It’s A Miracle! Wait, No, It’s Tech.

Production still.

Production still.

Producers have been fretting about how to do feature films in VR, because the format doesn’t lend itself to traditional Hollywood techniques. However, it’s about to be used on one of the best-known tales of all time for Jesus VR — the Story of Christ, slated to arrive in Christmas, 2016, according to Variety. The 360-degree, 4K film will work on all major VR platforms, including the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear and PlayStation VR. Produced by Autumn Products and VRWERX, it’ll tell the story of Christ’s life from baptism to crucifixion.

[…]

The filmmakers behind Jesus VR haven’t said how they’re approaching the story, but appear to be focused on the immersion aspect. … That approach will let the camera operator “be” in scenes and should make for very high-resolution video, though it’ll require a lot of data post-processing to stitch everything together. “The viewers truly feel they are there with Jesus and his disciples,” director David Hansen said. “This is the most powerful story of all time and virtual reality is the perfect way to tell it.”

The most powerful story of all time. Goodness. I think that could be seriously argued against. Personally, I find it to be a weak and pale pastiche of earlier tales, featuring much better and more compelling characters, with great backgrounds. Virtual Reality? No. Virtual Bad Mythology, maybe.

Via Engadget.

This Case Is An Ominous Sign.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Cliff Owen

CREDIT: AP Photo/Cliff Owen

“This case is an ominous sign,” Justice Samuel Alito begins one of the final opinions released on this last day of the Supreme Court term. He then proceeds to complain for 15 pages that pharmacy owners do not have enough control over whether women can fill their birth control prescriptions. Along the way, he manages to imply that anyone who does not believe in a god or gods is inherently immoral.

The political issue underlying Stormans v. Wiesman is familiar to anyone who has paid attention to the Supreme Court’s involvement in the birthcontrolwars. The owners of a pharmacy in Olympia, Washington object to certain forms of contraception on religious grounds, but a state regulation requires pharmacies to “deliver lawfully prescribed drugs or devices to patients.”

So people with religious objections to birth control want an exemption from the law. We’ve heard this story before.

We certainly have. This is one of the more devious RWC moves in their insistence on ruling every part of any person’s life. Contraception? Oh, no, no, can’t have that. It’s sinful. If you sinners are going to insist on this work of the devil, well, you’ll have to pay through the nose and jump through one hundred red tape hoops, and you might have to get your evil fix outside the state you live in, no big deal, right?

Samuel Alito is now weighing in on this issue, and he skews straight into the infamous I am using the Science of Logic territory. He ends up deciding that laws which are in place to protect both consumers and pharmacists are secular, therefore, it’s only right to hold up religious bias.

[Read more…]

My Rights Are Being Nailed to the Cross!

Rick Tyler (Rick Tyler for President)

Rick Tyler (Rick Tyler for President)

Alternate title: Waaah! You meanypants are unfair! Remember Rick “Make America White Again” Tyler? He’s very upset that people are being so mean and unfair as to do things like boycott his restaurant, due to his bigotry.

A new billboard campaign explicitly rejects the Donald Trump-inspired message of a Tennessee statehouse candidate — who said he appreciates the attention.

Rick Tyler, an independent Congressional candidate for Tennessee’s 3rd District, is facing a boycott of his restaurant business after he advertised his candidacy with racist billboard messages saying, “Make America White Again.”

Other residents of Polk County were disappointed with the national attention Tyler’s message attracted, and they wanted to counter the racist slogan to show not everyone agreed with the candidate, reported the Times Free Press.

“I really wanted to avoid the perception that residents in this region feel that way or treat one another that way,” said Josiah Vacheresse, executive director for Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children. “That’s not what we’re about, that’s not what we’re for.”

So Vacheresse asked family, friends and online supporters to help him buy advertising space on billboards in the county, where drivers will see inspiring quotes from Nelson Mandela instead of a more racist interpretation of Trump’s campaign slogan.

[…]

Tyler, who also set up a billboard quoting Martin Luther King Jr. alongside a Confederate flag, said he didn’t mind if the second campaign rejected his message.

“I think it’s great what they’re doing,” Tyler said. “They’re stoking the fire of the story.”

Two of Tyler’s signs were taken down last week by the billboard rental companies, and the candidate said he was disappointed.

“I’m all about freedom,” said Tyler, whose campaign website contains lengthy “conspiracy science” posts about chemtrails and communist plots. “It’s great that they are able to say what they want to say. What’s tragic is that I’m not able to. I’m not allowed to. My First Amendment right is being nailed to the cross.”

No, that’s not tragic, Mr. Tyler, and no one has taken your rights away, which I’d think you’d notice, what with giving interviews and all. You can talk, and write, and try to find a way to put up even more repellent ads, and here’s the great thing – other people are free to respond to all that, and they have. Darn meanypantses.

Full Story Here.

I’m Norwegian, Go Ahead, Profile Me.

Kevin Sorbo.

This whole ‘who would Jesus vote for’ is so damn absurd, but it doesn’t stop the less from stellar thinkers of the world using it, as if it actually meant something other than “I’m a willfully ignorant arsehole’. Today’s WWJVFer, why none other than Kevin Sorbo, who also had a fair amount to say about Trump’s immigration ban check ’em out policy.

However, TMZ’s protographer countered by saying that since Jesus grew up in the Middle East, “he wouldn’t be allowed to come over here under [Trump’s] immigration policy.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Sorbo replied, before launching into a defense of Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from emigrating to the US.

“I’m Norwegian,” he said. “If there’s Norwegians going around strapping bombs [to themselves], you can check me out. I don’t mind if you racial profile against me. I have nothing to hide. So why do people if they have nothing to hide, why are they getting upset about stuff? If they have nothing to hide, they take one day out of your life, fingerprint me, check out my background, what’s wrong with that?”

“But isn’t he saying, ‘Let’s ban immigrants from those countries?’” the photographer replied.

“He’s saying, ‘Let’s check everybody out,’” Sorbo responded.

Full Story and video at Raw Story.

Saint Reagan vs RNC.

FFRFRNCProof

Former President Ronald Reagan’s son and namesake Ron Reagan is literally the poster-person against religion. While the younger Reagan has been doing ads on news channels for the Freedom from Religion Foundation, it will be his father’s words that will hover over the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July.

“We establish no religion in this country… Church and state are, and must remain, separate,” the billboard will read.

[…]

“The RNC needs to be reminded that our nation is predicated on a godless and entirely secular Constitution,” she said. “The fate of our Establishment Clause hangs in the balance of the election. We’re not voting for the next president — we’re voting for the next Supreme Court justice.”

The local chapter director, Marni Huebner-Tiborsky, agreed that the message is an important one for Republican leaders to remember. “This billboard couldn’t be any more timely, and is definitely needed to remind our political leaders and the public that political campaigns should stick to a secular platform, where real change can happen,” she says.

Full Story Here. While I do think this might turn some heads, I doubt it will make a serious impact at this late date in the game. I also think the current crop of repubs is simply too far gone to consider this seriously, although it will hurt to see St. Ronnie going against their constant screed.

Yes! Let’s kill adulterers too!

Pastor Steven Anderson (Screenshot/YouTube)

Pastor Steven Anderson (Screenshot/YouTube)

It looks like pulpit stomping pastor Steven Anderson has discovered the joy and limelight of pushing hate.  It’s easy enough to imagine he’ll do anything to stay in the limelight, too, but with Anderson, we know his views were absolutely repugnant before anyone knew who he was, and they remain that way. Seems that attempts to reason with Steve don’t work. Gosh, how surprising.

Others simply tried to reason with Steve by pointing out that the bible contains quite a list of “sins” other than homosexuality which were also punishable by death, including adultery.

In response, Anderson unapologetically says, Yes! Let’s kill adulterers too!

“Today, adultery is not punishable by law in the United States, but it should be.”

Of course there are rules, the King James-quoting pastor explains … adulterers must be tried and convicted before they’re put to death, and if America were to implement the Old Testament law, it wouldn’t be retroactive, so if you’ve already cheated, you’re safe so long as you don’t do it again.

Think about it, though. Do you really think as many people commit adultery in societies where it is punishable by death? Of course not … so you can relax about your Aunt Trudy who cheated on her husband thirty years ago. If Aunt Trudy had lived in a society that enforced the death penalty for adultery, chances are she would never have committed that sin in the first place.

Oh, those Quiverfull people, always so sensible. I have bad news for Steve though – cheaters will cheat, no matter what. People will end up falling for someone they aren’t married to, because these things happen to humans. You can make all the rules you want, it won’t stop humans from being human. Another human thing is that most people get this funny idea that they won’t get caught. Full story here.

We Don’t Need No Education, Rapture’s Coming.

GNU Image / MGN

GNU Image / MGN

AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Supreme Court has sided with a family accused of not teaching its children anything while waiting “to be raptured.”

Laura and Michael McIntyre began homeschooling their nine children inside the family’s El Paso motorcycle dealership more than a decade ago.

Officials say the family did not have to teach state-approved curriculum or give standardized tests.

However, problems started when a relative told authorities that he never saw the children reading, working on math, using computers or doing anything educational besides play music.

He said he heard one of them say that learning wasn’t necessary because “they were going to be raptured.”

[…]

The couple argued that school district officials violated their 14th Amendment rights by attempting to verify that their children were learning.

The case then headed to the state’s Supreme Court, where the justices made a 6-3 ruling on technical grounds in favor of the McIntyres.

But it didn’t answer larger constitutional questions about whether home-schooled children must be properly taught.

Justices remanded the case to lower courts, saying its constitutional questions weren’t educational policy matters. But they didn’t issue an opinion on the overall constitutionality.

Considering how long people have been waiting on Jesus to come back and fetch them home, it would seem to at least be prudent on the part of Texas to institute some sort of educational standard, as it won’t be all that long that these nine children will be nine adults, who know absolutely nothing.

Via KFOR.

I want an apology from gays! Right now!

Bill Donohue speaks to CNN (screen grab)

Bill Donohue speaks to CNN (screen grab)

Oh my, poor ol’ Bill. He has been betrayed by none other than his high holiness Francis. Bill is now sputtering his upset all over the place at the mere idea of considering the notion that queer people are…people! Oh no.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who has been a crusader against LGBT rights, insisted on Tuesday that Pope Francis’ call for Christians to apologize to gay people did not apply to him.

[…]

On Tuesday, CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Donohue if he planned on following the pope’s advice and apologizing to LGBT people.

“No,” Donohue replied. “As a matter of fact, I want an apology from gays. I’ve been assaulted by gays. I’ve never assaulted a gay person in my entire life.”

“The idea of a blanket apology because you are a member of some demographic group, I mean, I don’t know what church teaching is it that you have a problem with that maybe the church should apologize for?”

I’ll just bet Bill knows that old saying, “it will be a cold day…”. That’s when you’ll get your apology from this queer person, Bill.

“Why did you spend so much energy on this?” the CNN host wondered. “Why is so important to you?”

Donohue suggested that CNN was to blame for repeatedly interviewing him about his anti-LGBT views.

“Your producers only want to talk about LGBT,” he charged. “I don’t care what gay people do. I don’t want to have a lifestyle thrusted in my face though. That’s a different kind of thing altogether.”

“What do you mean thrusted?” Cuomo asked. “How are they putting their gay on you?”

Donohue explained that businesses should only be allowed to discriminate against LGBT people to provide services for a “wedding ceremony.”

[…]

“You know you have a hostility and an animus toward these behaviors,” Cuomo noted. “You might as well own it.”

“Show me where Jesus said we should spent time saying we should not let people be who they are?” the CNN host pressed.

“There are mobster lifestyles,” Donohue quipped.

“A mobster is not a gay person,” Cuomo shot back. “A terrorist is not a gay person.”

“I just want the apology,” Donohue concluded. “They could send it by Fedex.”

Full story at Raw Story.

The Pulpit Stomp, O Those Filthy Sodomites!

Pastor Steven Anderson (Screenshot/YouTube)

Pastor Steven Anderson (Screenshot/YouTube)

After the June 12 massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Anderson posted a video in which he said there are “50 less pedophiles” in the world. Forty-nine people were killed in the mass shooting at the gay nightclub.

Anderson has been reaping the consequences of his words, and he is not happy about it.

“It’s war. You know what the filthy sodomites have done toward our church and us, and our friends and our fellow pastors that actually have the guts to say what needs to be said? Here’s what they’ve done in the last few weeks,” he told his congregation. “They got our PayPal account shut down so that we can’t take anymore online donations. We set up with another company, GivLet, they got that shut down. Qgiv, they got that shut down. BitPay, they got that shut down. They shut down our iTunes podcast. They shut down Brother Jimenez’s PayPal account. They shut down Brother Romero’s PayPal account… The landlord of Pastor Jimenez is saying, ‘hey we’re not going to renew your lease.’”

[…]

Anderson was clearly angry that these words have come back to haunt them.

“I mean these people are dedicated,” he said, about LGBT rights activists. “These people are researching, they’re finding out where we bank, they’re finding out who we do business with. They’re trying to get us shut down on all fronts, and you know what, let me tell you something, I’m sick of it.”

He then jumped up on his podium and started pointing at the audience.

“And you know what, if you’re not gonna back us up then get out of here, we don’t need your help,” he said, before launching into an invective-filled rant calling LGBT people “dogs.”

I guess that whole “reaping the whirlwind” business isn’t okay if it’s aimed at them. Full Story Here.

The United States is not a Christian country anymore.

SAB

That’s according to 59 percent of white evangelical Protestants recently surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Brookings Institution. And that number has jumped 11 points in just four years, from 48 percent in 2012.

Evangelicals’ growing conviction that the U.S. is losing its Christian identity, and that the country now is headed in the wrong direction, comes as politicians debate immigration and cultural change during the 2016 election season.

[…]

While a strong majority of white evangelical Protestants agree that the U.S. has lost its Christian identity, Americans overall are split on the question — 41 percent say it was Christian and remains so, and 42 percent say it was in the past but is no longer. Relatively few (15 percent) say America never has been a Christian nation.

The white evangelical Protestant community feels its cultural dominance in America has been lost, said Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, who attended the press conference.

It certainly doesn’t feel that way to me.

“Over the last four years a growing number are seeing that it’s lost irretrievably,” he said. “That has massive implications for our politics going down the road.”

Americans also are split on whether American culture and the country’s way of life have mostly changed for the better (49 percent) or worse (50 percent) since the 1950s.

And, the PRRI/Brookings report said, “no group of Americans is more nostalgic about the 1950s than white evangelical Protestants,” with 70 percent saying the country has changed for the worse. Americans also split politically on the question: 68 percent of Republicans agree things have gotten worse, while nearly the same share of Democrats (66 percent) say times are better.

Oh, that 1950s nostalgia, for an America that never was. Nothing screams racist white privilege quite like 1950s love.

But Americans agree the country is moving in the wrong direction — a belief that crosses the political divide and has inched up from 65 percent in 2011 to 72 percent. And most (57 percent) believe they should fight for their values, even if they are at odds with the law and changing culture.

That’s fairly obvious, with all the current hysteria over anti-bigotry legislation.

There’s more at RNS. The PRRI survey.

Brexit, Nexit, Frexit…

Marine Le Pen with Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (AFP Photo/Vladimir Simicek)

Marine Le Pen with Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (AFP Photo/Vladimir Simicek)

Brexit, Nexit, Frexit, Fuck it. The chain has begun, with far-right, racist leaders all over* cheering Brexit, and whipping up similar sentiments all over Europe. I’ll just give you one small quote, and you can go read the rest, I hate beginning the day with despair.

— And the leader of Germany’s right-wing populist AfD Frauke Petry said in a Facebook post the Brexit was a warning that “if the EU does not abandon its quasi-socialist experiment of every greater integration then the European people will follow the Brits and take back their sovereignty.”

Yeah! Can’t have that whole humans being compassionate and caring stuff going on, oh no.

*Including American racist moron, Trump.

Full Story Here.

Ownbey’s Final Solution.

Oklahoma state Rep. Pat Ownbey, R-Ardmore, in 2013. CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki.

Oklahoma state Rep. Pat Ownbey, R-Ardmore, in 2013. CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki.

An Oklahoma lawmaker personally propagated an article over the weekend calling for a “final solution” regarding “radical Islam,” arguing that the 1,400-year-old faith is not a religion and should not be protected under the first amendment of the Constitution.

On Sunday, Oklahoma State Rep. Pat Ownbey re-published an article to his Facebook page entitled “Radical Islam – The Final Solution.” The article was originally published on the personal blog of Paul R. Hollrah, an Oklahoman who touts himself as a “retired government relations executive,” but Ownbey appears to have copy-pasted the piece and reposted it in its entirety, citing Hollrah.

The author is seemingly unaware that the phrase “the final solution” was used by Adolph Hitler and Nazi leadership to describe the horrific genocide enacted against Jews by the Third Reich during World War II, also known as the Holocaust. Instead, the article Ownbey shared purports that in light of the recent massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando by an ISIS-affiliated shooter, Islam should no longer be categorized as a religion in the United States — or in any western nation.

I really find it difficult to believe that Ownbey is in any way unfamiliar with the phrase the final solution or its meaning. It’s just another alt-right move: “hey, it won’t be like that, we can do a final solution right, you betcha!”

“…if we in the west are to protect our children and grandchildren from the horrors of a worldwide Islamic caliphate, we must first dispense with the cruel fiction that Islam is just another religious denomination, subject to all of the legal protections afforded legitimate religious sects,” Hollrah argues. “Islam is not a religion, subject to First Amendment protections, as we in western cultures understand the term. Rather, it is a complete political, legal, economic, military, social, and cultural system with a religious component.”

Hollrah — who, like presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, appears to be opposed to Muslim immigration into the United States — goes on to blast Christian traditions such as the Catholic Church that take a welcoming approach to Islam, accusing them of being naive. He then defends Trump’s Muslim ban by citing the Communist Control Act of 1954 before insisting that the West “quarantine” all Muslims.

“And since the 95% of Muslims who are described as either ‘moderate’ or ‘un-radicalized’ appear unwilling to play an active role in keeping their radicalized brethren in check, we have no long term alternative but to quarantine them… prohibiting them from residing anywhere within the civilized nations of the Earth,” he writes.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Not even wrong. As for prohibiting them from residing anywhere within the civilized nations of the Earth, once again, we see an American asshole who thinks America runs the world. This point of view is so damn pervasive, and so very poisonous. How do we rid ourselves of this cumbersome and meddlesome belief?

The author of the article at Think Progress goes on to debunk all this ineffable, but dangerous twaddle. A good read.

Tennessee: 5 Million Lost.

CREDIT: Shutterstock/City of Angels

CREDIT: Shutterstock/City of Angels

The American Counseling Association was planning to hold its 2017 national convention in Nashville, but after Tennessee lawmakers passed a law allowing for religious discrimination in counseling, the organization decided not to reward the state with its business. Last week, the ACA announced it would instead be heading to the “inclusive and inviting city” of San Francisco.

The new Tennessee law ensures that any counselor or therapist can decide not to provide services to a client if doing so violates their religious beliefs. A lawsuit challenging its constitutionality points out that it flagrantly violates the ACA Code of Ethics, which the state had previously embraced as the standard for its counselors and therapists.

Back in May, ACA officials announced that after hearing complaints from many members, they would move the convention somewhere else. “Of all the state legislation I have seen passed in my 30 years with ACA, the new Tennessee law based on Senate Bill 1556/House Bill 1840 is by far the worst. This law directly targets the counseling profession, would deny services to those most in need, and constitutes a dilemma for ACA members because it allows for violation of ACA’s Code of Ethics,” CEO Richard Yep said at the time. “By relocating from Tennessee, ACA is standing up to this discriminatory law and we remain committed in the battle to ensure that this law does not become the national standard.”

Way to go, ACA! Let’s all hope this economic hit might knock some sense into Tennessee lawmakers.

Full Story Here.