Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

Which is likely to happen later this year, with potential follow-on effects possibly endangering mixed race marriage and gay marriage.

Roe v. Wade was decided during the NIXON presidency. That was NINE administrations ago, 1973. I wouldn't be surprised if some of my readers weren't alive then. Ignoring Watergate taking Nixon down, Nixon was a very mixed package and a definite man of his time. He had his race problems, his anti-semitic problems, etc. He also had some amazing positive traits and did some very positive things that went under the radar.

Here's something he said about Roe v. Wade:

"I admit, there are times when abortions are necessary, I know that. When you have a black and a white. Or a rape."
-- President Nixon to aide Charles Colson the day after Roe v. Wade, January 1973

So even Tricky Dick, when Republicans were actual Conservatives and not whatever idiocy is infecting them these days, recognized that "there are times when abortion is necessary", such as rape. If you were to have interviewed him, he might have acknowledged incest, woman's life in danger, etc. Women's rights were becoming a ground swell at that time and weren't much on his radar at that time.


You may or may not know about the web site Quora. Sadly, you can't browse it without signing up. It's a question/answer/rant site where you can ask questions and get answers on a huge variety of topics, sometimes the questions are deliberate trolling, sometimes the answers are thoughtful, sometimes stupid, sometimes equally trolly and ranting.

I came across an amazingly good answer in an Athiest feed. Here's part of it, the rest is under a cut as it's kind of long, with a link to the source at the end.

If you’re an atheist, what would be your motive in spreading atheism, and why would you care what others believe?

If you ask me a week ago, I wouldn’t care less about spreading atheism. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even answer this question at all, considering plenty of atheists had expressed similar feelings. Atheism is often compared to not collecting stamps, which really isn’t something you need to “spread”.

However, something happened this Monday and I had changed my mind about my entire indifference to atheism, or more precisely about my view on Christianity.

I have always seen the religion of Christianity as an organization of great power, and the organization is capable of using it for good and for bad. And despite all the atrocities committed by the Church (Christian or Catholic), I’ve always been willing to give the religion the benefit of doubt. I’ve always been willing to accept that the core teachings, love, tolerance, and compassion, are good. But people twisted its message to justify their evil deeds.

I no longer believe that. I think the core teachings of Christianity are not love, tolerance, or compassion. The core teaching of Christianity is obedience. Christianity as a religion, Christianity as an organization, had done more harm to our society than good, a LOT more harm than good. It’s not about evil people using religion to do harm. It is good people doing good deeds, and some of them just so happen, are Christians.

As I’m writing this answer, the evangelical Christian conservatives had collectively decided that women do not deserve bodily autonomy. They have worked their way up to the supreme court and applied their Christian Canon Law to every woman in the US, regardless of our individual religious beliefs (or the lack of).

Sure, you can argue that American evangelical Christians do not represent Christianity.

My question is, where are the good Christians? WHERE ARE THE FUCKING GOOD CHRISTIANS?! Why don’t the good Christians come out in droves to condemn these people? Why aren’t they protesting against it?

The thing is, if you read the Bible, I mean, really, REALLY read it. you would not be a Christian.
( Read more... )

The word came into use in bibles in 1946!!! Prior to that, it referred to child molesters!

This blog post is by "Ed Oxford ... a gay Christian, a graduate of Talbot School of Theology, and a researcher in how the Bible has been weaponized against LGBTQ people."

He collects antique bibles and lexicons in various languages, the older the better. He has friends from various countries and had them read these verses to him, and the results were rather surprising.

In the post:
I had a German friend come back to town and I asked if he could help me with some passages in one of my German Bibles from the 1800s. So we went to Leviticus 18:22 and he’s translating it for me word for word. In the English where it says “Man shall not lie with man, for it is an abomination,” the German version says “Man shall not lie with young boys as he does with a woman, for it is an abomination.” I said, “What?! Are you sure?” He said, “Yes!” Then we went to Leviticus 20:13— same thing, “Young boys.” So we went to 1 Corinthians to see how they translated arsenokoitai (original Greek word) and instead of homosexuals it said, “Boy molesters will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

and later....

I also have a 1674 Swedish translation and an 1830 Norwegian translation of the Bible. I asked one of my friends, who was attending Fuller seminary and is fluent in both Swedish and Norwegian, to look at these verses for me. So we met at a coffee shop in Pasadena with my old Bibles. (She didn’t really know why I was asking.) Just like reading an old English Bible, it’s not easy to read. The letters are a little bit funky, the spelling is a little bit different. So she’s going through it carefully, and then her face comes up, “Do you know what this says?!” and I said, “No! That’s why you are here!” She said, “It says boy abusers, boy molesters.” It turns out that the ancient world condoned and encouraged a system whereby young boys (8-12 years old) were coupled by older men. Ancient Greek documents show us how even parents utilized this abusive system to help their sons advance in society. So for most of history, most translations thought these verses were obviously referring the pederasty, not homosexuality!

As if this will change main-stream religion in America.

I should take a look at my parent's family bible when I'm in Phoenix this weekend and see when it was printed.

Of course the big question: was it a mistake or someone's agenda.

https://www.forgeonline.org/blog/2019/3/8/what-about-romans-124-27

She's the elected county clerk in a Kentucky burg and she's refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples who want to marry. It is the law of the land that they can get married, and she's refusing to do her job. Because Religion. She's not marrying them, she's giving them a license for someone else to marry them. Still, Religion.

I'm taking librarianship classes for the last few years. One of the early things that you learn is that while on the job, librarians have no: political party, religion, or philosophy. Your job is to provide books and information to people. It can get pretty gray at times, but you try to keep your personal beliefs about anything out of your job.

I guess if you're elected that you can ignore any such restrictions.

One thing that I love about Kim is the fact that she's on her fourth marriage, and her twins were fathered by her third husband five months after she divorced the first. But then she found Religion and thus she's morally superior to everyone else.

It would be so nice if Athiests and Agnostics could impose their beliefs on others, because they believe that Freedom Of Religion also means Freedom From Religion, while the most zealous believe that Freedom Of Religion means they get to feel persecuted and are allowed to enforce their views on everyone else.

I think we should find a Jewish food inspector and get them to protest having to go in to BBQ joints.

"Right now, Jesus himself couldn't be the Speaker and get 218 Republicans behind something."
—Rep. Patrick J. Tiberi

I read an interesting pair of articles on a recent debate between Bill Nye, Science Guy, and the guy who opened the Creationism Museum in Kentucky on evolution versus creationism. The part that I found to be the biggest takeaway was the line that religious fundamentalists aren't just cherry-picking the bible for the choicest bits to support their positions, but they are weaponizing the bible.

Yesterday I read an article on NPR about a judge in Alabama who was eventually censured for having a sort of display case of the ten commandments in his court room, he finally lost his job. He's now running for Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, and is pretty much touting this to appeal to fundamentalist voters.

Here's the article: http://www.npr.org/2012/10/27/163725159/the-ten-commandments-judge-wants-his-seat-back


Here's the bit that really caught my eye. A woman attended one of Moore's rallies and said this to a reporter: "We're at a critical juncture in our nation," Roberts says. "We will either go back to our Christianity, and the faith, the doctrines that our nation was founded on or we will be a socialist, Marxist country."

I guess she doesn't realize that this is exactly what every totalitarian nation justifies themselves with. Islamic nation-states think the same thing, and we really like them for their religiosity, don't we?

A paper was presented recently where the author "...read the historical literature and queried religious leaders and other experts about the world's epidemics and the way religions deal with disease. They found that between 800 B.C.E. and 200 B.C.E., cities flourished, deadly plagues arose capable of killing off up to two-thirds of a population, and several modern religions emerged. These religions all had a different take on disease, which affected how people responded to epidemics such as polio, measles, and smallpox, Hughes reported. The belief systems, for example, influenced whether people fled from disease or tried to help those who were sick."

That time frame fits Judaism and Buddhism but is too early for Christianity and Islam, I'm not sure what other 'modern religions' the author may be talking about. But it is an interesting read with some good comments.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/does-religion-influence-epidemic.html?ref=hp

http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/08/24/018213/Does-Religion-Influence-Epidemics

Well, they didn't really drop it. They referred it back to the prosecutor, saying that there isn't enough evidence and there's gaps in the case.

I find it interesting that this case is even possible. The article cites that it is a violation of Shariah law to be an Islam and become apostate, in this guy's case, he converted to Catholicism in Pakistan. I thought Shariah law went away with the Taliban being kicked out when the US invaded. I know elements of the Taliban remain, I'm just surprised that this law is still on the books.

The nasty thing is that apostasy under Shariah law is apparently punishable by death.

What adds complicating and interesting facets to this case is that one of the reasons the judge threw it back to the prosecutor is that there are questions about the guy's mental state/capacity. I heard on an NPR report prior to the case being thrown out that he had a history of violence against his family. Now, considering Afghani social structure, I'm not sure what Americans would consider violent would count in Afghanistan. The other interesting thing is that his family are the ones who turned him in.

Definitely weird stuff.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060326/ap_on_re_mi_ea/afghan_christian_convert