Right-Wing Christians Put Out Their Top-10 Favorite Racist Attacks on Obama (VIDEO)

 Right-Wing Christians Put Out Their Top-10 Favorite Racist Attacks on Obama (VIDEO)

November 24, 2013 | Filed under: Barack Obama,Racial Issues,Videos | Posted by: Mindy Fischer

The outright hatred for President Obama by right-wing groups who call themselves Christians and Patriots is just astounding. This website called “Americans Who Hate Obama” is one of many that proudly displays their racism and bigotry. Americans Who Hate Obama has put out a video with their top 10 favorite racist attacks on Obama.
This video proudly features things like calling the Obamas monkeys, terrorist Muslims, non-Americans, incompetent, and fried chicken and watermelon devouring negros.
It also features many unbelievably offensive slurs and signs. One says, “Send Obama back to the jungles of Kenya.” Another reads, “Don’t Re-Nig in 2012.” A girl shows off her new t-shirt that says, “Obama is my Slave.”
But, perhaps the most disturbing things in this clip are the pictures of nooses, including one with Obama literally hanging by a noose.

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Rush Limbaugh: “This Is Just Pure Marxism Coming Out Of The Mouth Of The Pope”

Rush Limbaugh: “This Is Just Pure Marxism Coming Out Of The Mouth Of The Pope”

FreakOutNation

opinionated politics | we inform, you decide.

November 27, 2013

By Anomaly

 We knew this would happen after Pope Francis called for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as “a new tyranny”, while writing of income inequality, and urging global leaders to fight poverty. One by one Republican talkers will trickle in, to voice their negative opinions of the Pope.
Infamous bigot, Pamela Geller asked when the Pope became an Imam.
And now here’s Rush Limbaugh declaring,”This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the Pope.”

Listen to Rush’s objections as he mentions the Pope’s fight against poverty.

Rush Limbaugh would call Jesus Christ a CINO.
Courtesy of Media Matters. 

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Is a Neurotic Form of Christianity Destroying America?

July 12, 2013  

Posted by: Robert De Filippis

 

 
“The deconstruction of Christianity is not an attack on the church but a critique of the idols to which it is vulnerable – the literalism and authoritarianism, the sexism and racism, the militarism, and the love of unrestrained capitalism with which the church in its various forms has today and for too long been entangled, any one of which is toxic to the kingdom of God.”
“Strategically, diplomatically, socially, politically, morally, economically, evangelically, in every possible way we are witness today to a low point in American leadership, an ethical, social, political and biblical catastrophe.”
These passages from the book, What Would Jesus Deconstruct: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture) by John Caputo, taken out of context, might suggest that religion is the singular cause for the continuing trajectory of a deepening dysfunction in our society. But a twisted popular form of Christianity catalyzes two other more powerful ingredients; predatory capitalism and a government that serves the interests of big money.
These three powerful components work together to drag us down the slope to more and more dysfunction in the name of a more moral society – a moral society based on a set of values that are so misapplied as to become destructive.
In other words, these three components create a moral society that destroys its own villages in order to save them.
For instance, while we hammer home the lessons of radical individualism in the guise of moral virtue, we reduce the resources or opportunities required to become self sustaining for great portions of our citizenry.
Just to be sure no one mistakes our moral lesson of self-sufficiency, we raise the interest rates on student loans, and the vital college education needed for success in the future becomes less accessible to the masses.
To be sure our moral lessons continue,  we keep our taxes low and maintain our spending on defense against an imagined enemy and our educational system is gutted to balance the budget.
We are cursed with near sightedness. We can’t seem to see the long term effects on the country when a low skilled, minimally educated workforce must shoulder the tax load of the future or compete with highly educated citizens of other nations.
We have an amazing ability to blame the victims in our troubled society and justify our accusations on a revisionist Christian morality which would be unrecognizable to the Christ himself. Not so much because Christianity was St. Paul’s invention, but because of the absurdity of present day revisionist interpretations.
This modern form of Christianity has become an expedient for the infiltration of a radical form of capitalism intermingled with our public institutions. The very same institutions that were formed to protect the interests of the citizenry, who are now doing the bidding of the mega wealthy, while pointing to the moral failure of the masses they were intended to serve.
Yes, Mr. Caputo, we have many idols. And although I’m encouraged by your efforts to  deconstruct Christianity, I doubt our ability or willingness to take the same actions with capitalism and governance.
It would never get through the Republican led House of Representatives. That’s the one with all the good Christian Tea Party moralists.
Rather, they are satisfied to keep Americans dancing around the golden calf, with the improbable hope that eventually some of capitalism’s largesse will trickle down into their laps.
We are minimum wage, millionaires-in-waiting, fully immersed in this form of idolatry, trusting our day will come.
If there is an unpardonable sin, it’s using religion to separate and discriminate rather than to connect and make whole.
On America’s behalf, Mea Culpa!
Robert De Filippis

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Religious Right Furious Pope Francis Wants Them To Follow The Bible

 Religious Right Furious Pope Francis Wants Them To Follow The Bible

Written by: Sarah Wood

Many on the religious right are livid that Pope Francis would have the audacity to want people to live up to the actual teachings of the Bible which fully negates their agenda of sweeping the poor under the rug and rewarding the already obscenely wealthy.

“How dare he say trickle-down economics doesn’t work!” said Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). “The beloved Ronald Reagan, who was far more religious than any Pope said if we keep giving the wealthy more money, everyone will have more money. We just need to wait a little bit longer to see it work!”

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), devout Catholic, said of the Pontiff, “He is obviously reading from the wrong part of the book. Wealth and greed are beautiful Biblical concepts that go back even further than Jesus.”

“I just don’t diddly understand why therefore and more what this here supposed religious leader-type thingy thinks he’s up to,” said Sarah Palin.

Many in the religious right are denouncing the anti-capitalist remarks of Pope Francis. They don’t want any sort of actual religious facts and teachings to derail their attempt at creating a feudal society.

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To quote from Sodom and Gomorrah: ” … So don’t be gay.”

 To quote from Sodom and Gomorrah: ” … So don’t be gay.”

November 9, 2011 By John Shore 

 

Is there some sort of resurgence happening around the idea that when it comes to proving that God condemns gay people, you just can’t beat the ancient story of Sodom and Gomorrah? Because lately I’ve been hearing from fundy-type Christians who want me to read S&G, so that I’ll understand that that’s the message of that story.
So I just now went and reread the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
As far as I can tell, the Big Main Lesson of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is that if it ever happens that, for some inexplicable reason, every man in your town is suddenly seized by an overwhelming desire to gang-rape the angels who are sleeping over at your house, offer them your daughters to rape instead. But then worry not, because your guest angels will strike blind all the would-be rapists, who will then be unable to locate your front door, let alone your daughters. Also, if God later starts raining burning sulphur down upon your town, do not look back at that spectacle, no matter how far away from it you are at the time, because doing so will instantly transform you into a pillar of salt. And then that’s a drag for your family.
But maybe I just have a weird translation of the Bible. Maybe, in other translations, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah concludes in this way:

Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. So don’t be gay.

That I have a bad Bible translation is most certainly the problem. Because I cannot think of any other reason for which any sane person would ever seriously suggest that the point of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is to prove that homosexuality is immoral.

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Conservative Christian Leader Says Single Moms Should Put Their Kids Up For Adoption

 
Author: Stephen D. Foster Jr. November 27, 2013 3:59 am

In what sounds like a strong suggestion for taking kids away from single moms by force, a ‘Christian’ leader urges them to give their kids up voluntarily. Photo from JuicyEcumenism.Com.

In what seems like a single step away from advocating that we take kids away from their single moms by force, a conservative Christian leader is urging them to give up their children voluntarily.

A conservative Christian leader says single moms should surrender their kids to Christian homes with two parents.

Right Wing Watch reports that Southern Baptist leader Richard Land is calling on single mothers to put up their kids for adoption so that Christian households with two parents can raise them.
In a November 23rd article published on The Christian Post, Land urges single mothers across the nation to stop being selfish and hand their kids over to good Christian parents so they can be raised properly, the way he thinks God intended.

“Keeping the baby is almost never preferable to allowing a baby to be adopted into a solid, faithful Christian home,” Land claims. “A single mother who keeps her baby is quite often denying that baby the father that God wants for that baby, and every baby, to have. Furthermore, in most circumstances, keeping the baby circumscribes and forecloses both the mother’s and the baby’s economic futures in tragic and unfortunate ways. If the mother is doing what is best for her baby (one of the defining marks of maternal love), she will part with her baby so that it will have the future God intended for him or her to have… Adoption allows the mother to give her child both a mother and a father who will love and cherish the child.”

Richard Land calls for a policy that would increase the number of kids in need of adoptive homes by millions.

Land says he understands that there are already 100,000 children waiting to be adopted in the United States, but he still thinks all 11 million single moms in the nation should freely surrender their kids. Why? Because he says the children of single moms are being raised improperly and really should be given the chance to have a father in their lives, even if they have to squander their childhood in orphanages waiting to be adopted.
Apparently, Land has no clue how many children that is. Try about 20 million. That’s how many children would be flooding the adoption system if Land had his way. Earlier in his article, before he completely insulted single moms, Land tried to make the case for adoption instead of abortion. He says that women should always choose adoption rather than seek an abortion. Since an estimated 1.2 million abortions are performed every year, that would be 1.2 million babies that the already overworked and underfunded adoption and child services system would have to deal with each year, in addition to the 20 million Land expects single moms to give up. Can anyone possibly imagine this turning out well?
Unless conservatives are literally willing to order their congressional puppets to open the government wallet and write a gigantic check (Can anyone honestly imagine that happening?), the system would implode upon itself. Millions of children would be stranded. And millions of children would be added to the million-plus children who are now homeless in America. It would create a crisis of epic proportions, with not enough Christian households around to solve it.

Richard Land’s call carves a dangerous path.

The fact is, abortion is a necessary choice that all women should have. Sure, they have ability to choose adoption. But it seems that Land is suggesting forcing that choice upon women. There are already so many children who have no home, why force women to thrust more children into that situation? It’s seriously insane.
Furthermore, after single moms read what Land said, it wouldn’t surprise me if they tarred and feathered him in a public square. As if conservatives haven’t attacked single mothers enough, this guy is openly claiming that they don’t raise their children right and that the only way they can do so is to have a husband. This personally enrages me, because I was raised by a single mother, as are millions of children every single year. Is it hard? Sure it is. But does that mean my single mother wasn’t a fantastic parent who raised me well? Absolutely not.
Land’s call for single moms to willingly surrender their children is a dangerous signal from religious conservatives. You know how conservatives are currently cheering for Russia to forcibly take children away from gay couples? It sounds like conservatives are now one step closer toward forcibly taking children away from single mothers here in America. I’m not sure what conservatives call that, but most sane people would call it kidnapping, which is illegal. Furthermore, Land’s call to for single moms to give up their kids to Christian couples is highly suspicious. Clearly, these Christian fundamentalists would be free to indoctrinate these kids. Basically, Land wants to take kids away from their single moms so they can be brainwashed with hate, fear, prejudice, and ignorance. Again, I’m not sure what Land calls that, but most sane people would call that child abuse.

Conservatives have stopped at nothing to attack single mothers.

This is yet another aspect in the GOP’s war on women. They simply can’t stand single moms, even though it’s a good bet that many right-wingers were raised by them. Despite that, conservatives have stopped at nothing to attack single mothers.
Kansas Republicans are increasing the cost of childcare across the state to fund abstinence-only programs that don’t work. You know who is going to be affected by that the most? Single moms. In Wisconsin, the GOP thinks single moms actually want fatherless children and have compared single motherhood to child abuse. Republicans even blame single moms for the epidemic of gun violence in this country.
But that’s not all. Republican policies such as abstinence-only programs and their anti-contraception crusade lead to more women becoming single moms. Not only that, their policies only make the lives of single mothers harder, thus making it more difficult to care for their children. GOP efforts to eliminate child care services, preschool, food stamps, and equal pay for women have only made things harder for single women.
Here’s a thought. The he-man woman haters within the GOP should get off their collective asses and begin pushing birth control and comprehensive sex education. The number of unintended pregnancies would drop as would the number of abortions. And here’s an even better idea. What if Republicans actually supported and enacted equal pay for women? What if they increased child care services and pre-school at the same time? Those combined efforts would reduce the number of women who become single mothers via unintended pregnancies. And single mothers would have a large enough income and the assistance they need to take care of their kids.

Richard Land’s call is sure to drive more women and their children into the welcoming arms of the Democratic Party.

Conservatives have the gall to wonder why women are voting for Democrats, and yet they attack women on all fronts. Of course, it’s not going to get any better for the GOP considering one of their own just insulted millions of single mothers and the millions of children who are raised by them. On that same note, let’s not forget that young people are increasing voting against the Republican Party. By attacking their moms, the GOP is just giving them another reason to vote Democrat.

Richard Land, and conservative men like him, are sexist assholes.

It’s amazing how conservative men can claim to know so much about child-rearing when they have made it abundantly clear that they expect women to do all the work. Maybe if Republicans advocated for teaching men to be good partners with the women they have a child with, more kids would have a father in their lives. Unfortunately, conservative men like Richard Land are too busy being sexist assholes, and you can’t expect sexist assholes to teach other men not to be one. In short, these anti-women conservative men are totally unfit to raise children and are totally unqualified to judge single mothers and how they raise theirs.

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Why the Christian Right Believes It Has Once-in-a-Decade Chance to Impose Its Radical Worldview on America

Why the Christian Right Believes It Has Once-in-a-Decade Chance to Impose Its Radical Worldview on America

A change to obscure procedural rules in the U.S. Senate and the upcoming 2014 elections could be a dangerous window of opportunity.

November 26, 2013  

 

AlterNet / By CJ Werleman

Elections have consequences. The Senate Democrats’ detonation of the “nuclear option” has dramatically raised the stakes for secular progressives in 2014, because if there are two issues that juice the Christian Right the most, it’s women’s reproductive rights and judicial activism. On the latter, the Religious Right senses a once-in-a-decade opportunity to impose its radical worldview on America.
Last week, the Senate voted 52-48 to eliminate the ability of the minority party in the Senate to filibuster executive branch nominees and any judgeship below the Supreme Court by changing the requirements for passage to a simple majority vote. It was a historic move made because there was no other alternative, given the GOP’s unprecedented abuse of the filibuster. In the history of the United States, 168 presidential nominees have been filibustered. Half occurred under all presidents from Washington through to Bush. Remarkably, the other half has taken place under just one president: Obama.
Why such aggressive judicial obstructionism by the GOP?
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. writes, “This era’s conservatives will use any means at their disposal to win control of the courts. Their goal is to do all they can to limit Congress’s ability to enact social reforms.”
The Christian Right, which is the GOP’s most reliable and agitated voting bloc, is obsessed with the courts, and the Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit is the nation’s second most important judicial body, which is why Republicans “gave the game away when all but a few of them opposed Obama’s three most recent appointments.”
Now that Democrats were forced into limiting the filibuster, the Christian Right has its incentive to mobilize for 2014. A simple majority control of the Senate gives it an opportunity to pack the courts with judges straight out of the Justice Scalia mold, who once said that separation of church and state would come under scrutiny under a Supreme Court with a Scalia majority. If the Christian Right sweeps Republicans to control the Senate in next year’s midterms, the anti-secularists will take a big step forward toward their stated ideological goals.
The recent Values Voter Summit demonstrated that the likely 2016 GOP frontrunners have a base wish to transform America’s secular state into a tyrannical theocracy — a nirvana absent gays, liberals, immigrants, Muslims and science books. The right-wing media elites are already doing their bit to gin up the far right’s judicial activists with Rush Limbaugh comparing filibuster reform to rape.
Truth in Action Ministries recently released a film titled Freedom on Trial, which features Robert Bork, the failed Reagan Supreme Court nominee, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, and Heritage Foundation vice president Genevieve Wood. The general theme of the documentary is that Christianity is under attack thanks to liberal "activist judges." Bork warns that courts are “teaching the people that religion is evil,” while another conservative attorney claims decisions that go against the Ten Commandments will “destroy the country.”
President Obama’s judicial nominees were being filibustered because they threaten to alter the circuit court’s philosophical balance. The Republican Party has again demonstrated that nullification and obstruction are ready-made weapons to ensure the courts remain dominated by conservatives.

Cass R. Sunstein, author of Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts are Bad for America, writes, “Our courts now represents the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. These reformers include a number of federal judges—radicals in robes, fundamentalists on the bench….some of these judges do not hesitate to depart radically from longstanding understandings of constitutional meaning.” Political analyst James Fallows writes, “Add that to the simply unprecedented abuse of the filibuster in the years since the Democrats won control of the Senate and then took the White House, you have what we’d identify as a kind of long-term coup if we saw it happening anywhere else.”

The end of the filibuster threatens the far right’s stranglehold on our courts. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell warned, “The solution to this problem is at the ballot box. We look forward to having a great election in November 2014.” John McCain warned, “Democrats will regret this.”
For Republicans to take back the Senate, they’ll need to win six seats. Given Democrats will need to defend 21 seats, compared to just 14 for the GOP, and that seven of those 21 Democratic seats are in states that lean Republican, expect the Christian Right to be the party’s primary water carrier in the midterms.
Former Speaker Tip O’Neill liked to say that all politics is local. He was wrong. It’s tribal. The detonation of the nuclear option ensures the always-mobilized theological tribe will turn out in high numbers in 2014. This means America’s secular state will remain in the balance should the secular left tribe do no better than its impotency in 2010.
CJ Werleman is the author of Crucifying America and God Hates You, Hate Him Back. Follow him on Twitter @cjwerleman.

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7 Reasons Why It's Easier for Humans to Believe in God Than Evolution

What science can tell us about our not-so-scientific minds.

By Chris Mooney

Tue Nov. 26, 2013 8:31 AM GMT

 

The ascent of man? José-manuel Benitos/Wikimedia Commons. Photoillustration by Matt Connolly.

Late last week, the Texas Board of Education failed to approve a leading high school biology textbook—whose authors include the Roman Catholic biologist Kenneth Miller of Brown University—because of its treatment of evolution. According to The New York Times, critiques from a textbook reviewer identified as a "Darwin Skeptic" were a principal cause.
Yet even as creationists keep trying to undermine modern science, modern science is beginning to explain creationism scientifically. And it looks like evolution—the scientifically uncontested explanation for the diversity and interrelatedness of life on Earth, emphatically including human life—will be a major part of the story. Our brains are a stunning product of evolution; and yet ironically, they may naturally pre-dispose us against its acceptance.

1871 satirical image depicting Charles Darwin as an ape. The Hornet/Wikimedia Commons

"I don't think there's any question that a variety of our mental dispositions are ones that discourage us from taking evolutionary theory as seriously as it should be taken," explains Robert N. McCauley, director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture at Emory University and author of the book Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not.
So what can science tell us about our not-so-scientific minds? Here's a list of cognitive traits, thinking styles, and psychological factors identified in recent research that seem to thwart evolution acceptance:
Biological Essentialism. First, we seem to have a deep tendency to think about biology in a way that is "essentialist"—in other words, assuming that each separate kind of animal species has a fundamental, unique nature that unites all members of that species, and that is inviolate. Fish have gills, birds have wings, fish make more fish, birds make more birds, and that's how it all works. Essentialist thinking has been demonstrated in young children. "Little kids as young as my 2 and a half year old granddaughter are quite clear that puppies don't have ponies for mommies and daddies," explains McCauley.
If essentialism is a default style of thinking, as much research suggests, then that puts evolution at a major disadvantage. Charles Darwin and his many scientific disciples have shown that essentialism is just plain wrong: Given enough time, biological kinds are not fixed but actually change. Species are connected through intermediate types to other species—and all are ultimately related to one another.

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Teleological Thinking. Essentialism is just one basic cognitive trait, observed in young children, that seems to hinder evolutionary thinking. Another is "teleology," or the tendency to ascribe purposes to things and objects so as to assume they exist to serve some goal.
Recent research suggests that 4 and 5 year old children are highly teleological in their thinking, tending to opine, for instance, that clouds are "for raining" and that the purpose of lions is "to go in the zoo." The same tendency has been observed in 7 and 8 year olds who, when asked why "prehistoric rocks are pointy," offered answers like "so that animals could scratch on them when they got itchy" and "so that animals wouldn't sit on them and smash them."

Title page of the Reverend William Paley's 1802 work Natural Theology, which famously propounded an argument for God's existence based on the appearance of design in nature. Wikimedia Commons

Why do children think like this? One study speculates that this teleological disposition may be a "side [effect] of a socially intelligent mind that is naturally inclined to privilege intentional explanation." In other words, our brains developed for thinking about what people are thinking, and people have intentions and goals. If that's right, the playing field may be naturally tilted toward anti-evolutionist doctrines like "intelligent design," which postulates an intelligent agent (God) as the cause of the diversity of life on Earth, and seeks  to uncover evidence of purposeful design in biological organisms.
Overactive Agency Detection. But how do you know the designer is "God"? That too may be the result of a default brain setting.
Another trait, closely related to teleological thinking, is our tendency to treat any number of inanimate objects as if they have minds and intentions. Examples of faulty agency detection, explains University of British Columbia origins of religion scholar Ara Norenzayan, range from seeing "faces in the clouds" to "getting really angry at your computer when it starts to malfunction." People engage in such "anthropomorphizing" all the time; it seems to come naturally. And it's a short step to religion: "When people anthropomorphize gods, they are inferring mental states," says Norenzayan.
There has been much speculation about the evolutionary origin of our anthropomorphizing tendency. One idea is that our brains developed to rapidly assume that objects in the world are alive and may pose a threat, simply because while wrongly mistaking a rustle of leaves for a bear won't get you killed, failing to detect a bear early (when the leaves rustle) most certainly will. "Supernatural agents are readily conjured up because natural selection has trip-wired cognitive schema for agency detection in the face of uncertainty," write Norenzayan and fellow origin of religion scholar Scott Atran.

Illustration by Rene Descartes of the pineal gland, which he believed to be the location of the soul within the brain. Wikimedia Commons

Dualism. Yet another apparent feature of our cognitive architecture is the tendency to think that minds (or the "self" and the "soul") are somehow separate from brains. Once again, this inclination has been found in young children, suggesting that it emerges early in human development. "Preschool children will claim that the brain is responsible for some aspects of mental life, typically those involving deliberative mental work, such as solving math problems," write Yale psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg. "But preschoolers will also claim that the brain is not involved in a host of other activities, such as pretending to be a kangaroo, loving one's brother, or brushing one's teeth."
Dualistic thinking is closely related to belief in phenomena like spirits and ghosts. But in a recent study, it was also the cognitive factor most strongly associated with believing in God. As for evolutionary science? Dualism is pretty clearly implicated in resistance to the idea that human beings could have developed from purely natural processes—for if they did, how could there ever be a soul or self beyond the body, to say nothing of an afterlife?
Inability to Comprehend Vast Time Scales. According to Norenzayan, there's one more basic cognitive factor that prevents us from easily understanding evolution. Evolution occurred due to the accumulation of many small changes over vast time periods—which means that it is unlike anything we've experienced. So even thinking about it isn't very easy. "The only way you can appreciate the process of evolution is in an abstract way," says Norenzayan. "Over millions of years, small changes accumulate, but it's not intuitive. There's nothing in our brain that says that's true. We have to override our incredulity."
Group Morality and Tribalism. All of these cognitive factors seem to make evolution hard to grasp, even as they render religion (or creationist ideas) simpler and more natural to us. But beyond these cognitive factors, there are also emotional reasons why a lot of people don't want to believe in evolution. When we see resistance to its teaching, after all, it is usually because a religious community fears that this body of science will undermine a belief system—in the US, usually fundamentalist Christianity—deemed to serve as the foundation for shared values and understanding. In other words, evolution is resisted because it is perceived as a threat to the group.
So how appropriate that one current scientific theory about religion is that it exists (and, maybe, that it evolved) to bind groups together and keep them cohesive. In his recent book The Righteous Mind, moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that religions provide a shared set of beliefs and practices that, in effect, serve as social glue. "Gods and religions," writes Haidt, "are group-level adaptations for producing cohesiveness and trust." The upside is unity; the downside, Haidt continues, is "groupishness, tribalism, and nationalism." Ideas and beliefs that threaten the group or the beliefs that hold it together—ideas like evolution—are bound to fare badly in this context.

Everett Collection/Shutterstock

Fear and the Need for Certainty. Finally, there appears to be something about fear and doubt that impels religiosity and dispels acceptance of evolution. "People seem to take more comfort from a stance that says, someone designed the world with good intentions, instead of that the world is just an intention-less, random place," says Norenzayan. "This is especially true when we feel a sense of threat, or a feeling of not being in control."
Indeed, in one amazing study, New Zealanders who had just suffered through a severe earthquake showed stronger religiosity, but only if they had been directly affected by the quake. Other research suggests that making people think about death increases their religiosity and also decreases evolution acceptance. It's not just death: It's also randomness, disorder. In one telling study, research participants who were asked to think of a situation in which they had lacked control and then to "provide three reasons supporting the notion that the future is (un-) controllable," showed a marked decline in their acceptance of evolution, opting instead for an intelligent design-style explanation. (Another study found that anti-evolutionists displayed higher fear sensitivity and a trait called the "need for cognitive closure," which describes a psychological need to find an answer that can resolve uncertainty and dispel doubt.)
Such is the research, and it's important to point out a few caveats. First, this doesn't mean science and religion are fundamentally incompatible. The conflict may run very deep indeed, but nevertheless, some individuals can and do find a way to retain their religious beliefs and also accept evolution—including the aforementioned biology textbook author Kenneth Miller of Brown University, a Catholic.
Second, while there are many reasons to think that the traits above comprise a core part of who we are, it doesn't automatically follow that religion is the direct result of evolution by natural selection. It is also possible that religion arises as a byproduct of more basic traits that were, in turn, selected for because they conferred greater fitness (such as agency detection). This "byproduct" view is defended by Steven Pinker here.
In any event, the evidence is clear that both our cognitive architecture, and also our emotional dispositions, make it difficult or unnatural for many people to accept evolution. "Natural selection is like quantum physics...we might intellectually grasp it, with considerable effort, but it will never feel right to us," writes the Yale psychologist Paul Bloom. Often, people express surprise that in an age so suffused with science, science causes so much angst and resistance.
Perhaps more surprising would be if it didn't.
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Chris Mooney

CorrespondentChris Mooney is a science and political journalist, podcaster, and the host of Climate Desk Live. He is the author of four books, including the New York Times bestselling The Republican War on Science 

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Rick Perry Is Quietly Encouraging Texans to Sign Up for Obamacare

Rick Perry Is Quietly Encouraging Texans to Sign Up for Obamacare 

Published October 23, 2013 - 3:30pm

Katie Singh
Burnt Orange Report

Governor Rick Perry has always been one of the Affordable Care Act's most vocal opponents. He's called it a "monstrosity," a "stomach punch to the economy," and a "felony." But that hasn't stopped him from telling Texans to sign up for health coverage from the law.

That's right — Rick Perry's administration is encouraging Texans to enroll in the ACA's health insurance exchanges.

As the Texas Tribune reported last week, Texas will soon be shutting down its high-risk insurance pool for residents with pre-existing conditions, pushing them to seek coverage in the federal insurance marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act. According to the Tribune, "the state has deemed the high-risk pool obsolete, as the Affordable Care Act prohibits insurance companies participating in the federal marketplace...from denying coverage to Texans with pre-existing conditions." Governor Perry signed the bill abolishing the high-risk pool into law in June, and it will be shut down by the end of the year.

This is just the latest in a series of hypocritical moves by Governor Perry regarding the Affordable Care Act. Though he's called the law a "criminal act," Perry certainly has no problem accepting money from it. As we reported last month, Perry has accepted over $100 million in ACA grants, and was asking for even more to help expand a state program providing insurance to those with disabilities.

Perry's actions make it utterly impossible to take his position on the ACA seriously. The crux of his argument against the Affordable Care Act has been that it's better for states to control health policy than the federal government. But by accepting ACA grant money, and now by encouraging high-risk patients to enroll in insurance exchanges, Perry's actions have totally undermined his words. In accepting these parts of the ACA, he's essentially acknowledged that federal grants will enhance the state's existing health programs, and that the health exchanges will provide better coverage for people with pre-existing conditions than what the state has now.

Perry's actions confirm what policy experts have known since the law was passed — it's a step forward for Texans. Stacey Pogue of the Center for Public Policy Priorities told the Texas Tribune she "think[s] that people are going to have many more options and many better options in the marketplace than they do in the health pool today."

Texans in the high-risk pool currently pay twice the market rate for health coverage, but they will be able to find much cheaper options in the health insurance exchanges. The ACA's tax subsidies will also make coverage more affordable. In addition, the insurance plans available in the exchanges will expand the level of care people with pre-existing conditions can receive, "as they must cover 'essential health benefits,' some of which, such as maternity care, aren't [currently] covered in the pool."

So, the next time you hear Rick Perry call the Affordable Care Act an "attack on freedom" or some other hyperbole, remember that even he doesn't really think that. Perry's presidential ambitions mean he'll never admit it, but he's repeatedly accepted parts of the Affordable Care Act as good for Texas. In doing so, he's not only recognized that federal assistance can strengthen state programs, but he's also proven himself to be a Texas-sized hypocrite.

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Ted Cruz Quite Possibly Just Made His Most Ridiculous Statement — Ever

November 26, 2013

By Allen Clifton


It’s no secret that I absolutely cannot stand Texas Senator Ted Cruz.  I still go back and forth between him and Sarah Palin when trying to figure out who I loathe more.  Currently the edge goes to Cruz simply because he’s actually a senator, whereas Sarah Palin is nothing more than a failed vice presidential candidate and the Alaska governor who quit before her first term was up.
That being said, it’s not difficult at all to find ample quotes from Ted Cruz that are completely absurd.
But while there are plenty of quotes proving Ted Cruz is an idiot, the context of his recent comments about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid using the “nuclear option” to change the rules of the Senate might just be his most ridiculous ever.
During an exchange with Bloomberg News’ Al Hunt, Hunt asked Cruz about the change in the rules made by Senator Reid:

Hunt: Will it complicate passing budgets or debt ceilings or anything?
Cruz: Of course it will. I mean, it will poison the atmosphere of the Senate.

Yes, that’s Ted Cruz accusing Harry Reid and Democrats of poisoning the atmosphere of the Senate.  The guy who many within his own party can’t stand.  The man who staged a fake 21-hour filibuster where he tried to compare “Obamacare” to Darth Vader and misconstrued the meaning of Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor.  The same Senator who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to force a government shutdown, knowing that it stood absolutely zero chance at accomplishing his ridiculous “goal.”
The same Senator Cruz who, in his very brief time in the United States Senate, has done absolutely nothing except use his position as senator to set himself up for a 2016 presidential bid – at the cost of the taxpayers, of course.
Ted Cruz epitomizes “poison” in the Senate.  It’s clear to anyone with any kind of common sense that Cruz only ran for the Senate because he had presidential ambitions for 2016 and needed a way to get his name known to voters.  And since his election he’s taken up the strategy that the only thing he’ll do is pander to the tea party, hoping that if he builds enough support with far-right Republicans, he’ll set himself up to claim the GOP nomination in 2016.
But like I said, you don’t have to believe me – many within his own party can’t even stand him.  Look at how quickly many leading Republicans emphatically denounced the idea of shutting down the government again once another vote on the budget will have to be held in a couple of months.
So while what he said wasn’t the most asinine thing he’s ever said, the context behind what he expressed might just be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard him say.
Of all people, for Ted Cruz to accuse anyone of introducing poisonous behavior in the Senate could be a definition for hypocrisy.  And while this just might rank at the top of my list for ridiculous comments from the Texas senator, I’m sure it won’t be long before he says something else outrageous to trump its stupidity.

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The Religious Right With Their Weaponized Jesus Are Not Christians

The Religious Right With Their Weaponized Jesus Are Not Christians 

 

By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Tuesday, November, 26th, 2013, 7:28 am

It is instructive that Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin (retired), who now works as the Family Research Council’s executive vice president, cares more about what Jesus looked like than what Jesus taught.
Boykin, another one of those who says Islam is not entitled to First Amendment protections, and thinks God, not the American people, chooses our presidents, told the audience of a Men’s Prayer Breakfast at William Jessup University, that,

[Jesus] was a man. He was a man’s man, but we feminized him in the church…he was a tough guy and that’s the Jesus that I want to be like. That’s the side that I want to be like. But we’ve feminized Jesus in the church and the men can’t identify with him anymore; not the kind of men that I want to hang out with, they can’t identify with this effeminate Jesus that we’ve tried to portray. He was a tough guy. He was a man’s man.

For Boykin it was bromance at first sight and perhaps a wee bit of latent homosexuality as he waxed over Jesus’ “big, bulging biceps…thin waist” and “strong shoulders” (Who knew Jesus was the Marlboro man?)
Boykin’s accidental outing of himself aside, we don’t know what Jesus actually looked like. But we do know that he was not the strangely Germanic blond guy of popular imagination. He was a dark-skinned Semite:

There is also no doubt that Jesus smelled bad. They didn’t have deodorant in the first century of the Common Era so Jesus smelled bad, Peter smelled bad, Pontius Pilate smelled bad, Caiaphas smelled bad, the guys who nailed Jesus to the cross smelled bad, and so did the two rebels he was executed with and the people who watched, including Jesus’ mother. We get that. But smelling bad doesn’t make you a man when everyone – women included – smells bad. This sort of reasoning is why Boykin is working for the FRC.
We get that too.
But it’s a shame Boykin and the FRC care more about what Jesus smelled and looked like than they do the important things, like what Jesus taught about the poor coming first and the rich, having sold their souls to the dark powers that ruled the age to become rich, coming last. That would be swell, but people like Boykin prefer the Weaponized Jesus of the twenty first century to the apocalyptic prophet of the first.
Jesus is often portrayed as a carpenter but he might well have been, like Socrates, a stone mason, since the word used, in Mark 6:3, τέκτων (tekton), means only that he made things with his hands; it does not specify which craft he practiced. So yes, he would have been a hardy, no doubt muscular fellow, though Geza Vermes, whom I often cite here, points out that the language used – “son of a carpenter” – is used in the Talmud to mean somebody who is “learned” and therefore might have simply signified that Jesus was wise. Of course, we already figured that out, given what he said about rich people chances of getting into heaven (Matthew 19:24).
He might have been big, strapping, smelly AND wise. We’ll just never know. And it really doesn’t matter.
And that is because most of us would agree that what Jesus said was more important than what he looked like. Think about the Beatitudes and Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9) and think about them particularly in terms of what President Barack Obama has accomplished with regards Iran and its nuclear program.
Because it is Obama the Republican response was automatically negative but their response should have been to remember Jesus’ words, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7).
What we get instead is Bryan Fischer proclaiming that God will curse America for making a deal with Iran. Fischer forgets Jesus entirely and goes all Old Testament on us:

What he cursed us with are people like Bryan Fischer and Jerry Boykin and groups like the Christian America Patriots Militia, who have been claiming that Jesus and the Second Amendment together gives them the right to assassinate the president.
If Republicans really cared about Jesus, and what Jesus taught, they would be talking less about their Savior’s manly odor, flip open the New Testament that supposedly informs their beliefs, and realize that having done what Jesus wanted, Obama is blessed, not cursed, and that even if he does something you don’t like, you forgive him, not kill him.
It is too much to say that Jesus would say he wants his religion back. It was never his religion to begin with, after all. It is beyond contestation that Jesus was a Jew who preached an apocalyptic message to the Jews, that he ignored the Gentiles (Pagans) and not only ignored them, but told his disciples to avoid them, referring to Gentiles in true Jewish fashion as “dogs” and “swine” (Matthew 7:6).
Jesus did not invent Christianity. Christianity is a religion that was invented about Jesus, based, allegedly, on his teachings and not his appearance. But Jesus would certainly want those teachings heeded. He did not walk all over a Galilee infested with bandits, rebels, Herodians, and Romans, just for yucks. It was hot, dangerous – and smelly, after all.
We have to assume (assuming a historical Jesus in the first place) that he was serious about what he said.
He died for it, after all.
Whether Jesus was right or wrong about what he taught, whether he was an illiterate Galilean craftsman or divine, he died miserably and in great agony on the cross. And in at least one of the mutually contradictory versions of his death, he told his Father to “forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). He did not say “nuke ‘em till they glow” or “bomb them into the Stone Age,” like would a Republican.
We should respect that, Christian or otherwise.
But Jerry Boykin and his ilk have no genuine respect for Jesus. Jesus has become “weaponized” – a club used to bludgeon enemies. This is not at all what Jesus would have wanted, since he said to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39) and that if somebody steals your shirt to give them your cloak as well (Matthew 5:40) and to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44).
The only weapon here is love.
But conservatives hate that Jesus. Hate is more their speed. Old Testament wrath. A god who tosses nukes with his fingertips. That god profits them and their friends in the military industrial complex. That’s a Jesus they can get behind. That’s the Jesus Boykin really loves with all his manly man’s heart.
Unfortunately, that’s not the Jesus in the gospels, which is, after all, supposed to be a good message, not a bad.
The thing is, if Christianity is a religion about what Jesus taught, then these people on the Religious Right are not Christians at all. How much greater their crime if they claim Jesus actually created Christianity.
Yes, I do think Jesus would want his gospel heeded if he put in an appearance today. And I suspect he would have a few words for the dogs and swine on the Religious Right who have been masquerading as followers of the rabbi from Galilee.

The Religious Right With Their Weaponized Jesus Are Not Christians was written by Hrafnkell Haraldsson for PoliticusUSA.

© PoliticusUSA, Tue, Nov 26th, 2013 — All Rights Reserved

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Palin: Half-Term Half-Wit God ‘blessed’ with me a platform on Fox News to defend myself

Palin: God ‘blessed’ with me a platform on Fox News to defend myself (via Raw Story )

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday defended colleague Sarah Palin said that he found comparisons between federal debt to human slavery to be “fairly unobjectionable.” Earlier this month, MSNBC host Martin Bashir had blasted Palin after a speech…

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The American Family Association wants Christians to boycott Radio Shack. But WWJD?

November 25, 2013 By Dan Wilkinson

 

The American Family Association is calling for a boycott of Radio Shack. Why? Because in their holiday advertising Radio Shack uses the word holiday instead of Christmas.
The AFA regularly seeks to impose upon the world its particular brand of distorted Christianity by means of boycotts and similar campaigns, so this latest call to action is hardly a surprise.
Is this really how Christians want to make their voices heard? Do we really want to be known for demanding that others explicitly recognize and promote our religious holidays?
Would Jesus boycott a store that didn’t celebrate his birthday?
I don’t think so. I think he would have gone out of his way to shop at such a store, to engage with the people there, to show them the warmth, compassion, and love for which he gave his life. I think the petty economic activism advocated by the AFA is the antithesis of how Christians are supposed to interact with the world.
I don’t regularly shop at Radio Shack. But the AFA’s latest “campaign” sure makes me want to.
The AFA is asking its supporters to leave comments on Radio Shack’s Facebook page, and to call the company’s corporate office (817-415-3011, opt 0) to “let them know you are serious about taking your business elsewhere.”
I will be contacting Radio Shack. But I’ll be letting them know that, as a Christian, I wholeheartedly support their all-inclusive holiday advertising. I encourage you to do the same. If enough of us do that, maybe the AFA will learn something they seem to be missing about the real message of Christmas.

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Dan Wilkinson
Dan is a writer, graphic designer and IT specialist. He lives in Montana, is married and has two cats. He blogs at CoolingTwilight.com.

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Focus on the Family serves up a rancid turkey in time for Thanksgiving

Focus on the Family serves up a rancid turkey in time for Thanksgiving

by Steveningen

 

Ugh. Where to even begin with this one. The odious Focus on the Family has released a video designed to teach you how to explain the truth behind Thanksgiving to the kiddies. It is so rife with distortions, fabrications, omissions, persecution complex, and anti-government bias that it is a hideous thing of beauty.

Hi. I'm Stuart Shepard, This is Stoplight. About now, children are bringing home Pilgrim hats and turkeys made out of construction paper. And maybe making lists of things they are thankful for. But, it's up to us to make sure they understand the full context of what happened back around 1620.
We are the Pilgrims.
They were not called "the Pilgrims" back when this whole thing started. England would not allow these Christians to live out their faith they wanted to. They were told to fall in line with the government's view of religion. If not, they could be taken to court, fined or even imprisoned.
We are the Pilgrims.
So, some of them packed up and moved to Holland. Now thing were generally better there. But then they watched as the culture began to draw their children away from the Christian faith they were learning at home.
We are the Pilgrims.
So, then they booked that trip on the Mayflower. A cargo ship. Not really designed for passengers. Think of it as a floating tractor-trailer being tossed about by a stormy ocean. It was spartan, it was rough, but it eventually got them here to the New World.
We are the Pilgrims.
They signed the Mayflower Compact saying they were united in this undertaking for the Glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. Its simple framing of democracy would inform the U.S. Constitution more than 150 years later.
We are the Pilgrims.
They learned about human behavior: That if the colony took what each one produced and shared it with everyone else, well it brought out the very worst in human beings. The colony only succeeded once it allowed each family to have their own property and enjoy the benefits of their own labor.
We are the Pilgrims.
So--after having government trample on their God given rights--after seeing their children wooed away by a decadent culture, after a treacherous ocean voyage, a harsh winter, after learning how imperfect human beings function as a group--after all that--they held a feast to celebrate. And they thanked God for His Providence.
We are the Pilgrims.
It was only after Christian faith was turned into action, and after it was applied to real life troubles, and after they endured hardship while giving thanks--that they became known as "The Pilgrims."
We--are--the Pilgrims.

Even those with a rudimentary historical understanding of Thanksgiving would somehow remember to include the Indians at the first Thanksgiving table. But I suppose that is just too much for today's xenophobic, immigration-hatin' modern Pilgrim. Best just not to mention them and give over that time to further drive home all that persecuting, government intrusion and fear into your children's soft little heads. Among all the tripe to be found in this video is this doozy that sits at the very heart of the religious right.

They signed the Mayflower Compact saying they were united in this undertaking for the Glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. Its simple framing of democracy would inform the U.S. Constitution more than 150 years later.

Here they have taken the notion that it was our Founding Fathers who intended our Constitution to be divinely inspired and are now crediting the wacked-out Pilgrims for our Constitution that clearly states there shall be no separation of Church and State. Or something. The stupid, it burns.
So, when you find yourself at your own Thanksgiving table on Thursday, please remember to give a little moment of thanks that Stuart Shepard isn't sitting over there at your kid's table giving your little ones a history lesson.
Update: Thanks to Dave in Northridge for sharing this link: The Puritans and the Puritans who settled Massachusetts, 1620-1630.

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10 Weirdest Fundamentalist Christian Conspiracy Theories

The world of fundamentalist Christians is crawling with conspiracy theories, urban legends, and just plain bizarre beliefs.

AlterNet / By Amanda Marcotte

 

For the Christian right, having a “faith-based” worldview extends far beyond claims about demons and angels. Unsurprisingly, the world of fundamentalist Christians is absolutely crawling with conspiracy theories, urban legends, and just plain bizarre beliefs about how the world works. Here’s a list of 10 of the weirder ones are currently in circulation.
1) Same-sex marriage is an elaborate scheme concocted by lesbians to entrap men. David Usher of the Center for Marriage Policy managed to cough up a theory that is an outstanding blend of homophobia, misogynist myths about the mendacity of women, and paranoia about the supposed gravy train that is child support. He argues that women will marry each other and conscript men into supporting them by “pretending they are using birth control when they are not.” The men will then “become economically conscripted third parties to these marriages, but get nothing in return,” presumably because the only reason a man would want to care for his own children would be in exchange for sex and housework. He also assumes that the only sources of income women have access to are child support and welfare; the possibility that women hold jobs doesn’t seem to occur to him.
Usher is trying to find a way to justify the increasingly ridiculous right-wing claim that same-sex marriage is somehow undermining “traditional” heterosexual marriage. He has zero-evidence for his claim outside of his belief that women are generally sleazy liars, and will “cheat” men out of the straight marriages they’re entitled to by sneaking off with women.
2) Planned Parenthood is trying to get kids “hooked” on sex. The anti-choice organization American Life League has been peddling the idea for a long time now that Planned Parenthood works like a mythical drug dealer, but with sex. The theory, summarized in this amazing video, goes like this: Planned Parenthood lures otherwise asexual young people into thinking sex is fun (something they are dead certain that you would never, ever think if not for Planned Parenthood). They then trick them into having sex by telling them contraception works, but (evil laugh), the contraception doesn’t work and the young people get pregnant and have to have abortions. Which means profit for Planned Parenthood! This neat little theory requires ignoring both the fact that Planned Parenthood is a non-profit and that the overwhelming scientific evidence shows that contraception does work, but ignoring facts and evidence is what the Christian right does best.
3) Gay men wear special rings for the sole purpose of giving innocent straights HIV. This one was trotted out recently by everyone’s favorite disseminator of Christian right urban legends, Pat Robertson. “You know what they do in San Francisco, some in the gay community there they want to get people so if they got the stuff they’ll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring’s got a little thing where you cut your finger,” he explained, suggesting there’s a serial killing ring of gay men who kill with HIV for reasons undetermined. Robertson backpedaled, but as Anderson Cooper suggested, only because he got caught.
4) The abortion-mad Chinese eat human fetuses. This one is popular in anti-choice circles, because it hits both the abortion-obsessed and racist sweet spots. The claim is sometimes that the Chinese eat “fetus soup” as an aphrodisiac, because concern that other people are enjoying sex too much is always part and parcel of any anti-choice urban legend. This obviously false bit of racist propaganda is spread mostly through email, though prominent anti-choice activists like Jill Stanek have also perpetuated it.
5) Crazed liberals in Illinois want to teach 5-year-olds how to have sex.A Chicago school district has implemented a mandatory sex education program for each grade level, leading Christian right publications to accuse the district of practicing “pedophilia” by trying to get kindergartners to think about “sex and sexual acts.” While it’s no surprise that fundamentalists love the opportunity to titillate and outrage themselves by imagining kids getting blow job lessons, the reality is much more mundane….and pedophilia-preventive. Lessons for kindergarten and first grade will simply be about anatomy, with an emphasis on learning the difference between “good touch vs. bad touch,” specifically so children who are targeted by pedophiles know to report what’s happened. But perpetuating the belief that evil pervert liberals are targeting innocent children clearly matters more to the Christian right than stopping real-life perverts who are actually targeting children.
6) Obama is the Antichrist and plans to rule America by sharia law. Even though you’d think Obama would be getting on with this plan already instead of wasting time talking about bombing Syria, the belief that any day now a combination of sharia law and the apocalypse will be brought on by Obama still rules in Christian right circles. Public Policy Polling found that an alarming 13 percent of Americans are sure Obama is the Antichrist and another 13 percent entertained the possibility. Christian right-wingers are always on the lookout for “evidence” that Obama’s secret sharia plan is about to take off, leading to headlines likes this one from Breitbart.com: “Obama administration paves the way for sharia law.”
7) Charles Darwin took it all back the day he died. This one has been around since the 19th century, but still has a significant amount of play on the Christian right, as part of the ur-conspiracy theory which holds that scientists are just making up evolutionary theory as part of a grand atheist conspiracy conducted for reasons unknown. Interestingly, this is one legend leaders in the Christian right have been trying to put to bed recently, with even the group Answers In Genesis—which believes that dinosaurs and humans lived in harmony together—denying that Darwin recanted his atheistic views on his deathbed.
8) JK Rowling is trying to lure your children into Satanism with her Harry Potter books. Hardline Christian conservatives have always been afraid pop culture is a conspiracy of Satan’s to attract impressionable young people, so it’s unsurprising that Rowling’s Harry Potter series, with its portrayal of fantasy magic, made the top of the list of products to be feared. The hysteria hit a peak in 2001, with fundamentalist activists accusing the books of trying to “desensitize readers and introduce them to the occult” and “trafficking in evil spirits.” Things were made worse when the Onion published a satirical article Christian conservatives didn’t realize was satire, causing them to literally believe young kids told the Onion things like, “But the Harry Potter books showed me that magic is real, something I can learn and use right now, and that the Bible is nothing but boring lies.” The furor has died down somewhat, but plenty of evangelical leaders still routinely claim demons can possess your body if you read Harry Potter.
9) Pro-choicers in Texas were planning to pelt the state senate with jars of feces. This one rose up and was debunked within the space of six weeks over this summer of 2013. The claim, which unfortunately was given credence by the Texas Department of Public Safety back in July, was that evil pro-choicers were planning to sneak jars of poop into the debate and were only stopped by brave, poop-confiscating lawmakers. Eventually, the TX DPS reluctantly handed its actual documents regarding the protests over and sure enough, there is no evidence outside of urban legend-mongering from conservatives that there were any jars of any human waste whatsoever. Unfortunately, the legend was already out and circulating.
Humorless fundies are also perpetuating the claim that there was Satan-worshipping from pro-choicers at the protests, even though a cursory perusal of the evidence shows that the shouts of “hail Satan” were not a prayer so much as a joke aimed squarely at the Christian right protesters.
10) Birth control pill turns your uterus into a grave littered with teeny-weeny corpses of fully formed babies.Kevin Swanson, Christian right talk show host, expelled this one recently, claiming that “certain doctors and certain scientists” are finding that women on the pill have, “these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb.” An evocative image, albeit one that requires not only falsely believing the pill “kills” embryos (it works by suppressing ovulation), but also simply refusing to believe that menstruation actually exists.
These are just a sampling of the stories you’ll hear in hushed, can-you-believe-it tones in Christian right circles, where the urban legend is a primary form of communication.

Amanda Marcotte co-writes the blog Pandagon. She is the author of It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments.

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Ted Cruz’s Aggressive Campaigning Could Hurt Him With Crucial Iowa Voters

By Ben Jacobs

November 25th 20135:45 am

followMore Stories by Ben Jacobs

After leading the shutdown and making headlines for months, the senator is aggressively campaigning in Iowa. But will voters burn out on him before the crucial caucus vote?

Eventually, even the most gleeful child learns that there is such a thing as too much ice cream when the carton is empty and all that’s left is the toothache. Might conservative Iowa Republicans, a demographic that plays an outsize role in the presidential nominating process, ever feel the same way about Ted Cruz?
The Texas senator has been in office for less than a year and has already become a national figure and a frontrunner not just in the 2016 Iowa caucuses but eventually to receive the GOP nomination as well. Indeed, according to prominent Iowa conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats, Cruz would win the Iowa caucuses “going away” if they were held today. His problem is that they still are two years away, plenty of time for even those conservatives most excited by Cruz to tire of the Texas senator.
Cruz’s 21-hour anti-Obamacare speech on the Senate floor on the eve of October’s government shutdown established him as a national figure, but his star had been rising before that. It was Cruz’s performance in the 2012 Texas Senate primary, when he won as an underdog Tea Party candidate, that gained him prominence in the Republican Party. Cruz combined Hispanic heritage (his father was born in Cuba) with unimpeachable conservative credentials and a sterling legal record as Texas’s solicitor general, arguing nine cases before the Supreme Court and drawing comparisons to a fellow Harvard Law graduate, Barack Obama.

Campaigning aggressively at this stage in the election cycle would expose any political weaknesses far earlier than they might otherwise.

The Obama comparisons ended once Cruz took office. As a junior senator, Cruz has aggressively courted national media coverage to promote his causes, a strategy counter to the one President Obama used when he first entered Congress. According to Tommy Vietor, a former Obama Senate press aide who later worked for Obama both on his 2008 campaign and in the White House, the then-Illinois senator “basically declined every national press interview for nine months once he took office.” It was the same approach taken by Hillary Clinton when she was elected in 2000: “Keep your head down, focus on your work, and don’t look like you’re a show horse.”
In Vietor’s opinion, “when you’re an elected official and out doing every possible interview and on cable news, it diminishes you and makes people wonder why you aren’t spending more time doing your actual job.” As senator, Obama also took pains to avoid the appearance of even considering a presidential campaign and only visited Iowa twice before beginning his presidential campaign, both times while campaigning for fellow Democrats in the runup to the 2006 midterm elections.
By contrast, some grassroots Iowa Republicans say Cruz has hit just the right notes. Jamie Johnson, a member of the Republican Party of Iowa’s state central committee, said Cruz’s approach to the Hawkeye State has been “just right.” He noted that the Texas senator has made three trips to Iowa, each for a high-profile event, and that he likely won’t be back in the Midwest until next spring. Craig Robinson, a former party operative and editor of the Iowa Republican, voiced a bit more skepticism. While he acknowledged that Cruz has been in the state “a lot,” his criticism is not so much that the Texas senator is spending too much time in Iowa but that he has been concentrating on the wrong parts of the state. Cruz has been “been Des Moines-focused,” Robinson said. “It would be a bigger deal to me if he went to Dubuque or Davenport. That would be more interesting, rather than repeating” his trips to metro Des Moines.

As a presidential hopeful on the right of the Republican Party, Cruz has far more reason to visit Iowa in an effort to attract publicity than most of his potential competitors. After all, the past two winners of the Iowa caucuses, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2008, might run in 2016, along with a number of other conservatives with strong links to the state, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) or Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), another former presidential candidate. Cruz is appealing to a specific slice of Iowa caucusgoers, committed conservatives who are far more familiar with his competitors. As one observer pointed out, he has “more ground to make up.”
The risk for Cruz with Iowa voters is that campaigning aggressively at this stage in the election cycle would expose any political weaknesses far earlier than they might be otherwise. Doug Gross, who was the Republican nominee for governor in 2002 and is associated with the pro-business, establishment wing of the GOP, said the Texas senator is exposing his “feet of clay.” Gross said he thought Cruz performed poorly on his most recent visit to the state in October, when he spoke at the Republican Party of Iowa’s Ronald Reagan dinner in Des Moines. In Gross’s opinion, Cruz gave “a 45-minute self-indulgent rant” that hurt him with Iowa Republicans and “was better suited for D.C.” than a friendly part of the Midwest, where “neighbors know neighbors.”
Of course, as Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier emphasized, his speaking schedule isn’t just about Iowa. “The senator accepts event invitations and schedules interviews that offer the best platform for him to share his priorities and make the argument for the policies he is pursuing in the interests of the Texans he represents,” she said. She noted that Cruz’s camp was “mindful” of the risk of overexposure but still “pleased that his message has been able to resonate largely through the work he has done in his role as a senator—in committee hearings, statements on the floor, etc. Of course, media interviews are a part of getting that message out, too.”
The problem for most politicians is that they are never “new” for long. They all eventually become known quantities. While Vietor pointed out that Cruz has “completely diluted his sort of freshness factor and everything he says is completely predictable,” that’s the case with almost every public figure who has stuck around in politics. The Texas senator was always going to lose his initial bloom after the wave of publicity surrounding his 21-hour speech and his leadership role during the government shutdown. The question now is whether Cruz and his team can deliver a message that resonates and maintain an appeal with Hawkeye State voters who no longer see him as the exciting new guy.

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Who’s Destroying Christianity? It Sure as Hell Isn’t the Liberals

November 24, 2013 By Allen Clifton

It’s my belief, as was the belief of our Founding Fathers, that religion and politics should never mix. Honestly, what good can come from it?  Even among the seemingly endless denominations within the Christian faith there’s not a consensus of what is right and what is wrong.
I’ve been to the households of Baptists where drinking is strongly forbidden and against their religious beliefs, and let’s just say I’ve been far less than sober at a Catholic wedding.
But there’s undoubtedly a war being waged within this country by the far-right “Christian fundamentalists” (the ones I call followers of Republicanity) and real Christians who actually follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Since I founded Right Off A Cliff and co-founded Forward Progressives, I’ve made it part of my mission to reclaim Christianity from those who I personally feel don’t follow the Christian faith at all.  Another group I would highly encourage all of you to check out as well is The Christian Left.  It’s another great page that fights the ignorance of Republicanity.
It’s amazing though how so many conservatives really believe liberals are a bunch of godless heathens out to destroy Christianity.  It’s a claim that’s absolutely absurd.  There are tens of millions of liberals who are Christians in this country.  The difference is, we practice our faith in private like it should be.  We don’t stand on some alter, preaching down to others about how they should live their lives.

Still, I can’t count the times I’ve heard conservatives claim that liberals are out to destroy Christianity.
And while their ignorance concerning the idea that liberals are trying to destroy Christianity is apparent, they are correct about one thing — millions of people are destroying Christianity.   They are.

Republicans are the biggest enemy to Christian values I’ve ever witnessed.
You know what I’ve literally never heard, not even once?  ”I’m no longer a Christian because of the beliefs of liberals.”
But you know what I have heard numerous times?  ”I’m no longer a Christian because of the ignorance of so many conservatives who claim to be Christians, yet act like ignorant, hateful pricks.”
Story after story from people who no longer considering themselves Christians, though they were raised one, because of the ignorance of those who take Christianity and destroy it with their own selfish, hateful desires.
Liberals aren’t driving people from Christianity, conservatives are.  It’s the Republican party who acts like they’re some representatives of “Christian values” while being supported by hateful, paranoid, delusional, angry, fearful bigots who hate anything and everything that isn’t just like them.
“Oh, but I go to church and tithe 10%.  I’m also in the choir and I volunteer at all the church functions.”
Neat.
When someone says something like that to me this is what I hear:

“I was raised to go to church because it’s what God orders me to do.  I’ve also been told that I’m supposed to give 10% to the church otherwise I might end up in hell.  Oh, and if I’m not involved in church my friends and family will judge me, but it’s okay, I don’t really mind that because I’m surrounded by people in church who are just like me and we can gossip and judge everyone who isn’t just like us.”

Anyone who’s ever worked with the public will tell you the absolute worst day of the week to work is Sunday.  When I was a server at a restaurant right across the highway from one of the largest churches in the city I was living in at the time, Sunday morning was the shift where we had the rudest people, worst tips and our lives were miserable until the day was over.

You know, once the “good church people” arrived.
But like I said, people aren’t flocking from Christianity because of liberals.  They’re flocking from the religion because of the absolute ignorance of conservatives.  Who, as I’ve said many times now, don’t follow Christianity — they follow Republicanity.
And as a Christian who accepts people of all faiths, no faiths and all things in between, I’m going to continue to stand up for Christianity.  I will continue the fight to reclaim Christianity from the ignorant clutches of these right-wing fanatics.
I just hope more people join me in this fight.

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