Don’t Worry, Blackbirds, It Gets Better

I’m late to the party here but you may have seen this video of preacher Cindy Jacobs blaming the recent dead blackbirds on the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:

It could be because we have said it’s okay for people who commit these kinds of [homosexual] acts to be recognized in our military for the first time in our history, there is a potential that there is something that actually happened in the land where a hundred thousand drum fish died and also where these birds just fell out of the air.

Crazy, right? Makes no sense whatsoever.

Thinkerbell agrees, adding:

… let’s not get away from the main point here. This woman’s beliefs, bigoted though they may be, are no more deluded or absurd than the belief held by many that prayers are answered, or that eating the Eucharist is eating Christ’s flesh, or that there is a supreme being who is deeply concerned with the going-ons of the human race.

Very true. Her point is no more logical (or illogical) than all the other things you might hear in a church on any given Sunday.

Side note: Jacobs is somewhere on my big list of Christians who have an absurdly high level of popularity for reasons I just can’t figure out. (Has anyone admitted to agreeing with what she says in the video?) Her, Pat Robertson, Bill Donohue… they all act like they have followers. I’m sure they do because they’re getting viewers and money from somewhere. I also know I live just outside Chicago, but I’m just surprised I don’t know any of them personally.

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AxeGrrl

OMFG

that’s all i can say.

i’d bang my head on the desk, but seriously, i want to bang Cindy’s head on my desk.

As an atheist who doesn’t (in general) advocate that religion be ‘eliminated’, Cindy here reeeeeally makes me reconsider that position.
Synonymous

Whatever caused this bizarre event, it is nice to know that no matter what happens, it can always be blamed on the Gays. Where would we be without homosexuals to blame for everything? We would have no idea how or why HIV came to be, or how or why hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans.

Of course I’m being facetious and am in danger of breaking Poe’s Law ;P

I personally hope that those who spread such hatred and bigotry can soon be as hounded as those they revile.
Danny Wuvs Kittens

I love how all the super-batshit insane fundies are well supported biblical, and always quote scripture.

Don’t think God would cause 9/11? He killed 90,000 innocent people in the bible because the king wanted to count how many soldiers there were(2 Samuel 24 1:17). Its not to far out for him to kill 3,000 for some bullshit reason or another.
JD

God’s going to punish the humans by killing creatures that most humans have little interest in. Because that’s how God rolls, with incredibly oblique punishments that escape that interpretation except for some preacher that I’ve never heard of.
mike dave

This is ridiculous, it is obvious those birds ran into an enormous invisible UFO
Bob

A perfect example of superstitious thinking. Mysterious invisible and supreme being is deeply concerned about his creations, but can’t be arsed to express himself other than to nuke a bunch of birds and leave us to guess why.

A God that decides to take a whack at some other portion of His Creation because he’s pissed off at the stupid little people He thought were such a good idea … ain’t exactly all square upstairs, dig?
Jeff P

Or maybe those birds and drum fish were the substitutionary atonement for God’s previous anger towards homosexual behavior and now God is fine with human homosexuality.

The possibilities are endless when you are just pulling stuff out of your ass concerning the supernatural.
Darius

…wtf…

It’s funny, I was just talking to my wife this morning about how it’s hard to understand how people like Pat Robertson even have followers. And how it’s now simply expected with any natural disaster or tragedy to joke, “man, I wonder how homosexuality is going to be the blame for this”
Michael

God killed them? What a dick!
Bob

The possibilities are endless when you are just pulling stuff out of your ass concerning the supernatural.

That’d be one hell of a Rube Goldberg machine …
Claudia

Yes of course, it all makes sense. God has given us an obvious sign, not at all subject to misinterpretation.

– After a month.
– In Arkansas, because Bill Clinton imposed DADT. I mean, it wouldn’t make sense to do it in Hawaii or Illinois, or DC.
– Arkansas is an obvious choice for retribution against people who think being Gay is OK. They have amongst the most restrictive adoption law in the nation, which precludes gays from adopting or even fostering children. Liberal commies, no wonder god wanted to punish them!

Oy.
ludovico

Huh! So it’s not global warming after all, it’s all those hot gays!
holytape

My question is why red-wing blackbirds? Sure the ‘scientific’ answer would be that Red-wing blackbirds can for enomorous wintering flocks so that even if only a tiny percentage of the flock dies, it can still be tens if not hundreds of dead birds. But there has to be some biblical reference that I am missing. Did God mean to draw the comparison that Red-wing blackbirds live in the Dismal Swamp of Arkanas County and Homosexuals live dismal swamp of sin and that both are rewarded with death? Or did God punish the red-wing blackbirds because their song sounds a little like R2D2, which is one of the two gay robots of the future, and not like the more manly Cylons? Or could it be that is was a red-wing blackbird and not a snake that tempted Eve and Adam with the forbidden fruit of homosexuality? I really what to know.
Bob

@Holytape:

Caprica Six was *anything* but manly …
RJ

Coo Coo Ca-choo! I feel dumber just knowing that she is “supposedly” the same species as me. Someone needs to put her in a straight jacket and medicate her. People like this should seriously undergo some psychiatric examinations. The stupid hurts my brain.
Stephen

I don’t get this god of the Christians. All the gays were gays going about their lives the same way they were before and after DADT. Did the repeal of DADT allow their god to now see the gay lifestyle? If we can pass laws that restrict their god’s vision, then lets keep him blind to all the stuff he sends natural disasters to us for. Sheesh! Wasted resource.
Elena Villarreal

Leopards aren’t blue. That’s all.

😉
Secular Stu

The only sensible way to figure out the truth about this is obviously to cut open the birds and try to read their entrails for any divine messages.
Defiantnonbeliever

This is clearly an aftershock of Boobquake! 😛
Rollingforest

Hemant, your surprise that these people can get money despite you not knowing a single person who supports them reminds me of the quote (falsely) attributed to liberal New York film critic Paulina Kaul “I don’t know how Nixon won reelection! I don’t know a single person who voted for him!”

You may live in a less crazy area, but the fundamentalists control the border towns and they have money too.
schnauzermom

God, evidently, has piss-poor aim. Maybe an eye exam and some new glasses are in order?
Vagabond Prophet

Gays must be the new Jews….

on another thought: “Side note: Jacobs is somewhere on my big list of Christians who have an absurdly high level of popularity for reasons I just can’t figure out.”

I blame the media. Crazy people make people watch. Maybe I should blame the people who watch though. The media is just pandering for viewers.
randyman72

@Rolling Forest-Good observation. It reminds me of what happened a few months ago on the email thread of my local “Cleveland Freethinkers” group. One of my fellow members was puzzling over something just like this, based on biblical literalism, and he quipped “I really wonder if these people actually believe this stuff? I’m skeptical because I don’t know anyone who does.” I replied,”I should have invited you to my family picnic last week. You could have met a few dozen people who all believe in this stuff. In turn, each of these people attend churchs where their fellow parishioners all believe in this stuff.”
Mike

I actually made a video about this. My first theology related video.

Let me know what you think. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlpGQc0puTU
OneSTDV

Where would we be without homosexuals to blame for everything? We would have no idea how or why HIV came to be

Well HIV did originally spread almost entirely due to homosexuals. I believe it was initially known as “gay cancer” due to its prevalence amongst gays.

Re the actual post:

Good point from Tinkerbell.
Steve

If you want to get technical, HIV was originally spread by some travelers and researchers who brought it from Africa to Europe and America. The first known deaths occurred in the 60s and 70s. The blood supply was contaminated in the 70s too, leading to thousand of infections.

The “gay cancer” thing comes from Kaposi’s sarcoma (a type of skin cancer), which was later found out to be caused by a viral infection. As such a compromised immune system helped its development.
Rich Wilson

I guess that’s why it rains birds in Canada

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2011/01/14/same-sex-marriage014.html
Richard Wade

Following Jacobs’ flawless Vulcan logic, if the U.S. letting gays serve without fear or shame in the military causes God to kill fish and birds in Arkansas, then of course the U.S. letting a televangelist wear a velvet blue leopardskin jacket on TV (an abomination in the eyes of the Lord!) causes God to send historic floods to Australia and Brazil.

Actually this is all a smokescreen to try to cover up Arkansas’ culpability for the Plague of Dead Fish and the Plague of Dead Birds. It is well known that in 1803, the people living in the area that would come to be known as Arkansas, (all 27 of them) made a deal with the devil to help them win their freedom from the ugh, French under Napoleon Bonaparte, an admitted Frenchman. (True story!)

The cover story in our false history books says that the heretic President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory from the admitted Frenchman Bonaparte, and it later became a state of the Union, but of course we know better. Ever since then Arkansas has suffered many Plagues, such as the Plague of Slaves, the Plague of Yankee Soldiers, the Plague of Civil Rights Marchers, the Plague of Clintons, the Plague of Starbucks, (15 so far!) and now the Plague of Dead Fish and the Plague of Dead Birds.

As the year goes on, Arkansans are doomed to suffer the Plague of Pollen Allergies, the Plague of Humid Heat, the Plague of Mosquitos and as winter comes on, the Plague of Dead Mosquitos. They will fall from the sky in billions! It will be much more terrifying than the dead fish and birds! All because of a pact they made with SAY-TAN!

(True story!)
Jon Peterson

So what the fuck evil thing did we HUMANS do in late 2006 to earn a similar wrath-against-AVIANS from God? Yeah, this in’t the first time this weirdness happened. Four years ago (within a month), the same kind of strange mass avian deaths were happening as well.

Check the links:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-08-austin-birds_x.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/12/health/main2355763.shtml
http://wahmdiary.blogspot.com/2006/12/dead-duck-conspiracy.html
Neil

You ask and tell, birds drop dead right out of the sky. This is because God is a closeted lover of closets.

Who knew?

Whoops, I asked. Just don’t tell me. The birds are already maimed. We don’t want to finish them off.

It’s an interesting idea, though. Wrong move causes intangibly connected anomalous event. It’s as if God is some fiendishly complicated mechanism we must engage with utmost caution.

Apparently it’s vitally important (for birds)that any one penis only makes contact with one of the lower body orifices of any one woman after the owners of said organs have performed a particular religious ritual and acquired a specific license issued by a governing authority.
Jeff P

@Neil,

Yes, God can be replaced by a computer program. The God program only takes a few lines of code but it utilizes a random-number generator. Enter your input and see what the response is. Note that it takes the clergy (or prophets like Jacobs) to “properly” interpret the results.
Sharmin

What kind of weird ideas about cause-and-effect do people like this have in their minds? Two things that are entirely unrelated get put together for no good reason.

One day, I want to make a list of all the things that religious groups have blamed on LGBTQI people.
Randy

Wait, nobodys blaming this on Bush? Gotta mark my calendar.
Idaho Dad

Calm down, everyone. Cindy Jacobs is really just Eddie Izzard playing a joke on us. Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsN0FCXw914
Circe of the Godless

I think it probably happened because somebody wore linen and cotton at the same time – or possibly because someone ate some shellfish somewhere – both of which are BIG sins in the Babble.
God probly sat up there & said “i’ll kill some blackbirds – THAT will show those people!!!!!” Golly Gosh.