It’s been awhile since I have written about Pastor Mondo because I have been trying to ignore the bullcrap he writes in our local paper’s “Pastor’s Corner” and save myself the annoyance. But my husband pointed this one out from a couple weeks ago. Mondo intentionally proves that his religion is not a religion of peace, but a religion of divisiveness, pitting family members against each other, friends against friends, neighbor against neighbor. And he seems excited about it! Frightening that this guy lives in my area and that he has a whole flock of sheeple!

Is Jesus the Prince of Peace?

Notice what Jesus said He was not going to bring, peace! How do we make sense of this? The world has always been divided between those who are followers of the true God of Israel and those who are scoffers or haters of God and His truth. There is no middle ground, for Jesus said, “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Matthew 12:30). Jesus came to challenge each of us to make a choice as it relates to His claims as being the Savior of the World. I am a personal witness of seeing houses divided over the truth claims of Jesus. Sometimes, it’s a teenager standing with Jesus against the atheism of a parent, other times it’s a wife standing firm in the Truth while her husband is a mocker. Jesus said He came to bring division as it relates to who He is.

Mondo conveniently leaves out the part that he is responsible for that divisiveness and warring within families. He teaches them not to accept the other and get along in harmony, but to fight against that other person with differing beliefs. I have experience with this in my own family. Fundie family members who think they are better than the others and that the rest are somehow bad and worthy of going to their imaginary Hell, whatever they imagine it to be. And it isn’t the atheists or the ones who believe differently doing the banning of communication, it is the fundamentalist Christians who are brainwashed to think those who believe different are bad people.

Mondo shows just how right that Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and others about religion being evil. The holy text they follow is evil, and a threat to all when in the hands of these crazy fundamentalists who use interpret the Bible to war against fellow humans. It may not be a physical war, but it is a war they are promoting by brainwashing their sheeple that everyone who does not believe as they do is somehow bad.

Then after telling us that those of us who do not believe as he does will be ground to powder (Matthew 21:42-44), he ends by wishing everyone a “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year”. Well, it is said that truly crazy people don’t know they are crazy!

I pity these folks for the lives they lead, thinking they are somehow special and the rest of us are deserving of an eternity in torture. It’s all so unnecessary, all so pointless and counter-productive to all things civilized. Certain sects of Christianity, like Mondo’s are downright dangerous to humanity and goodness.

Pat once again with a very articulate critique on religion:

LINK: The water of life

Then here is what Pat is talking about Muslims who believe Christmas is “evil” because Allah has no offspring and Christians are going to hell for such blasphemy. One delusional group warning another delusional group about a fictional place of eternal torment — and they both worship the same imaginary God of Abraham!

Rob Boston from Americans United wrote a very good reminder about what the founding fathers meant by “religious liberty”: A New Year’s Greeting For The Ages: Jefferson’s Jan. 1 Letter To The Danbury Baptists Still Rings True

From Jefferson on, thoughtful Americans have understood that true religious liberty means that government stays out of religious matters. That’s not a plot; it’s common sense – and it’s the mandate of our Constitution. The American people have, indeed, built a wall of separation between church and state, and it will take more than the ravings of Religious Right zealots such as [Christopher] Merola to tear it down.

Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists
The Final Letter, as Sent

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope it’s a good one for all of our moderators and loyal readers.

We are all familiar with the story from the Bible where God tells Abraham to kill his son, and Abraham is willing to follow through with it. This is no story with any good morals to it, as Don Baker and Matt Dillanunty from The Atheist Experience discuss. It is a story of blind obedience to a god of evilness, and illustrates just how cruel this god of Christian mythology is.
LINK: God’s Moral Lesson In The Story Of Abraham - The Atheist Experience #557

Just read this story, another example of how the god these people follow never shows up to protect them. Putting aside the god crap, this is downright disturbing.

Ugandan rebels kill 400 in DR Congo: charity

KINSHASA (AFP) – Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army rebels killed more than 400 people in Christmas massacres in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Caritas aid charity said Tuesday.

The rebels denied any responsibility and accused troops from DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan of “bombing” the victims.

The LRA targeted a town where a Christmas Day concert was being held and a Roman Catholic church, and attacks were going on along the Sudanese border, the Catholic charity said in a statement.

Caritas workers say that “over 400 people have been killed in the attacks in an area of northern Congo including Faradje, Duru, Gurba, Doruma, and Province Orientale,” it added.

The archbishop of Dungu-Doruma, Monsignor Richard Domba, told AFP that at least 150 people had been killed at a Christmas Day service at Faradje and later, 80 at Duru and at least 200 others at Doruma and in the surrounding villages.

“It is a dramatic situation that we are living through here,” he said. “They (the rebels) are indescribably barbarous and savage.

“They kill with machetes, axes and clubs. They burn people alive with their property in their homes.”

The article states “The rebellion began in northern Uganda in 1986 after Yoweri Museveni came to power and blends a form of Christianity with traditional beliefs and extreme cruelty and brutality.” It’s just what we were talking about over here.

This just came down the pipeline…

I’ve always thought that Professors should have at least some intellectual integrity. I mean, if you’re going to try to find it, I’d like to think it could be found on a college campus. You’re at the front of the room, for chrissake…

But the more I see idiots like this, the more my skin crawls, because it makes me think that something’s gotten into the water supply. (Not that I don’t feel like that normally.) I’m also constantly reminded that knowledge and skill in one area has nothing to do with knowledge and skill in another.

Just check out these highlights from Sparky here:

The atheists predictably demanded a display themselves. Their wish was granted when city officials caved, but rather than being a statement of their nonreligious, unbelieving “faith,” they chose to denigrate and insult my religious beliefs. I, and many other Christians, simply won’t sit still for this behavior. I know I have friends who are either self-proclaimed or silent atheists, and this column is not about them (even though I can’t understand their decision and know they are making the biggest mistake possible). [...] Why are you so afraid of religion, and Christianity in particular? What do you fear? It’s easy to declare yourself an atheist, especially out of laziness, since I’m sure very few of you ever attempted to give religion a serious chance through exploration and introspection. Isn’t it also quite egocentric to not acknowledge a supreme being greater than yourself? Instead of proudly proclaiming your stance and backing it up with research that led you to your ultimate decision, you choose to exhibit nastiness and hate toward my religious faith.

Ad nauseum…

Yes, tonight on America’s Funniest Videos: CPA’s doing Philosophy…

To his credit, The Atheist Jew gives a nice bitch-slap to this idiot.

Turns out that the guy can’t even spell. Hartwick College must be very proud.

I just saw this over at Pharyngula, and I’ve always had a soft spot for that good poetry-slam shit. And this stuff’s awesome. (This particular piece, for some reason, reminds me of Tom Lehrer — but that’s just me.)

I’ll admit, the audio is awful — but the audio with the text provided should suffice…

(Hat tip to Pharyngula)

So it seems there was an Xmas re-conversion recently - a well-known blogging atheist was ‘born again’.

I have always found this phenomenon fascinating. In fact (have I mentioned this before? If so, apologies), I’ve always rather fancied the personal visitation these folks have. But in the years of dropping psychotropic drugs (back in the days of my wastrel youth, I hasten to add), not once did I ever encounter an external manifestation (read: embodied hallucination). I saw the walls breathe, the colors dance, and caught my hands, but no seraphim serenaded me, no booming voice from above, not even a sweet whispered nothing in my ears.

Now granted, I used to hear voices in my head, but again, these were all internal, and so I don’t count those.

I am sufficiently versed in the wholly bibble, so it can’t just be the written rhetoric, can it? Or is it simple overexposure?

This siren’s song of madness calls, and minds dash against the rocks of the psyche’s Scylla…