Ever wonder when you hear the evangelicals speaking from their pulpits they almost always quote the Old Testament? Here's why:

Matthew 25:31-46

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Can't really spread a message of hate with Christians running around thinking "If this person were Jesus, how would I treat him" now can you? So here's what you should do if these assholes are out protesting at a gay person's funeral or some other dispicable act holding up their signs which say "God hates fags," copy and pasted the following into your word processor and then print it out. After you print it out, go down to the protest site and just read it, or memorize it, or make your own variation.

Hi guys, I'd like to chat with you for a second. I want to read a passage from the Bible if that's ok with you. From the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-46.

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
------------------------

Now guys, I ask you one simple question, is this how you would treat Jesus? Would you be out picketing him with signs that read "God hates you?" Would you be at the foot of the cross with signs that say "He's burning in hell?" Are these things you would do to Christ? If not, well, too late, you just did.

I'd do this myself but I live in a pretty liberal town so it's difficult to find that kind of stupidity here. I also don't ask you to do this for me, but for the families of the people these assholes hurt by staging their protests. Remember, they have a right to spew whatever bullshit they want, but you also have the right to talk back, make use of it and shut them up with their own beliefs. Oh and take a Bible with you just in case they think you're lying.

What have I been saying for the past 9 months? I've been saying the left needs to get over it's anti-Christ attitude and start pointing out the hypocrisy in the right's policy which they claim to be "Christian" if we want to win over the majority of people in this country. I've been saying that we will continue to lose as long as we're seen as the anti-Christs.

I was right.

Poll: Fewer See Dems As Religion-Friendly

By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer

August 30,2005 | WASHINGTON -- Democrats' efforts to improve their image with religious voters after the 2004 presidential election appear to be getting off to a bumpy start.

Fewer people see Democrats as friendly to religion now than felt that way a year ago, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

That number has dropped from 40 percent in August 2004 who thought the Democrats were friendly to religion to 29 percent now.

"The change is seen across all groups," said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center, which conducted the poll for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

After Democrats fared poorly with religious voters in the 2004 election, the Democratic National Committee initiated numerous efforts to strengthen its standing with religious voters.

The DNC hired someone to coordinate religious outreach, encouraged state parties to work more closely with the religious community, and had Chairman Howard Dean meet with clergy and others in the religious community during his travels around the country.

"We're at the beginning," said Democratic spokeswoman Karen Finney, who said religious voters share many of the values of the Democratic Party. "But we know we need to do a better job of talking about our values in a way that people see we share their values."

More than half of those polled, 55 percent, said the Republican Party is friendly to religion.

A majority of political independents, 54 percent, said religious conservatives have too much influence over the GOP. Fewer than half of independents said those who are not religious have too much impact on the Democratic Party.

The poll of 2,000 adults was conducted July 7-17 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

So now that we have 71% of the country, which is dangerously close to the number of Christians in this country (78%), that believe we're hostile to their religious beliefs do you feel empowered? Are you fucking people trying to lose? What exactly do you hope to accomplish by attacking people's religious beliefs? Ask yourselves these questions and get back to those of us who want to show how hypocritical it is for someone to be a Christian and a Republican when you're ready to really take the fight to the fundamentalists.

I read this article on Salon.com awhile ago entitled "Getting Religion" and had kicked it around in my head for a couple of days but soon forgot about it. Since I woke up early this morning I decided to snoop around Salon and remembered the article so I decided to see if there were any letters in response. Sure enough there were, and, thankfully, most of them were against the opinion of the author, save one. Since it's a little late to send a letter to the editor in response to this article I'll just comment on it here, I need an entry for today anyway. So consider this also...

A Letter to the Editor of Salon.com in Response to Francess Kissling's "Getting Religion"

Unlike many of my fellow secularists I am not spiritually bankrupt. While the closest thing to my spiritual beliefs is Buddhism I make no claim on a particular religion, some say I'm an atheist, others an agnostic, and the ignorant claim I'm a right wing Christian covert operative. The latter are the people who are most damaging for the left, as are many other secularists who can't speak of Christianity without becoming egomaniacally elitist that they're some how better than Christians because they don't believe in an invisible man. How would I know? I was one of them.

While I'm still a secularist who believes in the seperation of church and state, over time I've learned that religion has it's place in politics to appeal to people's better nature, as well as their most vile, but the good usually wins out, when it can be heard. The problem is the left refuses to allow the good to be heard. Case in point in response to a female senator's proclamation "What I want to do is get on the floor of the Senate and ask, 'What would Jesus do about the budget? What would Jesus do about poor children? What would Jesus do about healthcare?'" Francess said "What I wanted to respond was that the floor of the U.S. Senate is not the place to invoke Jesus Christ." Her excuse for this is because she doesn't want to offend the Muslims, the Jews, the Buddhists, the atheists, etc. Francess, let me give you some advice, stop worrying about who will be offended, infact, most people don't like political correctness and hate being talked down to and treated as if they're weak. That's what's most condescending for most people.

However Francess you do have a point, but at the sametime you don't. There's a mighty big difference between "What Would Jesus Do" and "Jesus Says To Do", one does not demand that Jesus be listened to and the other does. There's a big difference there. The Senator in question could just as easily add Buddha, Muhammed, Yahweh, etc in place of Jesus or right alongside him, but you ignore this point because "the hair on your neck stood up." Shall I tell you why? Because people like you don't have a problem with every religion, only Christianity. You won't find many "atheists" who will denounce the faiths of Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists, Jews, etc, but they're on Christians like white on rice. "Atheist" or "secularist" is not a proper name for those of you with this problem, "Anti-Christian" is far more fitting, and you make the rest of us look bad.

Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr was alive today and said what he said back in the 50s and 60s, y'all would shit a brick and try to silence him. "No we wouldn't!" The fuck you wouldn't, because there are many of us who say similar things to MLK that you fuckers sneer down at. I've seen Christian Progressives degraded and insulted simply because they're Christian and don't agree with the methods of the Anti-Christians. I've seen secularists who say that we should be understanding of the Christians and use their own beliefs to further our cause get personally attacked by the Anti-Christians. And for what reason? Prejudice and bigotry, reactionary forces created in response to reactionary forces, and the rest of us get caught in the middle.

Are there radical evangelicals who pay lip-service to the Christian belief and are total assholes? Yes there are, but they're a minority, so why is the secular left taking the position of lumping all Christians into the same boat? We're supposed to be the side of understanding but in the case of Christianity we attack it, ignorantly, and wonder why we do so bad at the polls. When is the left going to realize that we are in Christ's image, that every core belief we hold is spawned from our progressive fore fathers who held similar beliefs to Christ? Beliefs like every man's relationship with God is his own and only he can decide what that relationship is, beliefs like "let Ceasar's be Ceasar's and God's be God's" (thus the first seperation of church and state spoken by Christ), beliefs like helping the poor, the sick, the homeless, the weak, where do you think all that shit came from? It came from religion, and not just Christianity, but most religions.

I've been called an enemy of the left because I have no qualms with pointing out the hypocrisy of my fellow leftists, particulary the anti-Christians. They say I must be a right wing operative because I "attack" my allies, apparently they don't see the hypocrisy in the fact that they continually attack and degrade Christian Progressives and the most influential progressive of his day, Jesus Christ. If my sin is defending progressives from bigots in progressive clothing, if this makes me a traitor to the left, I gladly await my stay in hell.

I'd rather be a traitor to this facade than an enabler.

I've questioned the existence of God for as long as I can remember. I can remember my Catholic grandmother taking me to church one Sunday around the age of four or six and thinking "This is a load of crap." From then on I've always questioned the existence of the Christian God and still have yet to be convinced that he exists. As I've mentioned before I've been punished in school for not having the faith so I'm no stranger to the tyranny of Christianity and religion in general. I've spent many years arguing with Christians about their faith and was online arguing with hundreds of Christians before most people knew about the internet or cared about it. In that time I've helped establish arguments against Christianity and was involved with those others whose arguments have been picked up by the mainstream of atheists. We were the pioneers of the atheist online world, and we could kick alot of Christian ass, however we could never get them to vote left.

Nowadays I see atheists twice my age who log on and tout those arguments, however, they're not only touting a bastardized version of our arguments which just makes us veteran atheist online activists shake our heads, but they've also failed to realize what we realized in our political struggles. That being the Bible is the best resource against the Christian Right because their actions so conflict with the beliefs they supposedly hold dear. Try and get a Christian to say Jesus or God is wrong, they will never say it! No right wing pundit will ever say it either, the current generation of atheists fails to realize this. Why?

If you had checked the CIA's World Fact Book a few years ago before Dubya's first term you would see that only 2% of the country labeled themselves as atheists, since 2002 though that number has shot up to a whopping 10%. I was shocked to see this and only recently have I realized why that is. They're reacting to the sudden Christian fundamentalism that has saturated the government. They have no interest in knowledge or truth, they just don't want to be like those fundamentalist Christians. Here's the funny thing, by becoming the opposite extreme they become almost identical to those fundamentalist Christians. They refuse to listen to any position which is not exactly like their's, if you're a Christian, well you MUST be a right winger. Question their arguments against Christianity, well you MUST be a right winger. They just fail to realize that, you know, it's been the Christian Left which has spearheaded all of the progressive movements in the United States.

Yeah hear that you assholes? You haven't done shit! You're still not doing anything that's good for the left. Not only are you marginalizing Christians who are on our side, you're also marginalizing Christians who would be on our side if not for the anti-Christian image you're painting for the left. Now why is that? I know, do you? It's due to you fuck's acting EXACTLY like the Christian Right. You harass people for not believing in exactly what you do, you refuse to hear people out with opposing points of view, and then you label them whatever the popular forum demon is. Then on top of it you attack Christ when he fucking agrees with us! Then when someone suggests to you to read the religious texts of a certain belief you act like they're trying to convert you, which isn't always the case, especially when it's a fellow atheist. They're trying to give you the ammo and the means which work best against and convinces the Christians to convert to the left, it's called knowing your enemy, try reading a little Sun Tzu at some point. I mean you're intellectuals and all so Sun Tzu shouldn't be too far outside of your grasp, right?

Something a friend sent me, enjoy.

95 THESES ON THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed on the internet, under the presidency of the Peter Ludlow. Anyone wishing to debate with us, may do so by e-mail at ludlow@umich.edu.

In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said "love thy neighbor", willed that believers should show *compassion* toward others.

2. This word cannot be understood to mean mere lip service ("I love them, but I hate their sin"), but genuine concern for the welfare of others.

3. Yet the Religious Right has forsaken compassion for a doctrine of institutionalized hatred and violence.

4. Specifically, the Religious Right has taken the Word of God and wrapped it in the flag of Right Wing Politics, replacing God's message of redemption for the entire world with a narrow message endorsing right wing American politics.

5. Item: the Religious Right has neglected the teachings of Jesus in the gospel of Luke, where He instructs that we are to show compassion for the poor.

6. In place of God's words, the Religious Right has substituted a right wing political doctrine in which the poor have only themselves and their alleged laziness and moral weakness to blame.

7. For example, the Religious Right has rejected the needs of poor children of unwed mothers.

8. The Religious Right has rejected the cries for help from the children of impoverished families in the inner cities.

9. The Religious Right, has advocated fewer resources for the elderly poor and for the millions of children now living in poverty.

10. In place of giving to the poor, the Religious Right has advocated political doctrines specifically designed so that
individuals may acquire vast sums of money.

11. The Religious Right has thus seized on a contemporary economic ideology as an excuse to ignore the teachings of Jesus.

12. Item: the Religious Right has ignored God's injunction that we are to be caretakers for the Earth.

13. In place of God's injunction, the Religious Right has advocated policies in which the natural resources of God's creation are stripped from the earth and given to wealthy corporations without replacement.

14. In place of God's injunction that we are to be caretakers for the creatures of His creation, they have advocated policies through which these creatures may be extinguished forever.

15. The Religious Right has rejected laws designed to protect God's creation from pollution, claiming the "rights" of property owners are to be paramount.

16. In each case they have ignored the message of the Bible that this is God's creation, and they have substituted a doctrine in which God's creation may be partitioned and sold to the highest bidder.

17. Again, God's message has been cast aside for a message that supports a narrow economic message with its roots in right wing American politics.

18. Item: the Religious Right has neglected the teachings of Jesus that "he who is without sin should cast the first stone."

19. In place of God's words, the Religious Right has substituted a doctrine in which perceived sinners are to be persecuted.

20. Gays, for example, are persecuted because of their alleged sins. In some cases, leaders of the Religious Right have encouraged acts of physical violence against gays.

21. While the Religious Right has been eager to persecute others for their alleged sins, they have been blind to their own.

22. While the Bible counsels that a rich man can no more enter the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, many in the Religious Right have celebrated the acquisition of wealth.

23. While the Bible enjoins us against pride, the Religious Right appears to be flush with pride in it's holier than thou stance.

24. While the Bible asks that we be slow to anger, the Religious Right is quick to anger -- indeed it appears to revel in anger and in fanning the flames of anger in others.

25. While the Bible counsels that we are not to be "revilers," key members of the religious right have consistently and aggressively reviled their political enemies as well as those who are perceived to be sinners.

26. It seems then, that the Religious Right picks its sins selectively, ignoring the clear Biblical message against avarice, pride, and anger, and emphasizing selected “sins” that have little to no Biblical basis.

27. Item: While the Bible counsels that we are not to bear false witness, the Religious Right has engaged in smear campaigns against numerous political foes, often telling outright lies about “liberal” political leaders.

28. Worse yet, these smear campaigns have often been carried out in the house of God, sometimes in the form of inserts in church bulletins, and sometimes directly from the pulpit.

29. But the Religious Right has not merely spread its lies within the Church; they have done so outside the Church as well.

30. The Religious Right has used its financial resources not to spread the word of God, but to spread lies in the populace.

31. Item: Religious Right has failed to see that God's call to help our neighbors also extends to our international neighbors.

32. International aggression is not a Christian doctrine.

33. Where the Bible calls us to be peacemakers, the Religious Right claims that we have no business trying to bring peace to troubled areas but rather counsels that we should use military might to secure our business interests.

34. Where the Bible, through the story of the good Samaritan, instructs that we are to help our international neighbors -- indeed, even our enemies -- the Religious Right counsels "America First".

35. But "America First" cannot be a true Christian Doctrine.

36. The Bible gives no special status to political entities like the United States of America, and any suggestion to the contrary is to simply lie about the content of the Bible.

37. God does not bless nation states, and if He did, He surely would not bless them for practicing international internal intolerance, and propping up corrupt kingdoms and military juntas that traffic in institutionalized poverty and violence.

38. Item: the Religious Right has claimed that abortion is immoral, yet there is no Biblical basis for this claim

39. Rather, the doctrine appears to be driven by a medieval philosophy of the person, which they have imported into their theology.

40. Why has medieval philosophy taken precedence over the Scriptures? Perhaps the Religious Right never took the Scriptures very seriously in the first place.

41. This is highlighted by the frightening extremes to which they have taken this political dogma.

42. Victims of rape and incest are not to be allowed abortions. What could the Biblical basis of this possibly be?

43. Even when the mother's life is in danger, they would reject the possibility of abortion. Thus once again God's message of love and redemption is tarnished by advocates of a political doctrine of hatred and cruelty.

44. More troubling than their anti-abortion doctrine, however, is the tone with which that doctrine is advanced.

45. Here they use they weapon of hatred, encouraging the harassment of women, the bombing of clinics, and in some cases the taking of human life.

46. Their rejoinder that abortion is the taking of a human life has no basis in Biblical authority.

47. Their anti-abortion campaign is merely a political campaign dressed in the clothing of religion.

48. Item: The Religious Right has failed to distinguish its political message from what is left of its genuine religious message, leading Christians to conflate the two.

49. The Religious Right has engaged in a form of idolatry -- idolatry of certain patriotic symbols.

50. They have wrapped the Bible in the American flag. Indeed, one can find Bibles that contain documents such as the United States Constitution and pictures of the presidents.

51. Such Bibles arguably defile the word of God.

52. The American flag is not a symbol to be worshipped; yet the Religious Right has argued that it should be a crime to "desecrate" the flag. But what religious basis is there for such advocacy?

53. What basis is there for putting the American flag in the front of a church, next to the altar and the cross?

54. There can be no Biblical basis for placing such symbols in the house of God, nor for the undue reverence paid to them.

55. The Religious Right has failed to grasp the full power of God, supposing that spiritual growth for Christians can only come in the wake of political change in the United States.

56. On the contrary, God is perfectly capable of creating spiritual revival without the help of the Republican Party, and certainly without the help of an organizations that espouse doctrines that are antithetical to the teaching of God
at almost every turn.

57. Item: the Religious Right has preyed on people's fears -- their fear of crime, of other races, of the future, of the unknown.

58. Rather than say "fear not, for God is with us," they have used fear to sow the seeds of hatred and violence.

59. They have led their congregations to fear people of other races.

60. They have led their congregations to fear people of other sexual orientations.

61. They have led their congregations to fear our own judicial system.

62. They have led their congregations to fear the teachings of science.

63. They have led their congregations to fear anyone and anything different from their narrow conception of what they consider to be normal.

64. Worse, they have fanned this fear into hatred, encouraging their congregations to despise those who are different.

65. Item: The Religious Right has paid lipservice to the moral development of children, yet their doctrines are antithetical to the interests of children.

66. They appear to believe that moral development can be accomplished solely through discipline and censorship --
censorship of thought-provoking materials and censorship of the findings of science.

67. Yet, as a group, the members of the Religious Right have failed miserably as parents.

68. Jesus said, "suffer the children come unto me," yet members of the Religious Right have physically and psychologically abused their children.

69. They have advocated corporeal punishment, and have carried out acts of indoctrination on their children which, truth be known, are as severe as those of any fringe religious cult.

70. They have made children to be ashamed of and hate their bodies, when they should be proud that those bodies are the temples of God.

71. They have lied to children about the nature of God's creation, teaching them to ignore the great beauty God has revealed through the biological sciences.

72. In place of that beauty, they have taught their children a theory in which God's revelation through nature is ignored, and an ugly doctrine of fiat creation is espoused.

73. They have taught their children to be intolerant of others, to be hateful of gays and persons of color.

74. They have failed to instruct their children in God's message of love and redemption and have substituted for it a message of exclusion, suspicion, and contempt.

75. They have failed to raise their children according to the teachings of the Bible.

76. They have utterly failed as parents, yet they presume to dictate how we should raise our own children.

77. Item: The Religious Right, caught up in its hypocritical attacks on others has utterly ignored the solteriolocial aspects of Christianity.

78. Gone is the message that Jesus dies on the cross to save us from our sins.

79. Gone is the message of salvation, of hope and redemption.

80. In effect, the one core fact of Christianity, it's very reason for being, has been lost in the Religious Right's orgy of hatred and accusation.

81. How many souls will be lost because of their campaign of hatred?

82. At what price do these political triumphs come? Are they really worth the loss of the core message of Christianity?

83. Item: the Religious Right pays lip service to the authority of the Word of God, yet that Word plays little role in the treating of the Religious Right.

84. In place of the message of God's Grace and our redemption, they have substituted a purely political doctrine with no grounding in the Scriptures.

85. Rare are the references to passages of the Bible in the sermons of the Religious Right.

86. Those references that survive, are taken out of context and are merely used to justify preestablished political doctrines.

87. For example, there is no Biblical support for their views on abortion.

88. There is no Biblical support for their right wing economic theories.

89. There is no Biblical support for their campaign of abuse against their own children.

90. There is no Biblical support for their "America First" doctrines.

91. There is no Biblical support for their treatment of persons of color.

92. There is no Biblical support for their treatment of homosexuals.

93. In conclusion: the Religious Right has desecrated the house of God, taking a place of worship and treating it as a soap box in the service or the Right Wing of the Republican Party.

94. The Religious Right has likewise desecrated the Word of God, attributing to the Bible doctrines that are hateful, cruel, and entirely antithetical to the actual contents of the Bible.

95. Christians are to be exhorted to speak out against the Religious Right, as it is a vile heretical movement, wholly outside the teachings of the Word of God.

----------------------Redistribute Freely--------------------------------

I love that quote. For those of you who don't know it was said by the Abbot of Citeaux in response to the issue of how to distinguish between the Catholics and Cathars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathars

I don't have much to say today, so I'll just leave you with that little bit of Catholic history to check out.

Remember

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I might post again if I think of something after I've slept. If not, see you tomorrow!

I've been sick and busy, busy and sick, for the past couple of months and haven't had the time or the material to update this. I've already caught two separate colds this year when I don't usually catch them at all. Other than being sick I've also had to watch a close uncle of mine be sentenced to ten years in prison for manslaughter with a gun (more on this later), and I broke up with my girlfriend of 4 and a half years two months ago and it was one of the most painful things I've ever done. I've also had to come to grips with some issues related to alcoholism and co-dependency so this year so far has been one big pile of pig shit.

In other news I've also been working on the religious angle on dealing with the Christian Right. Everything you could ever possibly want to shut people like King George up is right there in the book he claims to cherish and read devoutly and he pisses on it regularly with his policies. I've also started re-reading the Satanic Bible to show how the Christian Right are more like Satanists rather than Christians, the wolves in sheep's clothing that Jesus speaks of. One group in particular who you can stick it to nice and fast are the protestants. You'll hear the protestants say things like "We're all sinners" and they say it as an excuse to sin. "Why'd you go to the titty bar last night when you know it goes against what Christ said?" "Because I'm a sinner." "So why do it repeatedly?" "Because I'm a sinner and as long as I believe in Jesus all will be forgiven." This is the mentality they have, and I'm sure many of you have seen it more than once personally. Well this mentality is wrong, not by an outsider's standards but by Christ's standards. Christ said basically "To be perfect is to be God, and since no man is God, no man is perfect", this is what they'll use frequently to justify their actions, but Christ also said that you have to live to the best of your abilities as God wants you to.

Now let me give you a very good example of someone not living to the best of their abilities as God wants them to, Rush Limbaugh. Jesus said that divorce is a no no, unless your wife is cheating on you, and to even look at another woman in a lustful manner is adultery, even if your wife is deceased. How many times has Rush Limbaugh been married? Three or four, I believe four, so he's not only committed adultery with his first wife, he's done it two other times as well. Now do you think that's living to the best of his abilities under God's laws? You will also hear these right wing pundits go off about liberals damning all Americans to hell, this too pisses in the face of what Jesus said. Jesus said that when the time comes the righteous will be separated from the wicked, so if your neighbor is a wicked son of a bitch and you're a righteous person, you will not be damned with him simply because you live in the same neighborhood. Now why would the pundits and politicians same something completely different? It's due to the fact that they need a culture of fear to get their most radical policies passed. "Don't listen to the liberals, they're heathens who will make you burn in hell!" "OMFG I DON'T WANT TO BURN! Where do I sign?" Now what if they tried that shit while we had liberal priests and preachers on the news every day using the proper passages from the Bible which show what I've said above? Are the conservatives going to say "Well the Bible's wrong! Christ didn't say that!"? Of course not, because then their entire argument and platform crumbles, infact it crumbles either way. Once people are actually educated on the teachings of Jesus Christ and they find out he was a damn commie, you'll see that whole method of getting the Christians in an uproar disappear.

We have to have the Religious Left (it does exist) touting this though, every day and every night with anyone they can get an interview with. Hillary Clinton has been attempting to use the Religious Left in this matter but has failed miserably because she doesn't have them touting the right message. The left in general needs to get over it's fear of Christianity and start actually reading what Christ said, even if you don't agree with all of what he says (which I don't, I like masturbation thank you very much) his overall message is still the same as our's. To help those who need help, to feed the poor, to cure the sick, to take pity on men in jail, to give shelter to strangers, and be kind to your fellow human. These are the things Christ teaches, and they fly in the face of every policy the right wing has cooked up, so why do they have a death grip on American Christians?

I say unto you there is a serpent in the Garden of America, a serpent which feeds off the fear and prejudices of those who are afraid and confused. There is a serpent which enchants decent people and makes them do the bidding of the dark lord by posing as the great Savior, our Lord. The dark lord tells these decent people that they are on the side of righteousness, he whispers in their ears to take pride in being the chosen and to dig their heels into the backs of the poor and the sick so that they can live in a country bound by the laws of our Lord. The dark one dawns his robes and preaches from his pulpit of mortal punishment against those who sin while a child of our Lord sits on his lap conjuring up lewd thoughts and actions. The dark one has manifested himself into those whom have been born again, hiding his facade under the cloak of salvation, excusing his continual sin with hollow prayers of forgiveness in mansions of stone and gold, where every man can lay witness to his hollow prayers and believe he is sincere. Serpent, thine name is Anti-Christ, thine's embodiments the Anti-Christians, and thine's unwitting servants the Christian Right.

The Problem and The Solution

Anyone who's argued with the Christian Right about things such as separation of church and state, gay rights, what have you knows that it's almost impossible to get them to concede to these things. Part of the reason for this is the way alot of Leftists go about in arguing with them. The main thing that alot of leftists do in arguing with the Christian Right is attack their faith. Trust me on this, I've been arguing with Christians for years and you will never make any head way by attacking their faith. It only makes their faith stronger and makes them dig in their heels. What you have to do is accept their faith, and then show them what their Lord has said should constitute their faith. You have to work within their beliefs so they can see the light.

Christians and atheists alike know the argument of "Well the Bible was just written as a means to control people" and the atheists are partly right with this argument, but it doesn't disprove God. It's true, however, in the regards that it was written by disciples and prophets to get people to wake up and see what the Jewish Hierarchy had become. The Jewish Hierarchy became a greedy elitist bunch of priests who exploited those who sought out spiritual guidance from them by perverting the Word of God to bestow power unto themselves. They kept certain people wealthy enough to keep them content and spat in the faces of the rest and they used God as a means to do this. In the Bible it says God warned the Israelis of what he planned to do, if they didn't shape up he would destroy Judah and Jerusalem and release the innocent from their exploitation. Thus we get our first ideals that labor and the poor have rights and should be helped rather than neglected and casted aside as second class citizens. So in essence, the Bible was written to keep people from becoming everything that's evil, namely the seven deadly sins, wrath, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, pride, and envy. God obviously does not like these things and all anyone has to do is read the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah to confirm this ( www.bible.com I suggest reading the New English Translation as it's more straight forward but has the same message as the rest so if someone's being a prick about that specific translation you can point them to whatever translation they prefer).

So how is this relevant now? Well, let's think about it, we have priests who molest children, preachers who spew hate (think Jerry Falwell), a President who thinks he has a mandate from God to exploit the poor, take us to war, take pride in his actions and his wealth, and refuses to give any of that money back to the system from which he got it from. Yet these types of people stand on the mountains saying "I'm a man of God! I'm a man of God! I've been saved!" So why do they do this, and why do they get away with it? It's all about control ladies and gents. It's easier to exploit and abuse people and to sin when you have people who believe you're a man of God and they take every opportunity to let you know how much they love Jesus and God. Although... didn't God say that's the sign of a hypocrite? Didn't God say that the true Christian was the one whom prayed in private? Actually, he did!

The Book of Matthew chapter 6

6:1 “Be careful not to display your righteousness merely to be seen by people. Otherwise you have no reward with your Father in heaven.
6:2 Thus whenever you do charitable giving, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in synagogues and on streets so that people will praise them. I tell you the truth, they have their reward.
6:3 But when you do your giving, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
6:4 so that your gift may be in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
6:5 “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. 6:6 But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
6:7 When you pray, do not babble repetitiously like the Gentiles, because they think that by their many words they will be heard.
6:8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

There it is, plain as day, those who pray in church, in school, in public in general, are hypocrites and they are not the true children of God. You'd think a good Christian would know this but why don't they? Again because of control. Their priest, preacher, radio host, president, what have you, do not want them knowing this because if they did, they couldn't exploit people's faith and use it against them. People would turn around and say "Well gee, that guy's full of shit, God says not to publicize your faith." Those in power need the fear of God in the believers so these satanic people can use them, and they do it by saying "Well I am a man of God and if you don't listen to me you'll burn in hell for all eternity!" Once they have established that they are men of God they can point to those of us who know better and say "They are those whom wish to fool and corrupt you!" So, being God fearing people, they become afraid of us, afraid that we'll damn them all to hell, and that fear turns into hatred.

The term "God fearing" is another great example of this. No doubt the term was created to establish that God is one to be feared rather than loved. If people loved God, had a real relationship with God other than the artificial relationship of going to church every Sunday, of knowing God's word and knowing that it's right because it's the right thing to do, that term becomes meaningless. So ask them, why do you fear God? If you try not to sin, if you try to help out your fellow man and love him as you love yourself, if you have a private relationship with God, what do you have to fear? Why do you need to pray for forgiveness when God knows when you're sincerely sorry for what you have done? I'll tell you why, it's due to those false idols you worship who tell you not to do those things, it's due to those false idols who exploit you and your faith. Open your eyes and see these idols for what they really are.

And that's how you get to the logic, that's how you beat it. Show them the passages in the Bible that illustrate this and show who these people really are, because any politician who wears his faith on his sleeve is a liar, and any politician who says the poor are lazy and deserve no help is not a man of God, and any politician who says it's his money and he shouldn't have to pay taxes that help people is not a man of God, and any politician who takes us to war for vengeance and wealth is not a man of God.

I can't stress enough the importance of Isaiah and Jeremiah, if you're a liberal who believes in the New Deal and wants to show the Christian Right the true word of God, I suggest you read those and use what parts you need to illustrate your point. Again the link's www.bible.com it's easy to remember, and I also suggest using the New English Translation as it's easier to read but if you need to, that website also provides other translations.

And on a personal note, I no longer hate Christians or God, I pity Christians who have strayed so far away from such a wonderful message.

I say unto you there is a serpent in the Garden of America, a serpent which feeds off the fear and prejudices of those who are afraid and confused. There is a serpent which enchants decent people and makes them do the bidding of the dark lord by posing as the great Savior, our Lord. The dark lord tells these decent people that they are on the side of righteousness, he whispers in their ears to take pride in being the chosen and to dig their heels into the backs of the poor and the sick so that they can live in a country bound by the laws of our Lord. The dark one dawns his robes and preaches from his pulpit of mortal punishment against those who sin while a child of our Lord sits on his lap conjuring up lewd thoughts and actions. The dark one has manifested himself into those whom have been born again, hiding his facade under the cloak of salvation, excusing his continual sin with hollow prayers of forgiveness in mansions of stone and gold, where every man can lay witness to his hollow prayers and believe he is sincere. Serpent, thine name is Anti-Christ, thine's embodiments the Anti-Christians, and thine's unwitting servants the Christian Right.

My Experience

Ever since I can remember I have always questioned the existence of God as most people do, but I've always found it difficult to swallow what I was being told by the "saved". I was born Roman Catholic and baptized as any partly Italian/Sicilian is, despite this little factoid though, I was not raised as a Christian, or atleast not as a religious Christian. My mother had always said that I should find my spirituality on my own rather than have it forced down my throat from birth, much to my Sicilian grandmother's (my father's mother) disliking. However when I was around four or five my grandmother decided to take me to Sunday service with her, I can remember it quite clearly, and I had one thought running through my mind as I sat and listened to the priest give his sermon and hand out communion, "What a load of shit." At that young age I noticed how the Bible was cherry picked to make certain bizarre points of the priest's and gave me my first distaste for the Church, that and I was missing the Ninja Turtles on TV, that bitch. I quickly forgot about this as, like I said, I wasn't raised in a "Christian" home where I had the fear of God put into me. Instead I lived in a home that was tolerant of different views, where discussions of said opposing views always went on and everyone went back to getting along. I lived in a home where race, creed, and sex were all equals and was exposed to different cultures because of it. I had black friends and female friends, even an Australian friend who taught me that countries outside of America aren't exactly like us but neat in their own little ways, but I never thought of them as "blacks" or as "girls" or as "the australian", they were just friends.

A couple years later, at the age of six, we moved to Knoxville Tennessee where my mother found her first "real" job as an Environmental Engineer for Lockheed in Oak Ridge. I was nervous, I had never left Florida but once and I was leaving everyone I knew behind. Thoughts of whether or not Tennessee people will like me or if they will be good people raced through my mind. While my parents looked for an apartment, my mother and I stayed at some hotel with a pool, which was fine by me, I loved the water and we had always had to drive to a public pool, spring, or the sea to go swimming. My fears were put to rest when I made friends with the other kids at the hotel who were in the process of moving as well. Then I started grade school and it slowly went to shit. Kids at school were mean little bastards, playing with girls was looked down upon because they had "cooties" (which I found stupid as casanova that I was had two simultaneous girlfriends in preschool that I played "doctor" with), there were hardly any blacks and those that there were were seen as "weird", and then I saw something else for the very first time, a Jewish boy being told he was stupid for not believing in Christ. The kids all looked for any little thing that was different and made fun of you about it, your clothes, your hair, your skin, your faith if you were stupid enough to mention it, the things you liked or didn't like. It was awful, I had never seen such disgusting behavior in my life. At the time I didn't know it, but I was smack dab in the middle of the fucking Bible Belt where the drumming of Bibles is heard all day every day.

As the years went by I grew a steady hatred for Christians, they were vile and mean spirited, and whenever they talked of God he too sounded vile and mean what with burning people for eternity because they didn't follow his rules, and rather than becoming fearful of God, I came to hate him and his son, the one who bestowed so much hatred onto this world. If salvation meant being mean and picking on those who are different, I'd rather stay lost and take my risks in the lake of fire than become like those assholes. Some time around fourth or fifth grade we were singing Christian Hymns in music class for Christmas and I refused to sing them. My music teacher, who I was friends with (I got along with my teachers, my gym teacher named her cat after me), told me to sing, but I refused, so she told me to sing again or she would get the principal (I was also somewhat of a pain the ass for said teachers, I became friends with the principal half way through 3rd grade because I spent so much time in her office), but still I refused. She finally asked me "Why won't you sing?" My response? "Because I don't believe in God." "GASP!" And the room went silent... To this day I have never heard a classroom so quiet, I swear I could hear crickets chirping. The teacher grabbed my arm and ran me downstairs just as my gym teacher was coming out of the gym and had a conversation as follows "You will not believe what he just said!" "What did he say?" "He said he doesn't believe in God!" "You're kidding! How awful! Why would you say something like that?" My response? "Because I mean it."

I was taken to the principal's office where the whole thing played out again, though my principal, sweetheart that she was, did not have the same response as everyone else, she was tolerant of my views and did not question me on them, but alas I still lost a letter grade because I refused to sing even though it was my constitutional right not to. Later in my life I told my mother about this and she said she would've filed a lawsuit against the school had I told her when it happened. Regardless though it only cemented my hatred for Christians and justified my thoughts on them being full of shit. After that day the news spread around the school halls like wildfire, I was the kid who defied God, and everyone wanted to know me. I had kids come up to me who I had never met saying they'd heard of me. Also around this time my parents had split up and I never really quite got over the divorce. I also became violent, very violent. My tolerance and patience had run out, I was in a world of shit at home and at school and I said fuck it. These supposedly Christian kids would pick on the poor kids who didn't have the latest fashion and I'd kick their asses for it. There's one instance in particular that I remember where a "friend" of mine picked on another friend of mine who was your stereotypical dweeb, he liked Star Trek (so did I, my father got me into it when I was young), wore clothes way too small for him, husky, and he was sick all the time. Half the year he was out of school because of some disease he had but still people picked on him and my other "friend"'s actions were the last straw and kicked his ass in defense of my other friend. It got to the point that my friend the principal said if I didn't stop I'd be expelled.

I calmed down, but I still had my undying hatred for Christians to the point of prejudice. If you were a Christian, you were an idiot, and there was no telling me different. I moved back to Florida in the middle of 6th grade and became sort of a recluse, I had lost all faith in people and was afraid of being betrayed so I went to school and did my thing. Although I came to a revelation in that change over, the school I went to in Florida was mostly populated by black folk who I got along with (they were shocked that I was listening to Bone Thugs N Harmony and the Wu Tang Clan, as one kid said it "I thought you liked country or something...") but the white people who went there and claim to be Christians really didn't like me for some odd reason, and I realized that Christian white people who had the fear of God beaten into them were always going to hate those different from them in any way and it didn't matter what part of the country they came from, though arguably it's worse in the South. I couldn't take it anymore and my mother yanked me out of the public school system and home schooled me.

When it came time for high school I moved back to Knoxville to live with my father so I could get to know him better. I was becoming a young man and I figured I needed my father to show me the ropes, but this also meant going back into the public school system. I didn't care though, I'd just do what I'd have to do. The damnedest thing happened though, people were different... For the first time I wasn't alone in my beliefs, there were other atheists! There were also people I knew from my last time in Knoxville as well, some of them very different than before, but there were also those who were still the same but also different. By this point I had educated myself on the teachings of Christ just enough to know that Christ didn't spew hate and actually looked down upon it, and so I noticed right away what was different about these old Christian buddies of mine, their hypocrisy had become worse. Christian girls I knew were sleeping around like 3 dollar whores, as were the Christian guys but they kept saying "I'm a Christian" despite hearing for years that sex before marriage is a sin. They wore expensive designer clothes, bragged about their cell phones, had jewelry in places it wasn't meant to be (knew a girl who had her clit pierced *shudders*), talked about hot guys with expensive cars (paid for by mommy and daddy naturally), and worshiped money and celebrities and looking good. Oh and can't forget about being popular, if you weren't popular you were shit! But it didn't bother me any, it gave me ammo to argue with in class, and I hung out with my inner circle (though still getting along with pretty much everybody) to pass the time. I had to leave Knoxville for completely separate reasons half way through my first year and moved back to Florida where again I was home schooled. Then sophomore year mom says "Pack your bags, we're moving to Los Angeles!"

After I moved back to Florida I got really into the internet and especially debating topics on message boards which I still do today. I love debating and the sharing of ideas, and I quickly became a vehement supporter of the left. I would argue with the right wing about anything and always came out on top, and I noticed too that the majority of Christians in America are no better as adults than they were as children. They still pick on the weak and those who are different, and they still try to oppress such people, but as hard as I tried to show these Christians the light of tolerance and love for their fellow man, I could never get them to concede. So that became my goal, get the Christian Right to concede.

Want to know how to make them concede? Read part 2.