Tag Archives: religion

May 15, 2011 · 11:07 am

Osama Bin Laden’s stash of X-rated pornography found

I’ll post this without comment also….

Except to say, that I’ve read, in numerous places, about the unexpected issues many fundamentalists of all religions have with porn…

From the London Daily Mail:

First it emerged Osama Bin Laden spent hours watching videos of himself as he callously planned new terror attacks against the ‘decadent’ West

But now it appears the Al Qaeda mastermind may have watched something else as he hid in his squalid lair  – pornography.

Today officials revealed U.S. Navy SEALs discovered a stash of x-rated films in the terror leader’s final hideout.

What was he watching? Today it emerged U.S. Navy SEALs found a stash of pornography videos in Osama Bin Laden’s squalid lair

It’s the latest in a series of chilling revelations about the years Bin Laden spent in the specially-built compound, as investigators trawl through the treasure trove of evidence recovered by the SEALS.

According to officials, the commandos found a ‘fairly extensive’ collection of modern porn films as they searched the building after Bin Laden was shot.

via Osama Bin Laden’s stash of X-rated pornography found in his squalid lair | Mail Online.

Leave a comment

Filed under Religion

Tagged as , ,

May 13, 2011 · 12:28 pm

Good Without God: Why “Non-Religious” Is the Fastest-Growing Preference in America | | AlterNet

Very interesting article….

My theory is that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the Religious Right have made Christianity appear so hard, judgemental and unforgiving, that they made it safe for Americans to be open to alternatives.  In the long run, they did more to hurt the “moral majority” than to help it….

Add to that, the expansion of our ability to easily access information on the Internet, increased travel and the internationalization of the world economy that exposed Americans to other cultures and beliefs and we have a much more open society.

Currently more than one billion people around the world define themselves as agnostic, atheist or nonreligious — including 15 percent of Americans. Perhaps more striking, “nonreligious” is not only the fastest growing religious preference in the U.S., but also the only one to increase its percentage in every state over the past generation.

Phil Goldberg and Greg Epstein have provocative perspectives on who these people are, what they believe, and how they arrived at their worldviews and their moral codes.

In February, 1968, the Beatles went to India for an extended stay with their new guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It may have been the most momentous spiritual retreat since Jesus spent those 40 days in the wilderness.

With these words, interfaith minister Goldberg begins American Veda, his look at India’s impact on Western culture. From Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman, succeeding generations absorbed India’s “science of consciousness,” and millions have come to accept and live by the central teaching of Vedic wisdom: “Truth is One, the wise call it by many names.”

Acccording to Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard University, recent bestsellers from Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris stress the irrationality of belief and what’s wrong with religion, while offering few positive alternatives. In Good without God, Epstein explains how humanists strive to live well, build community, uphold ethical values, and lift the human spirit…all without a god. “It’s not enough to just ‘discover’ the meaning of life. Humanism is concerned with one of the most important ethical questions—what we do once we’ve found purpose in life.”

via Good Without God: Why “Non-Religious” Is the Fastest-Growing Preference in America | | AlterNet.

Leave a comment

Filed under Religion

Tagged as , ,

May 13, 2011 · 8:27 am

AFA Writer Condemns Christians Who Practice Yoga | Right Wing Watch

I am so tired of these people at the American Family Association….

They want to drag everyone back to the Dark Ages.

Just for reference and in the interest of full disclosure, the Southern Poverty Law Center, to whom I contribute, has named them a Hate Group and put them on their Hate Watch List along with militia groups and other militant right wing organizations that are potentially dangerous.

Writing for the American Family Association, Marsha West is insisting that Christians stop practicing yoga. West defends Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Convention and Douglas Groothuis of the Denver Seminary, who drew controversy for criticizing Christians who practiced yoga, lamenting that “we have blended into the dishonest, destructive and debase culture so thoroughly that it’s near impossible to tell the difference between Christians and heathens!” West calls Buddhism and Hinduism “evil” religions and argues that yoga is “diametrically opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ”:

via AFA Writer Condemns Christians Who Practice Yoga | Right Wing Watch.

1 Comment

Filed under Gay, Religion, Yoga

Tagged as , , , ,

May 13, 2011 · 8:02 am

US Preacher Warns End of the World is Nigh: May 21st Around 6pm

I’ll be on the way home from Ocracoke Island…

Let me know if I miss it…

From the Independent in the UK:

The end of the world is nigh; 21 May, to be precise. That’s the date when Harold Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California, is confidently predicting the Second Coming of the Lord. At about 6pm, he reckons 2 per cent of the world’s population will be immediately “raptured” to Heaven; the rest of us will get sent straight to the Other Place.

If Mr Camping were speaking from any normal pulpit, it would be easy to dismiss him as just another religious eccentric wrongly calling the apocalypse. But thanks to this elderly man’s ubiquity, on America’s airwaves and billboards, his unlikely Doomsday message is almost impossible to ignore.

Every day Mr Camping, an 89-year-old former civil engineer, speaks to his followers via the Family Radio Network, a religious broadcasting organisation funded entirely by donations from listeners. Such is their generosity (assets total $120m) that his network now owns 66 stations in the US alone.

Those deep pockets were raided to allow Family Radio to launch a high-profile advertising campaign, proclaiming the approaching Day of Judgement. More than 2,000 billboards across the US are adorned with its slogans, which include “Blow the trumpet, warn the people!”. A fleet of logoed camper vans is touring every state in the nation. “It’s getting real close. It’s really getting pretty awesome, when you think about it,” Mr Camping told The Independent on Sunday. “We’re not talking about a ball game, or a marriage, or graduating from college. We’re talking about the end of the world, a matter of being eternally dead, or being eternally alive, and it’s all coming to a head right now.”

via US preacher warns end of the world is nigh: 21 May, around 6pm, to be precise – Americas, World – The Independent.

1 Comment

Filed under Religion

Tagged as

May 12, 2011 · 5:44 pm

Catholic Scholars To GOP Speaker Boehner: Your Agenda Defies ‘Church’s Most Ancient Moral Teachings’

I’m glad to see more and more religious leaders focusing on the hypocrisy of the Republican Budget process.

The GOP has counted on the Religious Right and Right to Lifers – including Catholics- to get them into office for years…

Then they ignore them and serve the Rich…

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will give the commencement address at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. this weekend. Ahead of the visit, dozens of faculty members from the school and other other Catholic universities are writing to Boehner — who is himself an observant Catholic — challenging his willingness to “gut” social programs while protecting “new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.” “Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings” of caring for the poor, they write:

“Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.”

“The 2012 budget you shepherded to passage in the House of Representatives guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society. It is particularly cruel to pregnant women and children, gutting Maternal and Child Health grants and slashing $500 million from the highly successful Women Infants and Children nutrition program. When they graduate from WIC at age 5, these children will face a 20% cut in food stamps. The House budget radically cuts Medicaid and effectively ends Medicare. It invokes the deficit to justify visiting such hardship upon the vulnerable, while it carves out $3 trillion in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.”

More:   ThinkProgress » Catholic Scholars To Boehner: Your Agenda Defies ‘Church’s Most Ancient Moral Teachings’ On Helping Poor.

Leave a comment

Filed under Politics, Religion

Tagged as , , ,

May 11, 2011 · 8:38 pm

Presbyterians Approve Ordination of Gay People

More progress….

It’s nice to see some of the mainstream denominations coming around….

Even if it did take them 33 years….

The times, they are a changing…

After 33 years of debate, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has voted to change its constitution and allow openly gay people in same-sex relationships to be ordained as ministers, elders and deacons.

The outcome is a reversal from only two years ago, when a majority of the church’s regions, known as presbyteries, voted against ordaining openly gay candidates.

This time, 19 of the church’s 173 presbyteries switched their votes from no to yes in recent months. The Twin Cities presbytery, which covers Minneapolis and St. Paul, cast the deciding vote at its meeting on Tuesday. The vote was 205 to 56, with 3 abstentions.

Cynthia Bolbach, moderator of the church’s General Assembly, its highest legislative body, said in a phone interview from Minneapolis after the vote: “Everyone was civil. There was no applause, no cheering. It was just reflective of the fact that we are moving forward one other step.”

via Presbyterians Approve Ordination of Gay People – NYTimes.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gay, Religion, Uncategorized

Tagged as , ,

May 9, 2011 · 8:45 pm

LGBT “Welcome” Ad Rejected by Sojourners, Nation’s Premier Progressive Christian Org

This is truly sad…

This was an ad welcoming Gays and Lesbians to Church….

I was just beginning to think Sojourners was a different kind of Christian than the Crazy Fundamentalists…

But I guess they are either not being completely honest in their mission or are just scared…

Believe Out Loud is more than four years in the making. Virtually every mainline Protestant LGBT denominational advocacy group is a partner, making it a credible place for church leaders to turn for help on this issue. We have asked ourselves why Sojourners, a preeminent voice for justice in the religious community, rejected our ad buy. Does the organization not really believe in welcome for “everyone” in our churches or do they believe everyone is welcome, but they are afraid to “believe out loud” for fear of alienating some constituents? On one level, it doesn’t really matter. Their dilemma, apparently, is a ringing testimony for both the urgency and the necessity of this campaign since the issues they confronted are similar to those that face congregational leaders in addressing this concern within their settings. In recent years, American society has made significant strides forward towards full equality for LGBT persons. Tragically, the church has lagged well behind. Clearly, there is more work to be done.

More:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/progressive-christian-gro_n_859695.html

2 Comments

Filed under Religion

Tagged as , ,

May 3, 2011 · 8:52 pm

Jim Caviezel Claims “The Passion of the Christ” made Him a Hollywood Outcast

It sounds to me, all these years after he played Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ,” that Jim Caviezel still hasn’t yet climbed down off the cross…..

And I hate to tell him, but Mel Gibson isn’t the best source for career advice….

And perhaps he should also consider that there are other factors in play-

Like the fact that maybe he’s just not that good of an actor…

Or is too much of a self-centered, self-important, paranoid personality even for Hollywood…

It also sounds like he’s made the career change to Professional Christian….

It probably pays better than acting- at least it did for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson…

And it’s not all that different from acting….

From The Guardian:

“He said, ‘You’ll never work in this town again.’ I told him, ‘We all have to embrace our crosses,'” said Caviezel. He added: “Jesus is as controversial now as he has ever been. Not much has changed in 2,000 years.”

A passionate Christian, Caviezel told the audience at the First Baptist Church of Orlando he had learned to accept that the destruction of his acting career was a price worth paying. “We have to give up our names, our reputations, our lives to speak the truth,” he said. Though he labelled Gibson “a horrible sinner”, he said the actor turned film-maker should not be vilified. “Mel Gibson doesn’t need your judgment, he needs your prayers,” Caviezel said.

The Passion of the Christ was an enormous box office hit in 2004, taking more than $600m worldwide after attracting huge numbers of religious filmgoers. However, it was also the source of controversy with some critics accusing Gibson of antisemitism. Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News called it “the most virulently antisemitic movie made since the German propaganda films of World War II”.

via Jim Caviezel claims The Passion of the Christ made him a Hollywood outcast | Film | guardian.co.uk.

Leave a comment

Filed under Entertainment, Movies, Religion, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

April 21, 2011 · 9:00 am

Chapter 53: Easter: Or How I Became a Fashion Victim | My Southern Gothic Life

New post up on my other blog, MySouthernGothicLife.com….

Here is a brief excerpt and a link to the full post:

I come from a very presentational family. Easter always brought out the best and worst of that trait.

To give you a perspective, my mother was a Cheerleader.  My sister was a dancer and a Majorette.  My niece is following in their footsteps as a Cheerleader and dancer.  I come from a long line of people who stood out in 30 degree temperatures in a sequined swimsuit in front of hundreds of people.

Makes you kind of understand why I always tried for-with varying degrees of success- a more quiet, classically elegant personae –at least until my third drink.  I couldn’t compete in their arena nor did I want to…

MORE:   Chapter 53: Easter: Or How I Became a Fashion Victim | My Southern Gothic Life.

Leave a comment

Filed under Scott's Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

April 14, 2011 · 8:37 pm

Woe to You, Legislators! Or Ayn Rand vs the Bible

Great Blog post from Jim Wallis at Sojourners….

I’m not much for organized religion, but I like a lot of what this guy has to say…

I’ll let the excerpt speak for itself and encourage you to click the link to his full post…

It is reported that Congressman Paul Ryan makes every member of his staff read philosopher Ayn Rand, the shameless promoter of the gospel of aggressive self-interest. This makes sense to me as I read Congressman Ryan’s new budget proposal. I wish he had his staff reading the Bible instead.

While widely lauded by conservatives, Congressman Ryan’s budget isn’t really about deficit reduction. It’s about choices — choices that will determine what kind of a country we become. And Paul Ryan has made the choice to hurt people who don’t have the political clout to defend themselves. Two-thirds of the long-term budget cuts that Ryan proposed are directed at modest and low-income people, as well as the poorest of the poor at home and abroad. At the same time, he proposed tax cuts up to 30 percent for some of our country’s wealthiest corporations. Let me say that again: Two-thirds of the cuts come at the expense of already struggling people and families, while corporations posting record profits get tax breaks. In short, the most vulnerable members of society are being attacked by Ryan and his supporters. This makes them bullies.

In dramatic contrast, Ryan has chosen to help the people who need help the least. Wealthy individuals and companies reap a windfall of benefits in Ryan’s plan — with tax cuts and breaks, continued subsidies and loopholes for every powerful special interest, and increased corporate welfare payments from the government. Congressman Ryan and his supporters have carefully and faithfully rewarded the rich people who make their campaign contributions, and, in most cases, have also rewarded themselves as rich people. This makes them corrupt.

And, as self-professed budget hawks, they have completely ignored the most consistently egregious, wasteful, and morally compromised area of the whole federal budget — our endless and unaccountable military spending. Paul Ryan and the Republicans would cut nothing from the Pentagon profligacy. This makes them hypocrites.

via Woe to You, Legislators! – Jim Wallis – God’s Politics Blog.

Leave a comment

Filed under Politics, Religion, The Economy

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,