State legislators have been racing to make abortion illegal since Republicans swept into the house and senate in numerous states. Misogynism became key with the elevation of religion above individual choice, and when women fired back at the Republican assault on women, they women were silenced, degraded, and punished in the name of a loving god. How did religion change the USA from a democracy into a theocratic plutocracy in Michigan, Oklahoma, and elsewhere?
Charles Worley’s rant against LGBT people and his desire to establish a concentration camp where all LGBT could die has met with resistence, but not from members of the clergy. Few want to read Leviticus 18:22 as it was written and within context. Today’s evangelical clergy are identical to the evangelicals in the Third Reich.
Contemporary Christianity is more hate-filled than ancient or medieval Christianity, with clergy playing the roll of god and damning those who do not agree with their judgment based on bad translations of bibles that never existed in the early years when Christianity began when the Emperor Constantine created his national church. This has led to Black pastors damning entire groups of people, and congregations organizing lynching mobs and beating to death those they do not agree with.
Marcel Guarnizo is a priest in the Roman Catholic church in Moscow, Russia. His behavior has regularly been noted as chaotic and unstable. On his own, he seeks deny communion or compassion not only to homosexuals but to Quakers, Lutherans and other Protestants in quest of restoring an medieval Roman Catholic church to rule the world.
Barbara Johnson was denied communion at her 85-year-old mother’s funeral by Marcel Guarnizao who claimed that “the church” and his bible prohibits communion to a lesbian. The bible does not mention the word lesbian nor homosexual (the latter does not appear in any bible before 1957), and even his diocese said the predatory pastor was wrong–but ignores the issue that Guarnizao is foreign agent who wants to overthrow democracy to establish a theocracy in the USA and used the Johnson tragedy as a vehicle to align cofollowers who will risk a civil war.
Jessica Ahlquist went to court to take a prayer down from the walls of a public school. The judge who agreed that the prayer was prohibited by the Establishment Clause is a Roman Catholic, conservative, and Republican. When his ruling was made public, Cranston, RI went into overdrive to overturn the ruling, threatening school board members, sending death threats and bullying Jessica in school requiring a constant police guard–all in the name of the love of Jesus. Atheists have civil and human rights even if Christians reject that reality.
There are two verses in the Gospel of Matthew that are directed to tombs opening, dead are brought back to life waiting for Jesus. Today we call such phenomena “zombies” and there are theologians who discount their existence, but in the South Baptist group of seminaries, teachers, researchers, and students are told to accept their existence as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus. The question is if this is an isolated case in theological history or one more plagiarism fitted into the Bible.
The Pittsburgh, PA, Post-Gazette wrote on October 22, 2006, that “Santorum exemplifies the worse in Washington.” Santorum has not changed, but drags in money as if it is his right, and with his wife Karen, shows increasing mental illness (from the time he took home a dead 20-week fetus for his children to play with) to attacks on basic civil rights while leaguing with hate-mongers Bob Vander Plaats of Iowa and Bradlee Dean (Smith) of Minnesota who openly seek the execution of LGBT people, while denouncing food stamps for the poor and black who are “too fat”.
A serpent in a garden has been a common theme of world religions. Most see the serpent as a god offering wisdom to mortals. This is not the case in Genesis, but the serpent is created out of numerous older theologies, and for a special reason: changing the stories to create a unique tale to meet the writers’ goals.
God is praised even when evil happens. Christians believe that God gave his son (John 3:16) to save the mortal race, but no mention is made of the fate of earth. What did God truly give the world? The answer will surprise many.