The Values Voter Summit

We must elect a president, to start a revolution,
Who’s bold enough, and brave enough, to question evolution!
Whose moral code is biblical, immune from all depravity,
Who won’t give up the fight till we repeal the law of gravity

We need a Christian president—that’s one thing that I know—
Whose values for our future grew two thousand years ago!
Whose thinking starts and finishes inside a holy book
Who doesn’t know of science, and who doesn’t want to look

We need a man for president, a man who holds dominion
Whose superior position is a fact, and not opinion
The Values Voter Summit knows Republicans can’t lose
So long as we’re consistently against a right to choose!

We need a fucking troglodyte, a knuckle-dragging freak
Whose knowledge of the bible trumps ability to speak
The voters don’t want brains at all, so much as they want nerve…
They say, in a democracy, you get what you deserve.

What Goes Around…

What goes around, comes around.

Cases are making their way through the courts, and churches that broke with the Episcopalian Church over their consecration of their first openly gay bishop are finding that there are unexpected consequences to their bigotry actions. It’s a slow-moving train wreck in the courts. Bring popcorn. Story, after the jump:
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Headline Muse, 10/7

There’s a pastor whom Perry consults
And they talk about stuff like adults
Like how Jesus Christ chooses
Who wins, and who loses
And how other religions are cults

Headline: Perry Ally Calls Mormonism ‘A Cult’

The Baptist pastor endorsed Rick Perry, called Mitt Romney a non-Christian, and renounced his church’s tax-free status so that his political statements could be viewed as the campaign contribution they were intended as.

Do I need to tell you I’m just kidding about that last bit?

Oh–Jesus and Mo is, as so often, appropriate here.

…Therefore, Jesus

It’s possible some entity which cannot be detected,
Outside of our experience despite how we’ve inspected,
Was the first cause of the universe, and first began to move it
It’s possible, by which I mean that no one can disprove it.

And that’s why I, specifically,
Believe in Christ of Galilee

Beyond the grasp of scientists, beyond our poor sensations
Beyond the reach of telescopes, which all have limitations
Before the birth of matter, and of energy’s first pulse
There may have been intelligence—you cannot prove it false.

Believing in the Christian God
Is, therefore, not the least bit odd

The beauty of the universe holds all of us in thrall
No scientist would be so bold as claim we know it all
The open-minded person will admit that, just perhaps,
Some unseen causal entity lies hidden in the gaps

It cannot, therefore, be denied
It’s for our sins that Jesus died

A bit of bread, a sip of wine
Are flesh and blood, by will divine

A savior-king, of virgin birth
Who holds dominion over Earth

Belief in whom must hold the key
To heaven and eternity

Without whose love and magic spell
You’ll spend forever, trapped in hell

A god so strong, and so complex
He cares with whom we might have sex

We’ve never seen the evidence, and frankly never will
Another gap will open up for every one we fill
The less a god is visible, the more that god is strong:
As long as God does nothing, why, you cannot prove Him wrong.

Getting Out The Dominionist Vote

There are demons in the water
There are demons in the air
There are demons in the people
There are demons everywhere!

Let us cast away your demons—
We can put them in a goat—
You can safely go to heaven;
It will only cost your vote.

On the eve of the elections
We are putting out the call:
It’s Dominionists or Demons;
Only one can rule us all!

Don’t you want to go to Heaven?
Don’t you want to be God’s child?
You must vote the way we tell you…
And the devil slowly smiled.

Important cool stuff, after the jump:

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Christians, Uniting

When I was in grade school, the young boys would fight
In the playground, to see whose religion was right
The Baptists, the Lutherans, the Methodists, too,
A handful of Catholics—well, more than a few—
A couple of Mormons, and some I-don’t-knows
Would argue religion, and soon come to blows

Too young to have had a good grasp of their fables
This battle of faiths was a fight between labels
“You’re wrong, and I’m right!” “I’m right and you’re wrong!”
We’d huff and we’d puff, and it wouldn’t take long
Before someone would lose it, and then throw a punch—
In the end, bloody noses, and icepacks at lunch.

Religion means splitting, and schisms and sects,
Perhaps inquisitions (which no one expects)
It’s in-group and out-group in sanctified form
Where “us versus them” is accepted as norm
Believers may gather as sisters and brothers
But often to join in a fight against others

So when did it change? When did Christians unite?
When did so many sects come together to fight?
It’s the strange sort of bedfellows politics makes
When the Truest of Christians align with the fakes
All good politicians, like God, will take notes—
And it’s all about winning. It’s all about votes.

Context, after the jump:
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Church Under Attack… By Self

An Ohio church is under attack
By an evil atheist horde!
Or that’s the headline, after all
The facts have been ignored.

The atheists had a billboard up
Right on the church’s land!
It was removed immediately
Upon the church demand

A billboard on the church’s land?
There’s something there that’s funny
Although the church is tax-exempt
That sign is making money

Turns out, commercial property
Gets taxed, and they are liable
It’s “render unto Caesar”, as
It says there in the bible

The church is in the wrong here
In their tax-evasion game
But why admit their guilt,
When there are atheists to blame?
[Read more…]

Headline Muse, 9/18

Though the church fears the atheist danger
There’s more risk from a friend than a stranger
And when pastors compete
With the church down the street
Best beware of the dog in the manger!

Headline: Man accused of killing wife, wounding 2 pastors

Ok, it might be a stretch–Aesop’s “dog in the manger” basically growled “I can’t have it, but neither can you!”; in this terrible tragedy, the motives are not yet settled. The shooter and his wife were former members of the church the two pastors ran; it may not be such a stretch to think there was some envy involved.

I hate church shootings. I hate all shootings, but church shootings are a special case. Growing up, church was presented as a sanctuary; if you came in, you were welcomed and treated with kindness. Today, I read a headline like this and know (of course I don’t know) that the shooter was a member or former member of the congregation, and that tears me apart. And some day, perhaps some self-identified atheist will be the shooter, and that will make everyone forget all the other shootings, and forget that the fights within religion are far more representative of history than the recent atheist surge.