campaign was a huge if inadvertent win for the soft drink company. As one Facebook commenter points out, “DR Pepper scored with this one. It’s all over the internet now. The Creationists just made this ad famous. Sweet, sweet irony.”
Yes. Evolution means that people “evolved from chimps”. A fertilized egg always implants and becomes a normal human baby. Women don’t become pregnant in real rapes because of hormones their killer vaginas emit. I guess once you literally believe in Adam and Eve and a Garden of Eden–no matter what the flavor of Abrahamic religion you bought–your mind is susceptible to any old story. Maybe that’s why Romney and Ryan think they can get away with so much lying. Values voters are gullible ignoramuses.
Here’s Bachmann’s brand of crazy.
“This was an intentional act that was done by radical Islamists who seek to impose their set of beliefs on the rest of the world and we will not stand for it,” Bachmann continued. “No one here is suggesting that all Muslims are radical but we should not be ignorant of the objective reality that there’s a very radical wing of Islam that’s dedicated to the destruction of America, of Israel, and Israel’s allies, and what we’re watching developing before our eyes today are the direct consequences of this administration’s policy of apology and appeasement across the globe.”
“I’m no master war strategist,” she said, but “appeasement doesn’t work.”
Bachmann also accused Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pushing “enforced Islamic speech codes” in U.S. counterterrorism training materials, and sounded alarms about Egypt’s ruling party, the Muslim Brotherhood, before urging the president to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to stand in solidarity with Israel.
Bachmann, of course, feels its just hunky dory to force her brand of what-ever-it is on us through laws and coercion. I noticed she didn’t rail on about GLBTs this time. Perhaps Marcus sashayed away with that page of her speech.
So, Bachmann isn’t aware she’s the American equivalent of bat shit crazy fundamentalist. Here’s some of the company she keeps.
Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow called out Paul Ryan for speaking at the Values Voter Summit and lending credibility to the bigotry and pure crazy on display at the conference. Her report provided crucial context on the extremists who are appearing at the conference – something that has been sorely lacking in most media coverage so far.
Maddow paid particular attention to three anti-Muslim activists that we regularly cover – Jerry Boykin, Kamal Saleem and Frank Gaffney. As I said yesterday, the Values Voter Summit is making a mockery of diplomacy and the threat of terrorism by featuring Saleem, who has made a career for himself as a fake former terrorist, and Boykin and Gaffney, who are leading forces behind the Huma Abedin smear and helped spark anti-American protests in Egypt.
It’s time we start treating some of this as something other than ‘religion’. Here’s some up-and-comers and their agenda of hate from Salon. I’ve just put number one here.
Mat Staver is the fiercely anti-gay chairman of the Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University Law School, which are both connected to the late Jerry Falwell. Staver has accused the Obama administration of running an “affirmative action” program to get Muslims into top national security positions, thus helping the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrate the top levels of the U.S. government. He’s also argued that the Obama administration has been pushing “in-your-face forced abortion funding, in-your-face forced homosexuality,” and that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which protects gays and lesbians in the workplace, “will put individuals at risk and ultimately result in significant damage and even death of some individuals.”
You just have to wonder what rock these people crawled out from and how human evolution left them so far behind.
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Right-Wing Catch Phrases Translated
http://samuel-warde.com/2012/07/right-wing-catch-phrases-translated/
Some of those were funny…
Why is the Arab world so easily offended?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-the-arab-world-why-a-movie-trailer-can-lead-to-violencewhy-cant-the-arab-world-accept-offenses-without-violence/2012/09/14/d2b65d2e-fdc8-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_story.html
I would just like to say the same damned small percentage of arab world whackso responde just like these folks did:
Christian Groups Protest New Film Saying Jesus Was Born From Rape
http://loop21.com/entertainment/christian-groups-protest-new-film-saying-jesus-was-born-rape
Christian groups protest Life of Brian
Christian groups protest Jesus Christ Superstar (10 year after release)
http://loop21.com/entertainment/christian-groups-protest-new-film-saying-jesus-was-born-rape
Christian groups protest Last temptation of Christ
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/theater/lasttemptation.html
Gee …
I guess arson and violence only count when Muslims do it.
Wait till the new movie by Paul Verhoeven comes out. In it Jesus is the child of a Roman soldier who raped Mary. I just read something about it, but I can’t find the link now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/jesus-of-nazareth-film-angers-christian_n_1630980.html
First Robocop, now Jesus…. I’m ashamed to say I really liked Robocop though.
This is a brilliant post, Dak. One of your best ever!
Apparently even Paul Ryan isn’t “conservative” enough for the “values voters.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/after-values-voters-speech-conservatives-like-but
I know … I heard he got some boos … how crazy do you have to be?
I agree, bb, and I’m only part way through it. I have to go and tend to my soup. I’m coming down with a cold and made some chicken soup to ward off the evil spirits. 😉
One thing of which I am constantly reminded is that the religiosos get off on other people’s suffering. They effin’ love it.
Awesome post, dak. I’ll be back.
Thanks for this post! Frankly I’ve had more than enough of these god botherers.
Funny balloon-juice post and the cartoon is just hilarious!!!!!
Avoiding the Danger Zone
Ann Romney to attend fundraiser at George W. Bush’s house http://huff.to/RRj5MX
Too much to comment on. So much hate in the world.
As mentioned in the previous thread, I’ve had it. Why don’t these people create their own republic of hell, somewhere far away from the rest of the sane folks. Can’t we just give them an island somewhere?
Because life just isn’t worth living for them if they can’t force their ignorance on the rest of us.
That is what I don’t understand. I know it’s true, but why? It’s an enigma to me. I don’t like them, they don’t like me and people like me. One would think they would vacate the premises and set up their own little fiefdom away from people like me, but oh, no, they want to force people like me to bow to their ways. Not going to happen. It’s not property they want, it’s people in enforced servitude to their way of life. It’s bizarre.
I know. It’s like if any of us disagree with them they are threatened beyond belief … LITERALLY. I think they are so insecure in their beliefs they feel like any outside influence will bring down the house of cards. They have to stomp it out so it has no chance of getting them to change their mind.
The reason these people call themselves “Evangelicals,” is because they believe it’s their duty to evangelize, i.e. convert, everyone on the planet.
The rule in Buddhism is that some one has to ask you three times before you explain anything to them. One of the biggest sins is to “take some one off their spiritual path” no matter what it is. You’re basically taught that they’re probably not ready for it if they don’t ask or show some sign of wanting it … what a difference … plus disrespecting women is one of the big sins in vajrayana too because women are considered to be wisdom beings. BIG difference from the abrahamic traditions.
It’s strange to think that these people are made by other people. Not just literally, but someone has taken a child who plays with other children, has no concept of religion, race, colour, sexual orientation, and has taught them that some people have less right to exist on this little rock in the middle of nowhere than they do.
Yup. “It has to be carefully taught,” as the South Pacific song says.
BB good point, but as my mother pointed out practically every day of my life before she died, ignorance is no excuse. Per Santorum’s latest, they don’t want to learn, they want to remain ignorant even when they’ve been given the gift of higher education. Why would any sane person want to follow their lead. It truly is bizarre.
P.S. I played “You’ve got to be taught” to my children when they were old enough to understand that there were issues at schools they attended. Good choice.
HT, you answered your own question. They’re not sane people.
I sat in school as a teenager (long ago) and listened to people saying that african-americans were meant to be slaves by god and it said so in the bible!!! I thought we had gotten past all those stupids and now they are coming back!!
Thanks BB, don’t know South Pacific, well, I’ve heard of it, but that’s about it.
It’s an oldie, but goodie.
Dak,
That’s exactly what the article I sent you was saying. They sense they are being left behind by the modern world and feel unconsciously humiliated by that. It goes right along with Santorum accidentally saying they can’t impress “smart people.”
It still is beyond belief to me that something like that can be written about third world people,and yet, we can’t seem to see that there’s a states that are full of people like that in this country. I’m fricking surrounded by them. AND they actively work to make sure public education doesn’t work even as they rail against it …
PoliticalWire: Hidden Video Shows Romney at a Fundraiser
Ralph, that video was amazing! I wish I knew who to sent that to. This needs to go mainstream. I have been working and have not been able to read everything but Dak this post is GREAT! You guys are incredible.
There’s a whole post on this up above.
Great post, kat. Apparently religious freedom trumps personal freedom, unless you are the male of the species, have your own religion and are heterosexual. Daddy makes the rules, now go sit down & shut up. Daddy will tell you what to think, say & do. Guess not enough of us are listening to Daddy so he has to yell from the rooftops, 24/7.
Now connie, you know Father Knows best but only if he’s a white hetero male. Funny thing about all those early 60’s shows, the kids all went on to have serious problems with one some sort of substance abuse – guess that’s their penalty for not listening to Father. Geebus, I am so sick of this insanity/inanity.
And of course the dad in the Brady Bunch was gay.
I going to go watch my favorite Daddy, The Cat Daddy – Jackson Galaxy. He’s good for my brain, my soul & my inner cat.
Romney’s message to the “values voters.” He thanks Tony Perkins for his “leadership.”
Every time I hear “Tony Perkins” I automatically think of Anthony Perkins – gay & the star of Psycho. Hmmmmmmm.
Except Anthony Perkins had talent and was a gentle soul – Tony Perkins has hate and bombast. I’d rather invest in Anthony Perkins (even though I still shudder at that shower scene in the Bates motel)
I did a similar post today covering this insanity. Needless to say they are all nuts!
http://thewiddershins2.wordpress.com/
Off to read it!!!!
I will catch up tomorrow Pat, have to go back to work. Love your post.
The Five Most Outrageous Claims At The Values Voter Summit
http://www.nationalmemo.com/the-5-most-outrageous-claims-at-the-values-voter-summit/
Jim Demint says that teachers striking in chicago= Thugs in Middle East
Good grief, they (fundamentalists and their political puppets) have lost all pretensions to intelligent dialogue – in other words they are nuts.
Planned Parenthood Created To Kill Unborn Minorities
and another to support my theory. Someone should really write a thesis on this insanity.
Without comment, but worth the time to watch.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvArIxHpLOs
Gary Bauer, the Peter Lorrie of white bigots.
OMG, that’s hysterical!!
BB, did you read the comments? They are just as good.
A friend of mine (a Muslim) said once something that I (an atheist) and another friend (Eastern Orthodox Christian) could all wholeheartedly agree with: “after you die, God will judge you. Until then, you can live your life as you see fit.”
Classic post Dak, thank you.