This H. L. Mencken Quote about Hypocritical Evangelists Could Hardly be More Timely

by Nomad

About a century ago, writer H. L. Mencken perfectly summed up the problem for politically-minded evangelists:

They have gained (at least transiently) a formidable power over politicians even worse than they are, but they have wrecked their church. They have won a battle and lost a war.

But he also saw the demolition of the church as a reason for optimism.

The wrecking of such churches as these, whether they be spiritual or secular, seems to me to be an excellent gauge of the progress of civilization. For men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

One Young Man's Emotional Story about Gay Conversion Therapy and Self-Acceptance

by Nomad

Under the influence of the evangelicals, the Republican party has for years now endorsed the practice of attempting to alter or reverse an individual's sexual orientation using psychological or spiritual interventions. Otherwise known as gay conversion therapy.
Some have compared it to Victorian efforts to impose conformity by converting left-handers into "normal" right-handed socially-approved human beings. However, as the linked video below suggests, the implications for this kind of forced suppression/inhibition of sexual orientation can be psychologically-devastating to the individuals.

More fundamentally, perhaps, the majority of medical professionals strongly doubt that the "corrective" techniques are ever successful.

Con-Artist Conservatives and The Great Hoodwinking of America 3/3

by Nomad

The Part One and Part Two we looked at how many similarities there are between the fraud and swindles and the modern conservative movement. 

In this, the final installment in the series we wrap things up with two questions: Have middle-class Americans at long last realized that they are the victims of the Republican scam? Followed by the more important question: Is it too late to save American democracy?

Novelist Walter Kirn makes an interesting observations about the victims of swindles. It could explain why the Republican con game has continued for so long. Under normal circumstances, most victims catch on. So why do some people keep voting for the conservatives?

The reason, Kirn says, con artists get away with what they get away with is because their victims are "ashamed of their own blindness and their own gullibility, and they tend to just quietly go away." 

Outsiders might wonder why American voters who have realized that they have been played for the last 40 years are not un-stuffing the feathers from pillows and heating up the cauldrons of tar.
The reaction is, in fact, a bit more subtle. You can find the effect...if you know where to look.

Tulsa Church Throws in Towel over Negligence Lawsuit in Boxing Match Death

by Nomad

The death of young football coach after a charity boxing match has cost a Tulsa "rock and roll" church a small fortune. For the victim's family, it was a clear case of negligence.
Shouldn't somebody have asked whether a 12-round brawl was really the best way to raise money for a Christian organization?

Slug-Fest for Jesus

Oklahoma is the kind of place where, when it comes to either big business exploitation or church activities, just about anything goes. Absolutely nothing should surprise you. Even so, I was a little taken aback when I saw this news story in a Tulsa newspaper.

A Tulsa church's owners have settled a civil lawsuit filed by the family of a man who died in the wake of a boxing event at the church, a lawyer confirmed Tuesday.

The family of George Clinkscale III, a former TU linebacker, alleged negligence in a lawsuit against the church following the boxing event that featured untrained and unlicensed fighters.

A tragedy to be sure but the question that stuck in my head was: Who on earth thought a "slug-fest" was appropriate for a church?  (Isn't it carrying the Biblical passage "if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" a bit too literally?)

Clinkscale died as a result of injuries he suffered in a boxing match at Guts Church's Fight Night VI, held in the church's parking lot in September 2011.

So apparently these events had been going on for years.

Pastor Hagee and Blood Moon Nonsense: Promoting Superstition and Fear

by Nomad

Megachurch pastor, televangelist and author John Hagee is warning the world that the lunar eclipses today is just God is cracking down on rule-breaking mortals. 

Such superstitious nonsense is nothing new. More than any other natural phenomenon, eclipses have been used frighten the under-educated and gullible.

Just when you thought it was safe to go forward into the future, now this. After we somehow survived the end of world predicted by the Mayans, we poor humans are clearly not out of danger just yet. 

The Raw Story has a article about the pastor of Texas’ Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas., John Hagee who has apparently dusted off his well-thumbed copy of the 1970 End Times bestseller The Late, Great Planet Earth. The world will face a wrath of God that will make the Mayan's 2012 non-event look like a Harpo Marx with a seltzer bottle and a cream pie. 

The End of the Age.. Again

Hagee told his congregation that the astronomic events will be God's way of warning of an upcoming cataclysm involving Israel, Russia and a “world-shaking event that will happen between April 2014 and October 2015.” 

"Every time this has happened in the last 500 years, it has coincided with tragedy for the Jewish people followed by triumph. And once again, for Israel, the timing .. is remarkable."

It's strange, a critic might say, that God forgot to warn the Jews about the Holocaust with a couple of red moons.

According to the article:

“Is this the end of the age?” Hagee asked during a recent sermon, before quoting Acts 2:19-20: And I will show wonders in Heaven above and signs in the Earth beneath, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.”

“I believe that the heavens are God’s billboard, that he has been sending signals to planet Earth,” he explained. “God is literally screaming at the world, ‘I’m coming soon.’”

In actuality, today's' lunar eclipse, scientists inform us, will be the first of four in six month intervals. These eclipses are often referred to as “blood moons” because of their appearance (not for any supernatural reason).  Astronomers tell us that's simply due to sunlight shining on the moon filtered by the Earth’s atmosphere. However, to the Texas pastor, the event is God's way of clearing out the orgy, a kind of closing time last call for humanity.