This is the thirty-ninth installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
Today’s bit is Put the Bible Down, it Will Fuck You Up by Eddie Griffin.
Warning, many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity. You have been warned.
This is the eighty-third installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of sermon preached by Bob Jones,Sr., the founder of Bob Jones University. Jones was a Methodist.
This is the eighty-second installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of Pat Robertson answering a question about polygamy.
Atheist Hemant Mehta posted an article today answering the question, why do atheists care so much about religion? Specifically, Hemant responded to a video by Evangelical intellectual giant (I know that’s an oxymoron.) Mitch Stokes. Here’s the video:
Atheists don’t really care that you believe in what we consider bullshit.
We care about the effect your beliefs have on the world, because faith-based ideas have caused a lot of damage. They’ve been responsible for stalling LGBT rights, wrecking science education, opposing women’s autonomy, obstructing proper sex education, ignoring environmental damage, blocking scientific progress, murdering abortion providers and so-called blasphemers, and breaking apart families.
All in the name of God’s love, of course [love the snark].
If you care about critical thinking, science education, and evidence-based public policies, then you better be speaking out against religion.
Hemant gets right to the point: most atheists don’t care about religion from a theological or personal piety perspective. What they DO care about is the EFFECTS of religion. And for atheists in the United States, our focus is on Evangelicalism, Mormonism, and conservative Catholicism — religions with dangerous theological tendencies.
I do care about the influence Christianity has on our culture and government. I do care about the damage done to society in the name of the Christian God. I do care when people are hurt, maimed, and killed in the name of the Christian God.
When Christians want to turn the United States into a theocracy…It matters.
When Christians want their religion to have preference over any and all others…It matters.
When Christians demand atheists and agnostics be treated as the spawn of Satan…It matters.
When Christians attempt to teach religious dogma as scientific fact in our public schools…It matters.
When Christians attempt to force their religious moral code on everyone…It matters.
When Christians attempt to stand in the way of my pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness…It matters.
When Christians abuse and molest children in the name of their God…It matters.
When Christians wage wars thousands of miles away in the name of their God…It matters.
When Christians mentally and emotionally abuse people…It matters.
When Christian expect preferential treatment because of who they worship…It matters.
As long as Christians continue to force themselves on others, and as long as they attack and demean anyone who is not a Christian…It matters.
As long as pastors and churches get preferential tax code treatment…It matters.
That said…
As to who you worship and where? It doesn’t matter.
As to what sacred text you use? It doesn’t matter.
I want all Christians to have the absolute freedom to worship their God.
And…
I want that same freedom to NOT worship any God or another God…
And as long as that courtesy is not extended to me and to every human being on the earth…
It matters.
I write the way I do because I think Evangelicalism — an inherently Fundamentalist religion (See Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?) — causes untold heartache and harm. In its wake are countless lives and families that have been ruined by Evangelical beliefs, practices, and political views. If Evangelicals were like the Amish, I doubt I would have much to write about. But, they are not. They are an exclusionary political and cultural force that considers much of the human race to be enemies of their God and religion — sinners in need of salvation. Using fear and promises of forgiven sin and eternal life to fill its pews and offering plates, Evangelical churches trample under foot all those who reject their beliefs.
Granted, many atheists don’t care about religion. The same could be said for many Christians. These people just want to live and let live. I wish I could do the same, but I can’t. There is too much at stake to ignore religion. Left to their own devices, American Christians would quickly colonize North America for Jesus, becoming a Christian equivalent of the Taliban. While Evangelicals strenuously object to such a caricature, their actions speak louder than their words.
This is the one hundred and twenty-sixth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Amazing Grace by Chase Holfelder. Holfelder changes the lyrics a bit on the second verse. Some Evangelicals were outraged over his sacrilege
Mark Anthony Escalera writes for the Defending Contending (link no longer active) blog. Recently, Escalera wrote a post about how right he was/is about LGBT people. He concluded his masturbatory self-adulation with this:
Oh yes, one more thing. Just forget about this article. It really is nothing more than the deluded thoughts of man who is nothing more than a bigoted crackpot. In fact, he probably still believes that the Word of God is good for all that pertains to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). As crazy as it sounds, he probably even believes that GOD DOES NOT CHANGE and that JUDGMENT IS COMING!
I am glad that Escalera sees himself as a deluded, bigoted crackpot. Rarely are Christian Fundamentalists as self-aware as Escalera is in the aforementioned quote. Of course, he was being sarcastic, but sarcasm often reveals the true nature of a man’s heart. Kudos to Escalera for seeing himself as he is.
Escalera’s post is titled LGBT is coming for YOUR Children. (link no longer active) In I TOLD YOU SO fashion, Escalera stated:
When I began writing at Defending Contending over 8 years ago, I continued shouting the warnings that these days were coming. I shouted like a madman just as I have for years in the ministry that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were coming. I warned about the LGBT movement over and over. I argued with passion that they would NEVER be content to just destroy the Biblical pattern of marriage which was established by God as being between one man and one woman until death.
I was very vocal that the LGBT movement hated God and would strive diligently to destroy true Biblical Christianity. I also told you that they would infiltrate every aspect of government, the military, commerce, and down to the school system. Most have ignored me. Many mocked me. I have received more hate email than I care to have ever read.
In addition, I told you that they had a homosexual agenda. Their agenda has been detailed at great length that can be found with a simple search using any search engine.
Yet Christians closed their eyes. Pastors refused to take a stand. Churches capitulated to the enemy. It started simply enough by making comments like, “Well, what they do behind closed doors is not really anybody’s business.” But the LGBT movement was NEVER going to be content with that. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was not good enough for those who support this very small, but vitriolic and violent segment of the population who wanted complete openness to practice their abominations.
A year ago, Escalera wrote a post about the LGBT community “stealing” the rainbow. Here’s what he had to say:
After the flood, God created a rainbow to be His seal in the heavens. It was a declaration to show the mercy and longsuffering of God. The rainbow was His picture to a depraved world that while He would never again destroy the world with a flood, He would be coming again. The next time He comes, there will be no rainbows. There will only be fire and total destruction of ALL that stand opposed to Him.
The true rainbow is made up of 7 different primary colors of a spectrum. It is a beautiful reminder of the wonder that God long holds up His wrath and judgment against the wickedness of this world. Seven in the Bible indicates perfection and completion.
However, Satan perverted that sign and it is now used around the world as a symbol of “gay pride.” It has only 6 colors. Six in the Bible is the number of man. This “rainbow” is not a true rainbow, but is a symbol of perversion, debauchery, sodomy, lust, pedophilia, and bestiality – just to name a few. The one below is a perversion, and for the record, the White House KNEW what was coming and this was done deliberately. Read Psalm 2 for the conclusion….
In a post titled Mark Anthony Escalera Follows Dorothy Over the Rainbow Over Gay Pride Flag, I easily and quickly dismantled Escalera’s argument. Here we are a year later and Escalera once again has a hard-on over yet another LGBT offense. What is this offense, you ask? Why it is a web video series titled “Queer Kid Stuff.” According to the video creator’s website, the videos are meant to teach three to seven year old children about what it means to be LGBT. The goal, according to the producer’s website, is to “eliminate stigma by properly educating future generations through entertaining video content.”
Here is the first video, titled What Does Gay Mean?
There is also an activity page that goes along with the video. You can check it out here.
I suspect many readers — myself included — likely think that this video is inappropriate for children ages three to seven. I am sure that the producer means well, wanting to put an end to LGBT stereotypes and misinformation, but children of this age don’t need to be sexually educated beyond what they receive at home. If the target audience was ages ten and up, I would likely not object to such children being taught what the word gay means. I highly doubt that any public school district will use these videos to “teach” preschool and first grade students about what it means to be gay.
Escalera, a homophobic conspiracy theorist, is certain that the goal of LGBT people is to abuse, rape, and sodomize children. Escalera must be confused, because most of the sexual violence against children that I read about is being perpetrated by Christians. Day in and day out newspapers publish reports about pastors, priests, deacons, evangelists, missionaries, and evangelists abusing, raping, and sodomizing children.
Escalera can’t be bothered by facts. He KNOWS that LGBT people and their supporters are out to destroy Western civilization. Escalera sees the LGBT community winning court battles which grant them equal rights and protection under the law and it scares the heterosexual right out of him. Same-sex marriage! Transgender bathroom use! Gay Pride! What’s next?, Escalera wonders. Treating LGBT people with love, kindness, and respect? Allowing them to have the same rights as heterosexuals? Perish the thought!
Escalera is right about one thing. There is a battle going on over who will teach and influence children. In a Fox News report about the Queer Kid Stuff videos, Sean Ryan, communications director of the pro-family organization Mass Resistance, based in Waltham, Massachusetts stated:
It is easily conceivable that videos such as these will be sanctioned eventually by local school boards and implemented in preschool and prekindergarten classes. Activists are trying to force these topics on younger and younger children because that is the only way their movement wins. Rational adults don’t buy into the so-called ‘Queer Theory’ or transgenderism. Unfortunately, children are a soft target for homosexual activists as they are malleable and still learning about the world.
Yes, children are indeed a soft target, and that is why Evangelicals, Mormons, and conservative Catholics aggressively indoctrinate them in Fundamentalist beliefs, knowing that the sooner they turn children into ignorant homophobic bigots the better. Evangelicals in particular spend significant time and money on evangelizing children and teaching them the “right” way to view the world. Early on, Evangelical children are reminded by pastors, teachers, and parents that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. While most Evangelical churches and pastors are not as vitriolic as Independent Fundamentalist Baptist preacher Steven Anderson or Westboro Baptist Church, these bastions of Fundamentalism certainly do all they can to ensure that their children grow up to be good Christian heterosexuals.
Escalera wants to continue minting compliant, obedient Jesus-loving, sin-hating, Bible-believing, LGBT-hating heterosexual Christians. Secularists and humanists, however, think religion — particularly Evangelicalism — is a bankrupt ideology that is impeding progress and civil rights and promoting hatred and intolerance. The future of the human race hangs in the balance. Escalera rightly senses that things are not going his way and this scares him. He simply cannot bear the thought of living in a world where people love and respect one another regardless of their religion, skin color, gender, or sexual identity. I suspect he wants to live in country where Evangelical Sharia law forces LGBT people back into the closet. And for those who fail to return to the darkness and shame of the closet? Arrest and prosecution, perhaps even death. In a November 6, 2015 post titled LGBT — Choice or Genes, (link no longer active) Escalera stated:
The science aspect of this question is rather simple. There is no “gay” gene. There never has been a “gay” gene. There never will be a “gay” gene. Modern scientists will strive in vain to find that which undermines and countermands the Word of God. The reason is because modern culture hates everything about God. It hates the Bible with a passion because it points out the sin nature that is found in every man, woman, and child who has ever lived. Modern culture wants to think that man is getting better and better. Because of this thought process, it demands that all must conform equally to whatever is considered to be the acceptable norm.
….
There was a time when acts such as lesbianism and homosexuality were punishable as crimes, and we do not have to go all the way back to the Old Testament to find that such behavior has long been considered an abomination. However, if the only guide we had to what is acceptable behavior, we can go all the way back to creation to find that God made them male and female. Ultimately, the final authority belongs to God. He created marriage to be between one man and one woman, but sin has destroyed all of that. God created marriage to produce and populate the earth and to care for His creation, but sin has destroyed all of that.
While people such as myself see the LGBT battles of the last few years to be signs of progress, Escalera sees things differently: (link no longer active)
What is next? Polygamy? Many false religions already allow for this and it will not be long before they will demand equal protection for their lifestyle. The polygamists of Utah and Colorado used to be a very quiet group who worked diligently to stay under the radar of the authorities. Now, television and movies have promoted this lifestyle as being acceptable. Judges are already throwing out cases that involve polygamy and it will not be long before polygamy will no longer be a crime, but will be openly acceptable behavior from any who choose to have more than one husband or one wife.
What else is coming? Bestiality? Lowering the age of consent to accommodate the agenda of the LGBT community? Yep, all of the above and even worse will be coming because our societies in the west are on a cliff-face headed straight for hell. If you doubt that the LGBT community has an agenda, then you are living like an ostrich with your head in the sand.
The Roman Empire was destroyed from within by its debauchery. Rome became a place where biblical Christianity was mocked while allowing polygamy, slavery, and the selling of boys and girls for whatever perversions were needed to satisfy a person’s lust was on offer. Our society will also soon be there because it hates God, but God will not be mocked. Neither will His judgment be withheld forever.
Millions of Americans thinks just like Escalera. Little can be done for them. Their minds have been ruined by too much drinking of one hundred proof Fundamentalism. The best we can do is pass laws that promote tolerance, respect, and equal protection under the law, knowing that younger Americans are far more progressive and tolerant than their parents and grandparents. Outside of doing these things, we must patiently wait for enlightenment to choke the life of the Mark Anthony Escaleras of the world. Things seem bleak at times, but I do believe better days are just beyond the horizon. Evangelicals are the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. We all remember the scene when she met her ignoble end….I’m melting, I’m melting. Evangelicalism is melting, and will one day be no more. I doubt that I will live long enough to see it, but I do hope my grandchildren will witness the whimpering death of the beliefs that once caused great harm to millions of people.
This is the thirty-eighth installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
Today’s bit is Why Breast Implants Are Like the Bible by Mark Normand.
Warning, many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity. You have been warned.
God so loved the world that he gave his only son to die… This idea is foundational in Christian belief and something that has troubled me from childhood. I did not understand it and was told in my Fellowship Baptist upbringing that I did not need to understand the deeper matters of God’s Love, only obey without question, only serve the Lord.
Before I could muster two digits in my birthdays, I was taken into the depths of Hell in my dreams and witnessed what was going to happen to me because I was a human and not saved… Oh don’t get me wrong, I believed and I was terrified of what I believed but I had not walked to the front of the church during an altar-call and formally asked Jesus Christ to be my Savior. There is a very specific protocol involved in becoming the right kind of believer and there is no choice of styles or colors. At such a young age, there is only the pressing demand of family and church and of course, nightmares. For me, the nightmares finally tipped the balance and I decided it was time to brave the walk.
As it turned out, on that particular day, my preacher dad decided to focus on the urgency of the call to salvation and that this could very well be the last day of the offer. Tonight could be that night or even within minutes, seconds. God loves us so much that he puts off what we rightly deserve and waits for us to come freely. If you have any memory of what sheer terror was as a child, you are in the right ballpark here. When I look back, this was how freedom was defined in my life. I was free to choose alright. Either I do the walk and talk the talk and reallllly believe it or I am truly fucked. I knew this before I was ten and I chose. This is a poem I wrote about it half a life ago:
Just as I Am
Ten-year-olds
a dozen of us lined up
at the front of the church
because the world
just might end today
and we have all sinned
Romans 3, verse 23
our fisted, hounded hearts
and the preacher
offering one last chance.
Streets paved with gold
stream liquid
through amber
stained-glass windows.
Some of us softly weep
awful doubt in ourselves
our Baptist Jesus
and the preacher walking
our line and shaking hands
as if we were grownup
and big enough to deal
with being caught
between heaven and hell
on a Sunday morning
and our walking right
into the arms of it
idiot-faced
crying along with the music.
It is not easy for people to understand how devastating it is to a child to know that you have been the cause of the torture and death of the best man to ever be alive and to know that you are the one who is really guilty and will have to burn in a special place of forever-torture because God is great and will not be mocked.
I realized late, in my twenties, that I was truly brainwashed from the womb, that I was trained up and put through the routines just as soldier is and for the same reason: To create a one-track mind that obeys orders unto death. Onward Christian Soldiers marching on to war…
In my twenties, I began to ask ‘why’ a lot and look at issues that plagued me, the father God giving his son, and the example of Abraham and his great legacy blessed by God.
I lived in contradiction; unable to understand why I could not simply let go of doubt and why I began to feel angry with God for Jesus, dying and angry for Isaac; feeling a undercurrent of rage against a father who would give his own son…
I was not close to my father and he was not a man who had friends. He was an island, a preacher who spoke much when in a pulpit but very little any other time. He had no personal life to pass on or share with his children, only the way of Christ a la the Baptist church.
When I began to realize I was truly an unbeliever, I could not bear it and began a fruitless search to find the right church. Later I realized that I could create a Christianity that was my own and agreed with me and that it could be enough.
All the while I was slowly taking myself further from Christianity without ever rejecting Christ, to me the foundation and salvation of the person and the faith.
Before I had children of my own, I left formal belief in Christianity and was able to give myself permission to be full of feelings of all kinds, up and down and all around. I raged against the God of my youth. I told him he was a real prick for what he did to Jesus and that his nonsense with Abraham was just plain child abuse and showed what an asshole he was…. I talked to God for a long time after I was quite convinced that he was never real…. I still talked to him as I always had, as I was taught from early on… I’m in my sixties now and have stopped talking to God but still chatter away at myself. I wonder what I might have been free to be or do had I been loved and supported instead of trained up. I watch my brilliant kids, now almost on their own and both brilliant artists and human beings I admire with full, giving hearts and thoughtful directions. Neither have chosen to believe. I think that perhaps they are what I managed to do, that they are my only way to reach beyond the harm of my childhood and be allowed to be free, to play and freely speak. I trust that I have not let them down because of the harm I have had to carry with me because of religion. I glory in their mortal company.
One thing very clear to me since being a dad, a real dad to my kids, a primary caregiver in some of their earliest years and a dad who learned to let his children lead him. I think Abraham was a sick man and that he responded to voices allowing him to abuse his son. I think the story of God giving his only begotten is long, long mental illness that bipeds are still struggling with since the caves. I rejoice in living and am so thankful for my life and family, for my few dear friends. I do not want to talk of eternal life or death but to live this Saturday till a new dawn. I feel so sad for children who must face what so many of us had to face, the punishment, the loss of innocence, the whole failure of the punishment paradigm.
Each day, I get up and ready myself for work and often I hear old Eliot whispering in my ear, “Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky…” Let us live. There is no greater purpose, nothing beyond a life lived fully. I can allow my own joy. Really. It was always there with me even in Hell at ten years old, but it took me half my life to say, okay, I choose life… I’m going to feel all of it.
My believing family still pray for me. I asked them to please stop, repeatedly, but they won’t. They do it for my own good, like parents who spank children rather than listen to them, like all of us perhaps who decide what is best for others by listening to our ‘voices.’
This is the one hundred and twenty-fifth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is What Would Jesus Do? by Adam Baum.
Four or so hours away from Defiance, a man by the name of Ken Ham has built a $100 million monument to human ignorance — The Ark Encounter. This monument is a life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark. As one who was raised in the Evangelical church and pastored churches for 25 years, I heard and preached countless sermons about Noah and the Ark. Regrettably, I was in my forties before I learned that this story and many others were myths, having no basis in historical or scientific fact.
According to Ham and his fellow Evangelicals, the universe is 6,021 years old. Everything we see, both on earth and in the skies, was created by God in six literal 24-hour days. According to creationists, the book of Genesis is a science textbook, one that emphatically teaches young earth creationism. Indeed, the entire Bible is infallible and without error, and should be, with rare exception, interpreted literally.
I am sure, just as Muslims who make a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Mecca, Evangelicals will flock to Kentucky to Ham’s monument to scientific ignorance. Adults will pay $40 for the privilege of touring Ham’s Ark, children $26. While there, Evangelicals will be taught “truths” about the historicity and reliability of the Bible and young earth creationism. I am sure most visitors will be awed by Ham’s Ark, ignoring that much of what Ham has constructed is built upon speculation. If Ham built a boat according to Biblical specifications, I highly doubt Kentucky officials would grant it an occupancy permit, and it is doubtful such a boat would safely float.
Ken Ham also operates the Creation Museum, another monument to ignorance. When it first opened, Evangelicals flocked to Kentucky to witness the wonders of the young earth creationism lie. Once witnessed, Evangelicals moved on to other entertainments, resulting in decreasing revenues for Answers in Genesis. Following the script of Field of Dreams, Ham built his Ark believing Evangelicals would visit if he did. And they will, for a time. The problem for Ham lies in the fact that Evangelicals easily bore. Once Evangelicals have seen the Ark, will they return? Probably not, especially if Ham continues to charge King’s Island-like admission prices. Perhaps Ham knows this, and this is why he is already planning a new entertainment venture — a replica of the Tower of Babel. Those who love reason and science can only shake their heads.
