In an act of perplexing stupidity, Rhea County commissioners attempted to ban homosexuality within their county lines.

Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who initiated the Tuesday motion, also made the motion to rescind it Thursday. In a discussion about gays and same-sex marriage at the earlier meeting, Fugate had asked the county attorney to find a way to “keep them out of here.”

Using small, monosyllabic words, the county attorney tried to explain the concepts of civil liberties, privacy, and the Bill of Rights. Giving up on that, he finally told the appropriately-named Fugate �you just can�t ban the gays, alright?�

Meanwhile, young, properly indoctrinated Baptist girls expressed their outrage as the gay ban was rescinded. “It’s not a Christian thing,” said Kinney.

When pressed to provide examples of “Christian things,” the teens listed stoning homosexuals, adulterers, and heretics as appropriate Christian activities.

Asked for comment on the ban and later strike of the ban, gay activists said, “Who the hell wants to go to rural BFE Tennessee?”

Officials: Man Says God Told Him To Kill Mother

James Hsu reportedly told sheriff’s detectives that God told him to kill his mother Caroline Hsu.

Detectives said Hsu beat his mother with a baseball bat, slit her throat with a knife and mutilated her.

And who’s to say that she wasn’t the devil or something? Kinda reminds me of the old saying: “God never gives you anything that you can’t handle.” So there ya go.

Look for a BBC documentary bashing Noah and the Ark (which, ironically, is reported in The Church of England Newspaper): BBC film sinks Noah’s story about the Ark

Noah did not build a huge Ark, he did not take on every kind of animal two by two, and the flood didn�t cover the earth anyway. These are the conclusions of the BBC�s latest big-budget religious documentary, which are likely to upset Christians who believe in the Bible�s infallibility.

If Noah did exist at all, the programme suggests that he was a Sumerian businessman who built a boat to make money for hauling beer.

The programme, Noah�s Ark, says that �unless you make a leap of faith, the traditional Noah story doesn�t pass any kind of rational historical test.�

Huh. Believing in xian bullshit stories is irrational. What are the odds.bureaus credit alerting all threeamericafirst credit union utahcredit child income michigan 2007 taxcollege accreditation community meridianunion afena credit federalamerican credit union meterdirect credit 411accredited schools mo Map

Here’s part of George’s explanation of the recent controversy over “indecency” in the media:

“The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things � bad language and whatever � it’s all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. … There’s an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. … It’s reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have.” (George Carlin Responds to Indecency Uproar)

Dubya’s at it again, and off the deep end: Bush Assures Evangelicals of His Commitment to Amendment on Marriage

COLORADO SPRINGS, March 11 � In a speech expressing his solidarity with the National Association of Evangelicals at its annual convention here, President Bush on Thursday forcefully restated his call for passage of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to enthusiastic rounds of applause. […]

Mr. Bush said it was founded “with the highest of callings, to proclaim the word of God.” He added, “You are doing God’s work with conviction and kindness and on behalf of our country I thank you.” […]

Interrupted by applause several times, he later said, “I will defend the sanctity of marriage against activist courts and local officials who want to redefine marriage. The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society.”

Yep, theocracy in a nutshell, folks. Or, in this case, just a plain nutjob.

Not that Coulter has any value, but she does point to the classic prejudice against atheists: W.W.J.K.: WHO WOULD JESUS KILL?

Indeed, Hitler denounced Christianity as an “invention of the Jew” and vowed that the “organized lie (of Christianity) must be smashed” so that the state would “remain the absolute master.” Interestingly, this was the approach of all the great mass murderers of the last century — all of whom were atheists: Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. […]

But according to liberals, it’s Christianity that causes murder. (And don’t get them started on Zionism.) Like their Muslim friends still harping about the Crusades, liberals won’t “move on” from the Spanish Inquisition. In the entire 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition, about 30,000 people were killed. That’s an average of less than 100 a year. Stalin knocked off that many kulaks before breakfast.

Not that I understand the logic of this last paragraph, but whatever. Yes, let’s “move on” from the Crusades. Let’s talk about homophobia, racism, sexism, the KKK, and slavery. All that stuff has nothing to do with xianity, I assume. And so does Ann:

But again I ask: Does anyone at the Times have the vaguest notion what Christianity is? (Besides people who go around putting up nativity scenes that have to be taken down by court order?) The religion that toppled the Roman Empire — anyone?

Seems the problem lies in understanding atheism, not xianity.

The Guardian’s “Science News” reports Dr. Stephen Unwin, “a Manchester University graduate who now works as a risk assessor in Ohio” has “calculated that there is a 67% chance that God exists” by using “a 200-year-old formula” called “Bayes’ Theory” (sic). He apparently “starts from the assumption that God has a 50/50 chance of existing, and then factors in the evidence both for and against the notion of a higher being”. These “factors that were considered included recognition of goodness, which Dr Unwin said makes the existence of God more likely, countered by things like the existence of natural evil - including earthquakes and cancer.” He apparently sets the whole thing out in his forthcoming book, “which includes a spreadsheet of the data used so that anyone can make the calculation themselves should they doubt its validity.”

It’s pretty funny; check it out: Odds on that God exists, says scientist. (Thanks to Jon for the link.)

Hey, everybody’s talkin’ ’bout it; so why not continue with last week’s theme: It’s a gay, gay, gay world!

From the excellently named “Probe Ministries” of Leadership U (the faculty arm of Campus Crusade for Christ), we get Homosexuality: Nature, Nurture and Compassion, by Dr. Robert A. Pyne. Doc Pyne is trying to work out how the condemnation of stud-on-stud action fits into Xianity, and starts with some comment on our old friend, Leviticus 20: After all, it’s Old Testament, so although the Jews don’t get to enjoy the hot homo action, the Xians often don’t think those laws apply to them unless they are reaffirmed in the New Testament. As Doc Pyne opines, “we no longer offer the commanded blood sacrifices, and few believers think twice about eating a ham sandwich, no matter what the Old Testament law says… certain Old Testament principles are reaffirmed and reestablished in the New Testament, while others are left behind after the fulfillment of their expectation in Christ.”

And sadly, for the cock-loving Xian man, the apostle Paul would seem to reaffirm the prohibition against steaming man-on-man action. According to Doc Pyne, the apostle Paul “clearly regards homosexual practice as sin in his letters to the Romans (Rom. 1: 26-27) and to Timothy (1 Tim. 1:9-10). He says essentially the same thing in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.”

So, we begin considering these passages today. Today, I’ll say a bit about the passage from Corinthians;, and then next Sunday, we’ll get to the others.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul lumps homosexuality together with a bunch of other stuff that God’s kind of against — 10 things God will keep you out of heaven for:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind; nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

“Abusers of themselves with mankind”? This is the King James version; apparently the original word is arsenokoi’tai, which, I’m told, is a combination of “man” (arseno) and “bedder” (koitai). But we apparently don’t know if it means “one who beds men” or “a man who beds others”. In fact, I turned up the following list of translations:

• The Latin Vulgate, (year 405), translates it as “masculorum concubitores”;
• Wyclif (1508) translates it as “synne of Sodom”;
• the Geneva Bible (1560) translates it as “bouggerers”;
• Bishops Bible (1586) translates it as “liers with mankinde”;
• King James Authorized Version (1611) translates it as “abusers of themselves with mankind”;
• Darby (1890) translates it as “abuse themselves with men”;
• Louis Segond (1910) translates it as “les infames”;
• Goodspeed Bible (1951) translates it as “given to unnatural vice”;
• Jerusalem Bible (French) (1955) translates it as “people with infamous habits”;
• Phillips (1958) translates it as “pervert”;
• the Amplified Version (1958) translates it as “those who participate in homosexuality”;
• the Jerusalem Bible (German) (1968) translates it as “child molesters”
• the Jerusalem Bible (English) (1968) translates it as “sodomites”;the Revised Standard Version (1971) translates it as “sexual perverts.”

Personally, I like something like “personal valet for a man” — you know, somebody who helps you get ready for bed among other things. And I don’t really know why you want to keep them out of heaven, but whatever.

In any case, (a) even if arsenokoi’tai is about hot steamy man-on-man action, it’s been placed in the same sin category as getting drunk, coveting what’s not yours, and acting fey — not exactly the big “abominations” of the sinning world. And (b), it’s not at all clear that it means gay sex anyway.

Why doesn’t God say what he means? You know, like “don’t put dicks in your mouth”? What could be clearer? Personally “abusers of themselves with mankind” sounds like circle jerkin’ to me.

Next week: Romans (Rom. 1: 26-27) and Timothy (1 Tim. 1:9-10).