Texas, where they don't just spout anti-gay rhetoric, they amplify it.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Earlier this week, video posted on social media captured part of a sermon about homosexuality at The Door Christian Fellowship Church’s nightly tent revival at Leroy Elmore Park. 

“I still believe that God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” the pastor says in the video. “I don’t care who told you it’s okay, God says it’s an abomination.” 

“A fag is still a fag, and a dike is still a dike!” he shouts. “If it walks like a duck and if it quacks like a duck, it’s a cotton-picking duck!” 

“And I can’t stand men saying, ‘I need to get in touch with my feminist side!’ Have you looked in the mirror, brother? Don’t get me going!”

Well gee, he seems nice.

When questioned by the folks at local Texas affiliate KCBD Pastor Anthony Saavedra stood by his hateful rhetoric: 

"We preach on sin in general in the eyes of God," Saavedra said. "Sin is sin. Homosexuality is the part that is being mentioned, which the bible does say is an abomination…and we do believe it is a sin."

Despite complaints the pastor claimed that he would continue shouting his anti-gay invective's into his  microphone for the remainder of the week.

Perhaps an LGBT group could put up a tent directly across from Pastor Homophobe and start yelling into a microphone at the top of their lungs that archaeologists can find NO evidence of the Exodus mentioned in the Bible, that Egyptians had NO Jewish slaves, and that Jesus could NOT have been the Messiah because he was not a direct descendant from King David.

Just a thought.

Egypt bans movie "Exodus." Gee I wonder what they found offensive?

Courtesy of the BBC:  

Egypt has banned a Hollywood film based on the Biblical book of Exodus because of what censors described as "historical inaccuracies". 

The head of the censorship board said these included the film's depiction of Jews as having built the Pyramids, and that an earthquake, not a miracle by Moses, caused the Red Sea to part. 

According to the book of Exodus, Jewish slaves were led to freedom by Moses after God inflicted a series of plagues on Egypt. 

The Pyramids are believed to have been built about 1,000 years before the story of the Exodus. 

The Biblical story tells how the Red Sea was parted by a miracle performed by God through Moses, allowing the Jewish people to escape from the pursuing Egyptian army.

So being accused of enslaving the Jewish people, having a god drop toads on the heads of your people, and having many of your forefathers drowned in the Red Sea for trying to murder a religious icon. all of which is completely false, apparently rubs some people the wrong way.

Go figure.

Why I am not going to see the new Ridley Scott movie and you shouldn't either.

Look at that!

Doesn't that look good?

Yeah I think so too. I love going to the movies and that looks right up my alley.

I mean I love the director Ridley Scott, I am a big Christian Bale fan, and big extravagant films like this are why I go to the movies.

Except I am not going to see it. Ever!

Why you may ask?

Because it is all bullshit that perpetuates a myth that is incredibly destructive and vilifies an entire nation even though there is absolutely NO evidence to support it.

Don't believe me? Here you go:

It turns out that there is no archaeological evidence of any kind relating to a separate settlement of religious people in Egypt during that time. There is also no evidence of any kind relating to a mass migration across the Sinai Peninsula. 

If things did indeed happen as it says in the Bible (and the Torah), there would have to be some archaeological evidence. But there is none. 

Further, there is no evidence of any kind that Egypt even used slaves, and certainly no evidence that they enslaved an entire nation. The workers that built the pyramids are known to be well payed Egyptians. The pyramids weren’t even built in the right time period, being 800 to 2,000 years older than the supposed “Exodus”. 

The same techniques used to track the migration patterns of ancient humans by examining DNA also show that there was absolutely no procreation between ancient Egyptians and ancient Israelites during the time that the story was supposed to have taken place. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if an entire nation was enslaved for hundreds of years, surely there would have been some inter-breeding. 

In short, this story never happened. 

There is more here and here if you need further convincing. 

Last year I was talked into going to see the movie Noah, starring Russell Crow, by my daughter.

However halfway through I thought "Well this is just religious bullshit. And by purchasing a ticket I am financially supporting this religious bullshit and probably helping to convince movie makers to create more of this religious bullshit."

It actually bothered me for days afterward, and even though I tried to rationalize it by reminding myself that I also watched the movie Troy, which is also based on mythologies, I still couldn't do it.

You see it is easy to dismiss a craptastic flop like Kirk Cameron's recent Christmas movie, but these movies support the mythologies that are vital to propping up a religion that, let's face it, is now well past its sell by date.

You see I dearly love fantasy movies and will gleefully spend my hard earned money to watch all kinds of completely unrealistic action sequences on the big screen.  I like horror movies, superhero movies, dinosaur movies, Liam Neeson movies, you name it.

However in most cases the line between fantasy and reality is pretty easy to identify.  (Though I actually have problems with movies about demonic possession as well because I think they perpetuate a superstition that can be quite harmful to people with mental health problems.)

And besides at least Captain America movies never promoted a mythology which supports the oppression of women, makes it alright to hate gays, and is actively trying to destroy scientific education in this country.

I'm just saying.

Your Christianity WTF of the day.

How people can quote this book as historic, or use it as the foundation for their morality has always eluded me.

Canada has a message for all of those Right Wingers who think they are heading north once President Obama wins reelection.

You know Canada if you were REALLY our friend you would take them off of our hands.

I'm just saying.

Well this is awkward! Update!

One of my main irritations when discussing sensitive moral issues of today is when somebody starts quoting Biblical references at me and simply makes the argument that I cannot argue with them because the Bible is the inerrant word of God.  Essentially at that point there is no way to make my case as they are supremely confident of their "facts" since they believe the book they came from is beyond reproach.

In this way many anti-science Christians have been able to shoehorn Intelligent Design into science classrooms, homophobic ministers have created an atmosphere of hate toward gays, and people have been able to essentially wipe out whole civilizations based on the idea that God created this world for his children.  And ONLY his children.

However the facts are simply not there to back up much of ANYTHING claimed in the pages of the Bible, including this most famous case of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt.

Here is more:

Archeologists have proven that slaves did not build the pyramids and that there is no evidence of any jew in Egypt until about 2000 years after the great pyramid was built. The jews that did settle were a garrison of soldiers from the Persian Empire, stationed on Elephantine, an island in the Nile. The Elephantine garrison assisted Egypt in military campaigns against the nubians and themselves owned Egyptian slaves.

 So was there a mass Exodus of Jewish slaves out of Egypt? There is no record of any such thing ever happening, and the simple reason is that there is no time in which it could have happened. No Egyptian record contains a single reference to anything in Exodus; and by the time there were enough Jews living in Egypt to constitute an Exodus, the time of the pyramids was long over. And Pharaoh Ramesses can be let off the hook as well: With apologies to Yul Brynner, no documentary or archaeological evidence links any of the Pharaohs bearing this name with plagues or Jewish slaves or edicts to kill babies. Indeed, the earliest, Ramesses I, wasn't even born until more than a thousand years after the Great Pyramid was completed. His grandson, the great Ramesses II, lived even later. 

The pseudohistory of ancient Egypt is disrespectful to both Jews and Egyptians. It depicts the Jews as helpless slaves whose only contribution was sweat and broken backs, when in fact the earliest Jewish immigrants were respected allies to the Pharaoh and provided Egypt with a valuable service of both trade and defense. The pseudohistory also takes away from the Egyptians their due credit for construction of humanity's greatest architectural achievement, and portrays them as evil, bloodthirsty slavemasters. Pretty much every culture in the world at that period in history included slavery and conflict, and the Egyptians probably weren't any better or worse than most peoples.

I know what you are thinking, "Gryphen why are you bringing all of this up now?"

I'll tell you why.  Yesterday the President made history by endorsing gay marriage.  Immediately following that he was attacked by the Religious Right and the Republicans.

And from where do they get their arsenal to attack the President over his endorsement? From the Bible of course.  Though the Bible does not explicitly mention same sex marriage, many believe it does condemn homosexuality as "an abomination, a detestable sin," and that it also describes marriage as "between a man and a woman."

However if this book is so horribly wrong in its historic references, and may in fact be full of outright lies designed to  create sympathy for its followers, then WHY would we allow anything it says to impact the decisions that we make today?

Look progress is being made and, much like the President, WE are evolving. Let's not allow ourselves to be held back any longer by the constraints of an ancient faith, based on a book of fallacies.

In the year 2012 I just don't think that is too much to ask.

Update: As has been pointed out it is very hard to find evidence to support the fact that the Egyptians did NOT have Hebrew slaves.

Of course that is kind of the point. You don't have to prove something did NOT happen, you have to prove something DID happen. And THAT proof shows up in only one place.

The Old Testament.

Here is more: