Civil Commotion

This is International Blasphemy Rights Day, and y’all will probably not be surprised to learn that I am a strong supporter of blasphemy rights. The more blaspheming the merrier, I always say.

I favor speaking ill of the supersized-human god of the Old Testament, the smarmy god of the New Testament, and Alvin Plantinga’s “ground of all being” — whatever that is supposed to mean. I’m fine, too, with people who speak ill of cows (beloved by Hindus), rats (beloved by other Hindus), vultures (beloved by some Zoroastrians), and magic crystals and incense (beloved by New Age nutjobs).

I don’t have a problem, either, with people who wonder what sort of deformed human being would want to spend eternity with the inventor of Hell. I’m cool, also, with people who frankly acknowledge the incontestable fact that Joseph Smith was a con artist, and that those who don’t know it are mor[m]ons. I’m allright with ridiculing Jehovah’s Witnesses, too, because they’re still trying to puzzle-out why the godly weren’t whisked to their reward in 1917. Provided you’re armed, have a good giggle at the idea that Muhammad galloped off to heaven on a white horse. And while you’re at it, flick your nose at Valhalla, where Norse warriors go after their career of carnage and mayhem down here on earth.

Just don’t make fun of Paul Bunyan. I’ll kick your ass, you do a thing like that.

If they feel like people hold their views in contempt, it’s because we’ve seen the harm they cause. We’ve seen the hypocrisy. We’ve seen how little of it is based on evidence and reason, and we’re tired of being held back by people who live in an alternative universe …

Hemant Mehta

Precisely so.

And, please — don’t promise to pray for me. Pray for yourself. Your day of privileged, resolute ignorance is over.

For the first time in 143-years, the Detroit News is not endorsing a Republican for President.

Today this newspaper does something it has never done in its 143-year history: endorse someone other than the Republican candidate in a presidential contest.

[ … ]

The 2016 nominee offered by the Republican Party rubs hard against the editorial board’s values as conservatives and Americans. Donald Trump is unprincipled, unstable and quite possibly dangerous. He can not be president.

I would have written must not instead of can not, but their meaning is plain enough.

But … whatever is the point of endorsing the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson? He was baffled when a reporter asked a question about Aleppo a few weeks back, and just today was unable to name a single foreign leader; from appearances, he lives in a world about the size of a shoebox. I suppose they’re thinking that movement toward Johnson will siphon non-Clinton voters away from Trump, but that seems to me a roundabout way of steering voters the direction they want them to go.

The next president of the United States will be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump — and Donald Trump must not, ever, be president. Better, then, to stick a clothespin on the nose and vote against him directly rather than underhandedly. There are too many ways for cheap tricks and manipulations to go wrong. What is more, Trump must be decisively, unambiguously, repudiated — and the loonies must get the message: Your day is over.

Although some evangelicals have admitted Trump lost the debate, I have not heard a direct condemnation of him over his disrespect for women. I have to believe when many evangelical women enter that voting booth, they will remember what he said and how he bullied and demeaned women. Closer to home, evangelical men should worry that evangelical women will remember that their men said nothing about it.

Warren Throckmorton

Good luck with that.

The gospel of the lowly, lowers.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, §43

Think about all the times you’ve heard some preacher howl and bellow that the good is the elimination of your self-interest and self-direction, the elimination of your self because your self is no damn good.

Think about it carefully — really think — and you’ll realize that you’ve never sat through a sermon in your life without hearing it. The aim of all Christian teaching is self-annihilation; the marketing lies can hide it from the obtuse, but that teaching cannot be removed. To think that women raised in that teaching will resist Trump’s degradation of them, or that the men in their life will show any backbone on their behalf, is fanciful. More likely, they’re patting themselves on the back for submitting to it.

I pointed a couple of days ago toward a story now making the rounds amongst evangelicals. David Platt, the head of the SBC’s International Missions Board, is peddling the story that a couple of missionaries may have prayed a dead man back to life.

You can imagine what kind of reception the story is receiving: People like me are hooting, and credulous fools who will believe anything are beside themselves with joy.

One Southern Baptist pastor is reprising William James’ argument of The Will to Believe (which is just a variation of Pascal’s famous Wager).

Yes, it could be a hoax. I’m nevertheless inclined to rejoice rather than doubt. We who do so may be embarrassed later if someone is pulling the wool over our eyes, but there’s always some risk associated with rejoicing over some great thing that God has done. Missing out on the rejoicing is too high a price to pay for eliminating the risk of embarrassment. After all, we are confident, are we not, that ultimately He will not put us to shame?

And, besides — true or not, the nitwits in the peanut gallery are going to love it.

UPDATE — Go read the comments from pastors, and remember my rule: Never entrust important, grown-up stuff to some idiot preacher.