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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Wayback Machine: I Don't Know What To Call This

Welcome to the Wayback Machine, a sporadically recurring diary series for Motley Moose. The Wayback Machine revisits diaries of days gone by…a peek into our moosely past. The original diary will be linked to, and reposted in full, but, with a fresh comment thread. If you have requests for the Wayback Machine, use the ‘Contact the Moose’ link at the bottom of the page and let us know your ideas.

Today’s trip down memory lane takes us to a Kysen diary from January 2010. His thoughtfully titled ‘I Don’t Know What To Call This’ includes a tongue and cheek look at some of the more ‘interesting’ teachings from the Bible. It seemed like some perfectly cheeky fare for this lazy Sunday.

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As someone somewhere once said: “you can’t know where you are going without knowing first where you have been”

So, join us for a look back….

I started this diary a couple months back when the ‘Prayer for Obama’ stickers first hit Rightwinger bumpers coast to coast.

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Before I got anywhere near finished, the two online distributors I was railing against (Zazzle and CafePress) pulled the offensive merchandise from their virtual shelves. I no longer had windmills to joust at. What had originally started as a diary on Rightwing hatred soon morphed into a fairly random collection of bible verses.  I entertained myself for a while with it…then set it on the backburner as a rather discombobulated mess.

It was the theological discussion that broke out in the Haitian Earthquake diary that reminded me of it and prompted me to tinker with it a bit. Well, I tinkered with it….and it is still pretty much a discombobulated mess…but, here it is…do with it what you will.

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The ‘Prayer for Obama’ bumperstickers hit late last year. They were just another example of the out of control Rightwing hatred that has become so common of late. While under the guise of ‘good Christian’ sentiment, a hateful and perhaps dangerous message was being spread. What is so bad about offering a Prayer for Obama? Well, the prayer offered is far from what one would call Christ like.

“Pray for Obama.”

A kind and generous statement.

Or is it?

A crop of bumper stickers and T-shirts emblazoned with that call to prayer for the president have appeared for sale recently online through make-it-yourself outlets such as Zazzle.com and CafePress.com. And most of the “Pray for Obama” slogans are accompanied by a scripture reference: “Psalm 109:8.”

In the New International Version translations, that verse reads;

   

May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.

Aha! So, they’re praying for Obama’s tenure to be a short one. Fair enough. But what does that really mean?

A clue may be in the verses of the 109th Psalm that follow verse 8:

   

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

   May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.

   May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.

   May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.

   May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.

   May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.

   May their sins always remain before the Lord, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

In that context, are these folks actually urging us to pray for Obama’s death?

(The crashing sound you just heard may have been Jesus hurling his stapler across the office in frustration.)

-USA Today

These ‘prayerful’ wishes are only one example of what seems to have become accepted behavior by the Right. It is now ok to openly pray for the President’s death..for his downfall. Oy vey. While seemingly benign (I mean, come on, they are ‘just’ bumperstickers!), it is further evidence of a deeper problem. The Obama haters are breaking records…and not good ones.

The unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama, a rise in racist hate groups, and a new wave of antigovernment fervor threaten to overwhelm the US Secret Service, according to government officials and reports, raising new questions about the 144-year-old agency’s overall mission.

        _____________________

“The service’s protection mission has increased and become more urgent, due to the increase in terrorist threats and expanded arsenal of weapons that terrorists could use in an assassination attempt or attacks on facilities,” according to the congressional report.

The domestic threat is also growing, fueled in part by Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president, according to specialists who study homegrown radical movements.

Obama, who was given Secret Service protection 18 months before the election – the earliest ever for a presidential candidate – has been the target of more threats since his inauguration than his predecessors.

Two days before Obama’s appearance at San Francisco fund-raisers on Thursday, a 59-year-old Northern California man was indicted on charges of sending a racist, profanity-filled e-mail threatening to kill Obama and his family. The rambling e-mail included specific references to Michelle Obama and the phrase, “do it to his children and family first in front of him,” according to the indictment.

-boston.com

While the threats continue, the Prayer for Obama Bumperstickers have faded. Both in memory, and on the dirty bumpers upon which they reside.

But it got me to thinking…..

A couple Prayers of my own:

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5 If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom.

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1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.

A few interesting verses:

This is just….special:

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute i
n Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

(Ezekiel 23:19-20)

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The penis (‘P’ Word!) is pretty important:

11 If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, 12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

(Deuteronomy 25:11-12)

1 No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD.

(Deuteronomy 23:1)

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Women…same as it ever was (/ducks):

19 Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.

(Proverbs 21:19)

15 A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day;16 restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand.

(Proverbs 27:15-16)

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Bored to death:

9 Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead.

(Acts 20:9)

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Give your roadkill to aliens:

21 Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to an alien living in any of your towns, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner.

(Deuteronomy 14:21)

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A few inconsistencies:

But anyone who says ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Jesus)

(Matthew 5:22)

VS.

“You fools!” (Jesus)

(Luke 11:40)

“You blind fools!” (Jesus)

(Matthew 23:17)

“How foolish you are” (Jesus)

(Luke 24:25)

“But God said to him, ‘You fool!’ ” (Jesus)

(Luke 12:20)

“You foolish Galatians!” (St. Paul)

(Galatians 3:1)

“You foolish man”

(James 2:20)

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And Jesus said, “For judgement I am come into this world.”

(John 9:39)

VS.

“I came not to judge the world”

(John 12:47)

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“Jacob said, ‘I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'”

(Genesis 32:30)

VS.

“No man hath seen God at any time.”

(John 1:18)

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“For I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever.”

(Jeremiah 3:12)

VS.

“Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn forever.”

(Jeremiah 17:4)

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Which Creation story do creationists believe?:

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IN GENESIS there are two contradictory stories of creation.

**In Genesis 1:20 & 21, “every living creature” is brought forth from the waters, including every winged fowl.” But in 2:19 God brings forth “every beast of the field and every fowl of the air” from dry ground.

**In Genesis 1:2, earth comes into existence on the first day, completely underwater. Only by the 3rd day were waters of the deep collected, and dry land formed. But in Genesis 2:4, 5, & 6, earth on the first day was dry land, sans water.

**The first story has trees made on the 3rd day and man formed 3 days later (1:12-13 and 26-31). In the second version man was made before trees (2:7, 9). If chapter 1 is true, then fowls were created before man. If chapter 2 is true, then they were created after man.

**Version one teaches man was created after all beasts. The second is clear, Adam was created before beasts. (1:25,27 versus 2:7,19).

**In version one, man and woman are created simultaneously (1:27) while in version two (2:7,20-22), man and woman are separate acts of creation

Confusing, no?


The Bible has a disclaimer:

Mark 16

The Resurrection

1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”

8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

((The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.))

9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. 11When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

12Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. 13These returned and reported it to the r
est; but they did not believe them either.

14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

So, not only does the ‘extended version’ of Mark contain language that is unlike the rest of the text in style and vocabulary, verses 9-20 were not even found in the earliest reliable manuscripts of the book.

Note that the verses not found in ‘the most reliable texts’ are the very same verses that the most strident evangelicals hold most dear. Driving out demons, speaking in tongues, picking up snakes, etc. are the ‘signs’ of a ‘true believer’. IMO, they are the verses that most feed into what ‘I’ consider extremist christian beliefs…and the ones that are clung to by those most intent on condemning anyone who does not agree with their beliefs to the fiery pits. The infallible word of God…a Disclaimer…who’da thunk it?

And, that, my friends….is all I have to say.

Don’t know how to end it either.

The End.

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21 comments

  1. Kysen

    I wanted to point out a dKos diary to those who might be interested: Meteor Blades has posted a poignant diary on the ‘mistake’ better known as the Iraq War.

    I, for one, am glad to see him writing…and the diary is rather heartbreaking. Too many dead. Too many injured. Too many lives permanently damaged. Too many years lost.

    It is well worth the read.

    Forever calling the Iraq War a ‘mistake’ won’t make it one

    Planning for invasion, the concoction of evidence, the ignoring of counter-advice, and the lying to Congress, to the United Nations and to the American people were not “mistakes.”

    Mistakes were definitely made. Nine years ago, too many elected Democrats and too many other Americans believed the president and vice president of the United States to be honorable men. To be patriots. To have the best interests of Americans at heart. They believed them and they believed a megamedia that operated like administration-owned megaphones instead of independent watch dogs. Those were gigantic mistakes.

    Consequently, there are now vast numbers of dead who would be alive were it not for this war initiated out of American exceptionalism, hubris and doctored evidence. Thousands of dead Americans. Tens of thousands of dead Iraqis. Deaths in any war are terrible enough. Deaths in a fabricated war count as nothing short of murder. How dare anyone call such a war a “mistake.”

  2. Kysen

    In the Bizarro world of “Htrae” (“Earth” spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states “Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!”

    Who’da ever thunk it?:

    Those people in the Republican primary have got to lay off this stuff. They’re forcing their leaders, the frontrunners into positions that will mean they will lost the general election…

    …you appeal to the narrow base. And they’ll applaud the daylights out of what you’re saying, and then you hit the general election and they say ‘no way.’ The Democrat, whoever it is, is going to just play these statements to the hilt. They’ve got to stop this. It’s just so counterproductive. Well, if they want to lose, this is the game for losers.

  3. sricki

    Kysen, I know your non-open thread diaries don’t tend to draw a lot of comments. And I do love your open threads — they tend to be cheeky and loads of fun.

    Still, I actually prefer it when you write diaries like this, giving the public a glimpse into your ever-intriguing thought processes. 😉

    I think this diary has suffered twice now from unfortunate timing. It was originally posted around the time of the epic god debate in Cheryl’s diary, so perhaps we’d all already had enough god talk that week. As for this reposting, well… Moose has been pretty slow of late in general.

    Nevertheless, I’m pleased to see it again. I think you are aware that the contradictions in the Bible, amongst many other things, have always jerked my chain. It’s been many years since I read the Bible in full — 15, in fact. I have since reread certain portions of it for various classes over the years, but I have not delved back into it voluntarily.

    I read it cover to cover at 11 because I came from a very religious family and was disturbed by the fact that religion/church had never really “reached” or touched me. I just never got it or felt it. It never clicked for me. I ultimately came to the conclusion that I was just one of those people, by nature/genetics, who was not “wired” to be religious. But I didn’t understand that then, and I didn’t have any way of knowing that one could just be genetically predisposed toward non-belief. Research now suggests that some people’s brains are just more prone to religiosity than others.

    But again, I had no understanding of such concepts at the time. Maybe the research didn’t exist at all. I’d been raised in the Episcopal church, and my family had always made sure I was very involved. Attending weekly church services, singing in the choir, going to Sunday School and Youth Group, attending and then working Vacation Bible School, going off to church camp in the summers for several consecutive years, and later becoming an acolyte when I was old enough (until I finally escaped this duty by graduating high school).

    All that forced involvement, and yet church and God and Christianity never meant anything to me at all. Despite all the time I spent engaging in church-related activities, I never felt like it had any relevance to my life. Church bores a lot of kids, but that wasn’t really my issue with it. Most kids who find church boring nevertheless grow up to follow the religion they were brought up in, even if they don’t stay actively involved in the church. At the very least, most children of religious households maintain in their later years that they believe in some sort of god. I didn’t hate church because it was a time I had to be still and quiet, though. I was never a “hyperactive” child who could not remain seated, and I was generally quiet by choice too (I did not begin to “find my voice” until high school). I just never “got” religion, even when it was tailored to be age-appropriate for me, like at church camp and Sunday School. Not that I much appreciated having things “dumbed down” for me — I was nothing if not a precocious (and probably equally obnoxious) child. But no matter how hard I tried over the years, I could never really get into the spirit of all of it.

    Kysen, I think you know about me reading the Bible beginning to end when I was 11, but maybe I’ve never fully articulated why. A lot of reasons, maybe. Children are Confirmed in the Episcopal Church around age 11/6th grade, so I had that coming up late in the year. I was admittedly self-conscious about my lack of faith growing up in a religious family and having a number of religious friends who lived for church camp and Sunday youth group. And as I said, at that age, I had no idea that my nature simply might not be well-suited to faith. Even as a kid, I wasn’t much of a conformist, but being different is still hard at times… And sometimes when everyone seems to value or understand or be “in on” something that you feel totally on the outside of despite your best efforts… it feels a little like a personal failing. Add to all that the fact that the person I loved most in the world was my maternal grandfather, who was extremely devout, as well as the fact that my nuclear family was experiencing some pretty significant turmoil/discord…

    And it just seemed the right thing to do — to set my mind to embracing and understanding my faith. So I borrowed my mother’s Bible — the King James version, because I’d always understood that to be the most “authoritative” (according to my family) — and I read it. I read some every day, and often rather slowly. I was an advanced reader as a child, but much of the language was still stilted and strange to me. Probably took me longer to read than any book I’ve ever read in my life. At numerous points all along, I found myself feeling extremely disturbed by the book. Revolted on occasion. I think I first started to feel real disdain for the God character somewhere in Exodus. He seemed to me like… well, just a vengeful, petty, jealous, insecure, power-hungry bastard. Leviticus was painful. A lot of books were painful, especially in the Old Testament. Pretty traumatic and infuriating to a budding feminist, the way women were consistently portrayed. My impression of the Christian God as a hateful tyrant in the Old Testament stuck, and later reading the New Testament did not inspire me to view him any more leniently.

    I gave it a fair shake — I didn’t make any big decisions until I finished the book. But once I finished, I promptly declared myself an atheist. The experience of reading it made me angry. The fact that I’d been raised as a Christian — and told that I should live my life by that horrible book — pissed me off mightily. I still let them Confirm me in the church. I still did as I was told — attended and served every week until I graduated high school. But I never believed, and I never again truly wanted to. My anger faded a bit in time… and I waffled back and forth between being atheist, agnostic, and even deist (or something similar) for a long time. Now I guess my beliefs are most in line with atheism, but I call myself agnostic because it results in fewer tedious, pointless arguments.

    My now 18-year-old brother, who had also pretty much walked away from his faith by the time he was in high school (though not as loudly or as angrily as I did), blames his hatred of church and his lack of interest in faith on my parents. He claims he was turned off by it all because my parents made religion into a chore. I dunno, maybe he is wired sort of like me. We’re alike in a lot of ways, and very dissimilar in others. My parents like to blame me for corrupting my brother spiritually, just as I supposedly polluted his political beliefs. I’ll admit to steering him leftward politically, but I never poked at his belief system regarding god. Generally speaking, I think that’s a personal journey that each individual should make on his/her own.

    Dunno why I rambled so much. All that was just to say, I like and approve of your diary Kysen. Maybe I’m still a bit bitter… but I do enjoy seeing people poke at the Bible. 😉

  4. How wonderful to repost I’m hoping the Moose around here will do a bunch more of this because there are calves running around who missed it.

    Anyhow running around in the world I run in, I ran across this project that re-translated the bible from it’s original Hebrew

    http://www.thechronicleproject

    I did one of my UFO blogs on it, but I’ll pull some interesting pieces.

    Genesis

    v1

    To chronicle the beginning of the supreme ones production with our celestials

    and with the planet Earth.

    v2 And the planet Earth had existed for a long time without attention and being of

    note.

    And darkness covered the salt water ocean. And the supreme ones drew (in from an

    outside source) air over the face of that water.

    v3 And so declared the supreme ones,”Let that which illuminates exist and that

    which illuminates occurred.

    v4 And the supreme ones perceived with that which illuminates and as so were

    satisfied with the results.

    And with this action the supreme ones separated between that which illuminates and

    the darkness.

    v5 And the supreme ones named that which illuminates,”to arise” and to darkness

    called by the name,”to carry away”. And so existed sunset and then sunrise and

    these two times are now united to be known as “The Day to Unite”

    The Commandments

    v1 And so the supreme ones decreed all of the decrees and declared:

    v2 I, Ruler of all supreme ones who created what you have, the one who progressed

    your people by colonizing you in the land of Egypt, that house of service.

    v3 Do not seek the council of the supremes behind my back to seek council.

    v4 Do not proceed to carve things and then everyone proceed to worship the

    improvements (we made) inside of the sky, those that are above.

    Nor worship anything we made to progress the Earth that is on the land, or under it.

    Nor any improvements in the waters in the land.

    v5 You are not to hold fasts for them nor shall you serve them in any way.

    As so, I the Ruler of all, am the only one you should respond to as I prepare a place

    to oversee you. To burden the lineage of sons thirty and forty years of age who

    slander (these ways).

    v6 And I deliver kindness to you, by my teachings, to create a refuge and to create a

    warning for you through the enacting of this law.

    FINISH

    v7 Do not exhaust the value of the name Ruler of all, your supreme one, to puff up

    your statements. You are not allowed to speak my name to your statements or vows

    to try and progress their validity and in doing so make my name worthless.

    v8 Always remember the day of rest, as the Sabbath is special.

    v9 Six long days you have to serve and work at all your jobs.

    v10 The day to marvel (the seventh) is Sabbath to Ruler of all, your supreme. Do

    not proceed to make anyone work, not you or your sons or daughters, who serve

    you. Nothing that is in your care, not even your livestock shall work. And you are to

    make sure that the poor within the city gates are given their needs. (So that they will

    not have to beg on this day).

    v11 As so in six days were made by Ruler of all, all that draw attention above in the

    celestials, and on the Earth, and in the waters. Everything we made to progress the

    Earth in those areas. All before the day to marvel as was stated and then Ruler of all

    blessed the Sabbath day and held it in highest esteem over the others

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