This post will conclude the excerpting from all the posts, as of the list that was published after the weekend was done. There are two “unofficial” ones that I’ll post in a minute.
It looks like more posts were added. However, since they were added somewhat randomly rather than “latest at the top” I have to admit that I don’t have the energy to sort through and figure out which ones they are.
If there isn’t a selected bit from your post in any of the previous entries, and you were part of the blgoswarm against theocracy, please contact me with the url of your blog post.
If you’re looking for my post, it’s here.
And now…. at number 121
121) Dangerously Subversive Atheist Penguin: “It seems simple enough to me, and yet I constantly see members of the religious right arguing that they’re being oppressed because they’re not allowed to force other people to worship as they do. Sorry, folks, but that’s not the way it works. You get to do your thing and I get to do mine, and as long as nobody gets hurt, it’s all good and legal. But when schools sponsor Bible classes and little Jewish or atheist kids are ostracized with the approval of school officials…that’s illegal and unconstitutional and downright immoral. And when teachers tell their classes that atheists or Jews or Muslims are going to hell and the administration refuses to fire the teacher even when a recording is produced of the offending speech…that’s illegal and unconstitutional and downright immoral. And just to prove I can see both sides, when a student is suspended for quietly sitting and reading a Bible during lunch…that’s illegal and unconstitutional and downright immoral. It’s not the government’s job to tell me who or what to worship, or who to love and marry, or when I can die.”
122) Chaotic Good: “In a religious context, we Pagans generally harm none. We don’t proselytize, we don’t preach, we teach by example. We don’t demand that our mythologies be taught as history and science in classrooms. (Because we recognize that they ARE mythologies, not history or science.) We don’t tell people who don’t agree with us that they will suffer eternal punishment, or manipulate the power of the State to coerce others into accepting and favoring us. We accept pluralism, because every modern Pagan can have a different, very personal concept of Divinity and their place in it. This spiritual individualism is not just accepted, but celebrated. We can even attend each other’s gatherings and rituals with complete respect and dignity. Doesn’t that neatly sum up the essence of the American concept of religious freedom? This, I think, is what drives the religious right-wing crazy, whether they know it or not: if the United States of America has a religious identity, then it is, in essence, a Pagan Nation. A place where your neighbor can worship twenty gods. Or no god. We even have our own tribal Deities, like Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam (not to mention the American Eagle), which fill the same niches in our tribal consciousness as the ancient gods filled in theirs. So remember your Pagan roots, my fellow Americans, as you celebrate your Easter weekend. Even the name is of a Pagan holiday, based on the cycles of the Moon, that celebrated the Spring goddess Eostera, and the traditions of eggs, chicks, bunnies and baskets are all Pagan artifacts of Her worship.”
123) Brian: Just as no self-appointed group has the right to oppress others, so no majority (even in a democracy) may take away the basic rights and freedoms of a minority group or individual. While I understand certain beliefs may be distasteful, – and perhaps there is no more distasteful an idea in modern times than atheism, – the bottom line is that everyone’s rights are to be protected no matter what they say or (don’t) believe. The notion of God and its prolific attendant dogmas has been uniquely divisive throughout human history, and suggesting we are a nation “indivisible under God” is true in neither principle nor practice. The emailed missive above enjoins its readers to “stand up for what we believe”. I say it is worth examining the context of those ‘beliefs’. Contrary to what the subjects in the movie Jesus Camp would have you believe, the American way promotes freedom and equality for ALL people, and this is what our troops throughout US history have defended. This, too, is what it means to support our troops – it is the moral imperative of all adults in our society, and the kind of ethical and intellectual honesty we should be teaching our children.”
124) Lihan161051: “The repeal of prohibition, the public outrage and protest over the Vietnam War, the Democratic victories in ’92 and ’06, were all stinging setbacks for this movement, but each time it has come back stronger and smarter, with more sophisticated strategy and better tactics for neutralizing its opposition. Each wave comes a little farther up the shore, and takes a little longer to fall back into the sea. The movement has been at this game for a little over 100 years, and it doesn’t ever give up. It won’t give up until there is not only no separation between church and state, but the church *is* the state. Their church. Run by their rules. … There is a sophisticated four-pronged strategy in play with regard to the public schools:
- Destroy: De-fund the public school institution by diverting funding to private (mostly dominionist-run) church schools using voucher programs
- Discredit: Turn public opinion against public schools as secular enemies of a “godly” people, by organized campaigns of slander, libel, and harassment
- Subvert: Attack the public school system from within by taking over its administration and faculty from the classroom level to the school board itself, and use the public schools themselves for indoctrination either overtly or through “voluntary participation” ruses, etc.
- Supplant: Take the place of the public school system by providing a complete parallel-economy alternative in the dominionist system, from homeschooling to K-12 and higher education institutions run entirely by dominionist churches
125) Birmingham Blues: “My brother, my brother-in-law, my nephew, and his boyfriend would all be considered threats to my children. We wouldn’t have fun mornings, hanging out and laughing. More likely, our house would be a stop on the Underground Railroad for gays and lesbians trying to get out of the country. You think it can’t happen? Only if we refuse to let it. Those same people who want to make their interpretation of Christianity the official faith of the United States have been using gays and lesbians as scapegoats and fundraising tools for years. They’ve fomented hatred and violence against those who are different. It’s the fear of the “other†that is essential to authoritarian faith and government. Right now, I live in a world where I can associate openly with my gay and lesbian friends. No one can keep my daughters away from their uncles or from our adopted nephew, a young man whom they treat as a beloved brother. Still, he’s part of our family because his parents disowned him — after the pastoral “counselingâ€, public shaming, and exorcism (yes, exorcism) failed to make him straight. My brother and his spouse can’t legally marry; they can only breathe mutual sighs of relief that their families love them dearly and would never interfere in their life decisions.”
126) Zaius Nation: “Our story begins at the monthly Jesus Convention. The many incarnations of Jesus have had a long day of Jesus networking and listening to guest speakers. Everyone is ready for dinner and a few cocktails. Nobody expected what happened next…” Excerpts would spoil it. Go read the conversation of the assorted Jesus incarnations (Republican Jesus, George Bush Jesus, Baptist Jesus,
Pentecostal Jesus, Jehovah’s Witness Jesus (insofar as he may exist),
Evangelical Jesus, Catholic Jesus, Hollywood Jesus, Profit Motive Jesus, Herbalife Jesus, and the rest – as well as a few special guests).
127) Balls and Walnuts: “Not only does God kill the innocents, he makes the Hebrews complicit in his crime. Do any of the Hebrews warn the Egyptians? No. Do any of them argue with God to spare the Egyptians — as their patriarch Abraham once did on behalf of the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah? No. … An acceptance of sacrifice as a necessity underlies our nation’s (and other nation’s) willingness to sacrifice our children to a belief. Sometimes not even a belief — who among you thinks Bush’s war on Iraq had anything to do with high-minded beliefs? The problem with theocracy is not that we would live in a Golden Rule society. Nothing wrong with that. I wouldn’t even mind living in a Christian theocracy if our leaders restricted themselves to Jesus’ teachings of love and caring for one’s fellow human. Those teachings aren’t the problem. The trouble with theocracy is that there are tenets of faith which are, plain and simple, immoral.”
128) The Quaker Agitator: “That is also what makes the current battles in the so-called “culture wars” different from, say, the Civil Rights struggle and before that, the battle for women’s suffrage. Those struggles were about expanding rights to previously oppressed disenfranchised groups. The fights today being waged in the media, at the polling place, and in the courts are about denying rights, rights given to us by our Creator, and about reducing the scope of who can be a full citizen. And that should concern everyone, of every political and religious persuasion. Because if they come into my Friends’ Meeting and spy on us as we speak to the Peace Testimony, or when we put into practice the Testimony of Equality by sanctioning a marriage between two people who love each other who also happen to be of the same sex, then they can come after you, too. … But you need to stop behaving like we – progressive American people of faith – are also the bad guys. Because if you were ever to get your way in the end, based on the way things are now, I worry that you’d be slapping me in the stocks, too. I wouldn’t want to live in your America, either, because you, in your own theocratic way, in your zealous, anti-fundamentalist fundamentalism, haven’t made room for me.”
129) Driftglass: “How much you wanna bet that if this had been a White Chocolate Jebus Wearing Dockers, rabid Wormwood Afterbirth Bill Donohue would never have said a f**king word? But a Confectioner’s Christ with a Dark Chocolate W*ng swingin’ in the breeze? Worse than twelve Hitlers.”
130) A poetic justice: Several poems. “Why must the sycophantic / heave and lick the powerless air / in death’s dark tongue?”
131) Frederick Clarkson: “The simple fact is that religious and nonreligious people have a common interest in opposing theocracy — or anything remotely headed in that direction. They are logical allies in the struggle. Over at First Freedom First, an alliance of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, The Interfaith Alliance, and a dozen other religious and non-religious organizations, like the Secular Coalition for America — everyone gets that.”
000) Chip Berlet: Timeline cross-post, duplicate of #105
132) life’s journey: “folks have the right to worship as they see fit- as long as it doesn’t impinge on the rights of others. that suits me just dandy. there is no reason that our government should have judeo-christian faith dictating to a nation that has millions of followers of other religions here. the religious right quotes the founding fathers the way it quotes the bible- they pick and choose the passages that coincide with their belief structure. their leaders smell opportunity for massive amounts of power. there is nothing religious nor holy about this. when religion and politics mix, it generally follows that it is the people who pay the price. jefferson and adams and franklin et al- they all knew this. they had seen it happen. that is why they made sure that it wouldn’t happen here. and it shouldn’t.”
133) Montag at Stumplane: “That day when I was twelve— standing in the tall grass, telling my Dad I didn’t want to go to church anymore because I thought I was an atheist, and thinking I detected the slight betrayal of a sense of relief in him —I like to think I didn’t become a godless amoral boy-devil without a conscience or any sense of empathy. No. I prefer to think I was, and still am, thoughtful and respectful to others. I struggle constantly to gain fuller understanding of the nature of morality, and try to live a good life without harming others — helping them even, when I can. Know what else? While I have some regrets, I have done nothing in my life for which I believe eternal infernal damnation is a justifiable punishment. If you are among those that believe that the inner workings of my thought process is grounds for the forever anguish of burning flesh, then I think your god is an a**h*le. The rejection of theocracy is not to destroy religion, or to diminish anyone’s faith. Among other things, it is to allow all people, even non-believers like me, to find their sense of morality in their own way.”
134) The Aristocrats: The 8,175th Temptation of Christ: More Earthly Power. “J: George, George, it’s just not that easy. First of all, I’m not a United States citizen. G: Not a problem, Jesus, not a problem. We’ll just fix the Constitution. Or ignore it. J: I know, George, I know. But see, there’s an even bigger problem. I’m not corporeal. G: Corporeal? J: Right. It means that I don’t have a physical material body, so most people can’t see me and hear me the way you can. G: Really?”
135) From Kristim: “We may protest, draw back in distaste, /
alarmed to have God thrust upon us / smelling so pungently of mint / and the charnel house, / but they are relentless in pursuit
of fleeing souls. / They paralyze us with their certainty / that God lives in their mouths.”
The end, for now.
