LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Writer Michelle Goldberg has posted this article at AlterNet.

Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right with friends, they always ask the same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current.

I don't really mean it, but my anxiety is genuine. It's one thing to have a government that shows contempt for civil liberties; America has survived such men before. It's quite another to have a mass movement -- the largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation -- rise up in opposition to the rights of its fellow citizens. The Constitution protects minorities, but that protection is not absolute; with a sufficiently sympathetic or apathetic majority, a tightly organized faction can get around it.

The mass movement I've described aims to supplant Enlightenment rationalism with what it calls the "Christian worldview." The phrase is based on the conviction that true Christianity must govern every aspect of public and private life, and that all -- government, science, history and culture -- must be understood according to the dictates of scripture. There are biblically correct positions on every issue, from gay marriage to income tax rates, and only those with the right worldview can discern them. This is Christianity as a total ideology -- I call it Christian nationalism. It's an ideology adhered to by millions of Americans, some of whom are very powerful. It's what drives a great many of the fights over religion, science, sex and pluralism now dividing communities all over the country.

I am not suggesting that religious tyranny is imminent in the United States. Our democracy is eroding and some of our rights are disappearing, but for most people, including those most opposed to the Christian nationalist agenda, life will most likely go on pretty much as normal for the foreseeable future. Thus for those who value secular society, apprehending the threat of Christian nationalism is tricky. It's like being a lobster in a pot, with the water heating up so slowly that you don't notice the moment at which it starts to kill you.

Go read the entire article.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY djehutydjesi)

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/14683632.htm

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY cheap_laugh)

Think about this:
Khristians are becoming Domestic Terrorists? yep.

WALDO, FL -- Detectives say it's an act of local terrorism. An adult bookstore is cleaning up after a chemical attack by a homemade device that investigators are calling a "weapon of mass destruction."

In Waldo, people have held prayer vigils and protests aimed at an adult bookstore along US 301, trying to keep the "Cafe Risque" from opening its doors on time.

Those efforts have all failed, so investigators say it looks like someone has turned to what they're calling a clear act of terrorism to keep the store's owner from opening up shop.

The device, discovered Sunday morning, was made of two gallon-size sports drink jugs connected by hoses. Someone set it on top of the store's window air conditioning unit.

Detectives say that person then strung one hose from a water spigot on the outside of the building, and pushed another hose into the building through a gap above the air conditioner.

"That water hose would churn it up, mix it up in the gallon jug, and enter it into the building," said Alachua County Sheriff's Sergeant Keith Faulk. Investigators say one of the jugs had a harmful substance inside that flowed into the store along with the water.

"We haven't identified what was actually in the bottle, in the system that delivered it into the building. We do know that it was caustic, it was corrosive, it had a high pH level," Faulk said.

Investigators say the state Department of Environmental Protection will test the contraption in its labs Tuesday to figure out exactly what was inside.

Homemade -- but mighty effective -- the device had HAZMAT teams in full gear Sunday morning. By Monday, clean-up teams had stripped the room bare. Everything that was inside is now outside. The contaminated trash filled two dumpsters.

( Well, according to the Romans, Jesus was a Terrorist.... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Yesterday, on T2A, we were introduced to The Purpose Driven Life Takers. An ultra-violent video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, based on scenes from the first four novels in the Left Behind novel series, puts you "on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state". It's to be rated T for Teens, meaning it is targeted at the 13-19 year old age group, and is "slated for release by October 2006 in advance of the Christmas shopping rush".

You can read another article on this travesty here: So Much For Rick Warren Being a Warm-and-Fuzzy Evangelical.

This is NOT what Christianity is about. Period, end of sentence. It's just so sad to see such a great man's philosophy so seriously corrupted.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37ff)

I simply cannot understand how these people can reconcile the game with his two commandments.

x-posted to wyldraven. Find it here.