Pastor Tom Estes’ HARD TRUTH

Y’all remember Pastor Tom, right? Weird cranky Christian who got himself banned some time ago, ran a blog that he called “Hard Truth” in which he recited conservative dogma and called himself brave for doing it? He’s back. He’s started up his blog again, and guess what? I partly inspired him!

I wondered over to Pharyngula, where our old pal PZ Myers writes. I looked at a couple things, who he was picking on now, if my name was still in his “dungeon”(it is), and what his traffic was llike. (He has a “sitemeter” link at the bottom of his page) And I was shocked at what I found.

Yes, you are seeing this correct. Pharyngula’s traffic is way, way down. I must point out that I have absolutely no idea what has caused this. But none the less, it was very motivating to see the great Pharyngula down by around eighty-four percent.

This encouraged me because it showed me that changes in this world, however small, however insignificant (which, let us be very clear, the fact that PZ’s traffic is plummeting is very insignificant) can happen, and that Christians have to remain on offense. This is why I’m back doing this. This is why I hope that I can be the best pastor, husband, soul-winner, father, etc. that I can be. Because I know it makes a difference because I know God is still on the throne. Please don’t misunderstand me, seeing a meaningless atheist blog down in traffic is not why I’ve come back to blogging, it was just something that encouraged me along the way to making this decision.

It’s true. You know, that move we made last August? The traffic at Scienceblogs is way, way down, because I’ve moved most of my efforts here, to Freethoughtblogs. The site at Sb only gets partial content, everybody knows it, and so almost everyone comes here now, where traffic is way way up. He has absolutely no way of knowing what has caused this, except maybe for the big bold banner at the top of every page that says:

More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!

You know, the banner with three links to the new network so that no one would miss it. Except Pastor Tom.

Poor Pastor Tom, I have some HARD TRUTH for you: you’re dumb as a bag of slugs.

Before crying triumph at the decline of the heathen, he ought to take a look at Freethoughtblogs. We’re his worst nightmare.

Ken Hates Fags

I’m sure you’ve all been wondering what the views of professional ignoramus Ken Ham are on gay marriage…well, at least those of you who haven’t read the Answers in Genesis articles on homosexuality before. No surprise, Ken Ham is on the side of the haters.

…when Pastor Rick Warren interviewed Obama in 2008 before the election, he said that marriage was between a man and a woman. As he declared this, he said he was a Christian and that “God’s in the mix.” Now I do not know what he meant by that statement, but I’m assuming he’s implying that God has something to say about marriage. And God does have something to say about marriage—He says marriage is between a male and a female and that homosexual behavior is an abomination, and thus “gay” marriage is as well!

Then follows prolonged slavish masturbation over various quotes from Leviticus, Romans, Corinthians, etc., the usual suspects. One mild surprise is this:

A couple of points must be made. First, the Bible explicitly calls homosexuality an abomination (Leviticus 20:13) and places it in a list of other vices (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). It is wrong for any Christian to condone homosexuality, since God’s Word clearly speaks against it. However, it is also wrong to single out homosexuality and shrug off the other sins listed in these passages.

So Ken Ham abides by all the old Jewish dietary laws? Does he kill gays? His bible is pretty clear on that; they’re supposed to be put to death, but they’re walking around, and some probably even visit his “museum”. Does he refuse to get tangled up in lawsuits with other Christians, for instance? Has he offered a sacrifice of a male without blemish from the cattle, from the sheep, or from the goats? Has he put to death anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord?

There are a lot of very specific orders in there. I think Ken Ham has been shrugging off quite a few Biblical sins. That last one, for instance—he should have had his guards gun me down the instant I walked into his little temple to lies in Kentucky.

At least Bill Donohue has been poked savagely

The divorced Bill Donohue is in full-blown apoplexy over Obama’s tepid support for gay marriage.

I want the law to discriminate against straight people who live together — I used to call it shacking up, now it’s called cohabitation — I want the law to discriminate against all alternative lifestyles, against gays and unions.

Donohue’s argument against gay marriage is that it would open the door to all kinds of abominations…like brother and sister marriages, for which he cites a case in the courts. He asks the other guest on the show if he approves of that.

You know, if I were asked that question, I’d say…yeah, it ought not to be against the law. My personal squeamishness about how two people relate to one another ought not to be legally enforced; I’m sure there are people who consider what my partner and I do in the bedroom to be utterly disgusting, and I don’t think anyone should have to defend their private, consensual preferences to a team of strangers. I think prospective sibling marriages ought to be confronted with extensive genetic counseling, at the very least, and I might be willing to consider limiting the reproductive rights of such a relationship (because it would bring a third person into it, who does not deserve the potential genetic afflictions that can result from inbreeding) as reasonable, but otherwise…it’s not my place to police what other people do.

That answer would probably turn Donohue purple.

I have a song for you, Bill. Perhaps it will soothe your furrowed brow and bring your blood pressure down a few points.

Kentucky must be a real dump

Kentucky just launched a tourism campaign to tout the wonderful landmarks in their state — and Governor Beshear includes Ken Ham’s creationist “museum” as one of them. He has just slapped the whole state with a gross insult.

Really, Governor Beshear? You’re so desperate for tourist attractions that you pad your list with a shameful institution dedicated to lies and miseducation? They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel; next on the list is a garbage dump, or a sewage treatment plant, or a polluted lake.

Of course Ken Ham is laughing happily. Not only did he get the state seal of approval on his madhouse, but the state has committed $2 million to road work to improve access, with $9 million more on the way.

Man, the University of Kentucky must be rolling in cash if the state has so much to spare that they can waste it on roadbuilding to an attraction that doesn’t exist.

Showboating in a hijab

There is a trial going on right now of 5 men who plotted the 9/11 attacks (now? What happened to the idea of a speedy trial?) The lawyer for Walid bin Attash has done something I have mixed feelings about. She’s wearing a hijab.

Attorney Cheryl Bormann, 52, who is from Chicago and is not Muslim, said she wore the modest garment that revealed only her face to show respect for the religious sensitivities of her client, Yemeni terror suspect Walid bin Attash.

These men must get fair representation in the court, and she’s going beyond the call of duty to work with her client…although letting them dictate how the lawyer dresses goes too far. If she were defending a sexist asshole like Tucker Max, would she let him make her do her appearances in a bikini? She’s there as a professional, not as a slave to the suspects.

But alright, let that one slide…let’s assume she’s doing what needs to be done to represent a slimebag. This, though, is not forgivable.

Bormann asked the court to order the other women present at the hearing to dress more modestly so as not to distract the defendants, who would be "committing a sin under their faith" by looking at them.

What an astonishing demand. According to the article, the chief prosecutor “deemed the request not worthy of a response.” Seems about right.

But now I’m wondering…Bormann has to know that this kind of behavior and request in the environment of that courtroom has to be highly prejudicial. Is she trying to subtly sabotage Walid bin Attash’s case? Because I don’t know much about him, and I’ve already decided that he’s an arrogant, contemptible jerk.

What the hell is this?

I’ve seen woo on HuffPo before, but @EllenGraceJones takes the cake. Guess what? Darwin was wrong, and we need to update our model of evolution, she says. That’s a remarkable claim; you might be wondering who this person is who sees so far beyond what mere scientists have found.

She’s a fashion editor.

An interesting experiment and indeed correct in that we are still evolving, however to attribute it to the Victorian, matter-based, Darwinian model of evolution is backward-thinking and flawed given the recent leaps and bounds in metaphysical sciences and physical historical evidence disproving linear evolution. The ideology we randomly mutated from ocean slime to our knuckle-dragging neanderthal long-long lost cousins to our current incarnation is one that’s been dogmatically accepted into mainstream evolutionary hegemony without challenge until recent years.

“Linear evolution”? “Metaphysical sciences”? WTF? So she makes up a bizarre caricature of evolution and claims it’s been disproven (true; I don’t know anyone who believes that BS), and then credits metaphysics with providing evidence against it? Weird, but a typical egotistical creationist.

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering how long it will take her to bring up Hitler. The answer is 5; it’s in the fifth paragraph.

“If you take Darwinian theory, make a ‘scientific’ principal out of it, put it into political action, then you have something like Nazi Germany” states the pioneering Dr Bruce Lipton, author of Spontaneous Evolution. Lipton believes it’s ‘cooperation not competition’ which are the hallmarks of most natural orders.

Who the hell is Bruce Lipton? A totally fruitloops goonybat: you can get a good overdose here, in an hour and a half on Coast to Coast, the radio show where reason goes to die. He believes that epigenetics is magic that will bring about a new age, and that it supplants the old paradigm of mere genes. Here’s a shorter summary; it’s all quantum, unsurprisingly.

But back to Ellen Grace Jones. If you read her piece, I should warn you that every link tosses you into a rabbit hole of pure lunacy, so forgive the brief detour.

The latest science suggests we are intelligently designed – not by some sentient humanistic being from on high – moreover a higher, energetic, source intelligence. Einstein’s Unified Field theory equation was completed in 2007. The breakthrough proves everything: matter (which derives from energy, which is what we’re made from) all natural laws and processes link to one underlying, unifying consciousness – aka, God, Source, Allah, Yaweh – pick your favourite.

I’m sure physicists will all be pleased and a little bit surprised to learn that we’ve had a unified field theory for the past 5 years. I’m sorry to disappoint you all, but it was discoverd by John Hagelin, “leading particle and quantum physicist” — yep, it’s another rabbit hole. Hagelin’s obsession is transcendental meditation. This “unifying consciousness” nonsense ain’t physics or math…it’s religion. Skip it.

There is no wooish bullshit that Ellen Grace Jones won’t mistake for creme brulee. Marrying Mayan numerology to Aquarian utopianism? You betcha.

One explicit way in which mankind is evolving for sure is in terms of our consciousness. From the Arab Spring, to #Occupy, to other measured dissent, there is a huge global shift and awakening to the corrupt, control system matrix we’ve been locked into for so long.

The Maya, who were acute astronomers, mathematicians and scientists knew this and their precise Long Count calendar not just tracked time, but evolution of consciousness. The much discussed end of it being December 21st 2012. Contrary to Hollywood fear-mongering, it doesn’t connote the ‘end of the world’, moreover the transition into a more enlightened, evolved age.

Vibrations and signals from space? Of course!

Everything is energy – including us. Life is the interaction of magnetic vibrational fields and our evolution is subject to the cosmos, not random selection. There have been peak sunspot emissions and coronal mass ejections in 2012 so it’s little surprise humankind is awakening.

Mangled history and crackpot archaeology? It’s all here!

Off the coast of Yonaguni Japan, India and Cuba there are giant sunken megalithic sites and pyramidal structures. In Bosnia Europe’s first pyramid was discovered and dated to 10,000 years plus. Geologist Dr Robert Schoch has accurately dated the Sphinx to be 7-9,000BC – throwing our mainstream historical timeline into chaos and in need of serious re-writing.

I’ve been saying it for a long time, but I’ll repeat it for you again: the Huffington Post is a mega-sleazy slushpile of credulous crap and unedited stream-of-consciousness burbling from idiots. It is evolving, though: it’s evolving to fill the niche left behind by the demise of Weekly World News.

Send Ellen Grace Jones back to the runway, where sometimes fatuous idiocy might get mistaken for creativity, and where pretense and arrogance can masquerade as taste.

We don’t exist?

This is a new argument to me. Representative Emanuel Cleaver (Democrat, Missouri) was discussing the possibility of atheists getting elected to office, and while saying he thinks we’d have a difficult time, he also says we don’t exist.

Actually, I don’t believe that there is such thing as an atheist because no respectable atheist would walk around with something in his pocket that said ‘In God We Trust.’

Oooh, ooh, I can do that, too!

I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a Christian, because no respectable follower of Jesus would have any money at all — he or she would have handed it all over to the poor.

Man, it’s going to be really hard to run for office in this country when we’re not allowed to have any money without being accused of hypocrisy. And couldn’t Rep. Cleaver’s argument be turned around to show that the inclusion of the religious motto is a clear violation of the separation of church and state? I presume he’s behind the campaign to have god references removed from our currency, then.

I get email

Andre has the inside scoop on what his god thinks of me.

God doesn’t love you

A lot of Christians are big on forgiveness, I’m not. God fucking hates your guts. He is sitting up there just watching you, watching you with bated breath, with a stopwatch just waiting until you finally croak in 30 or 40 or however many years, and then he will do a little jig before going down to the Pearly Gares and giving Peter the day off, and he will bring you up to the Gates, and make you think that you’re going to make it in, and then PUNK’D! Into hell, where Beelzebub and Lucifer and Leviathan and Hitler will take turns kicking you right in the wiener for all eternity. Have fun, asshole.

You know, actually, not a lot of Christians are big on forgiveness. They say they are, but when it gets right down to it they’re as much into forgiveness as they are into poverty and humility — it all sounds good and noble and admirable, but they still act petty and nasty and wish the worst of everyone. Like Andre does in the rest of his email, which I pretty much ignore as Christian hate fantasy.

But I had to point out the glaring misconception in the first sentence.

America is doomed

And you know why? Because women are taking over, and they can’t handle the power.

This guy, Jesse Lee Peterson, is amazing. You listen to him, and notice that he’s incoherent and stupid, completely lacking in charisma, with a speaking style that makes you wonder if he’d been stunned with a hammer just before, and yet he’s got a ministry and a television show and is beloved of the Republican Party. Religion and Republicanism really are a route for idiots to succeed.