Why don't they just nail Bush to a crucifix and get it over with...

This is so damned digusting I can't even come up with words for it. Friend sent me this link tonight. Behold the BushFish:
No joke, it's a real car magnet. Here's how the website pitches it...

Do you believe God belongs in government?
Do you believe President Bush is doing The Lord's Work?

If so, then show your love for God & the USA!

If this country's legislature and judiciary are supposed to reflect the values and beliefs of The People, then send them a message that they are WAY off course!

If you are tired of secularists telling you that The Lord has no place in our government and our public institutions, then show them that you disagree.

This symbol, this site, and this car magnet have been created for the millions of Americans who support the President and his vision for a government that embraces religion, morality, and family values. It shows worship to the Lord, respect for the President, and hope for
all.

Join the millions of Americans who believe that President Bush’s faith-
based administration presents the best hope for America’s future. The future is in your hands. Stand up and be counted!

Order a BushFish for yourself or a loved one today.

God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

This has gotta be the most sacrilegious thing I've ever seen come out of the dominionists' camp. Think about it: the icthus was the very first symbol of Christianity. It's how Christians recognized each other during Nero and Caligula's day: if someone were to draw the fish in some sand nearby, that was the coded signal meaning that person was a Christian. The standard Roman cross didn't come into widespread use until a few hundred years later (and that was mostly Constantine's doing): before then it was actually condemned by some Christians as a pagan symbol. That's not what we hold it to mean these days, 'course...

But treating the icthus like this is something like affixing an effigy of George W. Bush onto a crucifix in place of Jesus Christ. This kind of deification of a mere man would have horrified the early Christians: what if someone was selling these things back then with "NERO" on 'em? And how are they so blind as to believe that Bush is really doing "the Lord's work"? Just because they can deny the fact that he does many things in violation of scripture, doesn't make that fact any less true.

Geez, what the hell is wrong with these people??

About eight years ago I first learned about Christian Reconstructionists during a religion class in college. We laughed at their chances of taking over everything then. Now it looks like they really are hellbent on doing it: this blasphemy and the Bush-worshipping pastor in Waynesville NC are just two examples of their mindset.

And in all honesty it scares the hell out of me.

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Revenge of the Sith made Spielberg cry

I've little doubt that he did either. Have spoken to a couple of people who've seen Star Wars Episode III already and they're warning now to bring Kleenex to the theater. Sheer, unrelenting brutality. If it can possibly go wrong, it goes wrong. If it COULDN'T possibly go wrong, that goes wrong too. Almost nobody gets out alive this time. How bad is Revenge of the Sith? One friend said that "it's more devastating than Titanic."

Man this is going to be the longest week of my life. Three decades of wondering about new Star Wars movies comes to an end in ten days. Whatever shall I do with my life now...? :-)

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Good article by Vox Day today

Over at WorldNetDaily, Day cuts through the smoke and mirrors deluding even the elect and ponders mightily: who is "The Devil's own?"

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Does this mean I'm a big-league blogger now? Baptist Bushiites story spreading fast

It's been awhile since I lived there but some of the contacts I made and cultivated in the curious lil' burg of Asheville paid off bigtime last night. Got to share the thing about East Waynesville Baptist Church and how its pastor excommunicated nine people because they were Democrats, and SEVERAL hours before most newswires picked it up. Granted, WLOS, the ABC affiliate in Asheville was the outlet that first broke the story, but looks like at least mine was one of the first blogs to pass it along.

So it's out there now, the Asheville Citizen-Times just posted a story about the situation and a little while ago WorldNetDaily made it the top story. Meanwhile I'm hearing that this Chan Chandler guy is nowhere in sight but is sending statements defendings his actions as justifiable according to the Bible. Ummmmm ooh-kaaaay...

If no one minds my saying so, that part of the state is... well, strange anyway when it come to spiritual issues. I was a reporter there when the local churches had the big "We Still Pray" rally in 2000 and then a few weeks later at the same high school football stadium when area witches and warlocks held their own "We Still Work Magic" gathering. The Asheville area is one-third New Age mecca and one-third ardent Christian fundamentalist, with the last third being anyone and everyone in between. Can be a helluva fun place to spent a year or so of your life when you're young and adventurous and want to see a lot of nutty stuff happening. Makes me wish I was back there now while this is happening :-)

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WHEN BAPTISTS GO MAD: "support George Bush" or be drummed out of church

Please bear in mind that my wife and I attend an independent Baptist church and we really enjoy the fellowship there. It's like the old saying here in North Carolina: "put two Baptists into an argument and you'll hear three different opinions". They come in all flavors, not all of 'em like the nutcases behind this lil' item...

Heard from a contact in Asheville a little while ago: a church in Waynesville (about 20 miles or so west of Asheville) has excommunicated nine members for - get this - being members of the Democratic party! I'm scanning the websites for the Citizen-Times newspaper and WLOS to get more word on this but apparently this ain't a joke by any stretch. But from what I understand, the pastor of East Waynesville Baptist Church let the nine go because they supported John Kerry or the Democratic party somehow. One former member described on tonight's WLOS broadcast how he and others were told that "if we didn't support George Bush that we needed to resign our position and get out of the church, or go to the altar and repent and agree to vote for George Bush." His exact words, my source noted.

Geez, I don't know where to start on this one folks. This preacher sounds like a neo-pharisee or something.

No, it's worse than that. It's a church telling its members to believe that a mere earthly man is divinely anointed over them. The last time I recall churches doing that, it was shortly before the Russian tanks entered Berlin.

"Repent and agree to vote for George Bush"?! Can't get much more Nazi than that, boyz and goilz.

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The National Day of Prayer: a damned useless gesture if there ever was one

I'm not going to waste a single moment today on the "National Day of Prayer". Because the entire idea of it is a blasphemous joke. It insults my intelligence. It insults the memory of those who fought and died for our freedoms. And worst of all it insults God.

It used to have real meaning, back in the day when the Continental Congress and General George Washington asked their countrymen to pray for wisdom and guidance from divine Providence. Theirs were prayers of humbleness and contrition: those men and women knew where they stood before God. I think that was a far more noble era than today because for the most part, those people weren't afraid or ashamed to admit before all that their lives were meaningless without the grace of God. Nor were they too proud to confess the need for personal communion and fellowship with God to the extent that it had a higher priority than their relationships with others.

And it was considered a far nobler thing to desire that God's will be done, instead of OUR will be done. Look at many of the political and military leaderships of both sides of the Civil War: Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee were on opposite sides, yet both sought counsel from God and were content to let Him judge how the conflict should end. And in the end, General Lee harbored no bitterness toward either God or his conquerors for suffering defeat.

As for Lincoln, he was the first president to proclaim "a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer" in 1863. You can read the proclamation yourself at the link. Including this passage from it...

...We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God.

We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

That's what the National Day of Prayer used to mean: the nation humbling itself and crying to God for His will to be done.

It was not intended to be a platform upon which the nation exalts itself and demands that God allow its own will be done.

I went to the National Day of Prayer's website to see what we're supposed to be praying for today. Starting with the President of the United States and members of Congress, the list of who/what to pray for goes on to mention members of the armed forces, "school authorities", law enforcement agencies, presumably "mainstream" journalists (where the heck are bloggers?!) and families at last.

Now, something that needs to be pointed out here: THERE IS NOT A DAMNED THING IN THIS MISSION PURPOSE THAT HAS TO DO WITH HUMILITY OR FASTING OR REAL PRAYER, AT ALL!!

The "National Day of Prayer" is not an exercise of our freedom to worship and seek out God as we understand Him.

The "National Day of Prayer", rather, is a means of controlling the American people.

I see nothing here but a reassertion of "authority" over the people of this country. As if there were common people and then an elite "priestly caste" of politicians and power-mongers that intercede on our behalf before Almighty God. As if we have no right to discourse with God regarding the state of our national affairs in our life on this Earth.

We're supposed to pray for wisdom for them. But where the Hell do you see it that we are asked to pray to God for wisdom for ourselves?

God didn't put "the government" in authority over America. He never decreed that this country is something only Democrats and Republicans can boast of controlling. Nowhere has it ever been commanded that we are supposed to follow men like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and George W. Bush as if they were anointed apostles of the Almighty without question. Who the *&$# do they think they are, anyway?!

And now we're supposed to pray that they do the right thing, when they have *&$#-ed it up so many times already in spite of our prayers for them?!

No sir. I will not partake in the National Day of Prayer. Because I have chosen to worship God. I will not worship America. Nor will I worship anyone who expects me to believe they have power over America.

Besides, the idea that prayer is a one-day out of the year thing cheapens it. We are told to "pray without ceasing". So instead of following through with what those who expect us to believe have authority over us would have us to do, I will pray in my own fashion. And include among them this petition to God: that He might give ALL of us, as Americans, the wisdom and the strength to govern ourselves in the stewardship He gave us.

Time to quit letting "them" handle things while we run away from it.

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Okay so it's six days later since last time...

I been busy. With lots of good stuff.

Like, REALLY good stuff.

All will be revealed soon. And then, hopefully, you'll smile a bit :-)

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