A Message for the Tolerant Christians

this made by day..

..evangelical taliban christian family association..

Let’s face it. Christians are NOT — repeat, NOT — going to go after each other in any meaningful way. Sure, once in a while one of them, or maybe a group, will pipe up, now and again, and point out the extremists in the midst of their religion. But their “protests” are tiny, squeaky, short-lived affairs that accomplish nothing and are never intended to change the extremists.

But they are NOT — again, to repeat, NOT — going to do anything substantive about it. To do so would admit their religion could be abused, and they are NOT — again, to repeat, NOT — going to admit there can possibly be even the slightest flaw in their metaphysical construct.

Case in point: Jim Wallis and his Sojourners, a so-called “liberal,” moderately Leftist Christian organization which has butted heads occasionally with the more extreme Christians. Not surprisingly, though, when push came to shove and they had a chance to put their money where their putatively-tolerant mouths were, they staunchly refused, and buckled under the pressure of actually standing up to the militants in their religion.

There is quite simply no such thing as a Christian who will truly, tangibly confront his/her co-religionists. Such a creature is a figment of the imagination … no more real than Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.

To be blunt about it, the Christians Dan is talking to, do not exist — on this planet, or on any other. They are ALL part of the same “club,” and they act that way. Count on it.

I think there is a chance of Bigfoot existing.

Jim Wallis is on the conservative side of liberal. Liberal Christians include people like Desmond Tutu (definitely pro-gay rights) and Mark Hanson (head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, also pro-gay rights) and Katharine Jefferts Schori (head of the US Episcopal Church who has participated in the ordination of out gay/lesbian bishops). The venom some of conservative Christians have in particular for the latter two is toxic. I’ve seen rainbow flags fly from ELCA and Methodist churches and I’ve seen their ministers out on street corners protesting against prop. 8. Are they all this liberal when it comes to gay rights, no, and, for some it is still a process of becoming (I’ve heard Mark Hanson give his story).

Liberal Christians admit they don’t take the Bible literally and completely (no one actually does but fundamentalists won’t admit it). They are also more intent on creating a ‘kingdom of heaven’ here and now by improving the lot of the poor and distressed (this is where Jim Wallis is a bit liberal) rather than waiting for ‘divine intervention’.

Some seem to have problems with science. They accept it but also try to fit it into a worldview where it doesn’t fit very well.

OH, thanks for the plug to this Rhodes sponsored event. I go to Rhodes, and I asked the second to last question in the Q&A about transgenders in the IT’s Get Better campaign, since I think the news coverage did not seem to focus much time to transgenders when addressing IGB. (Gender and Sexuality is one of my minors if not a major, and transgenders are minority group that I focus on.)

Savage was really good and raunchy. He taught me to look more into the statistics people cite, even ones FFRF cites. He taught us what Santorum means just in time for Republican primary debates.

Thanks Erp. I try to stay fairly well informed about Christian leaders, but I never heard of any of those people. I guess that is just proving Dan Savage’s point. Those voices need to be louder… much louder. Still, the problem is still Christianity but I have no problem dealing with the symptoms and the root of the problem at the same time.

There is quite simply no such thing as a Christian who will truly, tangibly confront his/her co-religionists. Such a creature is a figment of the imagination … “no more real than Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.

To be blunt about it, the Christians Dan is talking to, do not exist — on this planet, or on any other. They are ALL part of the same “club,” and they act that way. Count on it.”
Then call me Nessie…because I DO practice what I preach. I have walked away from evan/fundie churches. I can self church.I support all of my friends:gay, athiest, gay-athiest,agnostic, christian, whatever. I use my blog as a platform to protest their torture by the civil unfairness perpetuated by the right. I stand upon the edict of Christ, “LOVE ALL”. Period. I do not subscribe to the “Cult of Hate” that the current modern “Inqisition” has installed in the churches. I will be a voice.I will gladly support vocally, monitarily and in print a movement for civil equality and simple human KINDNESS across the board. Don’t count out the genuine hearts. They are out there. An avalance begins with the smallest rumble… Peace.

Dan Savage isn’t someone that I’d be proud of. In fact he’s a sleazeball hypocrite for LGBT rights.

This is note to you liberal atheists (eg. Hemant, Staks, Jen McCreight) who suck up to this kind of bullshit.

Listen to what Ron Paul has to say about this. I don’t give a fuck whether he’s a christian or not (or if he’s wrong about the abortion issue), he does more for liberty that all the shit talk I’ve seen y’all do in the blogosphere:

“Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government.”

Ten Principles of a Free Society by Ron Paul
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul732.html

This is precisely why I criticize you dumb atheist liberals. You don’t understand that rights are not granted by government.

That’s why you have all these petty fights on special interest groups like LGBT, or no prayer in public schools, church/state separation issues.

And now I’d like to post a rant from a commentor from the liberal gay site Joe Jervis (aka Joe.My.God) because it illustrates the hypocrisy of Dan Savage and Lady Gaga sucking up to the bread n circuses of politics:

***

Dan Savage and Lady Caca are NOT for GLBT rights they’re both just money hungry media whores who will jump on whatever bandwagon there is to further their careers and “fame”. Lady Caca only wishes she was a Gay Icon and only jumped on the bandwagon of “GLBT Rights!” just to sell albums and music.

to think that dan savage could generate such a comment post is actually pretty pitiful. but then to come across HIV STIGMA just goes to show how far we have not come since the eighties.

to think that those who are NEGATIVE live more meaningful and productive lives is utter bullshit when every hiv-positive person i’ve talked to in my years has confided in me that they are much happier with who they are now versus who they were “back then” when they were self destructive.

what i see: the inability to care for those in your community. Instead, it’s the same ol’ bullshit of making yourselves feel better and more privileged in yet another minority group that is somehow convinced that breaking into a mainstream, CAPITALISTIC, evil hetero-normative society is going to magically make things better – HA! Savage is an A-Gay and is upper middle class and lives in the suburbs with a house and kids and just wants to emulate a Heterosexual lifestyle and thinks that all bisexual and gay men should do this or that we all somehow want to like him. Savage is a media whore with Peter Pan syndrome who just loves attention and
can’t get enough of it even if it’s negative attention.

I find it hypocritical that gay men are claiming that most bisexuals and trans people are somehow victimey or want to celebrate victimhood. Have these queens looked in the mirror lately? Have they watched any “It gets better” videos which are all about celebrating victimhood and getting hugs and support and having these things ALL THE TIME instead of just learning to love yourself as a gay man.

I’m not sure why so many Savage/It gets better queens on this blog are now claiming and denying that Dan Savage is poz phobic? He clearly is and if you’ve read his “advice” column or listened
to his podcasts one can easily see how he has major issues with people who are HIV+ and that he is poz phobic. Or how they’re now revising history and claiming that Savage has never been
bigoted towards bisexuals, trans people, and African Americans.
Try doing the resarch on these topics for yourself and you will see how Savage is very bigoted.

It really is just as bad as the shit we get from Heterosexist society and Rev. Phelps but it’s from another GLBT person so it’s 10,000X more hypocritical and worse when it’s from someone on
the inside like this.

fuck this shit. IT DOES NOT GET BETTER!
you’ll spend your days feeding the wallets of major corporations. allowing them to sell you a version of gay culture that is more concerned with KILLING YOU and this thing you call “individuality.”
then instead of actually doing anything about being metaphorically “fucked in the ass” by nearly 99% of americans (because queer/GLBT people still fuck queer/GLBT people over in extreme ways) you’ll turn to some MONEY-HUNGRY ICON like Dan Savage and Lady Caca and repost false, generic information and claim it as your own.

and don’t forget the pride celebrations and nightly outings, which take you on a spiral into ALCOHOLISM, meth addiction, bareback sex, and recklessness. where a quarter of you end up hiv-positive because nobody has learned how to talk to one another or give a shit about knowing their status or using condoms either in the heat of the moment or as part of having safer sex.

and instead of blaming yourselves, you’ll blame others, until you hopefully realize how fucked up the “community” is, and start living a more productive and meaningful life. but fuck it, it’s pride and we all know what that is about, right?

going out, buying shit, getting wasted, buying more shit, getting more wasted, angry, annoyed, horny, stupid, redundant and ugly.

well, not so much. it’s about stonewall. it’s about resistance. it’s about a memory and celebrating a time when queers were brave enough to stand up and fight against the system in hopes of thriving and forming their own unique culture. stonewall was a riot! not another dreadful, self-loathing party in the gentrified Castro district.
Someone like Dan Savage who is a primadonna media whore that does not like bisexuals, people with HIV/AIDS, or Trans people is the last person we need representing gay men and GLBT Americans in the media.

He’s a tool, media whore, jumps on any bandwaggon-Started his whole “It gets better” project not to actually help GLBT youth but to self promote he and his husband and get an MTV reality TV show with crocodile tears.

He should have named his kid “Material” or “the book all about ME that I want people to buy!”

He’s an opportunist – always has been.

Dan Savage’s tone is harsh and biting; his responses seem to care little about the community but alot about how he looks in the community.

Time after time, Savage attempts to pass off his cute funny bits as true advice when everyone knows that he’s just talking out of his ass.

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/06/gaga-talks-lgbt-rights-at-europride.html

I agree with most of the rant.

Any questions?

~WR

but it is blatantly obvious that taking away rights from individuals via local or federal law is political.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

In other words just because Christians get special rights doesn’t mean Atheists should get special rights.

If you defend the principle that rights come from individuals then that is all-inclusive to all groups.

That way you don’t have these petty fights about gay marriage and we-need-more-money-for-Planned-Parenthood.

Taxation is theft. That means you are stealing from one group of people to provide alleged benefits to others.

I already had that fight with Jen on her blog, but the bitch banned me from her blog calling me an Uberlibertarian troll or sth.

I’m a free market anarchist. I’m not the only atheist that defends free markets. Micheal Shermer does too. It’s just that atheists who are for free markets get derided or drowned out in the blogosphere because popular atheist opinion is that we need government for all these alleged benefits that atheists want.

I’ll quote him because I think this is very important for you liberals/progressives to understand:

MICHAEL SHERMER
Publisher of Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist for Scientific American; Author, Science Friction

Where goods cross frontiers, armies won’t

Where goods cross frontiers, armies won’t. Restated: where economic borders are porous between two nations, political borders become impervious to armies.

Data from the new sciences of evolutionary economics, behavioral economics, and neuroeconomics reveals that when people are free to cooperate and trade (such as in game theory protocols) they establish trust that is reinforced through neural pathways that release such bonding hormones as oxytocin. Thus, modern biology reveals that where people are free to cooperate and trade they are less likely to fight and kill those with whom they are cooperating and trading.

My dangerous idea is a solution to what I call the “really hard problem”: how best should we live? My answer: A free society, defined as free-market economics and democratic politics — fiscal conservatism and social liberalism — which leads to the greatest liberty for the greatest number. Since humans are, by nature, tribal, the overall goal is to expand the concept of the tribe to include all members of the species into a global free society. Free trade between all peoples is the surest way to reach this goal.

People have a hard time accepting free market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive. Life looks intelligently designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that there must be an intelligent designer — a God. Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer — a Government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer.

Charles Darwin’s natural selection is Adam Smith’s invisible hand. Darwin showed how complex design and ecological balance were unintended consequences of individual competition among organisms. Smith showed how national wealth and social harmony were unintended consequences of individual competition among people. Nature’s economy mirrors society’s economy. Thus, integrating evolution and economics — what I call evonomics — reveals that an old economic doctrine is supported by modern biology.

http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_2.html

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism

I’m not sure what the argument is, exactly, in what you describe yourself as a “rant”, but I’m pretty sure it has absolutely nothing to do with liberal Christians confronting the poisonous beliefs of fundamentalist “Christians”.

My argument mirrors Michael Shermers and Ron Pauls principles. Free markets will bring prosperity to all people. When you reduce the power of the State, then Church doesn’t become such a big deal like School Prayer and Prayer at Graduations and teaching Bible in Class.

I defend free market anarchism and Agorism would the the most ideal philosophy for that.

~WR

Great another idiot. Ayn Rand was an atheist. Ron Paul is mistaken about evolution, so does that discredit the other things he is right about?

~WR

Taxation is theft. That means you are stealing from one group of people to provide alleged benefits to others.

And this is where you fail. Rand, Paul, and you all follow the most asinine concept ever. There are precious few things that he is right about, just keep guzzling that kool-aid and rocking back and forth while mumbling : “don’t tax, don’t tax, don’t tax, etc..”

What was the line in ‘Sister Act’? – “this better not become a nuns’ bar.”

I certainly hope this website doesn’t become a libertarian rant site. As a gay atheist who stayed in the closet too long on both accounts,
I understand Dan Savage’s point of view completely. I also know how much his message is helping young people. It would be nice if someone could zap Wally Real with a gay ray and let him have to listen to some real bigotry. I would bet his rant would change.

My argument mirrors Michael Shermers and Ron Pauls principles. Free markets will bring prosperity to all people.

Notwithstanding the fact that the second sentence does not state a principle, you have clearly lost your mind. That is a statement of empirically unsound blind faith on par with anything Christianity has managed.

When you reduce the power of the State, then Church doesn’t become such a big deal like School Prayer and Prayer at Graduations and teaching Bible in Class.

Developed European nations, strong states all, have politically much weaker churches. Your thesis, it seems, sucks.

Anonymous: I’m not the same guy who commented on that JMG blog entry, although I mostly agree with the rant.

Steve: “It would be nice if someone could zap Wally Real with a gay ray and let him have to listen to some real bigotry. I would bet his rant would change.”

Um dude, you are putting your hate on the wrong guy.

I’m queer. I just did my Klein Sexual Orientation grid:

http://kleingridonline.com/results.php?var_1_1=1&var_1_2=2&var_1_3=4&var_2_1=4&var_2_2=6&var_2_3=3&var_3_1=1&var_3_2=2&var_3_3=4&var_4_1=4&var_4_2=4&var_4_3=4&var_5_1=4&var_5_2=6&var_5_3=4&var_6_1=4&var_6_2=4&var_6_3=4&var_7_1=1&var_7_2=2&var_7_3=2

capishe?

URL shortner: http://goo.gl/KRQ9o

~WR