Some Things for Saturday

 I don't write in here every day like I used to, but I usually don't skip posting for more than a day.  Hell, this time is something of a record, though.

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Some things to note:

Nepo baby evangelist Franklin Graham tries to stay relevant in an increasingly secular country.

Such over-the-top antics by him and his ilk are efforts to try and stem the tide of increasing numbers of people who are not going to church.  Contrary to some vocal atheists, it isn't because people are embracing agnosticism or atheism but rather have decided not to go to a brick-and-mortar church. Some  stopped going after the COVID shutdown of the country, some have decided they can't stand the right-wing politics of too many pastors, ministers, and preachers, but perhaps the biggest overall reason for the drop in attendance has to do with the increased presence of social media.  It is a tough hill to climb for ALL outside clubs and other organized groups, not just churches.  Gen Z especially is wired to the phone 24/7, and they have alternatives.

Religious attendance has held steady according to Pew Research.  There has been no move to a return to churches or religion.

I think, though, as life experience goes on, many of them will find that science really has none of the answers as to the meaning of life because it is a separate discipline from religion.  It always was and always will be.  As the years go on and people experience hardship and especially the death of loved ones, that is when religious belief really comes in and becomes more common especially as one reaches the senior years.  It will be the same here.  People will not turn to atheism as much as the New Atheists want to believe.  Religious belief isn't going anywhere even if churches close down more and more.  They aren't synonymous, after all.

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From years ago this piece I came across about so-called "maintenence sex," which is nothing more than relationship/marital rape.

There is no "right" to sex.  Period.

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In a stunning reversal, Mr. 47 Percent says the rich should be paying more taxes.  Of course, Mitt Romney is no longer in the Senate.

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Speaking of which, Wyoming's junior senator Cynthia Lummis, 71, has decided to call it a day from the august body.  She said she was "exhausted."

Interesting background to note:  Her late husband was a Democratic Wyoming legislator, and the two of them served at the same time then, being one of the few married couples to do so.  She was a Republican then.

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Once a Kardashian, Always a Kardashian

I will post this Kanye West interview here although it has been widely shared.  He sure is a gullible type to believe what he does now.

I don't normally follow this family anyway.  I just happened to look up West  because he was talked about on the Jim Bakker Show today.  Bakker was touting West's latest conversion, and he condemned West's critics.  It could all well be a publicity stunt.  His wife and her family are masters of the art of self-promotion.  West I mean, not Bakker.

However, he has had a lot of issues with mental illness in the past, so I am not going to be too hard on him.



Link to video

Stick a Fork in Beto

You just don't go around trying to pander to a bunch of New Atheist cultists by trashing other people's religious beliefs and proposing going after tax exemptions.  How fucking stupid can a candidate get?

Most millennials don't even bother to vote as is typical with every younger generation, so why the hell alienate the people who DO vote?

The problem here is Beto's remarks will doubtless be used to tarnish all Democratic candidates as being opposed to religion, God, and all that.

If you watch The Jim Bakker Show and other shows of that type, you know they are just salivating at the thought their paranoid fantasies of a "war against Christians" have a basis in reality:

Even so, O’Rourke’s comments mark the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has overtly endorsed stripping the tax-exempt status of religious organizations who hold conservative views about marriage and sexuality. This feels very much like the candidate Obama’s “cling to guns and religion” comment at a 2008 San Francisco fundraiser that became first an attack line used by Hillary Clinton and then a well-worn conservative talking point that the would-be president was aloof and out of touch with small-town America. But more troubling than the rhetoric is where it leads. And for that, let me offer three suggestions to people with skill sets I lack: one for pollsters, one for journalists, and one for policy analysts.

First, pollsters should ask voters about O’Rourke’s comments and the issue of tax-exempt status, both now and in the exit polls for the 2020 presidential election. We can be certain this issue will be used in Republican political ads, especially in congressional districts that Obama won in 2012, but that Trump won in 2016. And I suspect this issue and O’Rourke’s framing of it will lead to increased turnout of evangelicals in states that matter to Democrats, such as Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. O’Rourke’s comment may quickly fall out of the national news cycle, but it won’t be forgotten among churches, religious organizations, and religious voters. And if the Democrats lose in 2020, this issue and their handling of it will likely be a contributing factor. That will be true regardless of who the eventual Republican or Democratic candidates are.

He is a dipshit. He should withdraw from running for president.

Missionaries Trying to Convert Other Cultures Should Be a Thing of the Past

In last night's "edition" of my  "daily reads" for this blog, I linked to a Daily Mail article about a foolish 27-year-old American man who thought he could barge in on a protected island in the Indian Ocean which is forbidden by Indian law to be contacted in any way by outsiders.  He considered himself a missionary who arrogantly thought he could convert a tribe dating back tens of thousands of years and had no use for modern life and bring them to Christ.  Never mind the danger he posed to this tribe, called Sentinelese, who live in North Sentinel Island, by carrying all kinds of viruses and shit that could wipe out the entire population.  He just figured he could pay off some fishermen to visit the island and be some kind of hero.

The "hero" wound up being a "zero" when he was stabbed to death with arrows and dragged along the shore.  His body has not been recovered.  It is clear you shouldn't even think of pissing this tribe off.

You'd think by now people would get the hint that many, many people in the world are perfectly happy with their religious beliefs or no beliefs, and they do NOT want to be converted in any way.  In this case, it was worse because Chau KNEW he was not supposed to be near that island, but he decided to do it anyway.  Not just once, but he stupidly went there again, when he died.

Now Indian officials say it could be difficult to retrieve the body.  I would say it is likely impossible.  He is probably buried or dumped in the ocean.

Some people in comments like the Mail and other places compare this fool with the equally foolish missionaries who went to Ecuador in 1956, and the people there were not happy either, and they killed the men.  Unfortunately, this didn't stop arrogant missionaries from continuing to go to the area, and many of the people wound converted to Christianity, including one of the men believed responsible for two of the deaths.  It was known as Operation Auca.

Being Religious Doesn't Equal Being a Fundamentalist

You can be very religious and not go to church. You can be religious and not belong to a holy roller church like the SBC.

Amanda Marcotte needs to get out more. Just because she doesn't know many churchgoers in her circle doesn't mean there aren't many outside it. In fact, in my age bracket and in my part of the country, in southern Oregon, there are few atheists. The older you get, the more important religion becomes in your life. I truly believe it is a natural state of humans to be more religious after they have had much life experience and have gone through deaths of loved ones and some tragedies in their own lives. I have gotten to the point I have little use for atheists because they are just as bad as the worst religious types. They are two sides of the same self-righteous coin. They are so sure their point of view is right, but they can't be absolutely sure, of course.

It really isn't natural to be an atheist. You have to work very hard at maintaining the facade of being rational, of depending on science for all the answers. Science doesn't have all the answers and certainly not the answers that religion provides to its adherents.

The problem with atheists, of course, is they completely misunderstand the purposes of science and religion, the two of which are not incompatible. They have the same problem that fundamentalists have (most religious people, including Christians, are NOT fundies).

One of the major purposes of science is to explain the HOW of human existence, HOW we got here.

Religion seeks to explain the WHY of human existence.

There is NOTHING incompatible between the two. They are two completely separate fields. That's why many, many scientists are very religious, even devout. They see no inconsistency between the two.

This is something atheists, in their self-righteousness, haven't figured out.

And since most of them are younger, they won't figure it out until they are much older.

Shades of Heritage USA

I can't imagine anybody wanting to have his or her remains, let alone any family member's remains, interred out in the middle of nowhere.

This smacks of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's time share scheme for Heritage USA back in the 1980s before it all went down in scandal:

The estimated $2 billion effort to build the massive cross just west of Lovelock off Interstate-80 near Toulon Road will be funded by people purchasing fees for interment, Nowland said.

“We only need a little bit of construction to get started,” said Nowland, who estimated the effort lasting about 30 years. “Then as people pay, we continue compacting earth, adding concrete over shell and building up the steps and walkways.”

According to Nowland, the cross will hold 600,000 niches as compartments for cremations. Each compartment can hold up to two people. Stairs will lead up the cross to observe names of buried loved ones. According to the Great Cross Alliance website, prices range from $4,000 to $30,000, depending on exterior or interior, single or double cremation vaults.

The "Mormon" Issue

Mitt Romney's religious background has undergone some scrutiny, but the Mormon church deserves a whole lot more.

No way I would ever belong to a sexist church. This church regards women as nothing more than babymaking machines. Women have to be married to become "goddesses" in the next life; in other words, men needed to save their souls.

What a load of shit. The plagiarisms by Joseph Smith of Solomon Spaulding's writings (Manuscript Found) have gone a lot farther than Smith ever dreamed.

Mitt has the right to believe whatever religion or cult he wants. I would defend his right to believe it. I also have the right to not vote for him.

News, Etc.

It's goodbye and good riddance to Hosni Mubarak as he leaves Egypt for good, presumably.

Too bad Americans are too apathetic not to demand the same thing of our Congress and the White House. These politicians are all worthless neoliberal birds of a feather.

The crowds in Cairo get angrier as they don't believe Mubarak is really gone for good:

Angry protesters, who had swarmed by the thousands into the streets here Friday morning, were hardly mollified by the news of Mr. Mubarak’s exit and an accompanying statement by the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces over state television and radio. The protesters said they would not believe he was gone until he had formally relinquished his title as president, and until Mr. Suleiman, his handpicked successor, had been ousted as well.

The protesters did let out a cheer at news on state radio that Naguib Sawiris, a wealthy and widely respected businessman, has agreed to act as a mediator between the opposition and the authorities in carrying through the political reforms.

More is here.

Meanwhile, our country continues to engage in apathy while our leaders steal and destroy everything in sight.

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Leave the ESDs alone in Oregon; it's much more cost-efficient to pool resources than to have duplicate services. Not to mention special education students will get the shaft if the programs are implemented by individual school districts.

Remember, special education is a big cash cow for school districts, and abuse is rampant, not to mention teachers are under extreme pressure to cheat for administrators.

I can't believe Kitzhaber thinks this is a good idea to ditch ESDs. He has NO fucking clue what goes on in education:

In his recommended budget released earlier this month, Gov. John Kitzhaber proposed cutting that funding and sending it instead directly to school districts. The move could starve some ESDs, but Kitzhaber says it would introduce competition and force the service districts to provide top-notch programs. School districts would have an option to continue using their ESD, find another provider or perform the services themselves.

You stupid, stupid asshole. This is special education services, which are mandated by federal law, and special education is widely abused in school districts because of the money.

You want tons of lawsuits? Just piss off sped students' parents.
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Only a religious sect which devalues single people in general and single women in particular would create a conflict on whether to have sex outside marriage and long after most people have already "done it."

I never thought much of the Mormon faith because it is so sexist towards women.

This Isn't a Surprise At All

Most religious groups in this country are losing ground and in all regions of the country, according to a new survey.

A lot more people are claiming no religion at all, 15 percent, and, according to the survey, this category outranks all major religious groups in the United States except for Baptists and Catholics. I would say as young people are more secular in outlook, this non-religious group will continue to grow in number, although this researcher says secularism doesn't have a lot to do with the large number of people who say "none" when it comes to their religious identification.

Campaign Notes.

Competence is next to godliness or some goddamned thing for the GOP, which is certainly more important than ever after the faith-based presidency of that godawful Bush.
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Bill Shaheen of the Clinton campaign got sacked over remarks about Obama's long ago drug use.
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Ron Paul made another trip to northern Nevada.

Presidential Notes.

Are Democrats closing the so-called "religion gap"?
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Our dictator's numerous shortcomings may help in a resurgence of the American "left" or, probably more accurately, a liberal resurgence.

Health care reform, global warming, and the war can be criticized without the usual trashing of critics as "socialists" or whatnot.

It may be a bit too soon, in my view, to say there will be a resurgence. The right has had four decades on the left to get its poisonous views entrenched in the public conscience.
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As the World Turns II.

There is no easy solution to the problem of pet hoarders.
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A pet owner learned a very painful and tragic lesson.

My dog Tony got away when I was on Christmas vacation. Miraculously, he returned home after he decided to teach my landlord a lesson about going on walks.

I am not going to allow my landlord to walk my dogs when I leave on my trips this summer. It worries me too much.
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A lazy dog saves a family's life.
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Religious tension in the workplace is on the rise.
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