There’s never a shortage of smarm among evangelicals

There has been a recent rash of publicized suicides by young gay people who have been bullied and intimidated and shamed by their peers…and we’re also getting a rash of Christian apologetics by the blind bigots of homophobia who simultaneously declaim their pious regrets that these poor children of God couldn’t find their way to redemption, while continuing the slander of damning their sinning lives. It’s hard to get more unctuously hypocritical than the odious Albert Mohler, who whimpers ‘think of the children!’ while protesting that as good Christians they must condemn the sin, and he sadly wonders where the good people to tell the suicidal that their lives are worth living are to be found (not in your ministry or any priesthood, that’s for sure…if they want humanity and caring, they need to turn to Dan Savage).

Mohler has some competition now, though: it’s from Daniel Spratlin, another of those purblind preacher boys. It’s not entirely in the article he has written, though —

Rutgers student suicide highlights growing sin problem — which is just another pile of fuzzy love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin BS, but in the comments where he opens up to complain about the criticism his article recieves. This is where he exposes the dementia of his chronic fuckwittedness.

I don’t (nor do the majority of confessing Evangelicals) believe homosexuality to be abhorrent because my “religion says so.” Rather, I believe it to be so because God says so.

I have no doubt that America will eventually accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle. Nor do I have a problem with it. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not equal to American values. Never has been and never will be. This world has to be destroyed in the end and I welcome it. That doesn’t mean, however, that I won’t stand firm in my position and continue to shout.

Do I want homosexuals to “feel isolated and ashamed to the point of suicide”? Of course not. I want them to feel isolated and ashamed to the point of repentance.

Look at the awesome arrogance of that first paragraph, the ridiculous gall of claiming that he and his fellow fundie sphincter-lipped wardens of the public morality have the one true hotline to the mind of their omnipotent god. Remember this every time someone accuses an atheist of being arrogant — we don’t claim to be speaking for a cosmic tyrant who will torture you for eternity if you don’t obey us.

And then he proudly announces that he welcomes the necessary destruction of the world. This is one of the most perniciously vile doctrines promoted by the Abrahamic religions, not just that an apocalypse will occur, but that believers should be actively working to bring it about. Agents of destruction like that are objectively evil; if such creatures were to appear in a fantasy novel, you know that they’d be the orcish villains.

The bottom line is that he wants gay people to “feel isolated and ashamed,” period. Suicide is to be regretted because a body count is bad PR, and it’s a lie when an idiot prancing towards armageddon claims that he grieves over the death of one. He wants the death of billions, and he’s also happy to spread misery through oppression while he’s waiting for the last trump.

I hate to see the competition getting promoted this way

I teach at a small public liberal arts college in Minnesota. We’ve got a lot of similar liberal arts institutions around the state, including Gustavus Adolphus, a private college with a Lutheran affiliation. We’re secular (we don’t sponsor church services) and public (much lower tuition, also much smaller endowment), which we consider our advantages, but the Illinois Family Institute is trying to undermine that. They are outraged at the licentiousness at Gustavus.

The climate at Gustavus was predominantly secular in the classroom, in dorm life, and on sports teams with only the empty trappings of Christian tradition hanging on in the form of daily chapel services led by a chaplain who affirmed sexual deviance and other such “spiritual” activities.

The IFI, by the way, is one of those fanatical conservative organizations that has a primary mission of opposing gay rights and promoting general prudery everywhere. What triggered the killjoys this time is the appearance of a video showing parts of Gustavus’s freshman orientation, which includes a frank and amusing discussion of student sexual behavior.

(Youtube comments on that video are predictably inane, too)

Dang. That was awesome. IFI may be pissed off, but I predict an uptick in enrollment applications at Gustavus next year.

Daddy knows best

I think you should start out your day with tales of fatherhood, since I did. Sometimes my mailbox is a very depressing thing.

  • What do you do when your son has seizures? Take him to religious authorities for diagnosis.

    “When my son first began suffering from this problem I took him to sheikhs to recite Qur’an on him but most of them became scared when they heard the female voice telling them that she was a royal jinn and that no one can exorcise her unless Turki dies,” he said.

    The father said a sheikh advised him to tie his son’s arms and legs with iron chains and to read Qur’an on him. “We did this. My son became quiet but is totally unaware of what is happening around him. He does not talk and is now unable to harm anyone,” he added.

    He’s been kept in chains in the basement for six years. Therapy successful!

  • A father has to discipline his children. When Mousaa Sidime’s 13 year old daughter balked at doing her mandatory prayer routine — this apparently wasn’t just some quick “I lay me down to sleep”, but something tedious that the girl hated — he responded with a slap. A slap that required calling the police.

    “When we got there the girl was bleeding around her nose and she has been in a coma ever since,” David said.

    The situation has been resolved and she’s out of the coma. She’s dead.

    Prayers work! Now an innocent little girl is in heaven, getting slapped daily by a god who wants more of those prayers and praises.

  • Daddy knows best what to do with little girls’ uteruses, too. Let’s not ever allow abortion under any circumstances, because there’s never any case where a girl would be better off with an abortion. Like this heartwarming case of paternal concern.

    It’s a simple story. A neighbor of a 13 year old girl expressed his natural urges and raped her. She got pregnant. Said neighbor had gotten his rocks off, he was done with her, and told her that it was not his responsibility. The little girl had no support, could get no abortion (this is in Peru, where abortion is almost completely prohibited), and in total despair, tried to commit suicide by throwing herself off a building.

    But wait! This story isn’t awful enough yet. She didn’t die. She did suffer serious spinal injuries, though, and in a real surprise, she didn’t lose the pregnancy. So the hospital refused to operate to save her from paralysis because it would put the fetus at risk, despite the fact that a therapeutic abortion was recommended in her condition. No go.

    LC: I Have To Tell What Happened To Me from Center for Reproductive Rights on Vimeo.

    Hey! What happened to the rapist baby daddy? I don’t know.

It all sounds so depressing, doesn’t it? Unless, of course, you’re a happy and oblivious member of the patriarchy. Then it’s all cool.

But they didn’t even get their hands dirty!

We’ve all heard about the Chilean miners trapped in a cave-in, who have been sustained for over two months by supplies delivered through a narrow tunnel drilled down to them. Their rescue is imminent, with an escape tunnel being drilled and almost at their position — they should be out this week. Personally, I credit technology with saving them, but…three religious groups are squabbling over which version of god deserves thanks.

The three Christian denominations have each claimed credit for what they say is divine intervention in the survival – and expected imminent rescue – of the 33 men who have spent 67 days beneath the earth.

“God has spoken to me clearly and guided my hand each step of the rescue,” said Carlos Parra Diaz, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor at the San Jose mine. “He wanted the miners to be rescued and I am His instrument.”

Yards from where he spoke Caspar Quintana, the Catholic bishop of Copiapo, prepared an altar to celebrate an outdoor mass for a small congregation of miners’ relatives and phalanx of TV cameras. “God has heard our prayers,” said the bishop. “I have received comments of encouragement from all over the world. Let us give thanks.”

A litte bit further up the hill of Camp Hope, the improvised settlement of miners’ families, rescuers, government officials and media, an evangelical preacher, Javier Soto , wandered from family to family with a guitar and songs of praise. “He listens to the music,” said the pastor, gesturing to the azure sky.

You know, the drill hasn’t quite reached the miners. Maybe we should just shut down the machinery, withdraw all the tools and the laborers, and have Mr Diaz, Mr Quintana, and Mr Soto stand above the men and use their magic to complete the rescue. That would be impressive.

I’d also like to see the three frauds step forward and take the blame for all mining deaths, as well.

Oy, the Passover dinner is going to be awkward this year

It’s a standing joke that the most homophobic ranters are likely to turn up in the news some day getting their luggage lifted. As it turns out, though, some of them face a fate that’s even sadder.

Remember Jonathan Katz, the physicist who briefly held an advisory position with the Obama administration until his online essay declaring that he was proud to be a homophobe made the news? He raved about how homosexuality was simply disgusting and people with “unnatural desires” need to learn to repress them, for their own good and to prevent disease from spreading through the population.

Surprise, Jonathan Katz has not been exposed as a practicing homosexual. Instead, his son Isaac has come out publicly as a homosexual.

The elder Katz is going to have to learn something now, which is a good thing.

The wild loons are calling in Canada

The insanity is continent wide, my fellow North Americans. A fringe group in Canada is calling for Christian Governance, and you know you can’t believe them when they make claims like this:

Judeo-Christian political theory is unique in its hostility to totalitarianism. Christian governance, and Christian governance alone, is anti-tyrannical.

But if they’re so opposed to tyranny, why is Christian Governance dismissing gay rights, women’s right to choose, and insisting that non-Christians shouldn’t be allowed representation in government? They sound like a gang of tyrannical control freaks, if you ask me. We don’t even need to get into the evidence of history that shows that Christian monarchs were quite willing to enslave, kill, burn, and destroy to maintain their power. Was the rule of good King Leopold of Belgium in the Congo an example of Christian anti-tyranny?

It’s not just us

I will not wade into this one, it gets so tiresome over here, but Gnu Atheists aren’t the only people afflicted with tone trolls. Orac points out that the anti-vaxers are now using the ‘civility’ argument.

To people who are palpably wrong, the whole world is always going to look very rude to them. You’d think they’d learn after a while that whining about civility is never going to persuade anyone except other shallow, superficial wankers.

I’m not nagging, am I? It’s time for Donors Choose!

I just have to remind everyone now and then that we are trying to raise money for science education in the public schools, and I do have a donation page where you can pick specific grant applications you like and give them your cash.

If you’re feeling competitive, there’s also a leaderboard page where you can see the contributions made by other science blogs. Pharyngula is leading, of course, but I’m feeling lonely…I seem to be the only participant from Seed Media so far. You might think about doing some nagging yourself and tell those other ScienceBlogs to get in the act and join the group.