LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

When Christmas Falls on Sunday, Megachurches Take the Day Off
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Some of the nation's most prominent megachurches have decided not to hold worship services on the Sunday that coincides with Christmas Day, a move that is generating controversy among evangelical Christians at a time when many conservative groups are battling to "put the Christ back in Christmas."

Megachurch leaders say that the decision is in keeping with their innovative and "family friendly" approach and that they are compensating in other ways. Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., always a pacesetter among megachurches, is handing out a DVD it produced for the occasion that features a heartwarming contemporary Christmas tale.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY cheap_laugh)

"Can't you understand that if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it, and soon you may ban books and newspapers."
-Henry Drummond. Inherit the Wind.

While the play is based on the Scopes "Monkey Trial" and great dramatic license was taken, the above quote is as relevant today as when the words were written and spoken in the 1960 film. We face a weird combination of McCarthyism and anti-Evolutionary rhetoric from the Right and the Domionistas

The play also asks:
Henry Drummond: "That first day, what do you think it was; 24 hours long?"

Matthew Brady: "The bible says it was a day."

Henry Drummond: "Well, there was no sun out, ah, you know. How do you know how long it was?"

Rhetorical, but perhaps, we can ask such questions of our domionista friends...

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

It is a movie with Christian overtones. This does not make it specifically Dominionist nor an automatic threat to our civil liberties. Please keep this in mind. Thank you.

EDIT: This was posted in response to a deleted entry discussing Disney's marketing strategies.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY navytron89)

Snatched from twistedchick's blog

 For those of you who think that George Bush still has some idea of the nature of the Constitution, I submit this link and this quote: "It's just a goddamned piece of paper." That is a neoCon and revolutionary sentiment. That is not an understanding of the historical, legal and moral aspects of the founding document of this country.

WTF???? Has the President lost his marbles finally???  This type of shit is what can get someone impeached. Well if he goes down, I don't see Chaney stepping into his shoes after Plamegate and then DeLay won't be back from the trials anytime soon. So who next to lead us and hopefully have some smarts and sense to do the right thing???

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

By Ellen Goodman
December 9, 2005
From The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON
SOME YEARS ago my husband was a last-minute draft pick to play the role of godfather at a young friend's naming ceremony. Admittedly, his relationship to organized religion was a bit dicey, but you know how it is in the understudy business.( Let's hear it for Cotton Mather )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

~I was wondering if any one here had heard anything about this American nun getting killed in Brazil on any of the Dominionist news outlets?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Here's an interesting mainstream take on the whole ID thing:

Fantasy Island
The dwindling refuges of creationism.
By William Saletan
Posted Friday, Dec. 9, 2005, at 8:05 AM ET

KEY WEST, Fla., Dec. 6—Sunday morning, as snow approaches Washington, I throw a swimsuit in my travel bag and fly off to Key West. Twice a year, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Ethics and Public Policy Center bring journalists to this hedonistic outpost to talk about faith and values. It's an odd trip from cold to hot, from secular to pious to prurient. Everything feels upside down. Maybe that's the point.

Our first topic is creationism. In Washington, reporters look at the polls—42 percent of Americans think life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time—and fret that fundamentalists are running the country. But in Key West, historian Ed Larson invites us to look at it the other way. Darwin's Origin of Species, flanked by Biblical criticism, positivism, Marxism, and Freudianism, blew traditional beliefs and mores off their hinges. Conservatives and some progressives saw an oncoming dark age of materialism, relativism, and eugenics. Radical ideologues like H.L. Mencken and Clarence Darrow scorned faith. Denominational universities turned modern. After the Scopes trial, the media abandoned churches. E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and other anti-prophets have declared war on faith in the name of science. Neuroscientists are trying to reduce consciousness and religious belief to biology.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ammitbeast)

http://www.thefrown.com/frowners/becomerepublican.swf

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY thoth_moon)

Okay, I'll be brief, but who all here thinks that this whole debate over "merry Christmas" versus "happy Holidays" is a grossly stupid church&state separation debate? Man, I just LOVE how they fight over whether or not to call it a "Christmas tree" or a "Holiday tree", while much more important issues, such as the spread of vermin "faith-based" organizations for the dumbest stuff (such as, from a previous entry I read on this community, the Catholic sent to the Pentacostal "drug therapy" program; or the "Christian" camps that "fix" homosexual teens, or so on- you know, IMPORTANT issues?) are completely ignored??? I personally don't give a flying fuck what you call it, okay? This entire holiday argument is STUPID if you think about it- hello??? Freedom-fighers, dominionists, ya'll have MUCH bigger stuff to argue about, right?