18 Oct 2009
Get the Marshmallows!

I can't give you the actual link to this invitation, because the church's server has been hit so hard that the hosting company took it offline. It's from Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, NC. But I will quote it in it's entirety:

Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan's bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God's Word the King James Bible.

We will also be burning Satan's music such as country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contempory Christian, jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.

We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort, Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll, John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham, Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa, The Pope, Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.

We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.

We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides.

If you have any books or music to donate, please call us for pick-up. If you like you can drop them off at our church door anytime. Thanks.

This had to go in 'Humor' because I laughed so hard when I read it that I about fell off my seat - even though I am horrified by book burning (yes, even burning books with which I disagree or books I think are positively evil). Southern Gospel as satanic music? Billy Graham as a heretic? These folks need to get out more and meet some real heretics! I'd be happy to provide the introductions!

I've gotta wonder where they're getting the material to burn? Surely none of the members of this upstanding congregation have any of that papist trash lying around, do they? Will they be burning new, recently purchased editions? Thereby enriching Satan's minions? Surely they're not suggesting stealing these heretical tomes for the fires, are they?

I also have a suggestion for them. If they're really looking for heresy, they should take a gander at the Conservative Bible Project. Even I, heathen, libertarian and loath of philistine displays of cultural barbarism, might join in setting a match to that one!

Here's a link to a story (with video) from The Telegraph. One look at the pastor of this institution will give you another hint as to why this went to 'Humor'...

via Laudator Temporis Acti

12:12 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

17 Jan 2009
Top Saudi cleric OK with child marriages

"Controversial"? I was not aware that the systemic practice of child rape could be "controversial"! Imagine the howls of rage that would accompany a similar pronouncement from, say, The Pope, or a Rick Warren type character. Do you think we'd still maintain an embassy at the Holy See if the Vatican advocated this? Would a preacher who pushed such a position be given a slot in the upcoming inauguration?

Yet we still have diplomats in Riyadh, and you can bet the House of Saud will be well represented at next weeks events in Washington.

Disgusting.

The debate over the controversial practice of child marriage in Saudi Arabia was pushed back into the spotlight this week, with the kingdom's top cleric saying that it's OK for girls as young as 10 to wed.

(link) [CNN.com]

07:17 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

22 Dec 2008
Pope puts stress on 'gay threat'

If, by "homosexual behavior" he means Catholic priests molesting little boys, then I daresay he's right. But if he means gay sex between consenting adults, then not so much...

Pope Benedict says that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

21:36 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Oct 2007
God Wants to Touch Your Privates

While perusing the feeds this morning, I happened across a review of Barbara Victor's The Last Crusade: Religion and the Politics of Misdirection over at Bartholomew's Notes on Religion. The review gave a tantalizing hint of the take that some contemporary evangelical Christians have on circumcision - something I had little suspected, and had to find a web reference to confirm:

On March 14th, 1994, Hayford spoke at a regional Promise Keepers conference in Anaheim, California. During his message, Hayford gave three reasons why God required circumcision in the Old Testament:

[l] God wants to touch your very identity as a man. [2] He wants to reach out and touch your secret and private parts. [3] God wants to touch man's creative parts.

Apparently Rev. Hayford is considered a pretty much mainstream Pentecostal (if there is such a thing), and I would be reasonably certain that he shares the classic disdain for homosexuality shared by classic Christianity, seeing as how he counseled Ted Haggard after his "fall". How can he not see the contradiction here? If a man wants to touch another man's "secret and private parts", Hayford would no doubt condemn him. If a man wanted to cut the end off another man's secret and private parts, I'm sure that Hayford would be appalled and wish the offender jailed. But Hayford's god doesn't follow these rules - it's not only OK for him to apparently harbor homosexual urges, it's justified and, in fact, required!

This is what can happen when you have the divine utterly cut off from the universe and existing outside of it: the "creator/created" dichotomy. Heathen deities are part and parcel of the fabric of the universe itself, and are generally expected to follow the same "rules" and suffer the same consequences for their violation as the rest of the world. While we have no proscription of homosexuality per se, Odin is sometimes castigated in Heathen circles for his alleged ergi (unmanly, sexually receptive) practice of magic, and some go so far as to say that these actions on his part contribute to his ultimate downfall at the Ragnarok.

We expect the same standards from our deities as we expect from each other, no matter where we stand on the great issues of the day. And we expect our deities attitudes and behaviors to change over time, and not to be ever unchanging, or changing on mere whim.

This is why it's so hard to pin a contradiction on a heathen: we are broad as well as deep, and have no need to justify the continuation of ancient practices beyond our own preference in practice.

If Odin showed up and wanted to touch my secret and private parts, I'd tell him to piss off... and still call myself a heathen in the morning!

08:27 /Asatru | 2 comments | permanent link

03 Sep 2007
Will the Pope Declare Google Evil?

Gag me! The Catholic Church, and organized religion in general, are the biggest bunch of tax dodgers on the planet. None of their "profits" and none of their property are subject to taxation in the US, and most Western Eurpopean countries actively supporting them with tax dollars.

You'd get a lot more cred on the street, Bennie, if you enclosed a check for back taxes with your latest "soak the rich" rant.

In the next few days, Pope Benedict XVI plans to issue his second encyclical, in which he is expected to denounce the use of tax havens as socially unjust and immoral in that they cheat the greater well-being of society. He is also expected to argue that the globalized economic world needs to be regulated. Prime technology companies playing the offshore 'profit laundering' game include Dell, Google, Microsoft, and Sun, who set up subsidiaries in Ireland, where the corporate tax rate is a low 12.5% and no taxes are charged on royalties (e.g. from patents).

(link) [Slashdot]

07:12 /Politics | 2 comments | permanent link

12 Jul 2007
Pope ends Latin Mass restriction

Probably the best thing the Church could do at this point: the Latin Mass has power, beauty and is incomprehensible to the majority of folks on the planet. Smart move.

Pope Benedict XVI removes restrictions on celebrating the Latin Tridentine Mass, despite concern from Jewish groups.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Update: This is getting even better: now non-Catholic's don't even have churches.

06:24 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

07 Jun 2007
Debaptism 2.0: Fleeing the Flock Via the Net

To cease being a heathen you have to, er, well, cease being a heathen! We don't need no stinkin' letter! But then again, we don't generally swell our numbers by counting babies, either. At least not on any official membership rolls. Which, come to think of it, we don't have any of either.

Last weekend at Trothmoot I heard a couple of folks discussing how they could motivate heathens to take action on some issue or another - how do you move "organized" heathenry? My suggestion: learn to herd cats. That'd be a good start. And stop talking about "organized heathenry" - it's an oxymoron.

After reading this article, I'm convinced that's a good thing.

Disgruntled Italian Catholics are increasingly turning to the internet to leave the Church by getting "debaptized" -- but the Pope isn't making the process web friendly.

(link) [Wired Top Stories]

06:29 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

24 May 2007
Pope Softens Remarks on Conversion of Natives

That's so nice of him. I wonder when he'll acknowledge the “unjustifiable crimes” that his organization committed in the conversion of Europe?

Benedict XVI acknowledged that “unjustifiable crimes” were committed in the European conquest of South America.

(link) [New York Times]

06:20 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

02 May 2007
Vatican calls verbal attack on Pope "terrorism"

Gosh, I hope nobody from the Vatican reads this blog, or I'll be ranked right up there with Osama!

The Vatican's official newspaper accused an Italian comedian on Wednesday of "terrorism" for criticizing the Pope and warned his rhetoric could fuel a return to 1970s-style political violence.

(link) [Reuters]

19:43 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Mar 2007
Mormons miffed over coffee-swilling angel image

Maybe the Pope should trademark the cross and sue Lutherans. Maybe I should trademark Thor's Hammer and sue the local carpenter's union!

For a coffee shop, T-shirts of a Mormon angel with java flowing into his trumpet are selling well. But they don't have the blessing of religious leaders...The church informed Beazer that the angel's image is a registered trademark.

(link) [CNN.com]

19:03 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

13 Mar 2007
Will Pope Benedict become a Mormon after he dies?

They apparently baptized Odin in 1911 - somebody's genealogy pointed to him as an ancestor, so into the drink he went! As the article point out, some folks (notably Orthodox Jews) get very offended by this, but I am at worst merely amused, and recognize the desire of these folks to connect with the ancestors. Even the ones they just wish were their forebearers...

Pope Benedict was baptized at birth and will most likely be baptized again one year after his death, not by his Roman Catholic Church but by a Mormon he never met.

(link) [Reuters]

21:37 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

18 Sep 2006
Al Qaeda group warns pope, West, 'doomed'

Ya know, I pretty much raked the Pope over hot coals for hypocrisy when he made these remarks: Christians had done the same thing he was citing Muslims for doing. But I never questioned if he was being accurate in his assessment and excoriation of Islam. He was: conversion by the sword is de rigueur:

The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross" saying "you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. ... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword."

So, to "protest" the papal remarks, these folks are issuing statements proving that what he was saying was absolutely right! They don't want an apology, and it really doesn't matter what he said.

"Religion of Peace" my ass...

And we heathens - where do we fit in the grand scheme of this? Nowhere. Both sides in this latest dustup have spent the last couple of millennia doing their level best to kill us off or convert us. Which is, I suppose, a logical thing to do when you and you alone possess the One True Way to paradise, eh?

A pox on both their houses - there are many roads to paradise, and indeed, many paradises. And unless the "One Real God" crowd learns this, and pretty quick, then we're all doomed. At least in this world ...

An al Qaeda-linked extremist group warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that he and the West were "doomed," as protesters raged across the Muslim world to demand more of an apology from the pontiff for his remarks about Islam and violence.

(link) [CNN.com]

17:00 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

14 Sep 2006
Cuba slams 'morally decadent' US

Whoa! Excuse me? When the Pope made similar hypocritical comments the other day, it was noted here, so I can't let this go by without comment.

Here's the "President" (for life) of a country that routinely jails and tortures and sometimes kills dissidents, is "legally" a one party state jail and that hasn't had anything even resembling free and fair elections in nearly 70 years. And he's calling the US "morally decadent".

I guess "moral decadence" must be pretty attractive, because so many of his citizens would like to give it a whirl! And many of them die trying...

Now, of course I'm not saying that we're perfect, not by any means. But let's keep a sense of perspective here - not even the nasty, obnoxious and Constitution-gutting Bush Administration has started snatching people off the street in the middle of the night and executing them. Nor has any American government run the country as the personal fief of the Leader. When we do those things, if we do those things, we can be "castro-gated" as "morally decadent". Until then, Fidel, I suggest that you remove that log that's sticking out of your head before pointing out the splinters in our eye...

Cuba's vice-president calls the US a "morally decadent empire" at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

09:02 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

12 Sep 2006
Pope Assails Secularism, Adding Footnote on Jihad

News flash! Pot calls Kettle Black! Crusades Good, Jihad Bad!

While his predecessors were certainly concerned about Mohammad ordering conversions by the sword, they certainly didn't believe that violent conversion is contrary to reason and thus “contrary to God’s nature”. As long as it was conversion to Christianity, and specifically the Catholic variety. On the off chance that this is not an intentional blind spot, I'd suggest a bit of a history refresher for the good Pope. There's lots of material to cover, but he could start here. After this refresher, maybe he'd consider an apology.

Don't hold your breath.

In a speech on Western science and philosophy, the pope said jihadi violence is contrary to reason and God’s plan.

(link) [New York Times]

22:23 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

10 Sep 2006
Popular Christian books spawn video game

I get slightly amused when I hear of my fellow heathen and pagan travelers talking about "interfaith cooperation" with Christianity. I have to wonder if they've read these books, because these blood soaked novels represent Christianity in America in thew 21st century far more than the so called mainstream or liberal churches do.

Fetishizing of the End Times as a spectacular gore-fest visited upon on the unbelievers is nothing new. But the sheer number of people gleefully enjoying the spectacle of their own blackest magical thinking made manifest by mass media is new. Or at least the media aspect is new. It reinforces the major appeal of these beliefs, the appeal being (to restate the obvious) that they get to pass judgment on everyone who disagrees with them, and then watch God kick the living snot out of them. It doesn't get any better than that.
--Joe Bageant

And the LA Times had this to say about this game:

The game's heroes belong to a group of fighters called the Tribulation Force, people whose husbands, wives or children disappeared in the Rapture. This is the moment referred to in the title when, some Christians believe, God calls the faithful to Heaven, leaving the rest behind to face seven years of tribulation.

The game is set in New York City, where the Tribulation Force clashes with the Antichrist's Global Community Peacekeepers in a tale that makes the United Nations a tool for Satan. Each side attempts to recruit lost souls in the battle for the city. "Eternal Forces" is a so-called real-time strategy game — players act as battlefield generals for their virtual armies, deciding where to place units and when to order attacks or retreats.

In the game, Tribulation squads unleash the usual arsenal against the Antichrist: guns, tanks, helicopters. But soldiers lose some of their spirituality every time they kill an opponent and must be bolstered through prayer. The failure to nurture good guys causes their spirit points to drop, leaving them vulnerable to recruitment by the other side.

I'm well aware that many individual Christians are good and decent folks, who concentrate their spiritual life on the benevolent "love thy neighbor" message as presented in some passages of their scripture. But those sects of Christianity don't seem to be growing nearly as rapidly as the "hellfire and brimstone" branches, including the conservative resurgence in Catholicism. Frankly, I think they need to read the whole Bible - there are many parts that are anything but benevolent. In pagan and heathen circles folks who concentrate solely on love and "white light" are known as "fluffy bunnies": the mainstream churches are rapidly becoming their Christian equivalent. They're shrinking, and they're only folks that we in the pagan and heathen communities can "dialog" with on the Christian side. The evangelicals and fundies won't talk to us: why should they? We're sinners doomed to hellfire, after a bullet in the back of the head from the "Tribulation Force".

Trying to have meaningful dialog, much less "interfaith cooperation" with people who fantasize about killing you and sending you to their burning version of Hel is worse than stupidity, it's suicidal.

We need to get our blinders off and realize what we're dealing with here: go watch the trailer for this new documentary and be afraid. Be very afraid.

AP - The streets of New York have never looked so barren.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

20:52 /Asatru | 2 comments | permanent link

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