Religion

Is God Really Pro-Life?

Fandango16 Comments

img_1216I saw this bumper sticker above on a car the other day and it made me wonder how someone would know that God is pro-life.

Is this the same pro-life God who killed all the first born males in Egypt so that Pharaoh would “let His people go?”

Is this the same pro-life God who drowned all life on earth except for Noah and his family and the pairs of animals that gathered on Noah’s ark?

The same pro-life God who permitted the Nazis to exterminate more than six million living human beings (including, no doubt, pregnant women) during World War II? Who allowed hundreds of thousands of Japanese (including, no doubt, pregnant women) to die when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Who stands by twiddling His thumbs while Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad gasses his own people (including, no doubt, pregnant women)?

So where, exactly, do people get the idea that God is pro-life? From the Bible, you say? Oh really?

The God depicted in the Bible is the greatest mass murderer of all time. He killed millions of pregnant women and their fetuses in Noah’s flood. And what about the conquest of Canaan, the incineration of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in numerous other major slaughters described in the Bible? When the entire populations of towns are massacred as part of “God’s will,” you can be sure that pregnant women and their unborn children were among the victims.

Why did God, who allegedly loves the unborn and hates abortion, kill so many unborn children — as well as living children, adolescents, and adults — throughout biblical history? What makes anyone believe that God cares about unborn children?

The anti-abortion movement continues to declare that, in the name of God, abortion is murder. Do those opposing abortion on religious grounds know that the Bible does not consider a fetus to be a full human life or the killing of a fetus to be murder? The Bible requires the death penalty for 60 specified “criminal” violations, but abortion is not one of them.

In fact, nowhere in the Bible will you find any passage that describes a prohibition or penalty for a woman who chooses to terminate her pregnancy. Not a single verse. Yet many politicians and advocacy groups claim that their belief that abortion is murder originate in the Bible.

So where, then, is the evidence that God loves the unborn and disapproves of abortion?

Better yet, where is the evidence that God exists?

I realize that this post may piss some people off and I may even lose some followers as a result. But as Pharaoh said, “So let it be written, so let it be done.”

Beyond Belief

Fandango13 Comments

5B0CBB3F-28DE-4AF2-9260-A41FD8AF4AD0Are you ready for this?

Christian televangelist Jim Bakker has preached to his flock that Donald Trump was not cheating with Stormy Daniels on his third wife shortly after she gave birth to his fifth child. Oh no. According to Bakker, Trump was merely scheduling private time with the woman in a hotel suite in order to share with her the good news of Jesus Christ. He was concerned that she was not a good Christian.

“It is preposterous to assert that a virtuous believer like Mr. Trump,” Bakker said, “would cheat on his beautiful wife so callously, and while their child was only months old.”

Bakker explained that Trump “was so concerned with the eternal state of Miss Daniels’ soul that he scheduled some alone time with just the two of them, so he could share with her how Jesus Christ had changed his life and how He could also save her from her sins.”

(According to Stormy on her “60 Minutes” interview, she spanked his ass with a copy of Forbes Magazine on which his picture was on the cover. No doubt that act alone saved her from her immoral ways. But I digress.)

Getting back to Bakker, he further claimed that the $130,000 payment Trump arranged to have his attorney give to Daniels was to help rescue her from the destructive adult film industry and to help get her life back on track. “What a man of God Donald Trump is,” Bakker asserted.

I suppose if you actually believe every word of the Bible to be the word of God, you will believe just about anything. Good news, huh?

After publishing this post, I have learned that the article upon which I based this post came from what I now know to be a satirical website and the story is a complete fabrication. I apologize for having passed on fake news.

Evangelical Hypocrisy

Fandango7 Comments

518AE8FB-8357-4930-B35D-4FBCC0A8A4F6At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’m going to post yet another rant about the hypocrisy of America’s evangelical Christians. So if you are one, you might want to stop reading now.

Donald Trump’s approval rating with self-identified white evangelical Christians has recently jumped by 6%. This despite the controversy about hush money paid to a porn star and to a Playboy playmate on his behalf right before the 2016 presidential election in order to hide extramarital affairs that took place just months after Trump’s third wife gave birth to his fifth child.

American evangelicals have decided that they are willing to ignore Trump’s personal immorality because they are getting something far more important in return. Namely, the chance to impose their own (alleged) morality on others. They are fixated on removing abortion and other women’s rights, as well as those for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders.

As to overturning or eliminating programs designed to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the planet we all live on? Not to worry. God, they assure us, will take care of that.

And while acting this hypocritically, these holier-than-thou evangelicals are ignoring the moral aspects of adultery — something they were unwilling to do when a Democrat (Bill Clinton) was in the White House.

Donald Trump, a serial adulterer and sexual assaulter, gets a free pass because of the right’s obsession with abortion, gay rights, and other so-called sins. At the same time, they fiercely defend their right to force their religion on the rest of society, especially on those who do not share their far-right beliefs.

Religious hypocrisy isn’t new, but under Donald Trump it has reached a whole new level. And it has never been as obvious.

Editorial cartoon © Jimmy Margulies.

Now I Get It

Fandango5 Comments

Nine days ago I wrote a post in which I noted that American evangelicals are “supposed to be committed to the Christian gospel message that Jesus Christ is the savior of humanity. They believe in the authority of the Bible as God’s revelation to humanity, and in spreading the Christian message.”

Given that, I asked in that post, “So can someone please explain to me, then, why eight out of ten evangelicals support Donald Trump?”

Yesterday I happened across a political cartoon from editorial cartoonist Drew Sheneman of the Tribune Content Agency.

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Thank you, Drew Sheneman, for providing me with what I believe to be a very succinct — and plausible — answer to my question.

Forget Flu Shots, Christians

Fandango18 Comments

Texas minister Gloria Copeland, who sat on the Trump campaign’s evangelical executive advisory board, claimed in a Facebook video that there is no severe flu outbreak in the United States. Well, at least if your Christian.

This religious wacko said, “Jesus himself is our flu shot. He redeemed us from the curse of the flu.”

As if that wasn’t crazy enough, she advised that when someone suggests that you get a glue shot because “everyone is getting the flu,” just tell those non-believers that, “We’ve already had our shot: He bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases. That’s what we stand on. And by his stripes we are healed.”

And in the event you somehow did come down with the flu, all you have to do is recite, “Flu, I bind you off of the people in the name of Jesus,” and you’ll be feeling fine in no time at all.

Yet, despite Jesus’ efforts on our behalf, this year’s flu season is among the worst in recent history. According to the CDC last Friday, flu-related hospitalizations were the highest since the agency began tracking that statistic in 2010. Agency officials said the death toll among children has risen to 53 so far.

I wonder how many of those who died or have come down with the flu are Christians. If they are, they must not have thanked Jesus enough for fluing for their sins.