Fundamentalists Are All Alike: A Question For Christian Fundamentalists

I have an honest question for those here in the US whose belief systems are often called “fundamentalist,” meaning that their religion requires unquestioning belief in the truth and accuracy of the Christian Bible, the Torah and Talmud and Rabbinic law, or the Quran and Hadith exactly as they are written. These individuals often are behind efforts to infringe on the rights and liberties of others, and sometimes will outright admit that their goal is to establish theocracy, based on whichever book/tradition they follow. My question is specifically addressed to Christian fundamentalists, since they are the most numerous and vocal here.

Here in the US, Christian fundamentalists’ fear of Islam and Muslims causes them to speak out against Islam regularly, and to put forth silly legislation forbidding the use of Islamic religious law in local courts. That this is already forbidden by our Constitution seems to have slipped their minds, unless there is a plan for something a bit more sinister. For example, why set up a law forbidding Islamic religious law, specifically, in local courts, unless it is in order to allow some other religious law in local courts, presumably Biblical law, seeing that it is Bible believing fundamentalists who promote the legislation.

If the goal is to establish Bible-based theocracy in the US, one would first have to make sure Sharia law is made illegal before suspending the First Amendment’s establishment clause in order to legalize Christian law. Can’t have the wrong kind of theocracy! In time, before the establishment of Christian theocracy in the US, I assume it would also be necessary to forbid the use of Halacha, Judaic law's path to god.

At any rate, the question for Christian fundamentalists is: based on your promotion of discriminatory laws and infringements of rights for various groups of individuals (women, non-Christians, LGBTs specifically), what exactly will be the difference between your theocracy and one based on Islamic fundamentalism or Jewish fundamentalism and why aren’t you working together in the short term? Each group would deny women rights to vote, to work outside the home, to access family planning information and contraception. Each group would criminalize non-hetero expressions of sexuality and gender. Each group would require adherence to its religion and its laws, which are not very different at all.

The legislation and statements I’ve noticed recently being promoted by fundamentalist Christians shows that these individuals would love nothing better than to have homosexuals stoned to death, to force women into bags to hide their faces and bodies and to control access to their vaginas and uteruses, to force their religion on those of other religions or of no religion at all. In other words, these individuals would force everyone to SUBMIT to them, to their god, their religion, their code of morality. Islam means to SUBMIT to god. Religious Judaism requires one to follow "the path" to god. So, somebody show me the difference. Somebody explain why Islam’s god is different from Christianity’s god and why either of them are different from the Jewish god. Somebody tell me why fundamentalist Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, and fundamentalist Jews are not working together, because I don’t get it. With such similar goals, the Jesus thing just doesn’t explain the animosity between the groups, at least in the short term. Time enough for internecine battles after you’ve taken control.

I challenge Christian fundamentalists to really take a look at fundamentalist Islam and Judaism. Besides the Jesus thing, what exactly is the difference? I don’t see much.

The Pope Sux

Well, I've already stopped laughing.
From the BBC:

Pope Benedict XVI has criticised US bishops for their handling of child sex scandals, saying their response to the crisis had sometimes been very poor.

He laid part of the blame for the crisis, of which he feels "deeply ashamed", on a breakdown in US values.

Bold is mine.

WTF? Then he went on to say this:

What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?

It is rare that I shake with anger, but this just takes the cake. The problem of pedophile priests is caused by the availability of porn and violence? It has nothing at all to do with:
1) pedophile priests themselves;
2) a church which, instead of defrocking them,sent them to other parishes unaware of their previous misdeeds;
3) a church which, instead of turning them over to law enforcement, protected them by hiding their illegal acts;
4) a man who specifically told bishops of his church to keep the accusations inside the church and not to cooperate with law enforcement.

I agree with Ed Brayton who says:

[F]uck you, you lying piece of shit...Fuck you, Benedict. It's your barbaric values that caused thousands of children to be molested, not ours.

And for your viewing pleasure, I present this:

What sacrifice?

'Tis the season for difficult questions. I'd not normally be all "religion-talk" on anyone, but it's been shoved in my face since the first part of November, so I feel justified in taking it on at this time. This has more to do with Easter, anyway.

I've been told time and again by those who would save me from myself, that the lawd SACRIFICED his only son to save me from eternal damnation and let me live forever. John 3:16! John 3:16!

From MY reading of the gospels, the story goes something like this:

Jesus, the son of the christian god, was killed by crucifixion on a Friday (according to the church calendars, the Friday prior to the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox - Full moons? Vernal Equinoxes? Doesn't sound very christian, but we can get into that another time). Bright and early the following Sunday, he was found to have risen from his grave and showed himself to some of his disciples (including Mary Magdalene, which makes one wonder why women have such a poor image in the christian church, but we can get into that another time, too, and NO, I don't believe The DaVinci Code is non-fiction). After he had shown himself to several of his disciples, he rose into the sky to sit at the right hand of the christian god, his dad. He sits there to this day.

My question is, "What exactly is the christian god's sacrifice?"

His so-called son suffered for a time before he died, and perhaps his dad wept and wailed during his travails. To get the maximum wailing, let's say he was nailed to the cross at 6am (doubtful - who would have turned out that early to see the parade? It wasn't like there would be limited parking.). However, according to further calculations, and let's say he died at noon that Friday and rose at 8am the following Sunday, just to give him a little more down-time, dad was without his son for approximately 44 hours. And this was while dad was constantly aware that his fair-haired boy would not be permanently separated from him at all, but would be knocking at the pearly gates quite soon.

Traditionally, a sacrifice means to give something up permanently. "A forfeiture of something highly valued," according to Yahoo's dictionary. Forfeiture, IMO, means more than giving something up for 44 hours, knowing you'll get it back in perfect working order. Good grief, even Abraham knew that when he (almost - "Just kidding! LOL!" said god) sacrificed Isaac, he wasn't EVER getting him back.

A little help? Please?

Just in time for xmas!

Last week, during my daily "keep-from-doing-productive-things" quest for non-mainstream information and other radical notions, the surfing of my favorite blogs and forums, I ran across a comment that was new to me, but obviously not to others:

The "H" in "Jesus H. Christ!!!", I now know, stands for HAPLOID. Haploid is a scientific term used to describe cells containing one member of each homologous pair of chromosomes.

When I read this, it was all I could do to keep my monitor clean and dry while remaining upright in my chair. I mean, it makes perfect sense! Since (I assume) the christian god did not physically have sex with the Mary of the story, Jesus' cells would contain only half of the normal complement of chromosomes. I also assume "he" would only have X chromosomes, which makes one want to ascertain whether "he" was actually "she."

After some further surfing, I found that I was simply behind the times, as this is all over teh intarwebs. See for yourself!

Anyway, as an armchair science lover, I suspect there are more than one problem with this in real life, but superficially, it makes sense and it's funny, too! What more can one ask for?