The Logic Of A Literalist

It's not enough to call Rick Warren a purpose-driven blowhole. He who crucifies my people deserves more of a stretch. He supports Uganda's criminalization of gays.

Dr Warren said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. "We shall not tolerate this aspect at all," Dr Warren said.

Why does he joust at windmills? We windmills are here for a purpose.

Rick Warren's thoughts, on close examination, become very interesting. A little breeze can do them no harm.

With thanks to Wonkette, here he is, complaining about the blogs that persecute him...



(He should go to the blogs that persecute him and leave some comments. Then they would know that they have readers...) (Play it first with the sound off and watch his face. You will begin to see the nature of the problem.)

Rick Warren says - at 02:47 in the tape - "Now, you know, I believe the Bible teaches that God created sex exclusively for marriage between a man and a woman. That means I don't believe in premarital sex, I don't believe in adultery. I believe that man... God... created sex to be exclusively a marriage connection between a man and a woman..."

Uh... not between a bull and a cow? ONLY between a man and a woman? Rick, you demonstrate the power of the believer to believe. You must know in your heart of hearts where hamburgers come from. But belief enthralls your mind.

Of course, if God created sex only for the purpose of connecting a man and a woman in marriage - then God invented marriage. The implication deduces itself.

Except that swans mate forever, and a fifth of their pairings are gay. Many, many animal species bond in marriage. Ours is only one of them. We solemnize it legally and religiously so it is known before all, but so do the birds.

Data that contradicts a conclusion at hand is always damning. Attachment to such conclusions after their falseness has been proven further damns those who continue to preach the conclusions. Damnation is near at hand, Rick. In Dan Savage's column, "Saddleback" is about to join "Santorum" as something you really don't want to know about sex. The love-feast has only begun. Go overboard to attack a creative community and you can become a continuing source of art.

Darned they are with false thread, those who pick and choose who they hate from old books of ancient tribes, yes, they are darned, I say... They think they are holy, but they are darned.

If Jesus is your Life and your Redeemer, then sin is between you and Jesus. Forgiveness is between you and Jesus. The (well, one of many) gateway to God is between you and Jesus.

Homosexuality is a special gift that lets a person be in the world but not of it. Surely it must have come from God. Ask Jesus.

Rick is God's gift to man. To puzzle at and to unwind. Slowly and methodically.


This is not to deny that Rick Warren has done a wonderful amount of good in the world, helping people who cannot help themselves. He has made pro-active helping of those in need a standard part of the Protestant Christian tradition. He has helped millions, yet how many millions more has he hurt by denying them the rightness of their own relation with Jesus and with God?

Will his invocation of the Holy at Obama's inauguration be welcome to all people?

Love The Sin, Hate The Sinner

Rick Warren's gospel preaches that one can hate the "sin" of homosexuality while still loving the gay person. Obama says that as a gay man, I should reach out to Rick Warren. Forgive him the sin of punking my people before the world while still loving him.

Yeah, sure.

Lets face it - sin is something you do. It isn't something I do. Examine closely and you will see that this is true for you as well. Sin is something I do. It isn't something you do.

That's how it is, Rick. If I weren't a sinner, you couldn't preach.

How about "Forgive the sin, love the sinner?"

I'll forgive you for preaching if you'll forgive a tenth of the world's life forms for being gay.

1500 species, Rick, 1500 species. All committing the "sin" of laying with one another when they are the same.

Think of it. 1500 species.

"Then you come to the photograph of the whales “penis fencing” above which hang — for no apparent reason — two actual whale penises, both several feet long and looking like stretched and desiccated turnips. Some of the male whales meet year after year, says Bockman, while their relations with females are fleeting at best."

Think of it.

"A model — the one that invariably draws most giggles from the exhibition’s younger visitors — shows a male Amazonian river dolphin penetrating another’s blowhole. “This is the only example of nasal sex we have in nature,” Brockman observes."

Think of it, Rick. Think hard.

The brain rewards itself for repeating a sequence successfully. It gives itself a little hit of dopamine. So we become addicted to our conclusions. It's fun to play our tapes.


Rick Warren's mindset may prove easier to correct than my genes. Putting people down so you can raise them up in your own image is a sin he could consider losing.

Think of nasal sex, Rick. It will all seem forgiveable.

Obama Chooses Homophobe For Invocation

President-elect Obama has chosen public homophobe Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. My blood runs cold. Farewell Fidel.

Warren considers gays to be addicted to sex. We're homoSEXuals, get it? He claims to have "homosexual friends". These can't possibly include lesbians. They're addicted to nesting. And the gay guys I know are more into socializing than romps in the hay. Of course, two of these three have been together fifteen years. Not legally married? Whose law?

Of course, the idea that we're sex addicts just gets totally screwed by the idea that we want marriage. Don't these ideas contradict? Someone should ask Mr. Warren about his contradictory beliefs. Wouldn't marriage help us get over being sex addicts? Or, for that matter, how could the gays who want marriage be sex addicts?

Warren excludes gays from membership in his church. His church has a special class for gays who want to become members that helps them lose their gayness before they join.

From what has God excluded Reverend Warren?

The God that Warren will be invoking to bless the Obama administration is not the real God. It will be only Rick Warren's personal god.

The Best Of Times, The Worst Of Times

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Presidents in tumbrils waved gaily to the crowds as they were led to their incarceration. The economy had fallen flat, which put anybody who had any money down on the ground with those who didn't have any money. All were the same.

The vindictive knitted, and Google displayed their knitting. Old wrongs were made wronger by bombs and torture. Shoes were thrown.

A thirsting people waited for the spring.

Atlantis Rises

It was in the NYT yesterday:

Massachusetts, as you know, has made marijuana possession a civil offense, assigning it a $100 penalty. But every time a ticket is issued, a lab report will need to be done. Otherwise, it could be oregano.

Also, since it is a civil offense, in Mass no identification is recorded. Tickets can be ignored. This seems improbable to me, but here it is...

...//www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18 ....20marijuana%20civil...

Massachusetts has just legalized weed, so help me.

Hard to believe. (How soon will they tax it?)

All hail Atlantis!

Freedom's Responsibility

"With great freedoms come great responsibilities. Tolerance of those who we may disagree with is a practice that we must refine daily as individuals." - Huffpost commenter Verworn, in comments on an article about the Wasilla church burning.

A practice. First, discover a disagreement. Second, discover a way to tolerate it. Third, go back to the first step and discover another disagreement.

One can practice this while riding on the bus. Someone is talking on the phone. This irritates me. How to tolerate it? Someone is blowing cigarette breath in my face. How to tolerate it? Someone is gently singing to themselves. Now, they're tolerating it.

Aditya hridayam punyam, sarv shatru bena shenam.

With thanks to BRD.

Condi And Hillary Dine At The Watergate

Wife of a President, former Presidential candidate and soon-to-be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met over dinner the other day with departing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The site was the hotel famously associated with Nixon's downfall, the Watergate, where Secretary Rice has a suite. They discussed transition issues.


John Conyers has introduced a "United States National Health Insurance Act", H.R. 676. The very last line in its FAQ page lists a one-quarter of one percent stock transaction tax as one of the sources of its funding. Could he improve it with a one-half of one percent tax on short sales? That would bring the nose of the plane upwards.


From Op-Ed News:

"Two Federal judges have deliberately invoked secrecy statutes to conceal the Federal government’s illegal use of torture, a prominent legal authority says.

Named are judges Terence Boyle of the U.S. District Court of Eastern North Carolina, and T.S. Ellis III of the U.S. District Court of Eastern District of Virginia, both nominees of President Ronald Reagan."....

"Judge Boyle refused to allow CIA contractor David Passaro access to government memos that could be construed to show he was acting under orders when he tortured a prisoner to death."

but then yesterday the Senate Armed Services Committee reported that both Bush and Rumsfeld were directly responsible for the torture:

"The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority. This report is a product of the Committee’s inquiry into how those unfortunate results came about."

Passaro's guilt extends to Bush. Bush's guilt thus extends to Passaro's murderous torture. Bush and Rumsfeld were accessories to the killing.

As were we all. Our government did this. The Justice Department is still unwilling to release the legal memos that justified their behavior.


Even while we were voting Barack Obama into the White House, our forces were bombing yet another wedding party in Afghanistan. This time we killed forty civilians. If we are not careful, we will now bomb their funerals by mistake. Wherever three or more are gathered, it's a tradition with us. How can our people tell? They look all alike. Brownish. Short. Hungry. We're sorry if we've killed you. We meant to get someone else.


Another round of layoffs. Soon to be another round of evictions and forclosures. Soon to be another round of bank failings. You can set your watch by it.

Why do we deserve all this?

Condi and Hillary dine at the Watergate.

Eschew Ishness

President-elect Obama has introduced most of his cabinet to the country early on in the transition process. They are organizing their underlings. By Inauguration Day, all will be ready to land on the ground running.

On January 21st, the day after the Bush regime has ended, the whistle-blowing begins. Government staffers who have bit their tongues for long will release their stories. They will tell about the true shape and nature of the old regime. Crowds with torches and pitchforks may gather. The theater and drama of the last eight years will come to a denouement.

Obama's cabinet appears to be a crew of old hands. They are not major fundraisers, nor do they cloister with dark forces as did the departing Vice-President. They do not view politics as a team sport.

Will they be a "no-drama" cabinet? Will grandstanding be outlawed? Will they feel that they don't need to cop an attitude to look good?

Will Obama bring a politics free of artificial colors and flavorings?

Recess

We are in a recession, we are told today. The Dow dropped 7.7 percent today and the price of oil dropped 9 percent as they heard the news.

Oh, and it began a year ago.