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It was nice.
I was on a lovely sabbatical, my time was restful and chock full of repose, languidity, and tranquility. I was defended from hearing about the woes of the Oppressed Christian Majority in the United States. My ire toward the loon-factory that is organized religion was at an all time low. It was going well until the farcical fail-o-tron of delusional christian nonsense headed by Kim Davis, remorselessly yanked my sensitive secular antenna and thus, sadly, my attention back to this specious example of ‘secular oppression’ being visited upon the goodly religious folk down in Kentucky.
What is going on here? Well, you can see the video for yourself here, but Ms.Davis has thoughtfully(?) summarized her position for us with this quote:
Holy bullshit BATMAN! Quick! To the delusionally-religious Derp-cave!
Kim, you are state employee. You must carry out your duties in accordance with the law, no matter what your particular sky-bhudda has to say on the issue. Government is a secular institution. For those of us who subscribe to reality this case was over before it even begun.
Do your job or get fired. End of story. Or is it?
Get out your funny hats and squeaky shoes ladies and gentlemen as the candidates from ongoing republican clown-car-collective are not letting this grave affront to religious liberty rest. That would be reasonable. And we all know “reasonable” in repub-lingo means ‘siding with the terrorists’ – and NO SIR! – we will not let the terrorists win.
” But two possible future presidents, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Senator Ted Cruz, disagree. They have declared #ImWithKim in what they deem a battle for religious liberty.
Huckabee wrote an open letter on his campaign site calling for Davis’s release that his supporters and others can co-sign.
The letter, which is addressed to U.S. President Barack Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Judge Bunning, calls for Davis’s immediate release.
“Exercising religious liberty should never be a crime in America. This is a direct attack on our God-given, constitutional rights,” the letter signed by Huckabee reads.”
Okay if the first sentence doesn’t make you want to make a mess of your undies, you are made of much sterner stuff than I. Brave Clown #1 and #2 are quite passionate in their defense of ‘religious liberty’, yet it would seem they understand very little about what the term is, and how it works in secular society. Let’s humour them as they are not done digging yet. Huckabee was clearly not satisfied with containing his insipid brain-flatulence to his own website so then our vainglorious Chucklebee took his important case to twitter:
“He said the judge’s decision to jail Davis “removes all doubts about the criminalization of Christianity” in the U.S. and called on others to “defend #ReligiousLiberty!”
Kim Davis in federal custody removes all doubts about the criminalization of Christianity in this country. We must defend #ReligiousLiberty!
He wondered who might be jailed next for refusing service to same-sex couples. “Pastors? Photogs? Caterers? Florists?” he asked.
Proud of #KimDavis for standing strong for her beliefs. Who’s next? Pastors? Photogs? Caterers? Florists? http://t.co/fYxFEng5gH #ImWithKim
The decision “undermines the Constitution” and the “fundamental right” of religious liberty,” he wrote.
This reckless, appalling, out-of-control decision undermines the Constitution & our fundamental right to #ReligiousLiberty. #ImWithKim
Chucklebee saved the very best for last.
“Judges, Huckabee believes, “cannot make law. They can only make ruilngs.”
Five, unelected Supreme Court lawyers did not and cannot make law. They can only make rulings. http://t.co/fYxFEmYup9 #ImWithKim #KimDavis
http://t.co/fYxFEng5gH #ImWithKim #KimDavis #ReligiousLiberty pic.twitter.com/MoTRHmmffo
Yep. Those rogue SCOTUS lawyers are undermining the Constitution and fundamental religious liberties at *every* turn. Who does the SCOTUS think they are?
I would comment further on the qualifications of this potential future President, but my irony meter just gave up the ghost. Chuckles closes with this:
“”I may stand alone, but I am absolutely faithful to the issue of marriage. Not because it’s politically expedient, but because it’s the Biblical position, the historical position and the right position. We must defend, protect and preserve traditional marriage,” he wrote on his site.”
Oh battle on brave christian warrior! Your oppressed majority pines to be released from the secular hell they encounter every day. Worship is banned, churches dismantled, people imprisoned for the mere act of practicing their faith!!!
Wheeze, ka-chung, *gurgle*:Irony meter destroyed. :(
In the CBC news article there is a whole section on the tepidly-parviscient, wet gym-sock, that is Ted Cruz, I suggest you read it if you enjoy having your brain bent and have not had your “no fuckn’ way’ quotient filled for day (week, year(?)).
So much stupid said with so many words. But all is undone with this simple statement gleaned from the comments on said CBC article.
“Religious freedom does not mean that you can ignore portions of your job, administer only the portions of the law that you like, deny services to the public based on your personal beliefs or infringe on the rights of another.”
That is all.
[Sources cited: cbc.ca #1, #2]
Darkmatter2525, once again, is featured on today’s disservice. Enjoy.
A short film that uses repetition to make a very good point. :)
“This is touted as a compelling reason Christianity is believable, but I find it sorely lacking. People convert, even antagonistic people. It happens all the time. Some people even call them traitors. Such conversions prove nothing. It’s even a Hollywood trope, yet notice how none of the plots of those movies felt the need to invoke the supernatural to explain the protagonist’s change.”
On a more cinematic note I think the above trope is one of the reasons why I found the latest Mad Max movie so refreshing – a complete lack of a dude centric plot. It was a nice change of pace not having to watch drama unfold through the bog-standard white male perspective.
Almost all of us have had one. You race away from what you happen to be doing we the grand expectation of someone you know coming to pay you a visit for a coffee or whatever. But no, it isn’t like that at all. It is a stranger and their goal is to test your politeness and patience while they ramble on about trying to save your soul and getting to know Jebus and all that hullabaloo.
Another unhappy feature of this is that these proselytizers are usually so damned nice about the whole thing. So despite the fact you happen to be imagining opening one of your own veins and spraying them with your blood while commanding your high-lord Beelzebub to rain hell fire down them, instead one tends to smile back and politely nod and just wish that they would go away.
I find the door knocking proselytizers to be such a troublesome situation to deal with appropriately. Of course inappropriate responses cost more socially speaking, but seem to be a touch more satisfying.
I’ve always gone the polite route, but does anyone else have some slam dunk suggestions for dealing with situations like these? I’d like to increase the size of my bag of tricks, so to speak.
It’s been so long since Theramintress graced us with one of his well reasoned, BS busting videos. Sit back and enjoy 22 minutes of erudite commentary that, as usual, demolishes arguments believers have about their very important magical beliefs.
Recently on John Zande’s blog I had the opportunity to participate obliquely in a conversation with a religious believer. David, from all appearances, clutches his religious ideals tightly and furtively resists all attempts of being reasoned with and of course, reasoned at.
As David rambled on it became clear that he just was not getting it. My attempt to clarify the argument for David went like this:
“David: You immediately dismiss anything supernatural which means you aren’t interested in truth.
JZ: Again, do you accept that Dionysus turned water into wine?
David: No, as I have already stated, but once again that is a misdirection of what we are actually discussing.
A point that could be taken here is that David, you claim not to believe in the magic that Dionysus allegedly performed. Here, you are actually in agreement with the atheistic proposition that people with magical powers don’t exist.
The next step though is applying the logical extension of the argument – that people with magical powers don’t exist – to your claims.
Which leads to this:
Why believe in christian magic, but not Greek magic?
You are being hypocritical when you say the other people’s magic doesn’t exist, but “clearly” your particular magic does.”
David didn’t reply. How could he without resorting to circular reasoning of one flavour or another? JZ and other people followed David back to his own electronic squirrelly-lair of a blog and were promptly banned while attempting to reason through pronouncements similar to the mongrel-droppings he left on JZ’s blog.
This post seems like it is all about David, but really what I want to talk about is his behaviour in the face of simple arguments that obviously call his system of beliefs into question. Clearly, having your most cherished beliefs called into question provokes a defensive reaction – I can relate to that when I peer outside of my carefully curated collection of blogs that I follow with regards to my views on socialism (gasp) and feminism (double gasp).
Espousing views on the benefits of social democratic rule and the quaint(?) idea that women are people too invokes a bevy of negative responses, jadedly cynical ‘skepticism’, and plain old vanilla rejection of my arguments/ideas. Nothing (sadly) new about this state of affairs.
It is tiring having to introduce dudes (especially ‘liberal’ dudes) to the basic arguments of feminist theory and critique – especially when they exhibit the same sort of stonewall-ish reactions that David does to new information that challenges their world view (Feminism isn’t about hating men?? Unpossible!). When a valid counterpoint is made though I try to adapt to the new knowledge and rework my positions to accommodate this new more correct version of reality or at least acknowledge the validity of the point (I’m not always successful, my biases run true and deep.). I realize that I am not an authority on any particular topic and thus my arguments are not immutably true by default; and thus when it comes to arguing I try to stick to arguments that can be reasonably supported with facts.
Being aware of my fallibility affects how I argue and how I perceive the arguments of others. I don’t see a lot of this sort of introspection when it comes to those, like David, who espouse and attempt to defend religious belief. To have a zone in my argumentation where I’m automatically correct because “GOD” – seems like a huge red flag when comes to one’s epistemology and world-view.
I’ve had the benefit of not being inculcated with religious tomfoolery – but at the same time I think I lack understanding of what it is like to be a true believer and how one goes about cracking that particular sort of nut. How does one approach people whose first instinct is to clutch their tendentious ideas and then tenaciously defend said ideals with a streak of intransigence tempered with ignorance, that would make most people just throw up their hands?
We’ve all been there and seems to me that the only answer is time. Either they are ready to listen or the are really not ready to listen. Not following this prescription just wastes everyone’s time.
This is old teleological hat with regards to anyone who has participated in debates with the religious. I like the video though because, even though it rehashes the old themes, it does so in a way that separates and insulates one against some of the white hot emotion that can and does go into debating the religious view of reality. It’s a clean, thoughtful presentation through and through.
On the whole, a very nice thought experiment put forward by DarkMatter2525.
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